Character.ai's safety due diligence, 'unprecedented' research access and OSA is one
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.
The US election is almost here and, with it, a sense of inevitability and dread that everything has been decided or — somehow worse — simply given up on. Alice, in this week's T&S Insider, managed to summon the courage to share some useful tips about what we — platforms, civil society, media — can all do to help. I'm sending positive thoughts to all EiM readers, stateside and elsewhere.
I'm expecting an election-filled edition next Friday so I've focused this week on the storm surrounding one particular generative AI tool.
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Here's this week's hand-cranked, must-read online safety news — BW
Today’s edition is in partnership with the Tech Coalition, collaborating to strengthen child safety across platforms
Lantern is the first cross-platform signal-sharing program aimed at enhancing child safety policy enforcement across platforms. 25 companies are signed up and it’s already having real world impact, with over 32k accounts actioned and reported for violations across platforms.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
The European Commission has flexed its regulatory muscles by opening formal proceedings against Temu for breaching the Digital Services Act. The first formal investigation to be announced since May’s censure of Meta (EiM #248), the Commission will investigate the Chinese commerce app’s sale of compliant products, use of game-like reward programmes and content recommendation systems. There is no deadline for these proceedings but the company could face a chunky fine if found to be in breach.
The Commission has also released its much-anticipated draft rules for researcher data access under Article 40 of the DSA. It outlines the data that a researcher could legitimately request which, as AWO's Mathias Vermeulen points out, is “unprecedented”. Have a read and share your feedback on the draft by November 26th.
It’s also a year since the Online Safety Act was passed. Any celebrations is premature, given the recently announced implementation timeline and what’s to come next year (EiM #267) but interesting to look back on the last 12 months. The BBC has a decent in-depth read and the Online Safety Act Network goes even deeper.