The age-check internet, TikTok's labour troubles and open-source mod tools
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 might not have been able to go but that didn't stop many EiM readers revelling in the atmosphere and expertise at TrustCon this week. I heard so many great things about it, not least the second live recording of Ctrl-Alt-Speech, with Mike, Alice, guest panellist Ashken Kararyan. Listen to it in your preferred podcast feed or via ctrlaltspeech.com.
Unfortunately, it's not all upbeat, though. Two sobering reflections on the state of the Trust & Safety industry — one in Tech Policy Press and the other by Platformer's Casey Newton — show what a crossroads the industry is in and the many directions it could go in over the next few years.
I'm on holiday for two weeks so your next Week in Review and T&S Insider newsletters — including Alice's TrustCon highlights and lowlights — will be some time in mid August.
Thanks for reading and see you soon — BW
What do toxic Call of Duty players and gig economy scammers have in common?
More than you'd think. This blog post tells the surprising story of how ToxMod, Modulate’s voice moderation tool for games, uncovered key behavioural signals that fraudsters use — leading to the creation of VoiceVault.
Learn how real-time voice analysis is helping protect fintech, contact centres, and gig platforms from costly scams.
Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
I predicted last week (EiM #298) that we’d see some larger platforms announce their response to today’s UK child safety deadline (today, Friday) and that was proven right:
- Discord rolled out a ‘teen-appropriate experience by default’ including a ‘privacy-forward age verification experience’ using k-ID.
- Grindr will use biometric tech company FaceTec for what it calls a ‘fast, one-time check’.
- X/Twitter vaguely outlined its verification options in a page published late last night (Thursday) but said measures 'should be made available in the following weeks’. Sounds like a missed deadline to me?
Many others will have been more coy, pushing code live and subtly updating terms of service hoping users won't realise or care. I'll keep an eye out for those over the coming weeks.
Pressing matter: From my reading, we're seeing an uptick in the media coverage of the age verification story. CNET headline summed up the general feeling in the technology press up when it said “Welcome to the Era of Online Age Verification” while Wired explained the global trend and highlighted the risk of handing more power to platforms and third parties who enforce age tech, often imperfectly. The BBC, meanwhile, continue to do their public service duty.
Just across the Irish Sea, the second part of Ireland’s Online Safety Code came into force on Monday targeted at video-sharing platforms headquartered in the country. These new provisions include cyberbullying, harmful or illegal ads and adult-only content and layer on top of the general rules that came into force in November last year. The Online Safety Code works in tandem with the EU’s Digital Services Act so doesn’t cover as wide a remit as the UK’s Online Safety Act (sad reminder for those who blanked the whole of 2016: unlike the UK, Ireland is still part of the EU).