That's A Wrap: Techdirt Greenhouse Content Moderation Edition

Techdirt. 2020-09-16

Summary:

When we launched Techdirt Greenhouse, we noted that we wanted to build a tech policy forum that not only tackled the thorniest tech policy issues of the day, but did so with a little more patience and nuance than you'll find at many gadget-obsessed technology outlets. After our inaugural panel tackled privacy, we just wrapped on our second panel subject: content moderation. We'd like to thank all of those that participated in the panel, and all of you for reading.

You'd be hard pressed to find a thornier, more complicated subject than content moderation. On one hand, technology giants have spent years prioritizing ad engagement over protecting their user base from malicious disinformation and hate speech, often with fatal results. At the same time, many of the remedies being proposed cause more harm than good by trampling free speech, or putting giant corporations into the position of arbiters of acceptable public discourse. Moderation at this scale is a nightmare. One misstep in federal policy and you've created an ocean of new problems.

Whether it's the detection and deletion of live-streaming violence, or protecting elections from foreign and domestic propaganda, it's a labyrinthine, multi-tendriled subject that can flummox even experts in the field. We're hopeful that this collection of pieces helped inform the debate in a way that simplified some of these immensely complicated issues. Here's a recap of the pieces from this round in case you missed them:

  • Michael Karanicolas examined how localized content moderation decisions can have a massive, often unpredictable global impact, as disinformation-fueled genocide makes abundantly clear.
  • Robert Hamilton explored the need to revisit the common law liability of online intermediaries before Section 230, helping us better understand how we got here.
  • Jess Miers explored how getting rid of Section 230 won't magically eliminate the internet's most problematic content.
  • Aye Min Thant took a closer look at how conflating Facebook with "the internet" in locations like Myanmar, without understanding the culture or having adequate safeguards in place, threw accelerant on the region's genocide.
  • Matthew Feeney examined how evidence "supporting" the repeal of Section 230 is shaky at best, and the fixation on Section 230 is hugely myopic.
  • John Bergmayer argued that it doesn't make sense to treat ad the same as user-generated content, and that websites should face the legal risk for ads they run as print publishers.
  • Brandi Collins-Dexter explored how the monetization of polarization has had a heartbreaking impact on America's deep, longstanding relationship with bigotry.
  • Emma Llanso discussed how the sharing of content moderation knowledge shouldn't provide a backdoor to cross-platform censorship.
  • David Morar explored how many of the problems currently being blamed on "big tech," are simple, ordinary, human fallibility.
  • &

    Link:

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    Authors:

    Karl Bode

    Date tagged:

    09/16/2020, 20:26

    Date published:

    09/16/2020, 15:03