Platforms fail to act in 'good faith', Hinge hones takedowns and Angela on the mic
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’m spending a few days in Prague, café-hopping and getting lost on its cobbled streets, so today’s newsletter might miss one or two big stories from the last few days. But there’s still plenty to dig into — especially if you work at YouTube or think Alphabet/Google gets an easy ride on T&S.
Welcome to new subscribers from Trustpilot, Cantina.ai, the UK Home Office, Intuit, Resolver and one of my favourite US community spaces, Front Porch Forum.
If you’re looking for a film to watch this weekend, Alice has you covered in this week’s T&S Insider with her review of American Sweatshop. Well worth a read before you hit play — BW
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Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
A new transparency report from one of out-of-court dispute settlement (ODS) Bodies under the Digital Services Act (T&S Insider, August 2024) has provided a unique view about how major platforms are not applying content policies consistently. Of the 1500 decisions that the Appeal Centre Europe (ACE) has ruled on, more than three quarters were overturned becasue the decision was deemed incorrect or the platform failed to provide the content.
Predictable behaviour?: The DSA makes clear that platforms must engage in “good faith” but the report makes very clear that the major platforms have a lot of work to do here. Many — most notably YouTube — refuse or fail to provide ACE with removed posts that were necessary for a decisions. That leaves everyone — users, platforms, regulators — in the dark and should be an area that is better policed.
I said on Ctrl-Alt-Speech back in August that the growing transatlantic rift around regulation would not only stick around but broaden and an FT story this week speaks to that. A coalition of US business groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, claims the Digital Services Act disproportionately affect American firms and has asked Brussels to justify the application of these laws — or make changes to ensure stateside companies get fair treatment.