📌 A win for Manila’s moderators

Hello mod followers, especially new folks from the Wall Street Journal, Stern at NYU, Amnesty International and more. Great to have you here.

I’ve been in Budapest this week running a two-day event with over 50+ community-driven news organisations as part of my day job. It was pretty intense but probably not quite as intense as the third International Grand Committee in Dublin yesterday (more below).

Thanks for reading — BW

PS. Is there a colleague you know that might find EiM useful or interesting? They can sign up here.

Cleaning up after The Cleaners

It seems like Government officials in the Philippines finally got round to watching The Cleaners, the widely acclaimed 2018 documentary from German filmmakers Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck about the thousands of disturbing images third-party content moderators in Manila have to endure day in, day out.

The Myanmar Times reports this week that the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Local Employment is considering introducing an “occupational safety and health policy” to ensure workers have decent working conditions and the necessary support and interventions when things go wrong.

Details are light and no timeline is mentioned but it might come as a shock for the likes of Facebook, whose 30,000 strong-moderation workforce is mostly made up of contractors with a chunk of those coming from The Philippines. One to watch.

The day after the night before

Yesterday's International Grand Committee meeting (see last week’s EiM) only touched briefly on moderation but is useful mood music nonetheless.

The Irish Times has a write-up but I’d start with this Twitter thread from Jason Kint (CEO of Digital Context Next and a fierce Facebook/Google critic) which has video clips from the session. You can almost hear the squirming.

Not forgetting...

A fascinating piece about porn site xHamster and its aggressive approach to moderation (which amounts to strict US laws, backed up by well-policed guidelines and incentivised volunteers).

Why xHamster Is So Much Better at Content Moderation Than Facebook

If we regulated Facebook and Twitter more like we regulate the porn industry, social media platforms wouldn’t get into so much trouble.

Amanda Mull at The Atlantic reflects on Facebook’s emoji ban (EiM #40) and says communicating desire isn’t always the same thing as targeted harassment.

Facebook's Ban on Sexual Emoji Won't Make a Difference - The Atlantic

Facebook wants to crack down on sexy emoji. It forgets how creative the internet can be.

The Centre for International Governance Innovation, a think tank based on Ontario, Canada, has published an essay series on the emerging economic and social power of global platforms. I haven’t got round to reading yet so let me know if you have and what you think.

Models for Platform Governance | Centre for International Governance Innovation

Despite growing calls for global platform governance, no solution has been found. To begin to address this, CIGI has convened leading thinkers to explore new models for governing digital platforms. Given their unprecedented influence on democracy and the global economy alike, a cohesive framework for platform governance is crucial.

The folks at Techdirt have rounded up the best pieces about Twitter’s new policy banning political ads

Twitter's Decision To Ban Political Ads Is A Moderation Choice Itself That Likely Will Backfire In Its Own Way | Techdirt

I feel like we know that artificial intelligence isn't the answer but it’s still interesting that the Financial Times felt the need to frame this article as a question

Can Facebook really rely on artificial intelligence to spot abuse?

Everything in Moderation is a weekly newsletter about content moderation and the policies, products, platforms and people shaping its future.