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"Free Expression, Harmful Speech and Censorship in a Digital World," a new study from @knightfdn and @Gallup finds that Americans are notably skeptical of the idea that social media platforms should take a more active role in moderating their content.
https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/KnightFoundation_Panel6-Techlash2_rprt_061220-v2_es-1.pdf
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https://knightfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/KnightFoundation_Panel6-Techlash2_rprt_061220-v2_es-1.pdf
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"The poll found that 80% of Americans don't trust big tech companies to make the right decisions about what content appears on their sites and what should be removed."
https://www.cnet.com/news/americans-dont-trust-content-decisions-made-by-social-media-giants-study-says/
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https://www.cnet.com/news/americans-dont-trust-content-decisions-made-by-social-media-giants-study-says/
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The backdrop for the poll is the Trump administration's war on #CDA230, a law that places liability for bad speech acts (libel, hate speech, etc) on people who use platforms, not the platforms themselves.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/effs-guide-cda-230-most-important-law-protecting-online-speech
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https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/12/effs-guide-cda-230-most-important-law-protecting-online-speech
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Trump has proposed that only platforms that are "neutral" in their moderation policies would receive this protection.
Unfortunately, Trump's view has widespread support from well-meaning progressives, who want more action against harassment and racist invective.
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Unfortunately, Trump's view has widespread support from well-meaning progressives, who want more action against harassment and racist invective.
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They often say things like, "Facebook can eliminate nudity, why can't they eliminate racism?" The reality is that FB's elimination of nudity (and copyright infringement, etc) is only possible because of unlimited collateral damage to legit speech.
https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/13/robopinkertons/#filternet
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https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/13/robopinkertons/#filternet
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And yes, fair enough, that tells us that FB views boobies as a worse problem than genocide.
But the reality of FB's moderation failures underlying its success in purging the platform of nudity should be equally present in these debates.
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But the reality of FB's moderation failures underlying its success in purging the platform of nudity should be equally present in these debates.
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Big Tech's anti-harassment filters routinely censor survivors of harassment who quote their tormenters.
The anti-extremism filters censor survivors of terrorist violence who describe their ordeals, and scholars who study them.
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The anti-extremism filters censor survivors of terrorist violence who describe their ordeals, and scholars who study them.
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Anti-sex-trafficking filters block sex workers who want to discuss which clients are potentially violent and other protective dialogs.
Giving Big Tech MORE censorship duties will not make them better at censorship.
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Giving Big Tech MORE censorship duties will not make them better at censorship.
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There's another telling stat from the study: while 80% of Americans don't trust tech to moderate their conversations, they trust the government even less.
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And of course, eliminating 230 gives you both: companies would be charged with more moderation, and governments would check their work.
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As I wrote when Facebook nudity-blocked images of enslaved Australian Aboriginal people (posted after the prime minister publicly lied about the country's history of slavery):
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"The answer isn't to lard FB with more censorship duties for it to fuck up even worse – it's to cut FB down to size, to a scale where communities can set and enforce norms.
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"Because the problem with FB isn't merely that Mark Zuckerberg is uniquely unsuited to making decisions about the social lives and political discourse of 2.6 billion people.
"It's that no one is capable of doing that job. That job should not exist."
eof/
"It's that no one is capable of doing that job. That job should not exist."
eof/
