The case for banning under-13s, the rise of “doom trolling” and slice of Comte
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 paid members like you.
Politicians around the world are acutely facing the same big question: do they follow the research on social media bans or ride the wave of parental concern? Today's edition looks at the fallout from last week's UK social media ban announcement, not to mention Germany getting in on the act.
In addition to today's round-up, allow me to recommend Alice Hunsberger's T&S Insider counterargument to the idea that AI is only going to perpetuate harm among LGBTQ+ users. Becoming a member gets you access to the full archive of T&S Insider and Week in Review — and it's easy to expense too.
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From a sweltering London and in solidarity with all extreme sweaters, this is your Week in Review — BW
Sadistic online exploitation (SOE) networks are changing how harm happens online for some young users. A core challenge of SOE is that it seeps through gaps in current online safety systems.
These violent online networks blend multiple threat categories and coordinate across platforms, making them harder to detect and disrupt.
New research from Thorn highlights five key hurdles safety teams face when responding to SOE. As the report notes, these "threat networks operate horizontally across systems that respond vertically."
Download the report to learn what’s driving this threat and what trust and safety teams can do to protect users.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
In Germany, an independent expert commission tasked with better protecting children online this week presented its recommendations (in German) to the federal government for further review. The so-called Prien Commission — after Karin Prien, Germany’s Federal Minister of Education and Family Affairs — called for a social media ban for under-13s with tiered restrictions for 13-16 and 16-18 year olds. An alternative approach of restricting access to features or services — much like Canada has announced (EiM #339) — was also suggested, setting the major European power apart from the approaches taken by Australia and the UK. Reuters has a high-level story in English.
What do EU think?: While Germany’s approach seems sensible, we don’t know how it will chime with the European Commission’s independent panel on online safety, which delivers its findings in July. A full-scale, bloc-wide under-16 ban has been previously mooted (EiM #333), setting up a potential divergence between Germany law and EU-wide legislation.
On the topic of social media bans, the giant machinery of tech trade associations and industry groups whirred into action to shape the UK's implementation following the government's announcement last week (EiM #340):
- CCIA, the longstanding US non-profit that represents major platforms on competition policy, say the measures announced last week “need a lot of work” to meet the bar of enabling children to grow up safer online “in a way which is workable and achieves its core goals in practice.”
- The Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote that the ban “will cause more harm than it will prevent” and said “young people deserve better than a policy built on panic”.
- Free market think tank Cato Institute highlighted the UK’s plans to let 16-year-olds vote and said the confused thinking showed “remarkably little consistency regarding when it thinks teenagers should be trusted to exercise their judgment”.
Meanwhile, new findings from an observational study by the University of Newcastle in Australia has found 4 in 5 teens still had access to social media three months after the ban come into play (EiM #318). The Guardian has the write-up, which will no doubt be shared by anti-banners and those who want to further restrict teen access alike. Over to you, Andy Burnham...