Thread by @benimmo

Reading the UK government's White Paper on #OnlineHarms.

First bit of progress: the only mentions of "fake news" are in reference to the DCMS committee report of the same name.

Nice to see that useless phrase abandoned.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl…

Here's the full list of harms (p. 31).

Note references to cyberbullying, trolling, and disinformation.

Bit of a bizarre segue from disinformation to filter bubbles in the executive summary.

Both are problems, but filter bubbles are one small part of the disinfo problem, and disinfo is one small part of the filter-bubble problem.

"The Russian State is a major source of disinformation."

- Crimea
- Eastern Ukraine
- MH17
- Skripal

Yep.

This is potentially big.

Platforms responsible to address the harm of online abuse, including targeted trolling and harassment.

But the devil will lie in the definitions.

All the way down on page 72, it gets really interesting.

Anyone from YouTube reading this?

Now define "extreme and unreliable material"...

cc @gchaslot

Three duties on disinfo:

- help users understand what they're seeing;
- minimise spread of "misleading and harmful disinformation";
- increase accessibility of "trustworthy and varied" content.

Defining this clearly will be a +massive+ challenge.

Interesting wording on harassment.

"When there is evidence that users are being harassed or abused on their services."

Again, definitions needed.

Initial focus defined by:

"Scale of the platforms."

Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram...

"Known issues with serious harms."

Any sense that'll include 4chan and 8chan, after Christchurch?