"Protecting #democracy from threats created by Internet #platforms is a laudable goal. But it is not worth the cost imposed by legislative attempts so far: empowering the government to control legal speech online. Lawmakers’ attempts to impose their own top-down speech rules are particularly unwarranted given the far more promising possibilities offered by #usercontrolled and #decentralized #contentmoderation systems."

https://techpolicy.press/regulated-democracy-and-regulated-speech

Trust the Trusted Flagger?!
Wer kontrolliert Inhalte im Netz – und wer kontrolliert die Kontrolle?

Am 10. April 19 Uhr diskutieren Dr. Jessica Flint und Chan-Jo Jun im Digital Fight Club über die Rolle der #TrustedFlagger, Content-Moderation, #Hatespeech und #Meinungsfreiheit im digitalen Raum.
Online & offen für alle: https://t1p.de/trusted

Eine Veranstaltung u. a. von @slpb, @hlz und @mkz. Mit @Anwalt_Jun

#Meta cierra el centro de moderadores de contenidos de Barcelona - https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20250403/10549038/meta-cierra-centro-moderadores-contenidos-torre-glories.html #contentmoderation

In this clip, Professor Alberto Segre tackles the debate over social media moderation — is it necessary for public safety, or does it go too far?

The full episode explores how the digital world is shaped by human decisions — from AI to internet infrastructure to the ethics of emerging tech.

Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://youtu.be/RqSkKahvlPA

The Lonely Work of Moderating Hacker News (2019)

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/the-lonely-work-of-moderating-hacker-news

I'm speaking today (in French) about @opentermsarchive at @SuVergnolle’s inaugural “Lunch & Learn” monthly seminar on #ContentModeration.
Join at 12:30 CET directly on https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/92869618946?pwd=1BiQHTjkH6PpYANDZos5KGD6Q3w5DB.1&ref=regulation-tech.cnam.fr
and register on https://www.linkedin.com/events/lunch-learnopentermsarchive-cha7310707496845803521/comments/ to receive a link to the replay!

Online #ContentModeration: What works, and what people want | MIT Sloan https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/online-content-moderation-what-works-and-what-people-want ““Contrary to recent claims from many political elites, the main problem with professional #factchecking is not bias or overreach,” he added. “The problem is that professional fact checkers can’t keep up with the vast scale of content posted every day” #misinformation

https://www.europesays.com/1957830/ When AI Fuels Atrocities — And How It Can Help Prevent Them #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #ArtificialIntelligenceAI #Atrocities/massAtrocities #AtrocityPrevention/atrocitiesPrevention #content #ContentModeration #Cyber #DeepFakes #DISINFORMATION #EmergingTechnology #GenerativeAI #mali #propaganda #SocialMediaPlatforms #TechAndAtrocityPreventionSymposium #technology

"Once again, several Senators appear poised to gut one of the most important laws protecting internet users - Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230).

Don’t be fooled - many of Section 230’s detractors claim that this critical law only protects big tech. The reality is that Section 230 provides limited protection for all platforms, though the biggest beneficiaries are small platforms and users. Why else would some of the biggest platforms be willing to endorse a bill that guts the law? In fact, repealing Section 230 would only cement the status of Big Tech monopolies.

As EFF has said for years, Section 230 is essential to protecting individuals’ ability to speak, organize, and create online.

Congress knew exactly what Section 230 would do – that it would lay the groundwork for speech of all kinds across the internet, on websites both small and large. And that’s exactly what has happened.

Section 230 isn’t in conflict with American values. It upholds them in the digital world. People are able to find and create their own communities, and moderate them as they see fit. People and companies are responsible for their own speech, but (with narrow exceptions) not the speech of others."

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/03/230-protects-users-not-big-tech

OnlyFans slapped with £1M UK fine – POLITICO https://www.byteseu.com/868273/ #ContentModeration #GreatBritain #OnlineSafety #Platforms #SocialMedia #UnitedKingdom

Bleeped: Making Digital Media More Family-Friendly with AI https://www.byteseu.com/867649/ #AI #AIContentFiltering #AkiraMuramoto #ArtificialIntelligence #AudiobookCensorship #BenjaminBarnes #bleeped #ContentModeration #CustomizableCensorship #DigitalMedia #FamilyFriendlyTechnology #JoshBosley #logan #ParentalControls #Startup #UtahStateUniversity #VentureFunding

https://www.europesays.com/1938099/ Romanian media watchdog defies Musk over censorship claims – POLITICO #CalinGeorgescu #ContentModeration #DigitalServicesAct #DISINFORMATION #elections #ElonMusk #IllegalContent #intelligence #LawEnforcement #media #Platforms #regulation #romania #Russia #SocialMedia #stiri #telecoms #UnitedStates

University of South Australia: New AI model detects toxic online comments with 87% accuracy. “A team of researchers from Australia and Bangladesh has built a model that is 87% accurate in classifying toxic and non-toxic text without relying on manual identification. Researchers from East West University in Bangladesh and the University of South Australia say their model is an improvement on […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/22/university-of-south-australia-new-ai-model-detects-toxic-online-comments-with-87-accuracy/

Underprivileged people are apparently especially easy to target on #ActivityPub , or so I have been told, and I believe it. They have been complaining about it to the Mastodon developers over the years, but the Mastodon developers at best don’t give a shit, at worst are hostile to the idea, and have been mostly ignoring these criticisms. Well, now we have “Nicole,” the infamous “Fediverse Chick”, a spambot that seems to be registering hundreds of accounts across several #Mastodon instances, and then once registered, sends everyone a direct message introducing itself.

You can’t block it by domain or by name since the name keeps changing and spans multiple instances. It is the responsibility of each domain to prevent registrations of bots like this.

But what happens when the bot designer ups the ante? What happens when they try this approach but with a different name each time? Who is to say that isn’t already happening and we don’t notice it? This seems to be an attempt to show everyone a huge weakness in the content moderation toolkit, and we are way overdue to address these weaknesses.

Gizmodo: Reddit Accused of Cracking Down on Luigi Mangione Content. “Slate recently noted that some forums on Reddit had been getting censored for their discussion of the accused killer. A moderator for one long-running subreddit, /r/popculture, was suspended by the platform after failing to quell the ongoing discussion of Mangione. The action followed an unusual warning from the site’s […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/03/17/gizmodo-reddit-accused-of-cracking-down-on-luigi-mangione-content/

#DemocraticPoliticians Should Leave #ElonMusk’s #XTwitter.

Undermining Democratic Discourse Since #Musk’s takeover, #Twitter has become a platform for #misinformation, #hatespeech, and #algorithmicbias, threatening democratic values.

Amplification of Extremism By removing #contentmoderation safeguards, #X allows #farright voices and #conspiracymyths to spread unchecked, distorting public debate. (1/3)

ICYMI: RainSMediaRadio News Meta Tests 'Community Notes' to Replace Fact-Checkers https://www.rainsmediaradio.com/2025/03/meta-tests-community-notes-to-replace.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon Follow, Like & Share #Meta #CommunityNotes #FactCheckers #Misinformation #ContentModeration