Okay, a couple of thoughts on Twitter. Presuming that Elon & Morgan Stanley want to make money from this whole thing, which is harder if you're getting fined all the time. So, I'm assuming that, despite Elon's rhetoric on Twitter, the company will still follow laws. 1/n That means worst-of-the-worst CSAM still comes down, they still follow the new DSA and the TCO, they still remove copyright violations, they (probably) still follow FTO & SDGT lists. 2/n

Important article on Telegram. Extremism researchers should read this. I have a couple of thoughts. The first is that it is a really useful story and I learned a lot. The second is that framing every tech platform story in terms of Facebook is unhelpful.

wired.com/story/how-tele… That second point is important because Telegram has been the central digital home for jihadist terrorist for years and tech media has paid it very little attention. Even now, in a genuinely useful article, the overarching frame is its relationship to FB.

I told myself I wasn’t going to do this, but the whole Spotify/Rogan thing is annoying enough that I’m gonna break down and tweet. A couple of points: Spotify has a $100 million contract with Rogan and, presumably, signed it because they can monetize his presence pretty dramatically. As a result, they have more editorial responsibility than FB or Twitter w/ organic content.

[Work Thread] A version of Facebook’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals list was leaked today. I want to provide some context, especially about our legal obligations, and point out some inaccuracies and mischaracterizations in the coverage. 1/n First, Facebook does not want violence organized or facilitated on its platform and the DOI list is an effort to keep highly risky groups from doing that. It’s not perfect, but that’s why it exists. 2/n

[Work Thread Coming Up!] Today, Facebook has updated its public information about the Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy, in line with recommendations from the Oversight Board made in early 2021. facebook.com/communitystand… The policies aren’t changing, but we are providing more detail about them—in ways that have been a long time coming. I’m really glad we are taking this step. 2/

Since President Trump’s comments during last night’s debate we see an uptick on FB in content related to the Proud Boys including memes featuring his “Stand down, stand by” language. At this point, much of this content condemns the PBs & President Trump’s comments about them. That said, when this is shared to support the Proud Boys, or other banned individuals, we’ve removed it and have already hashed memes to stop other people from continuing to share this content.

I have a brief thread on the tragic shootings in Kenosha, based on findings from FB’s initial internal investigation. 1/n Yesterday we designated the shooting as a mass murder and removed the shooter’s accounts from Facebook & Instagram. Per standard practice in these situations, we are also removing praise and support of the shooter and have also blocked searches of his name on our platforms. 2/n

Facebook released its new CS Enforcement Report today. Couple of notes re Dangerous Orgs from the report & broader discussions: First, the vast majority of content removed for Dangerous Orgs, FB finds itself--99% for terrorism and 96.9% for hate orgs. transparency.facebook.com/community-stan… 1/n Second, normal enforcement accounts for the vast majority of what FB removes in this space. In Q2, it was more than 12M pieces of content across Dangerous Orgs. Announcing removals around a specific org tends to get the most attention, but this ongoing "housekeeping" is key. 2/n

This is a useful thread regarding the GIFCT. Folks should read it. I'm not going to speak for GIFCT, which is now an independent org, but a couple of thoughts:

https://twitter.com/daphnehk/status/1290328090061619201

1) Facebook reviews every hash it takes from the database against our community standards; 2) GIFCT has been clear that, to date, companies share hashes related to entities sanctioned by the UN;

2/n

Facebook's new Community Standards Enforcement Report (CSER) is out. This is the first time we are releasing data on removal of Hate Orgs. (1/n)

ow.ly/QBlr50zE8x0 We removed 1.6M pieces of content in Q42019 and 4.7M in Q12020. That bump is a result of bringing online more tools and expanding proactive detection to a wider range of groups. (2/n)

The geopolitical implications of this moment are almost unimaginably vast. I’m not sure where to start in assessing them. But I think the right place is closer to this story than, say, the debate over what we call the virus. 1/n How much will supply chains change fundamentally? Will governments fall? Will alliances realign around health resources rather than traditional security? How will governments pay down the debts they are rightly accruing? Will a vaccine be treated as a public good? 2/n

I know it’s not covid19 or stock market related, but I’ve got two great jobs open on my team and we need really good applicants. Check them both out and apply!

facebook.com/careers/jobs/8…

facebook.com/careers/jobs/7… Job Alert! Job Alert! Job Alert!

That first one is based in DC & is for a process-focused leader to drive FB designations. You’ll work to counter hate speech, & need the ability to drive a complex process, & the gumption to manage down, sideways, and up

facebook.com/careers/jobs/8…

@shadihamid makes some good points in this rebuttal to my critique of his Atlantic article (and let’s take a minute to appreciate his embrace of constructive criticism). Couple of points... 1/n

https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1192464657052839938

@shadihamid Shadi suggests that findings indicating limited popular appreciation for ISIS governance is “striking” because we might expect such support to be zero. But that shouldn’t be our expectation so the finding isn’t as striking and therefore shouldn’t generate glowing headlines. 2/n

I appreciate @shadihamid noting the importance of ISIS governance and @MaraRevkin supplying data about said governance. But I disagree with the conclusions they draw, in part b/c they empower the worst sort of misleading media narrative that ISIS aimed to feed at its height. 1/n @shadihamid @MaraRevkin Here's Shadi's Atlantic piece and Mara's paper that I'm referring to. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/… and papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… 2/n

You can argue the political playing field is shifting in their direction again, but I don’t know anyone on the outside that can really speak to the strength of their bench. It’s not complicated: but we don’t know how much this matters strategically until we answer that Q. 6/n The question about whether Idlib=reconciliation effort is intriguing, & I don’t have any special insight into the facts. But there are clearly multiple faction among the AQ linked groups. They would have disagreed on reconciliation before killing, and they will now too. 8/n

THREAD: A few early thoughts on ABB’s killing. First, it’s a really big deal. He was a symbolic leader, but also drove the Islamic State of Iraq’s survival strategy in Nineveh the last time they were down and out. Losing that experience now matters in a practical sense. 1/n Second, I have three big questions now. A) Where did the Intel for this come from? B) Was ABB’s presence in Idlib really indicative of reconciliation efforts w/ some of the AQ groups (and does that help explain any of the intel)? C) Who will the successor be? 2/n

Vice profiled the CT-Dangerous Organizations team at Facebook. It's worth a look. Raises lots of hard tradeoffs w/ definitions, prioritization, etc. ow.ly/hM2B50wBg6v Many of my comments reflect the @TXNatSecReview I wrote earlier this year describing some of the choices social media companies face when developing a counterterrorism program. Here it is: vice.com/en_us/article/…

This is an update on Facebook's work around terrorism, extremism, and hate. Improvements to detection, better transparency reporting, and the counterterrorism geeks among you will be interested in the new definition of terrorism. ow.ly/YOdD50wdMRa None of these changes are silver bullets. There's still tons of work to do. But there's a lot of progress under the hood and we wanted to provide insight into some of that work.

Fewer than 0.03% of content views on FB are of terrorist content. That’s a maximum estimate. It’s really hard to provide clarity on content this uncommon, so big kudos to the data science team that pulled this together. ow.ly/164H30oOqis Additionally, in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019, FB removed 11.1M pieces of content related to ISIS, AQ, etc. To put that in perspective, its a mean of about 60k/day. ow.ly/400U30oOwXG

Thought I’d screenshot a few sections from my recent article for @TXNatSecReview, which 1) introduces a typology for how terrorists use the Internet and 2) illustrates key questions facing policymakers—in and out of the corporate world. ow.ly/n7mW30ojSgf 1/n @TXNatSecReview The essay describes the behaviors of terrorists online, but presents them to map generically to platform functionality. They are: Content Hosting, Audience Development, Brand Control, Secure Communication, Community Maintenance, Financing, and Information Collection and Curation.

Minimizing terrorist exploitation of the Internet requires a shared lexicon abt the problem & basic agreement on the tradeoffs inherent to every policy choice. If we can agree on those, then we can debate the really hard stuff: values, prioritization, & how to operationalize. 1/n That's why I wrote this new piece for TXNatSecReview--to establish a lexicon and illustrate the tradeoffs. tnsr.org/2019/04/crossr… 2/n