EU 'enforcer in chief' gets boot, Instagram's teen safety push and Henna inked
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation's Week in Review, your need-to-know news and analysis about platform policy, content moderation and internet regulation. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw and supported by members like you.
I'm back in the chair after a few days sunning myself in southern France (no sign of Pavel Durov, alas). Big thanks to Alice for bringing EiM readers the need-to-know news in Monday's T&S Insider and to Mike and brilliant guest host Riana Pfefferkorn in the most recent episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech. Go listen now for a robust review of tech policy Down Under.
We've had a flurry of new podcast reviews — mostly folks taking pity on our incessant pleading — so, if you're a regular consumer and want to help us out, rate and review wherever you listen.
That's me for now; here's what I've been reading this week— BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
The big policy story this week was the resignation of self-declared EU "enforcer-in-chief" Thierry Breton after being blocked from reapplying for his post as Internal Commissioner.
In a simmering letter posted on X/Twitter, Breton claimed that he had been the victim of a “political trade-off” in which France would be given a more influential portfolio in return for his absence. Stéphane Séjourné, Emmanuel Macron’s outgoing foreign minister, will replace him but will mainly take the lead on industry, single market and SMEs (see EiM People).
Wider context: Breton has appeared in EiM a number of times (EiM #206 and others) for his strong stance during the passing and early implementation of the Digital Services Act. He’s had multiple bust-ups with Elon Musk and seemed to have run his race when an EU representative described him as “an attention-seeking politician in search of his next big job” for attempting to moderate the X/Twitter's livestream with Donald Trump (EiM #259). Seems like that big job will never come.
Amazing nugget in this Tech Policy Press piece about Pavel Durov’s arrest (EiM #261) and what is referred to as the “shadow politics of platform regulation”: law enforcement officials in France apparently made “at least a few thousand of such requests [about the sharing or producing of illegal child sexual abuse material] over the past year” without receiving a response from Telegram. That’s an astonishing number if true.