The future of decentralised moderation, Medium's new rules and age verification under fire
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation, your guide to the policies, products, platforms and people shaping the future of online speech and the internet. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw and supported by members like you.
Today's newsletter is a little shorter than usual as I'm preparing to travel to San Francisco for the second edition of TrustCon. I'll be taking part in the T&S Hackathon and then joining a panel with the brilliant Kat Lo, Andrew Losowsky and Sahar Massachi on Thursday about how we get the public to care about trust and safety. Come and join us for what promises to be a fun conversation.
If you're based in SF and want to grab a coffee, bread bowl or say hi, drop me a line or put some time in my calendly. I'll share my TrustCon highlights in next week's newsletter.
Finally, welcome to new subscribers from Cisco, AWO agency, Unitary, New Zealand's Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, Logically, Synthesia and a few familiar faces from FT Strategies.
Here's everything in moderation from the last seven days — BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
A new UN policy paper has called for human rights and the rule of law to be applied to content moderation decisions as a means of tackling the "spreading hate speech at an unprecedented speed". The paper, which summarises the key themes from four roundtables with technology and social media companies, advocates for enhanced transparency around moderation and calls on online regulation to comply with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which I asked research fellow Talita Dias about back in February 2022.
Remember how new age verification laws had forced Mindgeek (owners of Pornhub) to disable access for users in Utah and Louisiana (EiM #199)? Well, it's now gone down the same route in Mississippi and Virginia and, as reported by TechCrunch, is seeing traffic tank as a result.