hate speech
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Twitter will label tweets from politicians that violate rules
Twitter is adding a label to tweets that break its rules but are still considered to be in the public interest, namely from elected officials or those running for office. The company mentioned in March it was considering such a policy, and now it's enacting the measure effective immediately.
Facebook will share data on hate speech suspects with French courts (update)
Facebook is handing over identifying information to French courts on people suspected of using hate speech on its social network. "This is huge news, it means that the judicial process will be able to run normally," Cédric O, France's minister for the digital sector, told Reuters. "It's really very important, they're only doing it for France." Update 6/25/19 9PM ET: A Facebook spokesperson told us: "As a matter of course, we will no longer refer French law enforcement authorities to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process to request basic information in criminal hate speech cases. However, as we do with all court orders for information, even in the US, we will scrutinize every order we receive and push back if is overbroad, inconsistent with human rights, or legally defective."
Twitter simplifies its rules on safety, privacy and more
In an effort to make it easier to understand the rules of its platform, Twitter announced today that it is simplifying the language around its policies. The company said that it has gone from 2,500 to just 600 words and now describes each rule in 280 characters or less -- the same character limit that is applied to tweets.
YouTube will remove some hate speech and conspiracy videos
YouTube has updated its hate speech policy to ban more types of videos from its platform. They explicitly include those promoting or glorifying Nazi ideology or deny that certain events including the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook shooting took place. As a result, YouTube will remove thousands of channels and videos under the refreshed rules.
YouTube declines to pull videos containing homophobic, racist attacks
YouTube is catching flak for an apparently inconsistent approach to tackling hate speech on its platform. The site has declined to remove videos from right-wing commentator Steven Crowder after Vox host Carlos Maza provided evidence of Crowder using targeted homophobic and racist speech over two years, including uses of offensive stereotypes. Maza noted that the attacks led to a "wall" of bigoted abuse on social networks, not to mention doxxing that led to hundreds of texts to his cellphone and a phone call. YouTube, however, claimed that Crowder hadn't violated any policies.
Some Facebook content reviewers will focus solely on hate speech
Facebook isn't just interested in cracking down on fake accounts. While discussing the firm's latest Community Standards Enforcement Report, company VP Justin Osofsky revealed during a call that the social network will run a pilot program where some of its content reviewers focus solely on catching and removing hate speech. It's not certain how many will be involved or what the timeline will be, but the experiment might be necessary given Facebook's track record.
Facebook has taken down over 2 billion fake accounts in 2019
Facebook took down 2.19 billion fake accounts during the first quarter of 2019, the company has announced. In addition to that, Facebook said it disabled 1.2 billion fake accounts in Q4 2018. These numbers are quite staggering when you consider that Facebook has 2.38 billion monthly active users, as reported in its Q1 2019 earnings. "For fake accounts," Facebook said in a blog post, "the amount of accounts we took action on increased due to automated attacks by bad actors who attempt to create large volumes of accounts at one time."
Austria draft law would require real names for internet comments
It's not just China that wants to reduce anonymity online. Austria's government has introduced a draft law that would require you to provide your real name and address to larger sites before commenting. You could still use a nickname in public, but authorities would have an easy way to find you if they believe you're harassing users or otherwise violating the law. Companies that didn't honor the law could face fines up to €500,000 (about $562,000) if they didn't comply, and twice that with a repeat offense.
After Christchurch, we need more than digital-security theater
Just after the Christchurch shooting I came across an article explaining how to make your Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts block violent videos. How-tos like this are depressingly necessary, because while Facebook removes an illustrated nipple for "community safety" at lightning speed with real consequences, the company isn't equally interested in policing content that's indisputably harmful. After the Christchurch attack, Facebook said it took down 1.5 million postings of the terrorist's mass-murder livestream within 24 hours, but only 1.2 million of those videos were blocked at upload.
Leaked emails show Facebook is still struggling to tackle hate speech
On the same day that Facebook announced it was banning white nationalism from its platforms, journalists obtained a lengthy email chain involving Instagram's content moderators, highlighting their struggle to crack down on anti-Semitism.
Facebook and Instagram are banning white nationalism and separatism
Facebook is banning white nationalism and separatism material from its platform and Instagram as of next week, following a prior ban on white supremacy. It will prohibit praise, support and representation of the ideologies, including specific phrases such as "I am a proud white nationalist" and "Immigration is tearing this country apart; white separatism is the only answer," as Motherboard first reported.
Instagram is the latest hotbed for conspiracy theories
You might open Instagram to see what your friends are doing, look at a cute puppy or like pretty pictures of other people's food -- but there's something much darker under the surface. While other platforms are working to eradicate hate speech and stop the spread of conspiracy theories, hate-fueled and misguided information is flourishing on Instagram. As The Atlantic writes, Instagram is "the internet's new home for hate."
A New Zealand shooting video hit YouTube every second this weekend
In the 24 hours after the mass shooting in New Zealand on Friday, YouTube raced to remove videos that were uploaded as fast as one per second, reports The Washington Post. While the company will not say how many videos it removed, it joined Facebook, Twitter and Reddit in a desperate attempt to remove graphic footage from the shooter's head-mounted camera.
Facebook pulled over 1.5 million videos of New Zealand shooting
Internet giants have been racing to pull copies of the New Zealand mass shooter's video from their sites, and Facebook is illustrating just how difficult that task has been. Facebook New Zealand's Mia Garlick has revealed that the social network removed 1.5 million attack videos worldwide in the first 24 hours, 1.2 million of which were stopped at the upload stage. This includes versions edited to remove the graphic footage of the shootings, Garlick said, as the company wants to both respect people affected by the murders and the "concerns of local authorities."
Slack removed 28 accounts with ties to hate groups
Today, Slack removed 28 group accounts because of their "clear affiliation with known hate groups." The news comes shortly after the media organization Unicorn Riot leaked Slack messages by the group Identity Evropa. Both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have classified Identity Evropa as a hate group, but Slack would not say if it was one of the groups removed today.
Drama Mamas: Racism and setting social standards
Drama Mamas Lisa Poisso and Robin Torres are experienced gamers and real-life mamas -- and just as we don't want our precious babies to be the ones kicking and wailing on the floor of checkout lane next to the candy, neither do we want you to become known as That Guy on your server. We love updates! We've already heard back from the writer of last week's letter, Hacking a friend's account. Hi, I recently sent in an email to the Drama Mamas; it was the "hacking a friend's account" one. Just sending this in to say thanks, he gave me a ring today, I manned up and answered it and probably wouldn't of done if not for you. We made up, both said sorry and I gave him his password back. So all's well that ends well -- and sticking with a common theme, an end to situations that have no place in our game is what's on tap this week, too. The topic: racism and hate speech. (Before we begin: Standard warning for comments -- we'll be removing those that veer off the subject of handling racist hate speech in game, so please stay on topic and keep the language civil so we can have a productive conversation.)
PlayStation Home full of immature jokers, unlike other virtual communities
It's not been a good month for Sony. Layoffs, poor holiday sales for the PS3 and a wee bit of hacking over at PlayStation Home surely have the electronics giant hungry for some good press, which has made the newest PR kerfuffle over at the nascent online service quite unfortunate. According to Ars Technica, Home has become something akin to the nightmare futurescape of The Warriors, a service "incredibly unwelcoming to women, with female players quickly mobbed as players dance around them or type sexual come-ons... a disturbing look at the worst part of human nature." This is heady stuff, but as the company is quick to point out, the thing is still in Beta, and it's still evolving -- hopefully, as it becomes more popular the free service will move itself out of the adolescent ghetto. In the mean time, they've been rocking a bit of good old fashioned censorship, banning words like "gay," "Jew," and "Hell" -- perfectly understandishable if you've ever spent a minute on any online gaming service, but highly uncool if you're trying to build any sort of inclusive social network. In the meantime, what's a homosexual Jewish Satanist to do? There's always Second Life...
