On Trump & platforms: A decision can be welcome and still illustrate problematic situation
3 Qs. 1) Consistent enforcement? Companies are often wildly inconsistent in when, where, who they enforce against. Decisions+timing come off as at best arbitrary at worst opportunistic 1/N
E.g. Why now, and not before (outgoing and not sitting president)? Why in the US and not elsewhere (India, Philippines)? Why jihadists but not white domestic terrorists (I have a guess)? Why do they almost all do it at the same time (that’s PR, not rules)?
2) Protection of fundamental rights? In absence of real oversight, the companies are making these decisions unilaterally. Often they do too little. Sometimes they do too much. There is no meaningful due process, and no way to ensure companies practice e.g. Santa Clara Principles.
Some of this is specifically US problem w/rigid public/private distinction in contemporary 1st amendment law. But due to the way companies operate it often in practice becomes a global one. Though perhaps we see beginning of horizontal application of fundamental rights in Europe?
3) Difference between platforms for speech and platforms for services, and between speech moderation and service moderation? While far from unprecedented (Wikileaks, Gab, pressure on Tumblr), the Amazon, Apple, Google decisions on Parler still strikes me as different from social.
Line btw speech and service platform not simple to draw but it is one thing to suspending account (Twitter) or individual posts (YouTube) vs removing Parler? Especially biggest and most powerful companies, both for speech and services, surely should have different obligations?
Am most struck by how arbitrary+opaque decisions by powerful private companies remain - even when welcome - and how much more consistency, clear basis in fundamental rights, oversight I think we need
Too many good threads to list here but in addition to the people I always learn from here are some that stood out
The @EU_Commission published its proposed European Democracy Action Plan yesterday.
One observation: disinformation parts are very focused on foreign interference and largely avoids recognizing domestic actors, in particular fact that misinformation often comes from the top 1/4
Foreign interference is one important form of disinformation. But it is not the most widespread or necessarily most consequential.
HLG report stressed domestic actors, including politicians, in several places ec.europa.eu/digital-single…
It is clear few will touch this problem
2/4
We can dance arounds this all we will, but problem remain real, in EU too. Some things are clearly false, harmful, and malign. But often, what one person sees as destructive lies, others will see as political speech. Powerful actors like to avoid recognizing this complication 3/4
So, yesterday the @EU_Commission published its action plan with proposals to "Support Recovery and Transformation" in European media, including news.
Sprawling plan for sprawling industry estimated at €193b/year, of which news publishers only a small part.
A few highlights 1/9
One ambition is to foster investment by creating "MEDIA INVEST", with a target "to leverage investments of €400 million over a 7-year period" in hope of "making a significant contribution to addressing the gap in equity financing" (to help transform a €193b/year industry)
2/9
Also, more money for "Creative Europe programme" to €2.2b in 2021-2027 budget (so €300m/year), and "pending finalisation of negotiations, the programme will include for the first time actions focused on media freedom and pluralism, journalism, and media literacy." Exciting! 3/9
First lesson - our UK data suggests most people are informed, cautious, and willing to take further measures, in part thanks to journalism 2/5
Second lesson - in the UK, information inequality has grown throughout the crisis, around e.g. age, gender, class, as initial surge in news use dissipated. We don't have data on ethnicity but would expect similar pattern. 3/5
Our @risj_oxford research suggests pandemic is accelerating move to more digital, mobile, and platform-dominated environment where news capture only a small share of attention+advertising 1/5
Meanwhile, many have flocked to already big platforms during the crisis, making it even more important to look at competition issues - but publishers should remember the purpose of competition policy is to protect competition, not specific competitors reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/w… 2/5
And new policies will not in themselves change reality that news is small part of media use. comScore data suggests all news combined accounts for about 3% of time spent in France, and 5 biggest publishers account about half that – leaving 500+ with just a tiny sliver each. 3/5