Australia issue transparency fine, Oversight Board rift and Hinge launch T&S feature
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.
Enforcement is the theme of today's newsletter and we're seeing regulators in both Australia and the US push platforms harder for information on how they keep users safe. It begs the question: What's behind the moves and are they likely to be successful (and to whom)? Those are questions Mike and I dig into in this week's episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, which is now live and available to download on your favourite podcast platform.
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Here's your Week in Review for the last weekend of February — BW
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Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
The Australian eSafety Commissioner has taken enforcement action against Telegram to the tune of almost $1 million under its Online Safety Act. The penalty is in response to a five-month delay in submitting information about how the messaging app addresses terrorist and violent content and child sexual abuse material. According to SBS, Telegram has already said it will appeal.
The eagle-eyed among you will notice that Telegram's eventual disclosure comes not-too-long after the arrest of CEO Pavel Durov in August last year (EiM #261). Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, said the fine could've been larger but was reduced to reflect improvements made by Telegram since then.
Precedence: The only other occasion a fine was levied for such an infringement, the platform in question tried to wiggle out of it. X Corp was given a $610,500 bill in September 2023, which it argued it was not eligible to pay because the notice was issued to Twitter and therefore a different company. A federal court ruled in October that X was still liable in but the company continues to fight the penalty, meaning it is not included in the recent transparency report. Not sure Telegram will be able to argue the same thing.
Over in the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under new leadership appointed by former President Trump, is making moves to challenge what it calls “Big Tech censorship”. Bloomberg reported that FTC chair Andrew Ferguson was opening an inquiry into “un-American” suppression of conservative voices, which could lead to a formal investigation. Mike and I spoke about Ferguson on Ctrl-Alt-Speech a few weeks back and it's interesting to see him now making his move. A formal colleague of Ferguson told Business Insider that Ferguson’s desire to go after platforms represented “novel cases under existing antitrust laws” — which is being polite — but that it was unlikely to stop him.