Moderation data for researchers (finally), starting an 'Instarrection' and three thorny cases

Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation, your Friday review of the past week's content moderation news. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw.

A warm welcome to new subscribers from Ofcom, Tremau, Spotify, JAAG, Hivebrite and elsehwhere as well as a couple of new EiM members, whose contributions support the creation of the newsletter, occasional analysis and interviews with smart people working in the industry.

Talking of which, I'll be publishing another Getting to Know article, in partnership with the Integrity Institute, later today. Keep an eye out on the website and on Twitter and let me know who else you'd like to see appear in the series.

Warning: today's edition is very platform-heavy. Thanks for reading — BW

Policies

New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation

This week's most significant regulatory development comes from New Zealand, where five of the world's biggest tech companies have agreed to "actively reduce harmful content" through voluntary self-regulation. Google, Meta, TikTok, Amazon, and Twitter agreed to sign up for the Aotearoa New Zealand Code of Practice for Online Safety and Harms, which has been shepherded by non-profit Netsafe over the last year.

Like mandatory regulation that we've seen employed by other countries, the code of practice means that signatories have to publish an annual report and will be fined if they fail to adhere to its rules. However, critics have called it "a Meta-led effort to subvert a New Zealand institution" and said that NZ Tech, which will oversee the code, "lacks the legitimacy and community accountability to administer a Code of Practice of this nature". All eyes on this one.