The reality of being an integrity worker, UK regulation stutters and content filters come to TikTok
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation, your carefully curated digested of content moderation news and analysis, delivered every Friday. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw.
A warm welcome to lots of new subscribers that found EiM via LinkedIn this week including folks from GLAAD, Bytedance, Meedan, Berkeley University, the University of Waterloo, OkCupid, Stack Overflow, Twitter, INETCO, the Online Safety Exchange, TaskUs, Spotify, Microsoft, Kabuni, Yale, Flickr and many others. It's great to have you here — send me a sentence about what you do and what your biggest challenge is.
For the first-time recipients here, a quick need-to-know: every week, I read and critique the latest news, analysis and research about content moderation to give you a broader, more global perspective about online speech and internet safety. I also write my own analysis and do Q&As with smart folks working in the space, supported by EiM members.
I'm excited to also announce a brand new Q&A published this week as part of a new mini-series about what it's like being an integrity worker. Read on for more — BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
Some significant regulation news out of the UK this week: the Online Safety Bill is set to be delayed. The bill was due to be passed in parliament next week before Westminster goes on summer recess but, according to Politico, it is now expected to be dropped, ironically, in favour of a government vote of confidence in itself. It's notable because the new Conservative leader and Prime Minister may have different ideas for the bill and at least one candidate has said it will be scrapped if she wins.
The change of schedule provides some time to take stock of the much-criticised bill and I recommend this thread from Professor Paul Bernal on the free speech implications, this report from Matthew Lesh and Victoria Hewson of the Institute of Economic Affairs on how it threatens innovation and this blog post from my go-to UK policy person Heather Burns on well, what a complete and utter nightmare the bill is.