Moderated Content evelyn douek

Alex and Evelyn discuss updates to the story about the BBC documentary take-downs in India; the latest Twitter Files on the Hamilton 68 bot dashboard; TikTok's charm offensive and ... Oracle's (?!?) role; Apple's expansion of censorship for China to Hong Kong; and the Financial Times' admirable admission that it wants nothing to do with content moderation.

Evelyn sits down with Nate Persily, Professor at Stanford Law School, and Alex Stamos, director of the Stanford Internet Observatory, to discuss Meta's decision that it is reinstating former President Trump's accounts. Nate is pragmatic, Alex is cynical, and Evelyn is a naive little formalist about it all. Here's their quick takes.

Evelyn and Alex discuss what should be a massive story about India's orders to platforms to take down content related to a BBC documentary that is critical of Prime Minister Modi. They also discuss the UK's Online Safety Bill; ChatGPT content moderation; the Republican battle against Gmail's spam filters; Trump's pending return to mainstream platforms; TikTok "heating" videos; and an update from Courtroom Corner. Thanks to our new sponsor, Gutter.

Alex and Evelyn get Josh Tucker, a professor at New York University, and Solomon Messing, a Visiting Researcher Georgetown University, to talk them through the results of two major studies about the effects of online speech; they also discuss Twitter cutting off API access; public universities cutting off TikTok access; Apple promising more transparency about app store take-downs, and an update from the courtrooms.

Alex and Evelyn kick off 2023 with a rollicking tour through stories about: Meta's $400 million EU fine for privacy violations (cameo by Daphne Keller), Google's new appeals process for users flagged as uploading child sexual abuse material, WhatsApp introducing proxy servers, Twitter reinstating political ads, Meta's struggles to get out of politics, an Oversight Board decision about Iranian protests, information from the Jan 6 Committee about their findings to do with social media, and what's going on in Brazil.

Alex and Evelyn sweat through the holidays to make sure you get your critical trust and safety news, including Congressional action on platform transparency (cameo by Nate Persily); TikTok and LastPass data breaches (yikes!); and, of course, Twitter mayhem (sigh).