Financial scams, child safety and a myriad of regulatory updates...
The Checkstep Round-Up is a monthly newsletter that gives you fresh insights for content moderation, combating disinformation, fact-checking, and promoting free expression online. The editors of the newsletter are Kyle Dent and Vibha Nayak. Feel free to reach out!
As more and more revelations are coming out about how online platforms are choosing profits over the safety of their users, countries are fast-tracking regulations surrounding the same, leaving no choice for the platforms but to take action against the harmful content they host.
However, it’s not as easy as it sounds when Members of Parliament (MP’s) want to showcase their own “hobby horse” policies. Guess, we just have to wait and see 🤷
Checkstep News
📣 The 2-day Truth and Trust Online Conference kicked off on October 7th, with a brilliant set of speakers covering a wide range of topics from misinformation to detecting emoji-based hate.
PS: This is the last call to submit a journal paper to the special issue of the ACM Journal of Data and Information Quality on “Truth and Trust Online” -- the submission deadline is 15 November 2021.
📣 Our research team will be presenting their work on cross domain label-adaptive stance detection at the EMNLP conference, which will be held next month. Registration for the conference is still open!
Moderating the Marketplace of Ideas
😶 Analysis | The days of U.S. tech companies fighting back against authoritarian regimes are long gone (Washington Post)
Gone are the days when social media could be celebrated as a tool of anti-authoritarianism. Big Tech companies are now more or less happy to comply with local laws that give governments the power to censor speech and discriminate based on religion.
🗣️ Another Facebook whistleblower says she is willing to testify before Congress (CNN)
As if the repercussions of one whistleblower’s testimony wasn’t enough, a second whistleblower is ready to share more internal information about Facebook and how it prefers profit over user safety. October is definitely not a good month for Facebook….
💬 ⛔ Facebook Clamps Down on Its Internal Message Boards (The New York Times)
Hush, no more.
Tired of internal documentation leaks, Facebook is limiting access to its “integrity” related message boards to only those whose work is related to safety and security.
🤫 Twitch's leaked 'do not ban' list isn't quite what it seems (Washington Post)
Twitch’d Version of Facebook’s XCheck was one of the several things exposed during the data leak. However, upon further investigation it was found that the list is outdated.
Be it Twitch or Facebook, these lists highlight industry patterns of giving preferential treatment to certain users and creating imbalance in the content review process.
🤑 Lives destroyed by scammers using my image, Martin Lewis tells MPs (The Guardian)
An easy way to make cash is hurting several innocent lives. During a joint committee meeting for the Online Safety Bill, Martin Lewis, founder of Money Saving Expert, urged the U.K. government to include online scams in the scope of the proposed regulation. Fraudsters often impersonate Lewis to tempt the public into fraudulent schemes. The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority echoed Lewis’s views, after reporting a loss of nearly $1 billion, in the first half of 2021, all due to scams. They further pushed for fraud to be classified as “priority” illegal content.
🪧💲 Facebook content moderators protest low wages with mobile billboard (The Verge)
Is it really too much to ask to be treated fairly for all the hard work that goes behind moderating content on social media platforms? Well, it definitely seems so.
Frustrated with the current pay at Accenture, Facebook moderators are planning a strike to ensure they get the benefits that they deserve. To back the moderators, is Foxglove, a non-profit ready to go for Big Tech’s jugular to ensure fair treatment of their employees.
🙅 UnidosUS severs ties with Facebook (The Hill)
UnidosUS, the largest Latino civil rights organization in the U.S., severed ties with Facebook for constantly propagating hate and misinformation targeting the Latino community. This move comes amidst all the heat the platform has been receiving for overlooking the safety of teenagers on its platform.
🌏 Social media platforms doing little to combat online hate speech in the Arab world: Experts (Arab News)
If you think hate speech is a problem in English, the Arab world has it even tougher. Whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony reveals that Facebook purposely invests little in non-English languages leaving extremists in other countries almost free rein.
🔞 Dozens of leading apps accused of putting children in danger (The Financial Times)
Recent research conducted by 5Rights, a children’s digital rights charity based in the U.K., revealed nearly 102 platforms were found to be breaching the newly imposed Children’s Code. Be it deceptive hashtags or self-declaration of one’s age, platforms are not taking the Code as seriously as they need to. On a separate note, a global group of more than 50 child safety organisations and campaigners have penned a strong letter to Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerbrug, to act on the 5 steps listed in the letter to reassure parents with respect to child safety on the platform.
🦄 Trump sues Facebook to get his account access back immediately while lawsuit proceeds (Yahoo News)
Former President Trump tried to make the most of the situation while Facebook was under fire by the Senate to reinstate his account claiming censorship and thereby restricting him from reaching out to the public before the 2022 elections. A true case of making hay while the sun shines.
📉 💻 Social media companies remove less hate speech in 2021 (Politico)
A “leaked” report from a 6-week audit, as part of the EU’s code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online, revealed that social media platforms only removed 62.5% of the flagged harmful content as opposed to 2019, when 71% of such content was removed. Regulators believe one of the reasons for this decrease is the ineffectiveness of platforms to detect harmful content in non-English languages.
Remedying COVID-19 and Vaccine Misinformation
🩺 Analysis | Meet the doctors' group spreading covid conspiracy theories in plain sight on Facebook (Washington Post)
World Doctors Alliance, a notorious group of health professionals busy spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation continues to be overlooked by Facebook. A recent study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that even though the group’s main Facebook page was taken down, several members of the group still remain active on the platform, disseminating misinformation in various languages such as Hungarian, Romanian and Italian—basically languages that Facebook’s moderation system are inept at detecting.
💉 🙅 Anti-vaccine chiropractors capitalizing on Covid and sowing misinformation (The Guardian)
A small but vocal portion of chiropractors in the U.S. are making bank by discouraging vaccines and spreading dangerous misinformation, and not coincidentally, selling their own supplements to ward off the COVID-19 demons.
🦠 💊 At Least 4 Groups Have Been Using PayPal And GoFundMe To Fundraise For Ivermectin, Covid Misinformation (Forbes)
Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, the name sounds promising right? Well, think again. The name is just a facade to crowdsource funds for its misinformation project. Several other groups similar to Front Line are using digital financing services such as GoFundMe, PayPal and eBay for the same purpose.
👧 😟 Girls are being bombarded with health misinformation on Instagram and TikTok (Coda Media)
The young women who keep Dr. Google, Dr.TikTok or Dr. Instagram on speed dial risk exposing themselves to mass volumes of misinformation. A recent study by Plan International revealed that at least 80% of this group in the U.S. suffered a negative impact in their lives due to bad information from social media. Even worse, Brazil and the Philippines reported 91% and 95%, respectively. On top of this various videos urging people to try the next weight loss fad are causing real-life harm.
📈 🧐 Opinion: What's stunning about the misinformation trend -- and how to fix it (CNN)
COVID-19 and misinformation is a deadly combo according to two digital media experts. We’re seeing misinformation at an unprecedented volume and velocity, and it’s not limited to just pandemics. It has interfered in elections and played a role in genocides. The authors argue for a solution akin to the IPCC for climate but for misinformation. An Intergovernmental Panel for the Information Environment (IPIE) might help the situation especially given social media companies’ complete failure to solve the problem.
🏀 The NBA's Anti-Vaxxers Are Trying to Push Around the League -- And It's Working (Rolling Stone)
From microchips to god almighty, all sorts of conspiracy theories are making their way into locker rooms of NBA players, and thereby leading to anti-vaccine stances from several well known players such as Kyrie Irving and Jonathan Isaac. A similar situation was observed across the Atlantic, where a few Premier League players refused to get the vaccine due to bogus claims.
Regulatory News and Updates
🇬🇧 PM urged to enact ‘David’s law’ against social media abuse after Amess’s death (The Guardian)
After the brutal assassination of MP Sir David Amess, there have been strong calls for fortifying the Online Safety Bill to ensure social media platforms are held accountable for the online abuse targeted towards politicians and public figures.
Recent update: PM Boris Johnson has promised that the House of Commons will get to vote on the Bill before Christmas by fast tracking consideration of the Bill.
🇺🇸 Analysis | Top Democrats unveil bill to rein in tech companies' ‘malicious algorithms’ (Washington Post)
After numerous attempts at reforming Section 230, advocates are hopeful that the new Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act will be passed. There is optimism because the proposal is backed by some of the most powerful lawmakers in the country. Let’s hope this is not another case of all talk and no play.
🇮🇳 New law for social media companies in the works (Hindustan Times)
Apparently taking inspiration from the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), India will introduce new laws of its own to better distinguish between social media companies and intermediaries after amendments to its Information Technology Act were put on hold.
🏛️ TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat executives to testify at Senate hearing on kids' safety (The Hill)
The Facebook Files have prompted a domino effect of Senate hearings for social media platforms. Senators will ask the executives to elucidate their efforts to ensure kids’ safety.
📃 FTC Puts Hundreds of Businesses on Notice about Fake Reviews and Other Misleading Endorsements (FTC Official Website)
The Federal Trade Commission sent a strong message to nearly 700 businesses that rely heavily on advertisements to get their act together with respect to fake reviews and deceptive endorsements. Failing to do so would subject them to fines as high as $43,792 per violation.
🇸🇬 Singapore passes foreign interference law allowing authorities to block internet content (The Guardian)
Abide by the terms set forth by the government and ruling party or face hefty fines…
The latest regulation passed by Singapore has serious implications for independent media outlets and opposition parties if they speak against the ruling government. While critics say this is a draconian move by the government to limit opposing views, the government feels this is a much needed push to prevent “foreign” intervention.
🇮🇱 Israel eyes making Facebook legally liable for content on its platform — report (Times of Israel)
Israel plans to rein in social media platforms by enforcing increased accountability for the content they host. First up—Facebook. The proposed changes would include liability for hosting harmful content as well as clear explanations when a user or a post is removed from the platform.
⚖️ Ex-minister predicts 'huge battleground' over UK's plan to set internet content rules (TechCrunch)
Finding the right balance between limiting hateful and illegal content while not suppressing freedom of speech is posing quite a challenge to British lawmakers. Add to this that each MP wants their own “hobby horse” to be highlighted. Hopefully, the government can overcome this regulatory conundrum to pass what they consider a “pioneering” piece of regulation.
🇧🇪 Fighting in Brussels bogs down plans to regulate Big Tech (Financial Times)
A tug of power in the European Parliament might lead to an elongated review period for the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act. While some regulators want to exclude small and medium platforms and only focus on large platforms in the proposed law, others want to include them in order to make the forthcoming regulation “future-proof”.
🇪🇺 Big Tech to be forced to hand over data on political ads (Politico)
In order to prevent another Cambridge Analytica-like episode, the European Union (EU) is drafting a new bill to increase transparency with respect to online political ads. The bill to be introduced on November 23rd, aims to limit politicians from misusing social media to manipulate election results.
🇦🇺 Australia urges US to follow its lead in regulating social media giants (The Age)
While the U.S. Senate was making plans to introduce reforms to Section 230, Australia was miles ahead by passing new social media regulations and also setting up a separate body headed by an eSafety Commissioner that primarily focuses on online safety. Definitely, clearing the way for Australia to toot its horn by urging other nations to follow its lead.