Read on Twitter
1/ A lot has, can, & will be said about Twitter & Facebook deleting & suspending Trump’s accounts. Among other things, these developments underline the need for a broader conversation about how platforms deal with speech by politicians who use their platforms around the world.
2/ Twitter & Facebook have policies that allow politicians to play by a different set of rules than “ordinary” users. @MelissaRyan @jilliancyork & @prilkit have good pieces on this:
https://protegopress.com/twitters-revised-world-leader-policy-is-still-sanctioned-bullying/ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/facebook-shouldnt-give-politicians-more-power-ordinary-users
https://protegopress.com/twitters-revised-world-leader-policy-is-still-sanctioned-bullying/ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/facebook-shouldnt-give-politicians-more-power-ordinary-users
3/ Speech by politicians is different. Access to it is crucial to hold leaders accountable. But politicians’ words can also have a significant ability to unleash violence. Allowing politicians to violate rules bc of their newsworthiness can lead to real harm.
4/ Platforms say they weigh the harm of keeping up content that violates their policies against its public interest value. But they have a track record of deferring to political power at the expense of people harmed by posts. @WillOremus covers this well: https://onezero.medium.com/facebook-chucked-its-own-rulebook-to-ban-trump-ecc036947f5d
5/ This is an issue outside the US, especially where platforms’ commercial interest can collide with their ability to moderate politicians speech, for example in India. https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-hate-speech-india-politics-muslim-hindu-modi-zuckerberg-11597423346
6/ One thing that’s significant about Twitter’s explanation of its decision to suspend Trump is that it didn’t only look at the 2 specific tweets, but the context and intent around them. As @ellanso points out this level of detail is not really scalable. https://twitter.com/ellanso/status/1347952740387999756?s=20
7/ The fact that it took platforms so long to recognize that Trump’s pattern of violations was leading to harm in the US - where the companies have a good understanding of local context and language - is not promising for users around the world.
8/ Social media platforms have chronically underinvested resources in understanding the contexts where people use their platforms & in moderating content of their global user base. As a FB whistleblower suggests, some countries just aren't prioritized https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/facebook-ignore-political-manipulation-whistleblower-memo
9/ So where does that leave the rest of the world? Trump may have had a distinct way of using social media. But the use of social media by politicians to push the limits of their policies happens all around the world. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/facebook-philippines-dutertes-drug-war
10/ To start, platforms should carry out thorough reviews of their policies covering politicians' speech to better understand how they are impacting people around the world. They should revise and recenter policies around protecting people’s rights, wherever they may live.
11/ Platforms should also ensure that their decisions are consistent and transparent, and give people the right to remedy per the Santa Clara Principles, which are a collective effort of civil society groups https://santaclaraprinciples.org/
12/ Addressing platforms’ politicians’ speech won’t solve other important issues like algorithmic amplification, concentration of power, and the harms of the underlying business model of major tech platforms. A few thoughts on some of those issues here: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/08/big-techs-heavy-hand-around-globe
13/13 These are tough ?s but there are lots of brilliant people thinking about them around the world. An incomplete list @DiaKayyali @chinmayiarun @ubiquity75 @AgustinaDelCamp @JulieOwono @gayatrikl @anrivds @NiNanjira @pazpena @MPaz_online @ubiquity75 @MishiChoudhary @marwasf
