The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Facebook has faced a lot of criticism over the years for failing to moderate hate speech. Its policies have come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks thanks to the Stop Hate for Profit campaign. Started by civil rights groups in the US, the campaign has led to some of Facebook’s biggest customers pulling their ads from the social media platform for the month of July. Continue reading
The UK is ‘clearly a target for Russia’s disinformation campaigns,’ according to a new report. Protecting our democratic discourse from a hostile state is the role of the intelligence agencies. Integral to that process are the social media platforms, who are private actors. What role should platforms have in a national security context? LSE Visiting Fellow Monica Horten discusses the findings of the Russia report from the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee, released on 21 July, which exposes some of the issues. Continue reading
In case 2020 wasn’t dystopian enough, hackers on July 15 hijacked the Twitter accounts of former President Barack Obama, presidential hopeful Joe Biden, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kim Kardashian and Apple, among others. Each hijacked account posted a similar fake message. Continue reading
The United States, Mexico, Canada Trade Agreement (“USMCA”) finally came into effect a few days ago, on July 1, 2020, committing the US, Canada and Mexico to the treaty provisions the three countries agreed to in the 34 chapters, four Annexes and 16 side letters that comprise the text of the Agreement. Among its many provisions is Article 19.17 (in the Digital Trade chapter) which reads, in part: Continue reading
It was the first week of February 2020, the Delhi elections were around the corner, and a day before the elections two videos appear online in which a politician is seen speaking in two different languages appealing to people from different linguistic backgrounds to vote for him. Continue reading
While the world grapples with a global pandemic, an equally dangerous disease in the form of an ‘infodemic’ has been quietly unfolding at an accelerated speed across the globe. The World Health Organisation defines an ‘infodemic’ as ‘excessive amount of information about a problem, which makes it difficult to identify a solution’. Continue reading
Twitter has finally permanently removed right-wing commentator Katie Hopkins from its platform for violating its “hateful conduct” policy. Many would ask why it took so long for Twitter to ban someone with such a long record of offensive comments. Continue reading
In a previous post, I described the growing calls for what I called a “systemic duty of care” (“SDOC”) in platform regulation. I suggested that SDOC requirements would create difficult questions in ordinary intermediary liability litigation. Continue reading
Policymakers in Europe and around the world are currently pursuing two reasonable-sounding goals for platform regulation. First, they want platforms to abide by a “duty of care,” going beyond today’s notice-and-takedown based legal models to more proactively weed out illegal content posted by users. Continue reading
Given that US president Donald Trump appears to use Twitter almost instinctively, his recent attacks on the platform may seem counterintuitive. But his feud with Twitter is another example of the ways in which the president has routinely distorted the principles of the First Amendment in order to undermine the very freedoms he claims to be championing – as well as American democracy more broadly. Continue reading
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