The Taylor Swift AI moderation maelstrom, US Senate hearing preview and Rodericks vs Musk
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.
In terms of illustrating the difficulty of creating and applying effective content moderation policy and processes, the Taylor Swift story (see Products below) has it all: the ease with which harmful content across platforms; platforms’ inability (or unwillingness) to scale a response; volunteers stepping into the breach to address the harm; and new technologies which make the whole cycle faster, larger in volume and more difficult to react to. Not even Tay Tay is immune.
Don't worry though, especially new subscribers from Twitch, Cornell University, TikTok, the Institute for Security and Technology, Depop, Meta and elsewhere;. there's also evidence in today's edition of important advocacy and legal challenges that serve to give me — and hopefully you — hope that the internet might be ok.
Here's everything you need to know about online safety from last seven days — BW
Today's edition is in partnership with with Image Analyzer, an AI company that provides Visual Threat Intelligence for digital forensics, cybersecurity and content moderation
Leading the charge against previously unseen child sexual abuse material (CSAM), Image Analyzer's edge AI technology is a powerful tool used by thousands of digital forensic experts globally. We are now extending this impact by offering our CSAM detection capabilities to media-sharing platforms free of charge, to further prevent the proliferation of illicit content online.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
Sri Lanka this week became the latest country to pass an internet regulation bill that critics believe will stifle speech and undermine online freedoms in an election year. The Online Safety Bill (wonder where the inspiration for that name came from?) allows the government to appoint a commission with the power to force individuals and internet service providers to remove "prohibited statements" according to AP.
Article 19 and 50 other civil society organisations have urged the government to withdraw the bill and conduct meaningful consultations with stakeholders, while Amnesty International declared the law a "major blow to human rights in Sri Lanka". Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand (EiM #186) have all introduced similar laws in recent years alongside similar fears and criticism.