Become a trust and safety tycoon, DSA tested by Israel-Palestine and data labels
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 hitting your inboxes later than usual as I've been at Trust Conference to hear from a range of global experts on the risks and opportunities within the global information ecosystem, including the role of online safety and content moderation. Former Meta employee Frances Haugen (EiM #135 and others) was the keynote speaker and spoke about the role of product design and the work being done by her non-profit to build a taxonomy of harms.
For new subscribers from the the University of California, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Etsy, Logically, Boston University, SmugMug and a dozen others, this lateness is a rarity. For those forwarded today's newsletter, sign up for yourself; if you find today's newsletter useful or interesting, share it with people you like. They'll appreciate you.
Enough preamble; here's everything in moderation from the last seven days — BW
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
Reports in Nigeria suggest that, after failing to do so in 2019, the government is preparing to take another stab at regulating social media companies with a presence in the country. According to TechCabal, a new bill was introduced in the National Assembly which will repeal and reenact the National Broadcasting Commission Act; this will force platforms to register to operate in the country as well as giving the government a veto on content. It had previously shared a draft code of practice in June 2022 (EiM #163).
Nigeria has long had a fractious relationship with social media platforms, particularly Twitter/X, which it banned in 2020 (EiM #143). President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, voted into power in May this year, is seemingly not a fan of them either.