bans – Techdirt (original) (raw)

College Kids Are Easily Bypassing Stupid University TikTok Bans

from the congratulations-you-accomplished-absolutely-nothing dept

We’ve noted a few times how the political push to ban TikTok is a dumb performance largely designed to distract people from our failure to pass even a basic internet privacy law or regulate data brokers. We’ve also noted how college bans of TikTok are a dumb extension of that dumb performance, and don’t accomplish anything of meaningful significance.

When the college bans first emerged we noted they’d be trivial to bypass, given the bans only apply to the actual college network. They obviously don’t apply to personal student use over cellular networks. And, not surprisingly, students are finding it extremely easy to bypass the bans, either by simply turning off Wi-Fi when they want to access the social network, or using a VPN:

“The student body, quietly, in unison, added Wi-Fi toggling to their daily routine. “Everyone was so nonchalant about it,” Pablo says. “They really just did not care.”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of pushback, aside from a lot of grumbling and groans,” says Ana Renfroe, a sophomore at Texas A&M. Some of her professors are still showing TikToks in class. They’ll just ask students to download the videos at home she explains, or will upload them to another platform like Instagram Reels.”

The folks who spent several years hyperventilating about how TikTok was some unique threat to the public (on an internet where countless international companies, ISPs, app makers, and data brokers over-collect and fail to secure consumer data) are, of course, nowhere to be found.

Their superficial “solution” for a problem they overstated (often for xenophobic or anticompetitive reasons) didn’t actually do anything useful, but it provided the superficial illusion of solution-oriented thinking, which is good enough for the kind of facts-optional partisan media echo chambers the most vocal TikTok critics often inhabit.

Here in reality, folks like The Knight First Amendment Institute have continued to challenge the college bans, noting they imperil research into an important modern information-exchange platform. But we still haven’t passed a privacy law or regulated data brokers as part of any sort of coherent plan to rein in all bad actors on privacy, not just the Chinese-owned ones Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want eating his lunch.

Filed Under: bans, college campus, dumb idea, privacy, security, social media, tiktok hysteria, university
Companies: tiktok

from the damned-if-you-do,-damned-if-you-don't dept

Well, this will be fun. As you’ll recall, in 2021, Texas signed into law a bill that effectively banned the right of companies to moderate content on social media. That law has been challenged in court, and while a district court tossed it out as unconstitutional (and obviously so), the 5th Circuit reversed in a ruling so bizarre and incomprehensible, I still have difficulty understanding how anyone takes it seriously. That law is currently in limbo as the Supreme Court figures out what to do about it.

Still, as the law was being rushed through, we called out one area in which Texas laws could conflict, specifically regarding Texas’ new anti-abortion law that criminalizes aiding-and-abetting, which we feared would encourage websites to take down content around abortion, and the social media law, which says you can’t take down such content. Some people pointed out that the abortion law does have an exemption for “1st Amendment protected speech,” suggesting that maybe the two laws wouldn’t be in such conflict.

But, either way, it appears that Texas Representative Steve Toth wants to close that whole “1st Amendment” loophole. Toth, who swore an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, apparently has skipped right over that 1st Amendment. Because he’s introduced HB 2690, which maybe one of the dumbest state laws I’ve ever seen (and I see a lot of dumb state laws).

The headline on the law is that it effectively makes anything related to “abortion-inducing drugs,” (which has become a key way in which abortions are performed these days) illegal. But, the law doesn’t just make buying or selling such drugs against the law, it requires websites that sell them to be blocked.

Pretty much everything about this law is blatantly, obviously unconstitutional. It has a blanket prohibition on any attempt to “provide information on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug.” And, it goes further than that, banning basically any actions related to the web that involve information on an abortion inducing drug, including a flat ban on doing any of the following:

create, edit, upload, publish, host, maintain, or register a domain name for an Internet website, platform, or other interactive computer service that assists or facilitates a person ’s effort in obtaining an abortion-inducing drug;

And there’s an anti-circumvention rule too. It says anyone who does the following violates the law:

Acreate, edit, program, or distribute any application or software for use on a computer or an electronic device that is intended to enable individuals to obtain an abortion-inducing drug or to facilitate an individual ’s access to an abortion-inducing drug

Hilariously, it claims that any “speech or conduct protected by the First Amendment” is exempted which first off, no shit, but second: that’s literally everything you listed, dipshit.

And, of course, the law provides a private right of action (i.e., anyone can sue) against anyone who does any of the above. So even granting the “except for speech protected by the 1st Amendment” (which is everything) what will happen is a flood of vexatious lawsuits against any website providing information on abortions.

A person, other than this state, a political subdivision of this state, and an officer or employee of this state or a political subdivision of this state, has standing to bring and may bring a civil action against a person who provides or maintains:

> (1) an interactive computer service that allows residents of this state to access information or material that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortion abortions or abortion-inducing drugs; > (2) a platform for downloading any application or software for use on a computer or electronic device that is designed to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducting drugs; or > (3) a platform that allows or enables those who provide or adi or abet elective abortions, or those who manufacture, distribute, mail, transport, abortion-inducing drugs, to collect money, digital currency, resources, or any other thing of value in connection with that conduct.

So, basically, any website that provides information on abortions, or which sells abortion-inducing drugs, can be sued by anyone.

Free speech!

The bill goes further, explicitly telling ISPs they need to block websites that the government tells them to block (it actually lists out six websites it requires ISPs to block, just to make it explicit just how against the 1st Amendment this bill is).

RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS TO CERTAIN INFORMATION AND MATERIALS ACCESSIBLE THROUGH CERTAIN INTERNET WEBSITES. Each Internet service provider that provides Internet services in this state shall make every reasonable and technologically feasible effort to block Internet access to information or material intended to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug, including information or material accessible through:

> (1) the following Internet websites: > > > (A) aidaccess.org; > > (B) heyjane.co; > > (C) plancpills.org; > > (D) mychoix.co; > > (E) justthepill.com; and > > (F) carafem.org; > > (2) an Internet website, platform, or other interactive computer service operated by or on behalf of an abortion provider or abortion fund; > > (3) an Internet website, platform, or other interactive computer service for downloading any application or software for use on a computer or electronic device that is designed to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug; or > > (4) an Internet website, platform, or other interactive computer service that allows or enables those who provide or aid or abet elective abortions, or those who manufacture, mail, distribute, transport, or provide abortion-inducing drugs, to collect money, digital currency, resources, or any other thing of value.

Look, when you’re at the point that you’re literally writing out a list of websites that ISPS need to block, you might just be violating the 1st Amendment.

So, um, how does this work with Texas’ social media bill, HB 20? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ There is no answer. Because HB 20 says that a social media platform “may not censor a user, a user’s expression, or a user’s ability to receive expression” based on their “viewpoint.” So, if (for example) a pro-choice person posted information on abortions and about abortion-inducing medicine, a social media website would be prohibited from taking down that content under HB 20, but also open to being sued by basically everyone based on HB 2690.

I mean, both of these are pretty clearly unconstitutional intrusions over speech, but it just goes to demonstrate how incredibly short-sighted and ignorant all of these laws are. In trying to demand that websites not moderate, Texas Republicans apparently forgot that they also are very much wishing to censor content at the same time.

Normally, I’d say that a bill like this has no chance, but, you know, this is Texas. And while it’s so blatantly unconstitutional that pretty much everyone should recognize that, this is the 5th Circuit, where Judges like Andy Oldham seem willing to twist themselves into pretzels to get the result they want, no matter how blatantly unconstitutional.

Either way, please, someone send Rep. Steve Toth a copy of the Constitution with the 1st Amendment highlighted. He should read it.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, abortion, abortion-inducing drugs, bans, censorship, content moderation, free speech, hb 2690, social media, texas

Josh Hawley Wants In On The TikTok Moral Panic Attention, Proposes Nationwide Ban

from the moral-panic-party dept

Thu, Jan 26th 2023 05:27am - Karl Bode

Insurrectionist sprinter Josh Hawley has joined the growing chorus of GOP politicians who’ve spent years doing jack shit about U.S. consumer privacy abuses, and now want to pretend that banning a single app — TikTok — will protect American consumers from a problem they themselves created.

Hawley, who also enjoys pretending that he cares about stuff like antitrust reform and monopoly power, insists that a TikTok ban is necessary because he just cares so much about kids’ privacy and mental health:

“TikTok is China’s backdoor into Americans’ lives. It threatens our children’s privacy as well as their mental health,” he said on Twitter. “Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide.”

The problem, as we note every time GOP FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr puts on a similar performance, is that these guys have spent their entire careers fighting against meaningful privacy and security standards, creating the very problem they’re now pretending to address.

They oppose privacy legislation of any kind. They oppose holding companies and executives accountable for privacy abuses. They oppose fighting corruption. They oppose expanding mental health care. And they fight tooth and nail to ensure that privacy regulators at the FTC routinely lack the staff, resources, or authority to police bad actors in adtech/telecom/apps consistently at any scale.

That has resulted in a parade of companies over-collecting consumer data and then selling access to it to any imbecile with a nickel. As such, banning TikTok does nothing. You’ve singled out one company in an ocean of international companies and services all doing effectively the same thing. And the Chinese government can buy all of this data from a rotating crop of dodgy data brokers.

The motivation here isn’t consumer privacy or national security. The Trumpist GOP hasn’t shown itself to be consistent enough politically, ethically, or intellectually to deserve having any of their comments or proposals taken at face value.

I still think the GOP hyperventilation over TikTok is, as most things the modern GOP does, a dumb performance. It agitates a xenophobic base and creates the flimsy impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” And, I’d all but guarantee the GOP-coddling execs at Facebook are working overtime behind the scenes to spread moral panic about a competitor.

But, more realistically I think, this hyperventilation over TikTok nudges the ball toward the GOP’s ultimate goal: forcing the sale of the most popular video app in America to one of their cronyistic BFFs. At which point, said BFFs will engage in all the same (or worse) behavior TikTok’s now engaged in.

Trump clumsily gave this game away a while back when he tried to offload the company to his Republican-allied buddies at Walmart and Oracle. I still think that’s the ultimate goal here. And not because the GOP cares about national security and privacy, but because some rich folks are in their ear drooling over the possibility of owning TikTok’s growing ad revenue.

Filed Under: bans, china, gop, josh hawley, mental health, privacy, republican, security, social media, surveillance
Companies: tiktok

U.S. Press Starts To Figure Out College TikTok Bans Are A Dumb Performance

from the performative-nonsense dept

Tue, Jan 24th 2023 05:30am - Karl Bode

We’ve noted a few times how the political push to ban TikTok is a dumb performance designed to do several things, none of which have to do anything with consumer privacy and security. We’ve also noted how college bans of TikTok are a dumb extension of that dumb performance, and don’t accomplish anything of meaningful significance.

It took a little while, but the press and some schools appear to finally be figuring this out.

The Washington Post, for example, penned a piece last Friday highlighting how the evidence justifying banning TikTok on college campuses is largely nonexistent. There’s no evidence that China is using TikTok for influence at any scale, and TikTok’s just one of thousands of international companies and services exploiting our consistent lack of meaningful privacy oversight in the U.S.

Then there’s the problem of the ban literally not doing much. For most students, bypassing such bans is as simple as switching their phone from Wi-Fi to cellular:

But Gamble’s students quickly figured out that they could still scroll TikTok all they wanted just by hopping onto their phones’ data plans. “They’re rolling their eyes, basically,” she said. “I had a couple students who were like, ‘What? I didn’t know it was banned. I’ve been on it all day.’”

Academics also note how the bans are counterproductive to education, especially if you’re a media studies professor. They’re also quick to point out that such bans run counter to many of the values Americans profess to hold about open markets and free expression:

“This is the U.S. adopting a Chinese attitude toward the internet: We’re going to block things we don’t want you to see because everything’s a national security threat,” said Milton Mueller, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor and co-founder of the Internet Governance Project. “It’s really a dangerous attitude — not just for American values of free expression but for this whole idea of an open and interconnected internet.”

Some universities, like the University of Oklahoma, have also started to figure out that these bans are a zero-calorie performance by unserious people, as highlighted by Karl Herchenroeder at Communications Daily.

It’s nice to see WAPO figure this out, but in general overall press coverage of TikTok has been terrible. Claims of dangers are repeated un-skeptically to feed this moral panic for clicks, while allowing the GOP — a party with a forty-year track record of opposing privacy legislation and competent regulatory oversight — to pretend this is about consumer privacy and national security.

So what is actually motivating the GOP to ban TikTok?

One, the bans are generally designed to agitate a xenophobic base and give the impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” But the party that couldn’t care less about rampant corruption or privacy violations isn’t doing much of anything meaningful to thwart China. In fact, letting adtech, telecom, and app companies run rampant with little oversight runs contrary to any such goal.

Two, the bans distract the public and press from our ongoing failure on consumer privacy and security issues. Banning TikTok, but doing nothing about the accountability optional free for all that is the adtech and data-hoovering space, doesn’t actually fix anything. China can just obtain the same data from a universe of other international companies facing little real oversight on data collection.

Three, the ban is really just about money. Trump gave the game away with his proposal that TikTok be chopped up and sold to Oracle and Walmart. That cronyistic deal fell through, but it’s pretty clear that this moral panic is designed to either help TikTok’s competitors (Facebook lobbyists are very active on this front), or force the sale of the most popular app in modern history to GOP-allies. At which point they’ll engage in all the surveillance and influence efforts they pretend to be mad about.

Most of this really comes down to folks seeing the immense money being made by the most popular app in America, and wanting that money for themselves. They’ve successfully exploited national security concerns to make inroads toward this goal, and I’d suspect they’re only getting warmed up. Usually with the help of “both sides” press coverage that has a hard time differentiating performance from adult policy.

Filed Under: bans, china, universities
Companies: tiktok

Wyoming ‘Bans’ Electric Cars In Dumb Performative Oil Industry Ass Kissing

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Thu, Jan 19th 2023 01:29pm - Karl Bode

While some states work on how best to phase out traditional gas cars to help mitigate the climate’s steady collapse, Wyoming is busy showcasing how far its head is lodged up the ass of the oil and gas industry.

Last week Wyoming’s GOP-controlled state legislature passed Senate Joint Resolution 4, which calls for a phaseout of new electric vehicle sales by 2035:

The bill states that “oil and gas production has long been one of Wyoming’s proud and valued industries” and has generated “countless jobs” and “contributed revenues” to the state. It goes on to say that Wyoming’s “vast stretches of highway, coupled with a lack of electric vehicle charging infrastructure” would make “widespread use of electric vehicles impracticable.”

This being 2023 Republicans, the resolution doesn’t actually fucking do anything beyond trolling electric vehicle supporters and advertising these politicians’ mindless fealty to energy interests. It’s something Wyoming State Senator Senator Brian Boner is quite proud of as he attempts to make something resembling a point of some kind:

“I’m interested in making sure that the solutions that some folks want to the so-called climate crisis are actually practical in real life,” GOP co-sponsor Sen. Brian Boner said, according to Cowboy State Daily. “I just don’t appreciate when other states try to force technology that isn’t ready.”

Boner even acknowledged the resolution’s trolling nature. “One might even say tongue-in-cheek,” Boner said of the resolution, adding, “But obviously it’s a very serious issue that deserves some public discussion.”

Yes, the steady climate catastrophe, whose violent and fatal impact is being seen every day on the news, requires the kind of serious public discussion one only finds through… meaningless political performances whose only function is to annoy others and obstruct progress.

North Carolina engaged in a similar performance lately when it futilely proposed a bill demanding all cities in the state destroy all electric vehicle charging stations state wide. The bill also demanded that any business that offers free charging itemize the cost said chargers impose on patrons, in a weird, clumsy bid to potentially shame them away from embracing electric vehicles.

All told it’s the kind of nonsensical, trolling, corrupt, childish gibberish the modern GOP has become synonymous with. It’s a party that has no policy solutions, but does provide endless zero-calorie drivel that makes finding real solutions to real problems significantly more difficult.

Filed Under: bans, charging stations, electric vehicle, gop, phaseout, senate joint resolution 4, trump, wyoming

UT Austin’s Ban Of TikTok Is A Dumb Performance That Fixes Nothing

from the yeah-you're-not-actually-helping dept

Thu, Jan 19th 2023 05:21am - Karl Bode

For decades, U.S. policymakers have utterly refused to support any meaningful privacy protections for consumers. They opposed any new Internet privacy laws, however straightforward. They opposed privacy rules for broadband ISPs. They also fought tooth and nail to ensure the nation’s top privacy enforcement agency, the FTC, lacked the authority, staff, funds, or resources to actually do its job.

This greed-centric apathy created a wild west data monetization industry across telecom, app makers, hardware vendors, and data brokers that sees little real accountability, in turn resulting in just an endless parade of scams, hacks, breaches, and other privacy and security violations. You can’t go a week without a major company falling flat on its face on this front.

The same policymakers that created this environment are now freaking out because one app and one app only, TikTok, has taken full advantage of the lax privacy and security environment these policymakers directly created.

Hyperventilating about TikTok has become one of the GOP’s policies du jour, gifting a rotating crop of performative GOP politicians (like the FCC’s Brendan Carr) repeated TV appearances. Last month, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent out a missive to state leaders urging state organizations to ban the app, claiming the dastardly Chinese might use it to spy on or turn your kids into communists.

The University Of Texas At Austin has quickly fallen into compliance with Abbott’s performative request, announcing that students will no longer be able to access the TikTok domain while using the college network:

So for one, students will simply have to turn off Wi-Fi and use cellular to access TikTok. There are probably also going to be other technical workarounds to get around the ban, depending on how sloppily it’s implemented. There’s also little evidence to suggest TikTok poses an exceptional threat to UT Austin’s network beyond that of numerous, allowed international apps and services, making this all kind of dumb and annoying.

Again, TikTok’s potential privacy risks are only one symptom of a much bigger problem: our failure to implement any meaningful privacy standards or oversight of the multiple, international, data-hoovering industries that over-collect sensitive user data then monetize the hell out of it. And we don’t do anything about this because for decades our top priority has been to make money. At any cost.

So yes, you’ve banned TikTok at the workplace or campus, congratulations. The problem: your students’ and employees’ phones are still filled with numerous apps, many of them (gasp) of dubious international origin, that are hoovering up and monetizing vast troves of sensitive financial, browsing, location, and other datasets, then doing a comically terrible job securing that data or making it truly anonymous.

That data is traveling over the networks of telecom operators who’ve been repeatedly shown to have little serious interest in protecting user security, a problem that’s particularly pronounced for women post-Roe.

So again, at the risk of being redundant, fixating exclusively on TikTok is stupid and myopic. Banning TikTok, but doing absolutely nothing to address the underlying problem that created TikTok’s potential abuse of user data, is a dumb performance. And it’s generally been a dumb performance by policymakers (like Abbott) with a long track record of not actually caring about consumer privacy and security.

The modern GOP (and a sizeable chunk of the DNC) doesn’t want privacy laws, even competently crafted ones. They don’t want oversight of companies that traffic in sensitive user data. They don’t want accountability for executives whose companies routinely fail to secure that data. And they don’t want competent, fully staffed and funded privacy regulators with the authority to do anything about any of this.

What do they want? Money and power, silly. They want to agitate a xenophobic base and pretend they’re doing something meaningful about China. But more likely, they want to force Bytedance to ultimately offload TikTok to GOP-friendly U.S. business friends (say Oracle, Walmart or Facebook). And they want to do it while the press un-skeptically portrays them as serious privacy reformers.

Filed Under: apps, austin, bans, china, college, ftc, privacy, privacy law, social media, surveillance
Companies: tiktok, ut austin

The Media Demanded That Airbnb Do More Background Checks; Now It’s Upset That Airbnb Is Banning People With Criminal Records

from the so-which-is-it dept

A story made the rounds recently about how Airbnb effectively banned Bethany Hallam for life. Hallam, an Allegheny County, Pennsylvania councilperson received a notification from Airbnb that a third party it used for background checks had noted a “criminal records match” in doing a background check, and she would not be able to use Airbnb to either rent or host.

As the story went viral, Airbnb went into defensive mode, and a couple days later lifted the ban. Hallam, rightly, highlights that she wonders about the millions of others with criminal records who may face similar lifetime bans for similarly ridiculous reasons. And, she’s not wrong.

Just a few months ago, a DC rapper named Young E Class made the same point, noting that he had paid his debt to society after spending 13 years in prison, and he didn’t think it was right that he was barred from ever staying in an Airbnb.

There are plenty of other, similar, stories if you look around. Four years ago, Marlon Peterson wrote a piece for USA Today bemoaning that Airbnb banned him for life, and wouldn’t allow him to stay in an Airbnb after chaperoning a group of children during the March for Our Lives event in Washington DC. Peterson noted that he had been convicted of attempted robbery and assault 16 years ago as a teenager, but had served his time, and had since dedicated his life to various programs to help end gun violence and youth crime. But he still can’t rent at an Airbnb.

Of course, what’s left out of these stories is the fact that the media itself helped push Airbnb to implement such a policy.

It’s not hard to find local news orgs with stories of sex offenders renting via Airbnb. More commonly are a bunch of stories about Airbnb hosts with criminal records. And there are numerous articles warning of criminals using the service or criminal behavior happening at Airbnbs.

In other words, for years, the media has hyped up the idea that Airbnbs may be dangerous and used by criminals. At some point, it’s no wonder that the company would start to just cut off people with criminal records, because of the PR problems it causes. The company even went so far as to buy a background check company that it had used (though, as seen in the latest case, it’s still using third party background check providers).

Either way, it seems clear that Airbnb is going too far in banning people like Hallam, but it really shouldn’t be a surprise. If we keep pushing moral panic style stories about the “dangers” of “criminals” using services like Airbnb, we shouldn’t then be surprised when the company says “okay, no more people with a criminal record” no matter how totally unfair that might be.

Filed Under: bans, bethany hallam, criminal record, safety
Companies: airbnb

West African Court Says Nigerian Government’s Seven-Month Twitter Ban Was Unlawful

from the court-makes-good-points-that-will-be-ignored-by-the-Nigerian-govt dept

Last June, the president of Nigeria, Muhannadu Buhari, issued a tweet that looked a lot like a call for genocide in response to often violent anti-government protests:

Many of those misbehaving today are too young to be aware of the destruction and loss of lives that occurred during the Nigerian Civil War. Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat them in the language they understand.

Twitter responded by blocking this thinly veiled call for violence. In response, the Nigerian government said something incomprehensible about Twitter “undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.” Then it blocked Twitter indefinitely. And it backed that up with more nonsense: a newly enacted requirement that all social media services operating in Nigeria obtain a license from the government.

“Indefinitely” turned out to be about seven months. The ban was lifted after Twitter agreed to register with the Nigerian government, appoint a local representative, comply with Nigerian “tax obligations,” and grant the government access to a communications portal that would allow government officials to contact Twitter directly when offended by something Twitter did.

It was seven months of pure censorship, all in response to Twitter blocking a tweet that appeared to call for violence. The problem wasn’t what was blocked. The problem was who was blocked. The move made it clear no one was allowed to criticize Nigeria’s president: not tacitly, as in Twitter’s removal of the tweet, nor directly, via a platform that is very popular with Nigerian citizens and had been used in the past to organize anti-government protests.

Twitter is one of the main outlets Nigerians have to criticize their government, and around 20% of the population have an account on the platform. It has played a large role in political discourse in the country: for example, in 2020, the platform was used by activists to organize the largest protests in a decade in the country, against police brutality.

The ban has been lifted, thanks to Twitter’s concessions. But the court victory detailed here by the EFF is still important, as it will make it easier for Twitter to contest future censorship efforts by the Nigerian government.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court has ruled that a seven-month ban on Twitter by Nigerian authorities in 2021 was unlawful and infringed freedom of expression and access to media. The court, which is a political and economic union of fifteen West African countries, has directed Nigeria to ensure that the unlawful suspension does not happen again, in an important decision for online rights across the region.

Nigerian citizens may have been muted by their government, but plenty of others were willing to speak for them in court.

ECOWAS joined several cases challenging the Twitter ban, including prominent Nigerian NGO Paradigm Initiative, Media Rights Agenda, the Centre For Journalism Innovation & Development, International Press Centre, Tap Initiative for Citizens Development and four journalists, represented by Media Defence. Along with Access Now and the Open Net Association, EFF filed a joint application to file as amicus curiae in the case against the ban, brought by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP).

The decision says such a ban must not occur again. It also instructs the Nigerian government to amend any laws that give the government the power to unilaterally ban internet services and social media platforms. While the Nigerian government may still find some way to silence critics and foreign service providers, it won’t find it nearly as easy to defend these moves in court. And if it does decide to go internet nuclear, it will need to find a much better reason than the “this threatens the something-or-other” it offered last time.

Filed Under: bans, content moderation, nigeria, social media
Companies: twitter

Elon Musk Has Got Content Moderation All Figured Out: Delete The “Wrong” And “Bad” Content, But Leave The Rest (And Reinstate Trump)

from the i-can't-believe-we're-all-doing-this dept

Look, we’ve tried to explain over and over again that Elon Musk doesn’t understand free speech or content moderation. He also seems entirely clueless about the incredible lengths that Twitter has gone to in order to actually protect free speech online (including fighting in court over it) and what it has done to deal with the impossible complexities of running an online platform. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject, he seems to make things worse, or further demonstrate his ridiculous, embarrassing levels of ignorance on the topic — such as endorsing the EU’s approach to platform regulation (something that Twitter has been fighting back against, because of its negative impact on speech).

The latest is that Musk continued his trend of speaking nonsense at a Financial Times conference, where he said that he would reinstate Donald Trump’s account.

“I do think it was not correct to ban Donald Trump, I think that was a mistake, because it alienated a large part of the country, and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Mr. Musk said at a Financial Times conference on Tuesday.

If you’re into that sort of punishment, you can watch the whole thing here. I just warn you that it’s an hour and twenty minutes of your life that you will never, ever get back.

Now, there are plenty of principled reasons to argue for why Trump should be reinstated to the platform. And there are plenty of principled reasons to argue for why he should be kept off of it. When the ban first happened, I wrote a long piece analyzing the decision, noting that it’s not, in any way, an easy call, but there are reasons you can argue both sides.

Later in the talk, Musk basically clarifies his point, repeating something he’s said before, that he basically does not like permanent “bans” but does support other forms of moderation, including deleting content or making it “invisible.” And, again, there is an argument for that as well — in fact, Jack Dorsey has said he has agreed, though in slightly different framing, noting that getting to the point that the company felt Trump needed to be banned represented a failure for Twitter, and reiterating why Twitter should be an implementation of a social media protocol, rather than a centralized hub. And, also, similarly, Facebook’s own Oversight Board questioned the permanent nature of the ban on that platform, and Facebook responded by saying that the ban would be reviewed every two years (though, I’m realizing that two years passed earlier this year, and I don’t recall any commentary on that…).

So, again, there is some level of reasoning behind moving away from bans. But, Musk’s position again appears to be not based on any principled argument, or understanding of what actually happened, but just random thoughts firing through his head. He continues to (falsely) claim that Twitter’s moderation is biased in favor of “leftists” (evidence points in the other direction, but details, details…). The fact that he says the banning of Trump “alienated a large part of the country” leaves out the fact that Trump himself alienated a large part of the country, and returning him to Twitter would do the same. But, oddly, Musk doesn’t seem to care about alienating those people.

His other point, that it “_did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice_” is just… weird? No one ever argued that Twitter removed Trump to stop him from “having a voice.” Indeed, part of the argument many of us made that one reason why it’s not so bad that he was removed was because he still had the ability to speak out in lots of other places including (these days) on his own Twitter-wannabe. All the removal was doing was saying that Twitter did not want him directly using their site to cause more havoc.

Even more ridiculous though, is that Musk then went on to talk about, hell, let’s call it, his content moderation “philosophy.”

“If there are tweets that are wrong and bad, those should be either deleted or made invisible, and a suspension, a temporary suspension is appropriate but not a permanent ban.”

Wrong and bad, huh. I am reminded of what Facebook’s earliest content moderators said was the initial policy at that company, when it was all much smaller: “does this make us feel icky?” But they learned, almost immediately that such a setup does not scale, not even slightly.

It’s also just inherently and obviously ridiculous. “Wrong” and “bad” are just fundamentally subjective terms. Again, this is a point that we’ve raised before: lots of social media companies start off with this kind of simplistic view of content moderation. They say they want free speech to be the touchstone, and that they will only have to push back on the most extreme cases. But what they (and Elon) don’t seem to grasp is that there are way more challenging cases than you can predict, and there is no easy standard that you can set up for “wrong” or “bad.”

Then, as you’re (in theory) trying to scale, you realize that you need to set policies with standards for what constitutes “wrong” and “bad.” It can’t be left up to Elon to decide every one. And from there you quickly learn that for every policy you write, you’ll quickly find way more “edge” cases than you can imagine. And, on top of that, you’ll find that if you have ten different people comparing the edge case to the policy, you may get ten different answers of how to apply it.

And, again, this is actually one thing that Twitter has spent years thinking about: how do you operationalize a set of policies and a set of enforcements to make them as consistent and as reasonable as possible. And you can’t just simply look at it say “bad stuff goes, good stuff stays” because that’s just nonsense and not any way to set up an actual policy.

If he wants to bring back Trump, that’s certainly his call. Trump has claimed he wouldn’t come back, even if Elon lets him back on, but then again, he’s technically still suing Twitter to force the company to let him back on (the judge just dismissed the case, but has left it open for Trump to file an amended complaint, so the case is not yet officially closed).

But Musk is being ridiculously unfair to pretend (as a bunch of Trumpist propagandists have for years) that the decision to ban Trump was because of some “leftist ideology” and an attempt to silence his voice. It was the culmination of a very long series of events, including multiple other types of interventions, including trying to fact check his false claims and limit the spread of them (things you’d think that Musk would appreciate), but which failed to stop Trump from seeking to use the platform to egg on violence that was part of an effort to overturn the results of a free and fair election.

That Musk keeps insisting that democratic values are so important (saying elsewhere that he’d want to follow speech laws, since they represent the will of the people), you’d think he’d recognize that efforts to overturn an election might, well, raise some questions. It did for the people inside Twitter, who thought deeply about it and argued back and forth how to handle this. And that discussion and debate was a lot more serious and deserves more credit than Musk gives it.

At this point, though, it’s clear that Musk’s view of the world is simplistic and child-like. And that seems unlikely to change. Given how we’ve seen this play out on other websites, I don’t imagine it will be good for long term business, but it’s not my billions on the line.

Filed Under: bans, content moderation, content policy, donald trump, elon musk
Companies: twitter

Chinese Government Censors Back On Their Karoake Song Banlist Bullshit

from the I'd-like-to-teach-the-world-to-sing-government-approved-songs-only dept

The perpetual motion machine that is the Chinese government’s censorship arm rolls on. While China has embraced a particularly state-focused form of capitalism, it still engages in the sort of stuff long associated with the Chinese government, like mass censorship, government corruption, and the mass incarceration of undesirable citizens.

Taking a brief break from its strongarm takeover of Hong Kong — a project that’s running decades ahead of schedule — the government is (again) imposing its will on presumably drunken participants in the world’s worst party game, karaoke. (h/t Sarah McLaughlin)

China is set to ban karaoke songs that contain “illegal content”, its Ministry of Culture and Tourism has announced.

Songs that fall under this category include those that endanger national unity, sovereignty or territorial integrity.

Songs that aren’t sufficiently celebratory will apparently be whisked away to songwriting camps in order to infuse the lyrics with the appropriately pro-government sentiments.

Those who provide content to karaoke venues have been urged to review the songs and flag up to the ministry those that are potentially harmful.

Actually, it may be karaoke providers being whisked away if they’re not providing uplifting melodies celebrating the many triumphs of the Chinese government, each one more triumphant than the last. (But not so triumphant they overshadow past triumphs, lest citizens find themselves not celebrating their historic betters by singing along in a “what have you done for me lately” fashion.)

One of the many, many triumphs of the Chinese government is its past victories over the impetuousness of ineptly-sung versions of popular tunes. No doubt many new songs have been written about the Chinese government’s defeat of the old standby [squints at news report] “Fart.”

China has banned 120 songs from the Internet after deeming them “harmful” to society.

[…]

The offending titles – all Chinese songs – included “No Money No Friend,” “Don’t Want To Go To School,” and “One Night Stand.”

A popular MC Hotdog song, which includes the line ‘I don’t love Chinese women, I love Taiwanese girls’ was blacklisted, as was a song named “Fart” that included the lyrics: “There are some people in the world who like farting while doing nothing.”

As “Fart” goes, so goes the great nation. The new crackdown shifts culpability to karaoke content providers and away from venue operators. Given the expansive nature of some of these collections (upwards of 100,000 songs), the government felt it more appropriate to fine/jail/beat into submission those holding the songbooks, rather than those hosting the songbook-holders.

Incredibly ironically, the expanded ban targets songs that “incite ethnic hatred.” As has been reported multiple times, ethnic hatred is one of the things the Chinese government is really good at, so it seems somewhat self-defeating to discourage people from celebrating one of the government’s mainstays: the repeated oppression of its own citizens because of their religious beliefs.

Then there’s this, which would be completely comical if it weren’t coming from a government that defines the phrase “abuse of power.”

A central song list would be created by the ministry for karaoke venues…

It almost sounds like a fun job! The sort of job someone could do in five hours a week while collecting a 40-hour paycheck, troubled only by the occasional “investigative” trip to the local karaoke bar.

If nothing else, the new ban list will provide a bump for artists whose songs have been officially ostracized. Nothing calls attention to “unapproved” music like a list of unapproved songs for citizens to hunt down, listen to, and perhaps belt out into the nearest microphone.

Filed Under: bans, censorship, china, free speech, karaoke