Age assurance tokens, a mixed week for OpenAI and how teens 'fact check' the news
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.
I don’t often talk about what happens between editions of Week in Review, but this one’s been “one of those” weeks. As well as juggling a busy few days at my day job, I’ve had the the first installment of EiM’s new series on T&S jobs, an infant-led wake schedule (read: 4:30am starts), and a big interview for my wife.
I’m not saying that for sympathy but to say thanks for reading, replying, sponsoring, sharing, and becoming a member. It keeps me going, both mentally and — frankly — financially too.
I was also leading the charge on Ctrl-Alt-Speech this week but was incredibly lucky to call upon scholar, author, Oversight Board member and all-round nice guy, Kenji Yoshino. Definitely tune into this one.
This week’s edition lands a little later and a little lighter than usual, but hopefully still useful to you in whatever work you do. A warm welcome to new subscribers from Tremau, Duco, Yoti, Demos, Censhership and beyond.
Here's everything in moderation from the last seven days — BW
New Grooming detection added! Powered by trusted data and Thorn’s issue expertise, the Safer Predict text classification model now detects messages that contain signs of suspected grooming.
When indicators of sexual exploitation or abuse of a minor are detected, the model applies a “grooming” label and confidence score to each message.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
No sooner than regulation forced platforms to adopt age verification — and a data breach became big news (EiM #308) — a host of influential online safety groups have united behind a new age verification standard. The OpenAge Initiative proposes a token-based “AgeKey” to verify a user’s age without repeatedly uploading ID. Created by safety tech provider k-ID and backed by the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), the Centre for Information Policy Leadership (CIPL) and the WeProtect Global Alliance, its an admission of the privacy challenges of age assurance and verification — though critics warn it could still undermine users' rights. Politico Pro has the story.
Whether young people are equipped for today’s internet is the topic of new research from think tank Demos, which has some fascinating insights about how British 16-18 year olds:
- ‘Fact check’ claims on social media by searching on Google or Reddit to verify what they see or go to a legacy media outlet’s social profile.
- Gravitate strongly towards individuals online, particularly those that promote self-improvement, but believe Andrew Tate is ‘dead’ (read: over).
- Believe that both boys and girls — thanks to toxic masculinity and misogyny — have it hard online.
My takeaway? Maybe they aren’t as — as the kids say — ‘cooked’ as the rest of us think.