MC Weekly Update 1/9: New Year, Same Trust and Safety Issues

Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos weigh in on the latest online trust and safety news and developments:

• An EU regulator is putting behavioral advertising at risk and leveling more than $400 million in fines against Meta for Facebook and Instagram privacy violations. - Sam Schechner/ The Wall Street Journal, Vincent Manancourt/ Politico, Adam Satariano/ The New York Times, Stephanie Bodoni/ Bloomberg News
  • More: Meta plans to appeal the ruling against its legal basis for processing data to provide targeted posts and ads based on user activity. - Meta
• Google is implementing an appeals process for users suspended for sharing child sexual abuse materials on its platforms and will provide more information about why an account is suspended. - Kashmir Hill/ The New York Times
  • The move follows New York Times reporting on fathers who lost access to their accounts after sharing requested photos of their children’s genitals for medical treatment. Criminal investigations found them innocent, but Google refused to restore their accounts. - Kashmir Hill/ The New York Times
• Twitter announced it relaxed policies for cause-based U.S. advertising and will expand permitted political advertising as ad revenue declines under Musk’s ownership due in part to brand safety concerns. - @TwitterSafety, Brian Fung/ CNN
  • More: Many platforms banned or limited political advertising ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Analysis by Duke University researchers found there is little evidence those bans achieved their intended effects of limiting the spread of false or misleading information about elections. - J. Scott Babwah Brennen, Matt Perault/ Duke University
• Facebook wants out of politics, but there is no escape! Efforts to reduce political or socially divisive topics had unintended consequences as users saw more spam content and less hard news. - Jeff Horwitz, Keach Hagey, Emily Glazer/ The Wall Street Journal
• Facebook’s self-imposed deadline for deciding whether to reinstate former President Donald Trump’s account has come and gone with any action and a public announcement expected in the coming weeks. - David Ingram/ NBC News
• The Oversight Board released a new decision overturning Meta’s removal of a Facebook post with a slogan used to protest the Iranian government, literally translating to “death to Khamenei,” in reference to ousting the current political regime led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. - Oversight Board, Katie Paul/ Reuters 
• Members of the January 6 special committee staff who specialize in technology research and policy highlighted important findings that Trump received special protections on platforms despite red flags raised by trust and safety staff, however, right-wing networks with everyday people drove extremist views and organizing. They argue for increased transparency as the first legislative step to hold social media companies accountable. - Dean Jackson, Meghan Conroy, Alex Newhouse/ Tech Policy Press (commentary)
• WhatsApp added a feature that makes it easier for users in repressive regimes to bypass internet censors that attempt to ban or block access to the service. - Andrew Jeong/ The Washington Post
• The Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit filed against the Israeli spyware firm NSO Group that claims the company is responsible for the illegal surveillance of 1,400 individuals to proceed. - Jessica Davis/ SC Media
  
   
• Researchers are raising the alarms that Brazilian far-right activists were organizing in the open across social media platforms far in advance of this week’s violent attacks on government buildings in protest of the recent presidential election. - Elizabeth Dwoskin/ The Washington Post, @det

Join the conversation and connect with Evelyn and Alex on Twitter at @evelyndouek and @alexstamos.

Moderated Content is produced in partnership by Stanford Law School and the Cyber Policy Center. Special thanks to John Perrino for research and editorial assistance.

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