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content moderation
Amnesty Says EU Digital Services Act 'Must Be Robustly Enforced'
With the act now in effect for most platforms, the European Commission and member states "must resist any attempts by Big Tech companies to water down implementation," said one expert.
Feb 17, 2024
As the European Union's Digital Services Act expanded to cover nearly all online platforms in the bloc on Saturday, Amnesty International stressed the importance of robust enforcement.
"It's a historic day for tech accountability," said Alia Al Ghussain, researcher and adviser on technology and human rights at Amnesty Tech, in a statement. "Today must mark the end of the era of unregulated Big Tech, and for that to happen, the DSA must be robustly enforced to avoid it becoming a paper tiger."
"Today must mark the end of the era of unregulated Big Tech."
E.U. member states and the European Commission "are primarily responsible for the monitoring and enforcement of the additional obligations that apply to Big Tech companies under the DSA," Al Ghussain added. "They must resist any attempts by Big Tech companies to water down implementation and enforcement efforts, and insist on putting human rights at the forefront of this new digital landscape."
Some of the E.U.'s online rulebook took effect in August for 19 major platforms and search engines: Alibaba AliExpress; Amazon; Bing; Booking.com; Apple's AppStore; Google's Play, Maps, Search, Shopping, and YouTube; LinkedIn; Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram; Pinterest; Snapchat; TikTok; Wikipedia; X, formerly called Twitter; and Zalando.
The European Commission took its first formal action under the DSA in December, announcing an investigation into X—which is owned by billionaire Elon Musk—for "suspected breach of obligations to counter illegal content and disinformation, suspected breach of transparency obligations, and suspected deceptive design of user interface."
As of Saturday, the DSA applies to all online platforms, with some exceptions for firms that have fewer than 50 employees and an annual turnover below €10 million ($10.78 million)—though those companies must still designate a point of contact for authorities and users as well as have clear terms and conditions.
The DSA bans targeting minors with advertisements based on personal data and targeting all users with ads based on sensitive data such as religion or sexual preference. The act also requires platforms to provide users with: information about advertising they see; a tool to flag illegal content; explanations for content moderation decisions; and a way to challenge such decisions. Platforms are further required to publish a report about content moderation procedures at least once a year.
While companies that violate the DSA could be fined up to 6% of their global annual turnover or even banned in the E.U., imposing such penalties isn't the ultimate goal. According toAgence France-Presse:
Beyond the prospect of fines, Alexandre de Streel of the think tank Centre on Regulation in Europe, said the law aimed ultimately to change the culture of digital firms.
"The DSA is a gradual system, everything is not going to change in one minute and not on February 17," he said. "The goal isn't to impose fines, it's that platforms change their practices."
Still, Thierry Breton, a former French tech CEO now serving as the European commissioner for the internal market, said in a statement that "we encourage all member states to make the most out of our new rulebook."
Like Amnesty's Al Ghussain, he stressed that "effective enforcement is key to protect our citizens from illegal content and to uphold their rights."
Earlier this week, Politicoreported that "senior E.U. officials like Breton and Věra Jourová, commission vice president for values and transparency, have butted heads over how to sell the rulebook to both companies and the wider public." Internal battles and industry pushback aren't the only barriers to effectively implementing the DSA.
"At the national level, member countries are expected to nominate local regulators by February 17 to coordinate the pan-E.U. rules via a European Board for Digital Services," Politico noted. "That group will hold its first meeting in Brussels early next week. But as of mid-February, only a third of those agencies were in place, based on the commission's own data, although existing regulators in Brussels, Paris, and Dublin are already cooperating."
Campaigners are also acknowledging the shortcomings of the DSA. European Digital Rights on Saturday recirculated a November 2022 essay in which EDRi policy advisers Sebastian Becker Castellaro Jan Penfrat argued that "the DSA is a positive step forward" but "no content moderation policy in the world will protect us from harmful online content as long as we do not address the dominant, yet incredibly damaging surveillance business model of most large tech firms."
Meanwhile, Al Ghussain said that "to mitigate the human rights risks posed by social media platforms, the European Commission must tackle the addictive and harmful design of these platforms, including changes to recommender systems so that they are no longer hardwired for engagement at all costs, nor based on user profiling by default."
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Sink, Sank, Sunk: One Year in and Musk's Twitter Is Down the Drain
In Musk’s distorted world view, his critics are to blame for Twitter’s sinking fortunes. But if there's anyone to blame, just look at the man holding... the sink.
Oct 27, 2023
It’s one year to the day that Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter and proceeded to strip it of all its social value.
Let that sink in. When he took charge of the platform, Musk called Twitter the internet’s “de facto town square.” Under his leadership, Musk insisted, the online forum would become “important to the future of civilization.” Very few people believed him at the time. Far fewer do now.
What most people still call Twitter on Oct. 27, 2023, is a lot worse than it was on Oct. 27, 2022, when Musk carried a porcelain sink into the company’s San Francisco headquarters. (Get it? Me neither.) As it turns out, the joke’s on Musk, and on the banks that helped him finance this disastrous deal, and on anyone else who still believes he cares about protecting free speech and facilitating civil discourse online.
That, of course, couldn’t be farther from the truth. And Musk’s biggest failings over a year of catastrophic decisions occurred during the very first days of his tenure, when he abandoned an early commitment to the sort of content moderation that makes civil discourse possible … and social-media enterprises successful.
Musk’s biggest mistake
Within a week of taking over, Musk met with civil-rights leaders, including Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González. He pledged to “combat hate and harassment” on the network and “enforce [Twitter’s] election integrity policies.” But soon after this meeting, Musk announced sweeping layoffs, firing a large percentage of Twitter employees, including many of those responsible for upholding the company’s critical brand-safety, election-integrity and content-moderation standards.
We hoped Musk would have learned this lesson at the beginning: Twitter’s business will live or die on the decisions he makes or doesn’t make about content moderation.
Things quickly went downhill from there. Free Press and our allies launched the #StopToxicTwitter coalition soon after Musk reneged on his pledge to combat the spread of hate and disinformation. We urged the platform’s top advertisers to pause all placements on Twitter until they received assurances that Musk would safeguard their brands. Advertisers left Twitter in droves: Within three months of the launch of #StopToxicTwitter, more than 500 advertisers stopped their Twitter spending, sending a powerful message to Musk that they would not bankroll the unchecked spread of hate and disinformation. The advertiser exodus, which continued through the year, is a major contributor to the precipitous drop in revenue at Twitter.
Earlier this month, the marketing firm Ebiquity reported that only two of its clients (which include 70 of the top-100 advertising brands in the United States) are now spending on Twitter — down from 31 the month before Musk took control. This aligns with Musk’s own assessment, made last month, that U.S. advertising revenue has sunk 60 percent since he acquired the company.
Instead of meeting advertiser and advocate demands for a safer and more civil public forum, Musk has responded by suing a research organization and #StopToxicTwitter partner — the Center for Countering Digital Hate — that has documented the increased spread of vitriol and lies across his network. He threatened to sue another organization that had led criticism about the dramatic rise in antisemitic content on Twitter over the last year.
Musk’s decision to grant a “general amnesty” to thousands of previously banned accounts, including those belonging to the most vile neo-Nazis, white supremacists and conspiracy theorists, has further kept advertisers at bay. More recently, he's used his blue-check, pay-for-engagement scheme to give a soapbox (and even revenues) to all sorts of grifters and propagandists, including many people seeking to drown legitimate public discourse about the Israel/Gaza crisis in lies.
The person who’s most to blame
In Musk’s distorted world view, his critics are to blame for Twitter’s sinking fortunes. On top of that, this self-proclaimed “free-speech absolutist” has used his considerable resources to silence anyone who disagrees with him.
“That the wealthiest man on the planet is using his money, influence and even legal action to threaten and silence critics, including our coalition partners, is reprehensible,” Jessica J. González said. “Musk bought an advertising platform and advertisers have made themselves clear: They want no part of the toxic stew of hate and lies that Musk has enabled. The only one Musk has to blame for X’s declining fortunes is himself.”
Through it all Musk has chosen to ignore a fundamental truth for social-media ventures: Effective content moderation is essential to growing healthy online communities and company revenues. As Musk’s Twitter circles the drain toward insolvency, he has repeatedly demonstrated this lack of basic business smarts about online platforms.
“It’s kind of a rite of passage for any new social media network,” Mike Masnick wrote about the content-moderation learning curve. “They show up, insist that they’re the ‘platform for free speech’ without quite understanding what that actually means, and then they quickly discover a whole bunch of fairly fundamental ideas, institute a bunch of rapid (often sloppy) changes … and in the end, they basically all end up in the same general vicinity.”
Musk has yet to arrive there and after a year of failures he likely never will. The proof for Twitter is in its bottom line. The advertisers that have left Twitter have put their money where their values are. And they aren’t likely to return in any significant way unless and until Twitter can make assurances that their brands aren’t underwriting the amplification of hate and lies.
We hoped Musk would have learned this lesson at the beginning: Twitter’s business will live or die on the decisions he makes or doesn’t make about content moderation.
But one year after Musk carried a sink through Twitter’s front door, all of his decisions have been wrong, with consequences that continue to undermine public discourse, imperil democracy, and harm people both at home and abroad.
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Is Elon Musk the Worst Businessman in the World?
As Musk’s Twitter barrels toward insolvency, he has only himself to blame for lacking this basic business sense about social networks.
Apr 15, 2023
Even billionaires get things wrong.
But none more so than Elon Musk, who, a year after announcing his bid to buy Twitter, has squandered every opportunity he’s had to make the social-media company a success.
Musk’s mistakes have been many. He’s spent most of the past year behaving like a preschooler on a finger-load of frosting, and his childishness has affected the platform’s bottom line and alienated potential business allies. After announcing plans to buy out Twitter investors at an overinflated $54.20 a share, he quickly reversed course with an erratic campaign to scuttle his own deal.
But shareholders forced Musk to honor his initial offer and he took up residence in the company’s San Francisco headquarters, announcing immediate and drastic plans to cut staff rolls by 75 percent.
In the cold calculus of profit and loss, that move might have made sense to some. Musk took on $13 billion in debt to purchase Twitter. Servicing that will require nearly a billion dollars in annual payments to the banks — money Twitter is struggling to generate.
But Musk’s mistakes didn't end with the deal and the need to pay off the debt it generated. Early mass layoffs included many of those charged with keeping the social network up and running; in the months since, Twitter has suffered an increasing number of technological malfunctions.
A banner year of bad decisions
He then moved to introduce a pay-for-verification plan that would cost subscribers $8 per month. This fell apart almost immediately, after the heads of Twitter’s security, privacy and compliance teams quit. Twitter’s lawyers had warned that the mass verification push could jeopardize user privacy and expose the company to billions in government fines for violating a Federal Trade Commission consent decree. (While the blue-check verification scheme is back on track, scheduled to relaunch on April 20 — get it? — it’s not likely to generate anything close to the revenue Twitter needs to survive.)
By the end of the year, Musk reneged on his pledge to make Twitter “a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner.” He began binging on right-wing memes, giving prominent space on the network to Twitter “investigations” — a series he dubbed the #TwitterFiles — that sought to prove MAGA conspiracy theories about alleged censorship of conservative voices, and supposed coverups of anti-vaccine and Hunter Biden-related news.
Never mind that the writers Musk cherry-picked to reveal the files had their own reactionary agendas, or that the Musk hype surrounding the files has turned Twitter into an even more divisive political echo-chamber. The highly partisan #TwitterFiles were a Musk miscalculation that alienated half of the users Musk once claimed he wanted to welcome into “healthy” discussions with their ideological others.
The worst decision of all
The list of Musk mistakes goes on: There’s his reckless suspension of journalists whose reporting he doesn’t like; his demand that the platform’s algorithms be manipulated to prioritize his posts above all others; his shutdown of independent researchers’ ability to access Twitter data; his censoring of critics of India’s conservative government; and his refusal to abide by a poll where a majority of users said he should step down as head of the platform.
It’s been a banner year of bad moves — so bad that the estimated value of Twitter has plummeted by tens of billions of dollars, making it arguably the most costly deal in the entire history of media acquisitions.
But Musk’s most damaging decision was one he made early on.
Shortly after taking the helm at Twitter headquarters, Musk called a meeting of civil-rights leaders to discuss Twitter’s commitment to community standards, election integrity and content moderation. Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González joined Musk on a Zoom call alongside representatives from the ADL, the Asian American Foundation, Color Of Change and the NAACP.
Following the meeting, Musk tweeted that the platform would “continue to combat hate and harassment and enforce its election integrity policies.”
“Twitter will not allow anyone who was de-platformed for violating Twitter rules back on [the] platform until we have a clear process for doing so, which will take at least a few more weeks,” he added. “Twitter’s content moderation council will include representatives with widely divergent views, which will certainly include the civil rights community and groups who face hate-fueled violence.”
But no sooner had he made this pledge than Musk started to decimate the trust and safety and human rights teams that were charged with combating the spread of hate.
Researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate found that the number of tweets containing one of several different racial slurs soared in the week after Musk bought Twitter. Research by CASM Technology and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue has found a major and sustained uptick in antisemitic posts on Twitter since Musk’s takeover.
After his meeting with the civil-rights leaders, Musk announced a “general amnesty” for banned accounts on Twitter. He reinstated thousands of accounts belonging to prominent neo-Nazis, white nationalists, misogynists, anti-immigrant and transphobic figures. The BBC analyzed more than 1,000 previously banned accounts that Musk had restored, and found that over a third of them had since spread abuse or misinformation on the platform.
Musk then eliminated COVID-related content moderation and — to no one’s surprise — the volume of lies about the virus and vaccines jumped alarmingly, according to analysis by the Queensland University of Technology.
Content moderation is key
The deluge of online hate and lies sent Twitter’s biggest revenue line into a tailspin: Advertisers, fearing damage to their brands, have left Twitter in droves.
After Musk ditched his promises to civil-rights leaders, Free Press, Accountable Tech and Media Matters for America launched the #StopToxicTwitter campaign, which has called on companies to stop advertising on the platform unless and until Musk enforces common-sense guardrails that will protect the health and safety of users.
More than 600 of Twitter’s top-1,000 advertisers have abandoned the platform, fearing that their brands wouldn’t be safe under Musk’s unsteady leadership. Their departure resulted in a 70-percent drop in Twitter’s December revenue over the previous year, according to Standard Media Index.
Musk chose to ignore a fundamental truth for social-media ventures: Effective content moderation is essential to growing healthy online communities and protecting brand safety. As Musk’s Twitter barrels toward insolvency, he has only himself to blame for lacking this basic business sense about social networks.
“It’s kind of a rite of passage for any new social media network,” writes Mike Masnick about the content-moderation learning curve. “They show up, insist that they’re the ‘platform for free speech’ without quite understanding what that actually means, and then they quickly discover a whole bunch of fairly fundamental ideas, institute a bunch of rapid (often sloppy) changes … and in the end, they basically all end up in the same general vicinity.”
Musk has yet to arrive in this vicinity and likely never will. The proof for Twitter is in its bottom line. Before Musk took charge, advertising sales made up 90 percent of Twitter’s revenues. Brands get nervous when they see their ads run adjacent to some of the most toxic posts. The companies that have left Twitter have put their money where their values are. And they aren’t likely to return until Twitter can make assurances that their ad buys aren’t helping underwrite the amplification of hate and lies.
We hoped Musk would have learned this lesson at the beginning: Twitter’s business will live or die on the decisions he makes or doesn’t make about content moderation.
But one year after Musk first announced his bid to take over Twitter — all of his decisions have been wrong.
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