The Antisocial Network

[Büge]

Employing phrenology in your social media app is normal, right?

[Mongrel]

what the fuck

EDIT: Oh I *LOVE* the seemingly "helpful" part whether they're like, hey if you're trans, it's okay, call us and we'll help!

OH YES I AM SURE GIVING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THIS CORPORATION COULD NEVER CARRY THE POTENTIAL FOR HARM.

[Büge]

Don't forget all the cis women who will be rejected because their facial features don't fit the parameters of the algorithm.

[atog]

Don't forget all the cis women who will be rejected because their facial features don't fit the parameters of the algorithm.

Upon first read, it seemed like they were asking for nudes, since pelvic contours are the gold standard for that sort of sex determination. I mean, they did say bone structure.

If that's not what they're after, they might have missed an opportunity to go full scum

Because this seems like the kind of "cunning plan that cannot fail" some frat kids thunk up to collect free nudz and rub it in the noses of paranoid TERF parents.

Of course it's more likely legit driven by paranoid cows, which is frankly more of a letdown than an outrage. You had one job, Drunken Frat Brats.

[nosimpleway]

Quick x-ray of vaginal bones to prove you're a girl

[beatbandito]

Just use tumblr's algorithm for spotting female nipples.

[Thad]

It's...I'll say interesting...seeing Dorsey finally start getting tired of Trump's shit.

I mean, as moderation goes, adding a fact-check link to one tweet and a "promotes violence" warning to another are the very fucking mildest of token gestures, but of course Donny is a giant baby with no sense of proportion who lashes out at even the slightest criticism.

[Mongrel]

It'll be funny as hell if Trump's biggest mistake turns out to have been threatening Jack Dorsey's wallet.

[Thad]

Trust & Safety Professional Association Launches: This Is Important

That's why I'm really happy to see a new organization launch today, the Trust & Safety Professional Association, along with a sister organization, the Trust & Safety Foundation.

Today, we’re pleased to announce the Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA) and the Trust & Safety Foundation Project (TSF).* TSPA is a new, nonprofit, membership-based organization that will support the global community of professionals who develop and enforce principles and policies that define acceptable behavior online. TSF will focus on improving society’s understanding of trust and safety, including the operational practices used in content moderation, through educational programs and multidisciplinary research. Neither TSPA nor TSF are lobbying organizations, and will not advocate for public policy positions on behalf of corporate supporters or anyone else. Instead, we will support the community of people doing the work, and society’s understanding of it.

And I should note that the people behind this organization are incredible. If you told me about such an organization and asked me to suggest who should be involved, I would have included exactly the people who put this together, starting Adelin Cai and Clara Tsao, who both have tremendous experience in the trust and safety space, and the knowledge and thoughtful, balanced approach necessary to build organizations like the two launched today. If you ever need someone to talk through all the challenges to think through in building a successful trust and safety team, I'd highly recommend both Adelin and Clara. The board also includes some names you may recognize, including Professor Eric Goldman, former Twitter/Google lawyer and White House deputy CTO Alex Macgillivray, and former Mozilla Chief Legal Officer/COO and current Stellar Development Foundation CEO Denelle Dixon.

And... one of the initial projects that the Trust & Safety Foundation has launched is an ongoing series of trust and safety case studies written by... us. Techdirt's think tank arm, the Copia Institute, will be providing a series of trust and safety case studies to the Trust & Safety Foundation, which they'll be posting each week.

(Tags omitted; there are links and boldface on the original.)

Don't know if this will ultimately make any difference, but it seems like there are smart people who will make good observations.

I'm much more of a firm believer in active moderation than Masnick is, but he's very good at recognizing the tradeoffs it implies. And his overall ethos, that websites should be built on open APIs that empower users and developers to make their own curation decisions, is bang-on.

[Thad]

There are a few different threads we could talk about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, but I figured this'd be the one since it's the law that makes social networking legal in the first place.

In brief:

The ruling in a case called Cubby v CompuServe established that CompuServe as a company was not responsible for illegal content posted on its forums. This was consistent with decades of caselaw.

The ruling in a case called Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy established that Prodigy as a company was responsible for illegal content posted on its forums. The reasoning was that, because Prodigy moderated its forums and removed offensive content, that implied that it was legally responsible for any content it didn't remove. This broke with precedent and is fucking insane. (Let's put it this way: the Cubby and Stratton Oakmont rulings, taken together, would mean that the admins on this forum wouldn't be allowed to ban eloH, or he could just show back up when they were asleep, post some illegal shit, and then the people who run this forum would be legally responsible for it -- but if they just let him post whatever the fuck he wants, they're legally in the clear.)

Section 230 of the CDA was introduced to override the precedent set by the Stratton Oakmont ruling. It pretty much says that moderators can moderate and still not be responsible for content they don't moderate.

(The rest of the CDA was a bunch of unconstitutional, censorious bullshit and was rightly thrown out by the Supreme Court, but Section 230 was allowed to stand.)

Anyway, there's a lot of complaining in high places lately that 230 is bad and should be repealed or revised (and Barr is using it as an excuse to try to ban encryption). Republicans don't like it because it lets Twitter ban nazis; Democrats don't like it because it doesn't force Twitter to ban nazis. Fortunately, because the two sides object to 230 for opposite and incompatible reasons, it's unlikely they'll reach some consensus to change or repeal it. But you never know; they already weakened it when they passed FOSTA, and that passed near-unanimously (notably, one of the two "No" votes was Ron Wyden, co-author of CDA230).

Anyway, there's a lot of bullshit getting thrown around about 230, and Mike Masnick has provided a helpful reference titled Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 Of The Communications Decency Act (in the spirit of Ken White's Hello! You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About The First Amendment, which it links).

My thinking basically goes like this:

If 230 were repealed, it wouldn't make a difference in the long term; Stratton Oakmont was decided wrongly, and if 230 is repealed, there are going to be lawsuits, sooner or later it's going to go to the Supreme Court, and I find it very unlikely that the Roberts Court will uphold intermediary liability as constitutional.

But it would make a huge difference in the short run, because it would take years for litigation to make it to the Supreme Court, and in the meantime online forums would only have three options: (1) no moderation whatsoever, not even spam; (2) complete moderation, along the lines of a "letters to the editor" page, with posts only being published after review by the moderation team; this would of course make even a forum the size of this one impossible; or (3) lawyer up.

[nosimpleway]

(2) complete moderation, along the lines of a "letters to the editor" page, with posts only being published after review by the moderation team; this would of course make even a forum the size of this one impossible;

You'd have to bring in a new mod just to vet Mongrel posts.

[Friday]

[Friday]

(The answer is always:

)

[Thad]

Barr is using it as an excuse to try to ban encryption

This part is important. Two more Techdirt articles expanding on this:

Terrible, Dangerous EARN IT Act Set To Move Forward In The Senate; Attack On Both Encryption And Free Speech Online

Senators Launch Full On Nuclear War Against Encryption: Bill Will Require Broken Encryption, Putting Everyone At Risk

Basically, we're looking at two bills here: the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act, which straight-up mandates that companies build encryption backdoors into their software so the DoJ can spy on users, and the EARN IT Act, which does the same thing but is sneakier about it (it amends section 230 so that you can lose its protections if you don't comply with requirements set by the AG; given who the AG is, those requirements will definitely include "give me an encryption backdoor"). I don't think it's a stretch to say that the Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act was probably created specifically to make the EARN IT Act look less terrible by comparison; it's quite possible that its backers expect it to fail and then EARN IT to pass as a "compromise".

[Mongrel]

SomethingAwful going down at the moment, might be for good this time. Possibly. Maybe. Would be nice.

(more domestic abuse reports against Lowtax).

[mharr]

There does seem to be a type that sticks with their edge-based identity into adulthood.

[Thad]

I sure like this Facebook advertiser boycott. Hard to say what long-term impact it'll have, but it feels like the chickens are coming home to roost.

[Brantly B.]

It's always fun to watch Facebook get smacked around, but the list of players here gives me pause. Verizon? Coca-Cola? These aren't stalwarts of internet fair play and sensible advertising limits; what the fuck are they actually on about?

[Thad]

It's always fun to watch Facebook get smacked around, but the list of players here gives me pause. Verizon? Coca-Cola? These aren't stalwarts of internet fair play and sensible advertising limits; what the fuck are they actually on about?

Their bottom line, as always. They've figured whatever positive press they get from this will outweigh the money they lose from Facebook advertising.

Which is ultimately how capitalism in general, and boycotts in particular, work. It's not an appeal to companies' better nature, it's an appeal to their profit motives. (Though, to be fair, the first companies to join the boycott, like REI, really do seem to be companies that care about corporate ethics.)

Plus, they probably don't like having to deal with Facebook any more than anybody else. Telling Facebook "we don't need you" strengthens their bargaining position in case they do decide to come back.

[Brantly B.]

After a decade of this shit it's hard to actually believe the tide has shifted so much that not suckling the teat of social media advertising is actually the profitable move, but hey, I'd love to be stupid and wrong on this one.