Oversight Board dealt a blow, Activision's voice chat upgrade and must-read reaction to DSA
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.
We're a week into what feels like a new era of online speech, at least judging by the coverage of the Digital Services Act over the last seven days. At the same time, two big Meta-related stories — one of which has really captured my attention — remind us that platform policies have power and that the European Commission only holds so many cards.
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A technical glitch means that some of you received last week's EiM twice. Like everything that goes wrong from here on in, I'm blaming the DSA.
Here's everything in moderation from the last seven days — BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
The independent-but-Facebook-funded Oversight Board has been dealt a significant blow after Meta rejected its recommendation to suspend the accounts of Cambodia's former Prime Minister Hun Sen. The advisory, made back in June, relates to a 41-minute live video from January in which the long-time dictator threatened to "beat up" his political opponents. Meta this week updated this blogpost to reflect the fact that it would remove the video but not suspend Hun Sen's accounts on the basis that the situation "did not meet the entry criteria threshold for crisis designation".
Platformer's Casey Newton has a good timeline of events and criticised the board for the "glacial pace" at which it made the decision (234 days if you're counting), saying it is "only nibbling at the margins of relevance". Earlier this month, Rest of World reported that the case, and the fact that Meta had 60 days to respond to the judgement, "left Cambodia in an uncomfortable limbo".
The Board this week opened a new case regarding content that claims the Holocaust is not true. If you need me, I'll be here, hiding behind my hands.