Israel-Hamas cases expedited, the potential of device-level age verification and Gowder's optimism

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 edition is the last of the year and I wanted to thank everyone for subscribing, reading, replying, sharing and sending me tips over the last year. A special thank you goes to the paying EiM members and sponsors who ensure the newsletter is viable and reaches everyone's inboxes each week. If you'd like to join them, here are the details.

2024, it goes without saying, promises to be a helluva year for online speech. As well as the dozens of national elections around the world, there is the Digital Services Act implementation deadline, a potentially internet-defining Supreme Court case, a day in court for sacked African moderators, a raft of Online Safety Bill consultations and much, much more. I hope you'll be come back in a few weeks as we figure it all out together.

Here's the final need-to-know roundup of content moderation news in 2023. Have a good winter break wherever you are — BW

Policies

New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation

For the first time since it started hearing cases, the Oversight Board will review two cases about the Israel-Hamas conflict on an expedited basis, it was announced this week. It means that the decisions to restore content — one a video of the aftermath of a strike on Al-Shifa hospital, the other a video of a woman begging her kidnappers not to kill her  — will be published within 30 days but potentially sooner.

There is a question about why the Board has taken this long to decide. The first attacks took place on October 7, some three months ago, and there has been stories of censorship and shadowbanning almost since day one (EiM #220). Add to that that there was 20 times more appeals to the Board in the three weeks after the attack, according to board member Julie Owono, and there's a strong argument for this being done in mid November so the decision could be published before the festive period.