"A multifront attack on speech", TikTok's turn to update guidelines and bots behave badly
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.
Today’s edition has big “back to school” energy: politicians and regulators are busy writing the syllabus, platforms are frantically tidying up their rulebooks, and yes — there’s even required reading in the People section.
Over on Ctrl Alt Speech, Mike and I get quizzed by curious listeners — and fall foul of some dubious reviews. Have a listen.
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Let's get into it — BW
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New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
JD Vance has been holidaying in the UK (in spite of his past views on my fair nation); Senator Jim Jordan has been leading a delegation in Dublin (although no mention of a visit to the Guinness Factory); And there's is no still conclusion to the Digital Services Act investigation into X/Twitter (December 2023, since you asked).
Taken together, these developments led Atlantic Council fellow Kenneth Propp to claim that the "transatlantic dispute over free speech seems bound to escalate". His analysis, published last week, is a helpful read-through of what has happened since Donald Trump’s inauguration and what has been called a "multifront attack on Europe's approach to speech".
Tech Policy Press also published a rundown of the tactics being used by the US to squeeze their diplomatic counterparts across the pond. It’s going to be a very interesting —as US EiM readers might say — ‘fall’.