New chat control (not that one), DSA progress report and how online extremism is changing
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.
The variety of new subscribers to EiM never ceases to surprise me and this week is no exception: Wattpad (blast from the past!), AAPTI, GoDaddy, Partnership on AI, Hive.ai, and (checks notes) pet healthcare innovation company, Idexx. Welcome one and all.
There's more analysis than usual in this week's edition and even more in this week's Ctrl-Alt-Speech, in which I share some postcard related news and Mike showers praise on the EU (yep, you read that right). Get it on Spotify, Apple or wherever you listen. If you value EiM and the work I do, become a member and get a bunch of handy benefits.
Sales pitch over, here's what you need to know from the last seven days — BW
In Trust & Safety, success isn’t defined by a single number — it’s defined by trust.
High action rates, fast takedowns, or sharp detection tools all matter — but what truly measures impact is what those metrics represent: safer outcomes, stronger partnerships, and harm that never happens.
In our latest “20 Years in Online Safety” blog, Fiona Thornton, VP of Partnerships, and Head of Data Services Stephen Nugent explore how Resolver measures what matters — and how trust turns metrics into meaning.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
The European Commission has published its first evaluation of how the Digital Services Act interacts with other EU laws as part of a bloc-wide simplification drive. The conclusion: the laws broadly work but some overlaps with competition, consumer and media rules are creating compliance burden for platforms. One notable stat suggested some companies spent 15-30% of legal/IT costs on DSA compliance alone.
Wider lens: As the much-touted digital sovereignty summit in Berlin showed this week, the EU remains torn between fostering a competitive startup ecosystem and keeping Big Tech tightly governed. That’s reinforced by Digital Politics' Mark Scott, who dubbed the position a “Jekyll and Hyde” strategy that fails reconcile the EU’s instincts for innovation and precaution.
In the US, the large social media platforms launched two challenges against child safety laws with strong age verification elements, claiming that they violate the First Amendment. Trade body NetChoice is suing Virginia over its one-hour social media law while Meta, Google, TikTok and YouTube — all of whom at NetChoice members — are challenging the California’s Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act. NetChoice previously failed in its challenge of the law, which might be why the platforms are doing it themselves this time around.
Mike and I go into this story and a host of others in this week’s Ctrl Alt Speech.
