Platforms

The Benton Foundation is joining 40 civil and human rights organizations that believe that online companies need to do more to combat hateful conduct on their platforms. We are asking that these companies adopt corporate policies to prohibit hateful activities on their platforms. They should make it clear what type of conduct is and is not permitted on their platform and remove any U.S. clients that violate those corporate policies. Although Benton has always championed free speech, today we draw a line.

Internet companies should adopt and implement corporate policies to reduce hateful activities. A full explanation of internet companies’ policies on hateful activities should be easily accessible to users in a language that the users can understand and should especially be available to users in any language with which they use an internet company’s services. Similarly, the policies should be easily accessible to any person with a disability who uses a service, consistent with how they use the service.

Internet tools have empowered those driven by or capitalizing on hate. Following the violence in Charlottesville, the Center for American Progress joined with the Southern Poverty Law Center and Free Press to convene experts from civil, human, and media rights groups, as well as open internet organizations, to better understand how hate organizes online and to determine what could be done about it. We sought out and listened to experts on terrorism, human rights, media manipulation, technology, and law.

As the internet has become an increasingly important tool for free expression around the world, major platforms and networks that carry that expression have assumed the role of speech gatekeepers, often removing or blocking users' content for various legal or policy reasons. Currently, some internet and telecommunications companies disclose some data on how much content they are removing and why in their transparency reports.

Twitter reported its first consecutive quarterly drop in users, losing more than it had expected and signaling further declines to come as it continues to purge fake accounts. Even so, Twitter said it boosted revenue and swung to a profit in the third quarter as it extracted more advertising revenue out of its existing users.

Charles Harder, part of President Donald Trump’s legal team, is pushing the Supreme Court to hear a lawsuit that could weaken legal protections for web platforms. Harder’s firm announced that it had filed a petition in Hassell v. Bird, a defamation case that California’s Supreme Court decided in July. The court ruled that recommendations site Yelp couldn’t be forced to remove a defamatory review from its site, based on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — a legal shield that’s been criticized by Republican politicians in recent months.

Twitter removed more than a dozen accounts affiliated with the fringe right-wing media organization InfoWars. A Twitter spokesperson said the company permanently suspended 18 accounts, in part, for attempting to help InfoWars and its founder, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, circumvent the ban Twitter placed on them in Sept by posting material related to the media organization. The 18 suspensions came after "numerous violations and warnings."

Operatives behind Russian-linked bots used tools from US startups, including IFTTT Inc., to supercharge social-media misinformation campaigns and meddle in elections. Data disclosed by Twitter showed that hundreds of accounts affiliated with the Russia-based Internet Research Agency used services offered by IFTTT, RoundTeam Inc. and Dlvr.it Inc. to automate and disperse their divisive messages more widely. San Francisco-based IFTTT lets people connect different apps and automatically post content on multiple services.

The Federal Trade Commission this week held another set of hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century. The hearings and public comment process this Fall and Winter will provide opportunities for FTC staff and leadership to listen to experts and the public on key privacy and antitrust issues facing the modern economy. The hearings are intended to stimulate thoughtful internal and external evaluation of the FTC’s near- and long-term law enforcement and policy agenda.

Twitter’s release of millions of tweets relating to foreign influence campaigns on the platform created a treasure trove of data for journalists and researchers to mine through. The information sheds light on the vast, yearslong campaign to sow discord and influence US politics, not only by Russia’s infamous Internet Research Agency but by accounts tied to Iran as well.