Among many other things, the past 24 hours were a pivotal moment for content moderation – for online safety worldwide. I'm usually not US-centric in the way I think about online safety, but what happened in Washington and online, yesterday and since, and then with the global platforms, showed us how far our thinking – and questions – about Internet safety have come. Last night Facebook and … [Read more...] about Online safety after Trump’s deplatforming
Soraya Chemaly
Digital safety, wellbeing: 2018 highlights (Part 1)
This may not be the Internet safety look-back on 2018 you’d expect, what with all the news about data breaches, “fake news,” “tech addiction,” algorithmic bias, election manipulation, hate speech, etc., etc. Not a pretty picture. But it’s also not the whole picture. By definition, the news reports airline crashes, not safe landings. Even if 2018 was truly unique, though, with bad news the … [Read more...] about Digital safety, wellbeing: 2018 highlights (Part 1)
Behind the scenes of safety & free speech in social media
For a must-read article for anyone interested in safety and free speech online, some of the social media industry's most seasoned content moderators – the apps' and sites' safety managers and free speech decisionmakers – went public for the first time. "Their stories reveal how the boundaries of free speech were drawn during a period of explosive growth for a high-stakes public domain, one … [Read more...] about Behind the scenes of safety & free speech in social media
From public shaming to public compassion
The public discussion about "online reputation" has gotten darker, as "public shaming" appears in more and more headlines. We may think it's tough to be a celebrity, having everything one does – good, bad or anything in between – go viral. But it's even tougher not to be, if you post something negative online. Because when you're not a celebrity, it seems only bad stuff goes viral, not just every … [Read more...] about From public shaming to public compassion
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