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Meta and Google face claims of restricting reproductive health ads and fueling misinformation
A new report claims Meta and Google have banned educational reproductive health ads, allowed misinformation to fester and hosted conspiracies.
Sarah Fielding03.28.2024
Discord's new policies ban dangerous health misinformation
Discord's new community policies include a ban on misinformation that threatens public health.
Jon Fingas02.25.2022
Twitter mistakenly suspended users after extremists abused its private image policy
Twitter said it suspendedsome users by mistake after far-right extremists abused its new private media policy to target journalists and researchers.
Jon Fingas12.04.2021
Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony will collaborate to make gaming safer
Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony have agreed to a set of common principles for safer gaming, including efforts to fight hate and harassment.
Jon Fingas12.14.2020
Reddit has banned nearly 7,000 hateful subreddits since June 29th
Reddit has banned nearly 7,000 hateful subreddits since its new content policies went into effect.
Christine Fisher08.20.2020
Facebook removes massive QAnon group over hate and harassment claims
Facebook has removed a QAnon group with almost 200,000 members over repeated claims of hate and harassment.
Jon Fingas08.08.2020
Starbucks pauses all social media ads over hate speech concerns
Starbucks has joined the ranks of big companies putting social media ads on hold in response to sites' hate speech policies.
Jon Fingas06.28.2020
Facebook removes hundreds more accounts over hate speech
Facebook has removed more accounts associated with hate groups.
Rachel England06.17.2020
Facebook pulls nearly 200 accounts connected to hate groups
Facebook has removed nearly 200 accounts linked to hate groups, and sped up its response when it was clear they planned to stoke violence at protests.
Jon Fingas06.07.2020
'Call of Duty' developer will further crack down on racist players
Infinity Ward is clamping down further on racism in 'Call of Duty,' including more monitoring and better filtering.
Jon Fingas06.03.2020
Twitter will delete hate speech related to age, disability and disease
Last year, Twitter updated its harmful conduct policy to require the deletion of hate speech based on religion. Today, the company is updating its rules to include language the company says "dehumanizes" other people based on age, disability or disease. As before, the company won't ban or suspend people who wrote offending tweets before today's update. However, it will delete any past tweets if users report them.
Igor Bonifacic03.05.2020
YouTube's tougher harassment policy cracks down on hate speech and threats
YouTube is enacting a stricter anti-harassment policy to curb hate speech and threats that might have otherwise skirted past its moderators. The online video giant no longer allows material that "maliciously insults" people based on traits like gender identity, race or sexual orientation. It'll also bar "veiled or implied" threats, not just direct ones. You could face penalties if you simulate violence toward someone or suggest that violence might take place, YouTube said. Also, channels that routinely "brush up" against the policy will be kicked out of the YouTube Partner Program. A creator that's purposefully testing the limits of YouTube's resolve could find itself unable to make money, and might find itself banned outright if its behavior continues beyond that point.
Jon Fingas12.11.2019
Germany synagogue shooter livestreamed attack on Twitch (updated)
Unfortunately, mass shooters are still livestreaming their attacks. Twitch has confirmed to CNBC that the shooter who attacked a synagogue in Halle, Germany was broadcasting the murders on its service. The company has pulled the 35-minute clip and reiterated its "zero-tolerance" policies against hate and violence, adding that it would ban anyone trying to repost the material.
Jon Fingas10.09.2019
Congress plans to investigate how social media giants are fighting hate
House lawmakers plan to unveil legislation to study the ways social media can be weaponized, The Washington Post reports. They want to better understand social media-fueled violence and to determine if tech giants are doing enough to effectively protect users from harmful content. Congress isn't just looking at what tech giants say they'll do to fight online hate and extremism. Lawmakers want to know if those efforts are effective or not.
Christine Fisher09.18.2019
YouTube's channel removals soar following hate speech crackdown
YouTube's tougher stance on hate speech has led it to culling much, much more conent than it has in the past. The Google-owned video service has revealed that it removed over 17,000 channels and 100,000 videos for hate speech, both fivefold increases over its previous activity. It "nearly doubled" the volume of comment removals, too, to more than 500 million. The jumps were partly due to the removal of material that had previously been allowed, but they still suggest that YouTube's enforcement is proving more effective.
Jon Fingas09.03.2019
Beto O'Rourke wants to hold internet companies liable for hate speech
If some politicians have their way, internet companies might be held responsible for hate that exists on their platform. Presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke has proposed amending the Communication Decency Act's Section 230, which protects internet companies from being held liable for their users' actions, to "remove legal immunity" for sites and providers that "knowingly promote" material that spurs violence. The operators of a community like 8chan, for example, might have been held responsible for routinely allowing the extremism that led to shootings in places like Christchurch and O'Rourke's hometown of El Paso.
Jon Fingas08.17.2019
House committee asks 8chan owner to testify over extremist content
Politicians are still determined to investigate 8chan's role in fueling extremism even though the site is effectively out of commission. The House's Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson and Ranking Member Mike Rogers have sent a letter to 8chan owner Jim Watkins asking him to testify about the site's efforts to "investigate and mitigate" the appearance of extremist content, including white supremacist material. The politicians were concerned that 8chan has been linked to three mass shootings in 2019 (Christchurch, Poway and El Paso), with the attackers reportedly posting letters or manifestos on the site shortly before committing the murders.
Jon Fingas08.06.2019
Twitter didn't flag Trump's racist tweets
Twitter said that it would label tweets from political figures that violate its rules, but it's not clear if the social network is applying that policy yet. CNET noted that Twitter hasn't labeled a series of President Trump tweets that are widely considered to be racist. The politician suggested that "Progressive Democrat Congresswomen" critical of his policies, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, should go back to their "corrupt and inept" home countries. The not-so-subtle assertion, as you might gather, was that these non-white politicians weren't 'real' Americans.
Jon Fingas07.16.2019
Twitter revises rules on hate speech targeting religions
Twitter has technically banned hate speech based on religion before, but it should now be easier for the company to clamp down on that behavior. The social site has updated its rules to require the deletion of any tweet that "dehumanizes" others based on their religion, whether or not it targets someone directly. The company won't ban or suspend people who wrote offending tweets before the policy's July 9th effective date, but they will have to delete the posts in question to avoid further trouble.
Jon Fingas07.09.2019
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.
Jon Fingas06.05.2019