4 min read

Safety tech startups snapped up, DSA gets closer and the problem with recommender systems

The week in content moderation - edition #176
A photo of Singapore's Parliament with large buildings in the background
Singapore's Parliament, where a new online communications bill was presented this week (Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas via Wikimedia - colour applied)

Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation, your weekly missive on content moderation and online safety from around the world. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw.

A big end-of-the-week welcome to new subscribers from Microsoft, Platformer, ECNL, Shopify, Match, Ofcom, Yale, Linklater and elsewhere.

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Here's what you need to know this week — BW

Policies

New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation

Less than a year after European member states agreed in principle on its "ground-breaking horizontal regulations" (EiM #138) and just six months after reaching a provisional agreement on its scope (EiM #157), the Digital Services Act has been approved by the European Council and moves a step closer to becoming a reality. It will now be signed and published in the Official Journal of the European Union (which makes it binding), after which a 15 month countdown begins before it will apply to digital services operating in the Union. So we're looking at around February 2024, as it stands. You've been warned.

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