moderation
Bluesky has launched a new product roadmap for the coming months. The decentralized social network said on Tuesday that it is planning to introduce direct messages, support for videos, improved…
Why Meta is looking to the fediverse as the future for social media
Meta’s move into the open social web, also known as the fediverse, is puzzling. Does the Facebook owner see open protocols as the future? Will it embrace the fediverse only…
Y Combinator-backed Intrinsic is building infrastructure for trust and safety teams
A few years ago, Karine Mellata and Michael Lin met while working at Apple’s fraud engineering and algorithmic risk team. Both engineers, Mellata and Lin were involved with helping to…
Bluesky rolls out automated moderation tools, plus user and moderation lists
Bluesky, the startup aiming to build a decentralized social network to take on Twitter/X, says it has begun deploying new safety tooling to help moderate content on the network through…
Vera wants to use AI to cull generative models’ worst behaviors
Liz O’Sullivan is on a mission to make AI “a little bit safer,” in her own words. A member of the National AI Advisory Committee, which drafts recommendations to the…
Two years after announcing voice chat was coming to Roblox, the gaming company has acquired a voice tech startup, Speechly, offering voice chat moderation, real-time transcription and Voice API that…
X, formerly Twitter, challenges California’s new transparency law as unconstitutional
X, formerly known as Twitter, has filed a lawsuit alleging that a new California law requiring social networks to declare certain moderation practices is a violation of the company’s Constitutional…
Reddit launches moderator rewards program amid site-wide discontent
Reddit is launching the “Mod Helper Program” to reward moderators who offer helpful advice to other moderators, along with an updated moderator help center. The announcement comes amid growing discontent…
OpenAI claims that it’s developed a way to use GPT-4, its flagship generative AI model, for content moderation — lightening the burden on human teams. Detailed in a post published…
Featured Article
Reddit’s menswear hub is the latest casualty of its battle with moderators
The widespread protests against Reddit’s API changes reached a boiling point last month after the company forcibly reopened r/malefashionadvice — the largest subreddit that stayed dark after the blackout — booted the moderators, and appointed new ones. The moderators of r/malefashionadvice (MFA) opted to keep the subreddit private after the…
Featured Article
Bluesky’s growing pains strain its relationship with Black users
Bluesky, the decentralized social network and frontrunner alternative to Twitter, has been hailed as a wonderland of funny posts and good vibes. But a moderation policy change that followed a death threat against a Black user has many on Bluesky questioning if the platform is safe for marginalized communities after…
In an effort to put more onus on crowdsourced moderation, Twitter has launched Community Notes for images in posts. The company is aiming to address scenarios of morphed images or…
Microsoft is launching a new AI-powered moderation service that it says is designed to foster safer online environments and communities. Called Azure AI Content Safety, the new offering, available through…
Twitter said today that it will add labels to tweets that have been flagged by the company to reduce their visibility. Elon Musk & Co. touted this as a “freedom…
Twitter to label tweets that get downranked for violating its hate speech policy
Twitter announced today a new policy that it claims will offer more transparency around which hateful tweets on its platform have been subject to enforcement action. Typically, when tweets violate…
Featured Podcast
All is fair in love and moderation
Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha interviewed Sarah Oh, the co-founder of T2, a Twitter…
Oversight Board presses Meta to revise ‘convoluted and poorly defined’ nudity policy
Meta’s Oversight Board, which independently evaluates difficult content moderation decisions, has overturned the company’s takedown of two posts that depicted a nonbinary and transgender person’s bare chest. The case represents…
Oracle now monitoring TikTok’s algorithms and moderation system for manipulation by China’s government
Oracle has begun auditing TikTok’s algorithms and content moderation models, according to a new report from Axios out this morning. Those reviews began last week, and follow TikTok’s June announcement…
Kickstarter announced today it will now automatically hide from public view comments reported by creators until its Trust and Safety team has reviewed them and made a decision as to…
TikTok updates its policies with focus on minor and LGBTQ safety, age appropriate content and more
Months after TikTok was hauled into its first-ever major congressional hearing over platform safety, the company is today announcing a series of policy updates and plans for new features and…
TikTok moderator sues over mental trauma caused by graphic videos
In a proposed class-action lawsuit, TikTok moderator Candie Frazier said that she has screened videos showing violence, school shootings, fatal falls and even cannibalism.
Twitch adds phone-verified chat, expands email authentication settings as users face ‘hate raids’
Twitch announced today that it will add new channel-level security features to help curb harassment on the platform. Now, creators and moderators can enable verified chat, requiring chatters to validate…
Facebook rolls out new tools for Group admins, including automated moderation aids
Facebook today introduced a new set of tools aimed at helping Facebook Group administrators get a better handle on their online communities and, potentially, help keep conversations from going off…
Florida’s ban on bans will test First Amendment rights of social media companies
Florida governor Ron DeSantis has signed into law a restriction on social media companies’ ability to ban candidates for state offices and news outlets, and in doing so offered a…
Debunk, don’t ‘prebunk,’ and other psychology lessons for social media moderation
If social networks and other platforms are to get a handle on disinformation, it’s not enough to know what it is — you have to know how people react to…
Steve Bannon’s show pulled off Twitter and YouTube over calls for violence
Former presidential advisor and right-wing pundit Steve Bannon had his show suspended from Twitter and an episode removed by YouTube after calling for violence against FBI director Christopher Wray and…
TikTok brings in outside experts to help it craft moderation and content policies
In October, TikTok tapped corporate law firm K&L Gates to advise the company on its moderation policies and other topics afflicting social media platforms. As a part of those efforts,…
Featured Article
‘Behind the Screen’ illuminates the invisible, indispensable content moderation industry
The moderators who sift through the toxic detritus of social media have gained the spotlight recently, but they’ve been important for far longer — longer than internet giants would like you to know. In her new book “Behind the Screen,” UCLA’s Sarah Roberts illuminates the history of this scrupulously hidden…
Facebook says the original New Zealand shooter video was viewed about 4,000 times before removal
Facebook released new figures about its attempts to stop the spread of videos after a shooter livestreamed his attacks on two Christchurch, New Zealand mosques last Friday, killing 50 people.…
Twitter confirms it’s working on a ‘Hide Tweet’ feature
Twitter today confirmed it’s developing a new “Hide Tweet” feature, which it says will give users another option to protect their conversations. The option, spotted in Twitter’s code, is available…
