As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg put it at the "All Things Digital" conference this week, "Put your name on your sexism" – if you're going to engage in behavior or sharing that's offensive to others on your page, your name's going to be on that page now. Sandberg was responding to a reporter's question about Facebook's announcement the previous day that it would be working with women's rights … [Read more...] about Facebook adding accountability to controversial content
Law & Policy
The global free speech experiment for participants of all ages
We don't hear about it much, but an important, historically unprecedented experiment is being conducted in Internet-connected schools, libraries, homes and workplaces in every country under every sort of government on the planet. It's about how to protect people and their right of free expression – e.g., children and other protected classes – at the same time in social media. It's unprecedented … [Read more...] about The global free speech experiment for participants of all ages
Facebook to work with women’s rights activists on content
Last week activists Soraya Chemaly, Laura Bates of the Everyday Sexism Project, and Jaclyn Friedman of Women, Action & the Media (WAM!) published in the Huffington Post "An Open Letter to Facebook" about depictions of violence against girls and women posted on the site. This week Facebook responded with some substantive promises, some based on an ongoing review of hate speech policy and some … [Read more...] about Facebook to work with women’s rights activists on content
Law enforcement & social media now working together
This is a significant sign of progress: The National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) is working with Facebook on consumer privacy education. We're still only in the first half of this decade, and in the second half of the last one, the state attorneys general were threatening legal action against a social media service – MySpace, the most popular one of that time. Now NAAG is actually … [Read more...] about Law enforcement & social media now working together
Companies competing to protect our privacy?
It'd be an exaggeration to say that tech companies are falling over themselves to protect our privacy, but you might say that it's becoming a "social norm" for US businesses. At least, that's what the New York Times reports, and that must be at least a sign that it's true because it's far from normative for newspapers to report good news. As evidence, the Times cites a Microsoft executive saying … [Read more...] about Companies competing to protect our privacy?