Thread by @markscott82

Anyone in DC looking for suggestions on what to do about social media companies’ harm on society? Want to police algorithms and increase transparency on what everyone sees online. Here’s a quick guide to EU’s Digital Services Act proposals that do just that 👇

Reminder: these rules will likely get passed in first half of 2022. They have changed since first being announced in December, 2020, but hit on everything @FrancesHaugen touched on today in terms of algorithmic and data accountability

And unlike similar content moderation proposals put of Canada, UK or Germany, they balance free speech and online protection that, imo, is a pretty good balance

Hat tip to the mandatory outside audit of potential harmful behaviors and requirements to outline what companies will do about that if/when things goes wrong

Also love me some algorithmic accountability, including linked proposals (👇) that mostly force social media companies to offer more insight into what is shown in news feeds and why we are all targeted — if they want to reduce potential fines of up to 6% of global revenue

Just saying: you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Or, you know, we could just bicker about social media “censorship,” or how these companies aren’t taking down enough content. Yeah. That would be good, too.