Reaction to Meta's T&S about-turn, safety tech aquisition and Discord bot builders
Hello and welcome to the 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.
Some people say its too late to say HNY but, in times like these, all rules go out of the window. So happy new year to all EiM subscribers, including folks from Teleperformance, Google, Nisos, ActiveFence, Global Counsel, eSafety Commission, Milltown Partners and others that signed up in recent weeks.
While many expected a pre-inauguration shuffling of public policy deckchairs, few people could've predicted the content of Meta's announcement on Tuesday. You'll find my take and some required reading in today’s Platform section.
Zuck, however, isn't the only one with a big announcement this week: I'm pleased to say that EiM is doing its first meetup event! It'll be in London at the end of the month and is in partnership with two stellar tech policy newsletters. You should come along if you're in the UK. More details below.
If your New Year's resolution is to be informed about online speech, take out an EiM membership for full access to its archive, including previous editions that I've linked to in today's newsletter (marked #64, #263 etc).
Get in touch if you have thoughts about today's round-up. Here's everything in moderation this week— BW
Join me to talk 2025 tech policy with two of my favourite newsletters
Want to figure out the big tech policy trends for 2025? Keen to meet other folks that are interested in online speech and internet safety? You're in luck.
I'm teaming up with Digital Politics' Mark Scott and Georgia Iacovou of Horrific/Terrific for an in-person discussion/drinks on Thursday 30th January between 7-9pm. Venue and agenda TBC but it'll be informal and fun.
We've got dozens of people already signed up — why not join them?
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
Elon Musk’s proactive support of Germany’s far-right party over the last weeks has woken up European lawmakers and led to some movement on the ongoing European Commission investigation into X/Twitter (EiM #229). A letter from EU tech policy lead Henna Virkkunen (EiM #263) and justice chief Michael McGrath to elected officials said they were moving forward “energetically”. Whatever that means. Bloomberg has the full story.
If you weren’t tuning into to Vietnamese regulatory news over the festive break — and you'd be forgiven for doing so — you may have missed that online speech law, Decree 147, (EiM #186) came into force on Christmas Day. The law, which mandates user identification and content takedowns for social platforms, gives more power to the Vietnamese government to stamp out dissent and has been called “draconian” by Human Rights Watch.