Meta Messes Up Again: Admits That It Suspended RT & Sputnik Due To Gov’t Pressure
from the really-not-the-best-idea dept
There may be many good reasons to ban Russian state-sponsored media propaganda from a site or a pay TV service. But there is definitely one very bad reason to: because random governments ask you to. And, yet, that’s exactly what Meta/Facebook has done. Former UK politician Nick Clegg, who was recently promoted into the top circle of Meta execs and given full control over policy decisions, posted on Twitter (yes, the Facebook exec was posting on Twitter) that the company had decided to restrict access to Russian state-sponsored propaganda outfits RT and Sputnik because the company had “received requests from a number of Governments and the EU.”
This seems incredibly short-sighted. As Emerson Brooking, at the Digital Forensic Research Lab noted, if there’s a reasonable content moderation policy violation that justifies banning those organizations, do that. But saying you’re doing it because a government tells you to is bound to backfire badly.
Because the issue is that by saying you’re doing it because various governments, including the EU, asked you to do this, you’re basically setting a precedent saying that you’ll remove news organizations based on government pressure. Just think about how that will be abused. Even if Meta believes it can stand up to pressure from, say, more authoritarian governments seeking to shut down criticism, Meta has just handed them a wide-open shot to claim that the company is willing to be bullied by governments into censoring speech.
The framing and the reasoning only lends much more credence to the idea that governments can and will instruct Meta what content to allow and what to takedown, rather than its own internal policies. And that’s dangerous.
What’s incredible is that this many years into the content moderation debates, apparently Nick Clegg didn’t understand or predict this. I’m sure that there are others at Meta who recognize how problematic this looks, but the fact that Clegg failed to seems like a massive failure on one of the most central parts of doing his job.
Filed Under: content moderation, eu, nick clegg, pressure, russia, state censorship
Companies: facebook, meta
Comments on “Meta Messes Up Again: Admits That It Suspended RT & Sputnik Due To Gov’t Pressure”
It’s never wanting to take any responsibility for any moderation choices. It’s no wonder companies like Facebook have no problem with the elimination of Section 230 or strict moderation rules being handed down from the government because it would “tie their hands” in terms of what they would have to do with respect to moderation. If anyone had a problem with their choices, they could just point to the government. Not that it would make their moderation choices more equalitarian, because it wouldn’t. Instead it would just provide them cover to eliminate those voices they wish to avoid dealing with.
Same as always, don't take responsibility
Well he was a politician.
They never take responsibility, even if doing so is a positive thing.
As everyone should have learned by now, intelligence is not a prerequisite for a career in politics.
Same as always, dont take responsibility
Well he was a politician.
They never take responsibility, even if doing so is a positive thing.
As everyone should have learned by now, intelligence is not a prerequisite for a career in politics.
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Already Sailed
Social media companies already handed that one to the government, back when covid restrictions on speech were implemented. The tech companies totally agreed with the government talking points, and they were okay with the cooperation. But this decision might cost them a larger slice of market share, so this time they need to pass the buck.
Re: No, Koby.
Social media companies already handed that one to the government, back when covid restrictions on speech were implemented. The tech companies totally agreed with the government talking points, and they were okay with the cooperation.
Oh come off it Koby. That’s bullshit and you know it. The companies put in place reasonable policies to deal with fucking morons like you spreading blatant disinformation. Knock it off.
This is categorically different, and if you can’t understand that you’re even dumber than I thought.
Re:
Social media companies already handed that one to the government, back when covid restrictions on speech were implemented.
Welp, that should all be a moot point now that there are the freeze peach bastions like Gab, Parler, FrankSpeech (that one still makes me giggle a bit), GETTR, TruthSocial, and whatever other places you fools gather to complain.
Re: Hows it look in the new format?
Bravely bold Sir Koby
Rode forth from the Internet.
He was not afraid to die,
Oh brave Sir Koby.
He was not at all afraid
To be killed in nasty ways.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Koby.
He was not in the least bit scared
To be mashed into a pulp.
Or to have his eyes gouged out,
And his elbows broken.
To have his kneecaps split
And his body burned away,
And his limbs all hacked and mangled
Brave Sir Koby.
His head smashed in
And his heart cut out
You had one job
Meta really needs to fire Clegg if he’s going to shoot the company in the back like that, trying to dodge responsibility by blaming the government might have seemed like a smart move if you don’t spend any time thinking about it but it not only opens the door up other government’s to argue that when they tell the company to take something down it’s justified it also gives ammo to those trying to hold the company responsible for their moderation practices by claiming it’s part of the government.
Re:
Yes, this is twofold (at least) stupid. First, why shift the “blame”, even if governments are asking FB to block these outlets? I would think that this is a moderation decision one could proudly own. And likely it is also popular, although that should have no bearing on the decision itself. Secondly, yeah, about those stupid “state actor” arguments we hear all the time, and secondly-and-a-half, further encouraging governments to expect they can demand control over content on the internet.
Good job there Nick.
Re: Re:
“First, why shift the “blame”, even if governments are asking FB to block these outlets? I would think that this is a moderation decision one could proudly own”
There’s plenty of reports that indicate that, internally and among top management at least, Facebook is sympathetic to and even supportive of right-wing propaganda, some of which originated from Russia. Being able to make the right move commercially and politically in the current situation, while still being able to fake some loyalty to those propaganda outlets and putting the blame on a Democrat government so that it can be used in the next propaganda cycle in the run up to the mid term elections is a move that fits everything they could ask for.
If it seems strange that I’d explicitly talk about US politics in terms of a story that’s explicitly about the EU, then I fear you don’t pay as much attention to how these things are used as I do.
“secondly-and-a-half, further encouraging governments to expect they can demand control over content on the internet”
The EU have been very careful to lay out the criteria that singles out RT and Sputnik that don’t apply to other media outlets at the same kind of level, and war time always makes government get a little fuzzy with the rules, but yes it’s true that this could be used to justify further misuse in the future.
"Reliable information"
This is the same Nick Clegg who the next day claimed people need Facebook to access “reliable information”.
https://nitter.eu/nickclegg/status/1499819557870989316
Clearly, he’s completely divorced from reality at this point.