A New Era for Trust and Safety
A New Era for Trust and Safety
Plus the release of A Brief History of Tech and Elections - A 26-Year Journey
I want to thank so many of you for reaching out about last week’s newsletter. It always means a lot when someone tells me that they love reading what I write, but that one exposed me a bit more than most so I was nervous about publishing it. Hearing all of the feedback is the response I was hoping for when putting it out there. Tomorrow is photoshoot number two and I’m really excited.
This week’s newsletter is going to be a bit of a smorgasbord of things that happened this week as a lot happened and I have a ton to catch up on after being gone.
Trust and Safety Week
First, was Trust and Safety week out in Palo Alto, California where two conferences happened back to back: TrustCon put on by the Trust and Safety Professional Association and the Trust and Safety Research Conference put on by Stanford.
You have to register virtually to watch TrustCon but you can see the Thursday and Friday programming for the Trust and Safety Research Conference on YouTube
.I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be back in a room with so many smart people that I’ve had the privilege to either know, work with or follow over the years on these topics. I feel optimistic that there are people who want to keep working to find solutions to these problems. But the issues we discussed also give me great anxiety about the challenges that lie before us.
While this community has been around for a while, this gathering felt like the start of a new era in the trust and safety field. More sharing and debate across the platforms, academia, the media, civil society, and governments is needed and all were present at these events. I really hope this becomes an annual thing.
Brief History of Tech and Elections - A 26-Year Journey
This week we also finally got to release the analysis of the database we put out in August with all of the tech company announcements on elections. In this report, my colleague Collier and I go through the years starting with the first campaign websites in 1996 to how the platforms are preparing for the 2022 midterms. It comes complete with images from the years and plenty of links should anyone want to dig deeper.
It’s a bit of a long read at 40 pages - including the pictures - but I this is what I hope to be the start of the book I want to write. I would really appreciate any feedback folks have on it and/or anything I might have missed that I need to make sure to add.
NYU Stern Center Panel
This week I participated virtually in a panel at NYU about Spreading the Big Lie: How Social Media Sites Have Amplified False Claims of U.S. Election Fraud
Brazil Elections
As I type this Brazilians have about an hour to go before their polls close. This is an election with high concerns of violence should Bolsonaro lose - which is looking to be a likely situation. In fact, Lula - his opponent - could win outright today and not force a runoff. The New York Times has a live blog going. Should violence happen I’ll be watching to see if Bolsonaro hits the threshold for the platforms to kick him off.
Hocus Pocus 2
My family and I have been anxiously awaiting this movie and it did not disappoint.
Brandie Carlile - In the Canyon Haze
Brandie Carlile is an artist who has popped up now and then for me but not someone I’ve sat down and listened to. I finally did that on the plane ride home when I listened to In the Canyon Haze. I’m now a new fan.
What I’m Reading
New York Times: Even as Iranians Rise Up, Protests Worldwide Are Failing at Record Rates
Reuters: EXCLUSIVE Vietnam preparing rules to limit news posts on social media accounts
The Information: Saint Frances of the Whistle: A Year After Frances Haugen’s Facebook Leak, Every Corporate Secret Is Now Up for Grabs
Tech Policy Press - Sunday Show Podcast: Can Big Tech Platforms Operate Responsibly on a Global Scale?
Politico: ‘It’s My Curse and My Salvation’: Trump’s Most Famous Chronicler Opens Up
Bloomberg: Meta Freezes Hiring, Cuts Headcount, Slashes Budgets Across Teams
LoQueSigue: The Swedish election campaign is being manipulated on Twitter
TechCrunch: Meta urged to pay reparations for Facebook’s role in Rohingya genocide
WSJ: Meta Officials Cite Security Concerns for Failing to Release Full India Hate-Speech Study
The Atlantic: Is This the Beginning of the End of the Internet?
Washington Post: Camille Stewart Gloster shares her plans for new White House cyber gig
Think Tanks/Academics/Other
Trust and Safety Journal: Researcher Access to Platform Data: European Developments
Blake E. Reid: Uncommon Carriage
Amsterdam University Press: Fifteen Seconds of Fame: TikTok and the Supply Side of Social Video
Paddy Leerssen: An End to Shadow Banning? Transparency rights in the Digital Services Act between content moderation and curation
University of Southampton: How Effective are Gamified Fake News Interventions? Reanalyzing Existing Research with Signal Detection Theory
Electoral Studies: The Israel Polarization Panel Dataset, 2019–2021
David Carroll: We’ve had the backlash against Big Tech. Now what?
Modernize Congress Committee: Business Meeting to Vote on Recommendations
NetChoice and Computer & Communications Industry Association: Response to 5th Circuit Ruling on Texas Social Media Law
Haun Ventures: The Web3 Voter
Election Integrity Partnership: 10 Factors That Shape a Rumor’s Capacity for Online Virality
European Commission: Keynote speech by EVP Vestager at the BEUC conference on consumer protection in the digital age
France Council of State: Social networks: putting the user at the center
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Five Strategies to Support U.S. Democracy
Companies
Google: Search outside the box: How we're making Search more natural and intuitive
Meta: Introducing Make-A-Video: An AI system that generates videos from text
Meta: Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China and Russia
Meta: 2022 Foundational Integrity Research request for proposals
Job Openings
Integrity Institute: Community Organizer, Partnerships and Operations Coordinator and Research Project Manager
Wellspring Philanthropic Fund: Program Director, Civil Society
Oversight Board: Senior Officer, Strategy & Development
Meta Oversight Board: Variety of positions open. More info at link.
Freedom House: Policy and Advocacy Officer or Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer, Technology and Democracy
There are **many** open positions at Freedom House. Check them out here: https://freedomhouse.org/about-us/careers
National Endowment for Democracy: Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program
Democracy Works: Openings for software engineer and director of HR
Atlantic Council DFR Lab: Variety of positions open. More info at link.
National Democratic Institute (NDI): Variety of positions open. More info at link.
Protect Democracy: Technology Policy Advocate
Calendar
Topics to keep an eye on that have a general timeframe of the first half of the year:
Facebook 2020 election research
Oversight Board opinion on cross-check
Senate & House hearings, markups, and potential votes
October 2 and 30: Brazil
October 12 - 14: Conference for Truth and Trust Online
October 15 - 22: SXSW Sydney
October 17: Twitter/Musk Trial Begins
November 1 - 2: Frontiers fo Digital Development Forum
November 8: United States Midterms
January 7: Meta/Trump Decision
March 10 - 19: SXSW
March 20 - 24, 2023: Mozilla Fest