Why The EU Needs To Get Audits For Tech Companies Right

from the it's-too-easy-to-get-it-wrong dept

Discussions over the right – or at least a good – way to regulate big tech companies are heating up in the European Union (EU). Several legislative proposals are set to be negotiated, with public and behind-the-scenes lobbying in full swing already. As with any regulation, a key question is how to hold corporate decisionmakers accountable for their actions and how to create transparency. Some of the ways this has typically been done in other industries include legally mandated corporate compliance regimes, rules for financial or supply chain transparency and mandatory risk assessments and audits. These ideas are coming to the tech sector now, too, especially with the draft “Digital Services Act” (DSA). The DSA suggests new due diligence rules for platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, for example, regarding what processes are in place for content moderation and how they deal with potential infringements on users’ fundamental rights. Audits are introduced to check whether companies comply with the DSA’s due diligence rules.

If done right, audits can be a valuable mechanism helping independent researchers, oversight bodies and the public hold tech companies accountable. If done poorly, audits will be mere check-the-box exercises with little value that might even hurt people and entrench platform power. That is why it will be crucial for the EU get the audit provisions in the DSA right. Four major issues, drawn from past experiences with audits and general risks associated with them, need to be taken into account.

First, there is the risk of a weak auditor or an auditor with only limited powers. Facebook’s and Google’s “privacy audits” in the US can be taken as an example. Each company was subjected to legally mandated scrutiny by the US Federal Trade Commission over data protection issues. Yet, what were at times billed as “privacy audits” turned out to be mere assessments that were later criticized as almost meaningless due to vague language and powers for the regulator.

Second, auditors can, conversely, be too powerful. If their mandate is ill-fitting or too broad, the auditing company or governmental agency that oversees global corporate giants like Facebook and Google might have quite a sway in what billions of people access, read and watch on the web. This could be abused for financial or political interests. Especially authoritarian leaders might try to tip the scale in their favors by controlling big tech companies, which has some lawmakers in the EU worried as well.

Third, the auditing process itself can lack clear guidance and oversight. Without quality control, what is meant to be a safety measure and to incentivize corporate compliance can turn into a check-the-box exercise. Unfortunately, there are grave examples for this danger: “Social audits”, aiming to certify suitable workplace conditions, especially in the clothing industry, have come under intense scrutiny, after audited companies’ factories burned or crumbled, killing hundreds of workers. A for-profit auditing system with little checks can be partly to blame. In the financial industry, bad and sometimes illegal business practices could not be stopped despite auditing regimes being in place, as the WireCard case in Germany illustrates. Similarly, the international “Dieselgate” scandal showed the limitations of overseeing car manufacturers.

Relatedly, fourth, audits need to have consequences if they reveal corporate malfeasance. An audit that shows how a company failed to follow the rules cannot only result in recommendations or a blow to the company’s reputation. Fines and, more importantly, changes in business practices and compliance processes are necessary.

In all four areas, the DSA needs improvement. To address the first two points on the strength or weakness of the auditor, it is crucial that the auditor’s tasks and powers are clearly delineated. For tech companies offering people news and information spaces, a top priority should be that auditors check corporate processes, not individual pieces of content. This means that the auditor should, for instance, monitor whether companies have suitable notice-and-action mechanisms, meaningful reporting standards about their online advertising practices and recommender systems as well as consumer protection measures in place. Determining the legality of content should be left neither to corporations nor governmental regulators, but to independent courts. This would ensure that platforms are held accountable, without establishing an all-powerful auditor. The DSA draft goes in this direction, but the tasks of the auditor need to be spelled out in greater detail.

In practical terms, it is not yet clear who could and should do the auditing. Looking towards established audits in other industries can be helpful but copying existing methods risks perpetuating its flaws (like with the social audits) and not accounting for the peculiarities of tech companies. It is presumptuous to assume that big accounting firms might just take on auditing tech companies. Auditing a company like Facebook, TikTok or Snapchat is not the same as auditing a bank or an insurer. Auditors need different skills and specific technical knowledge in this field, which many existing auditing outfits might not have yet. However, it is also ill-advised to blindly rely on young companies now claiming to audit tech companies or even “algorithms”, as there is no common definition of what such “algorithmic auditing” entails. For example, the Ada Lovelace Institute, a UK-based NGO, has identified four different ways to assess algorithmic systems and those can, in turn, contain different approaches. An industry has sprung up offering to audit algorithmic systems for biases and legal compliance but there are no standards for such audits or auditors. To ensure high-quality auditors and a system of checks and balances, the EU should define what audits are supposed to achieve and what is expected of auditors. A vetting process regarding the financial independence of platforms and auditors could be discussed, as well as guidelines for oversight and quality control. Otherwise, audits risk being a fig leaf for tech companies or, worse, a cover-up for systemic failures like with some “social audits”.

Lastly, the DSA’s remedies for failed audits and non-compliance need to be beefed up. An independent oversight entity should be enabled to stop abusive business practices and sanction companies. Promisingly, this idea on enforcement as well as some potential improvements to the auditing regime have been put forth by the European Parliament. With the DSA, the EU has the chance to build an auditing regime for digital platforms from scratch. It should strive to make it as structurally sound as possible to limit terrible outcomes like those described above. This is not far-fetched, because some platforms’ business practices have been linked to genocide, election interference and invasions of privacy, just to name a few risks.

Establishing clear rules for the content of audits, standards for the auditors themselves and consequences for tech companies would be a true EU innovation. It would ensure a watch-the-watchers approach for auditors and thus alleviate legitimate concerns that governmental or private auditors (especially if paid for by the platforms) undermine democratic oversight. Taken together, this would go a long way in improving accountability for tech companies.

Julian Jaursch is a project director working on platform regulation topics at Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV), a Berlin-based not-for-profit, non-partisan tech policy think tank.

Filed Under: audits, content moderation, digital services act, dsa, eu, tech policy

Documents Show NYPD Has A Secret Surveillance Tech Slush Fund

from the pre-approved-dark-funding dept

About a half-decade ago, public records requesters discovered the Chicago Police Department had been spending seized funds on surveillance equipment like Stingray devices. The forfeiture fund was apparently completely discretionary and the PD used this steady supply of cash to make purchases not specifically approved by the city. It also allowed the department to elude direct oversight of surveillance activities and ensure the public was unable to interrupt the procurement process with pesky comments and questions.

It appears the New York Police Department has been doing the same thing for at least as long. But it's not doing it with "discretionary" funds lifted from New York residents using civil forfeiture. Documents obtained by Wired show the infamously secretive agency has even more secrecy up its sleeves -- a fund that is specifically exempt from its own oversight.

New York City police bought a range of surveillance tools—including facial-recognition software, predictive policing software, vans equipped with x-ray machines to detect weapons, and “stingray” cell site simulators—with no public oversight, according to documents released Tuesday.

In all, the documents show that the NYPD spent at least $159 million since 2007 through a little-known “Special Expenses Fund” that did not require approval by the city council or other municipal officials. The documents were made public by two civil rights groups, the Legal Aid Society and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP), which say the practice amounted to a “surveillance slush fund.”

Millions of dollars went to Idemia Solutions, a facial recognition tech provider. Hundreds of thousands went to an Israeli defense contractor, which has provided some sort of "devices" to the PD (details on the devices are redacted). Three-quarters of a million went to a mobile x-ray van manufacturer. The list continues, encompassing a cell site simulator provider and other surveillance tech/software contractors whose documents have been redacted into near-uselessness.

Unfortunately, it appears the city gave its explicit blessing to being cut out of the approval process. A memorandum of understanding between the NYPD and the city's Office of Management and Budget allows the NYPD to withhold contracts and other information dealing with tech/tools used in "confidential operations." So, the city is completely complicit here, which differentiates this from the situation in Chicago. In New York, taxpayers are (or rather, aren't) seeing their tax dollars spent on secret tech from a fund no one is allowed to oversee.

Combining secret tech with zero accountability is only the NYPD's idea of a good time. Hopefully this national exposure will prompt the city to shred its memorandum of understanding and start over with some accountability measures in place.

Filed Under: discretionary funds, nypd, police, slush fund, surveillance, technology, transparency

Unilever Sends Letter To Firm In Israel Over Use Of 'Ben & Jerry's' Trademark

from the we-all-scream dept

A couple of weeks back, we discussed 2021's thus-far dumbest controversy: Ben & Jerry's ceasing to sell ice cream in "occupied Palestinian territory". The ice cream maker is owned by Unilver and found itself in intellectual property news after a law firm in Israel seized upon Ben & Jerry's announcement to not sell its wares in a few sections of Israel to suggest that meant it was relinquishing its trademark. To that end, the firm sought to register a company it named "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream of Judea and Samaria." This action was part of a possibly coordinated attack response on the company, which included action in the States such as Florida Man Governor Ron DeSantis suggesting this meant B&J's was "boycotting Israel" and should be scrutinized for that, and Jewish leaders indicating that B&J's ice cream may lose its kosher rating.

As I said, all very stupid. But the trademark claim might be the dumbest of them all. Trademark laws are designed to keep the public from being confused as to a source of a good and the Israeli firm's actions appear to achieve the exact opposite end. It's also the case that, in general, trademark law doesn't simply repeal a valid trademark simply because a company temporarily ceases to sell a good in one small section of a geographic area for which it's registered.

And, so, it's should come as no surprise that Unilever has sent a letter to the firm, Shurat HaDin, warning that it intends to protect its valid marks.

“Unilever unequivocally rejects all your assertions set forth therein including that Univeler has abandoned its trademark rights for Ben & Jerry's in what you refer to as the Judea and Samaria region of Israel." A letter dated August 12 reads, signed by Natalia Cavaliere, in response to a letter sent by Shurat HaDin's President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner that reads.

"Please note that we deem any use of the trademark or tradename Ben & Jerry's to be a violation of our intellectual property rights." The letter continues.

As well it should. B&J's nor Unilever have not abandoned their trademarks in Israel in the slightest. Ceasing sales in these regions doesn't change that. And it should be obvious to anyone looking at this story and its genesis that this is part of a practice among some in Israel to create diplomatic pressure on private entities that say or do anything they don't like when it comes to Israeli politics.

Those politics, while certainly important on the global stage, have nothing to do with Unilever's trademark rights. Which everyone, including Shurat HaDin, absolutely knows. Hopefully the Israeli government can correctly dispense justice.

Filed Under: ben & jerry's, israel, palestine, trademark, use in commerce
Companies: ben & jerry's, unilever

'Blue Line' Apparently Doesn't Apply To Bad Cops Abusing Copyright Law To Prevent Citizens From Uploading Recordings

from the try-not-to-be-such-an-asshole,-asshole dept

Last month, Sergeant David Shelby of the Alameda County (CA) Sheriff's Office inducted himself into the Hall O' Internet Infamy by openly admitting to people filming him that he was playing copyrighted music on his phone in hopes of terminating live streams, recordings, and police accountability activists' accounts.

When confronted by activists, Sgt. Shelby pulled up a Taylor Swift track, hoping the fervent protector of intellectual property would keep the recording from being successfully uploaded. His effort failed. The interaction made its way to YouTube and to the internet beyond. Sgt. Shelby showed his whole ass and the world wide web was there to witness it.

This is a new tactic being deployed by cops around the nation. It's not widespread, but it's happened more than once, which implies cops are at least cognizant of one aspect of the law. But, to date, it hasn't worked. The recordings meant to be terminated by copyright-protecting AI have been successfully published to the web. The inability to use copyright as a censor has exposed some cops as the bad faith operators they are -- a list that includes Sgt. Shelby.

His coworkers aren't happy. Emails obtained by Motherboard (and covered by Samantha Cole) show Shelby's behind-the-blue-line compatriots thought this was an especially dumb and disingenuous move by this superior-in-name-only.

"WHYYYYYY?," Miguel Campos, another Alameda County officer, wrote in an email to two colleagues that includes a link to a news story about Shelby’s impromptu Taylor Swift session.

[...]

Another officer replied that she'd sent lieutenants a separate email, and added, "Protected rights are a thing! We must never let our protection of laws override those protections. Also, if there is any uncertainty about what should be done....ask!"

Not all press is good press. That's something cops should know by now. Even if local news outfits are unwilling to question cop narratives, internet denizens are still willing to ask the hard questions. Anything that shows cops are trying to abuse anything in their control to prevent accountability will be noticed and amplified. Sgt. Shelby's co-workers are more aware than he is. And their complaints about his actions make it clear no one's happy he's drawn this much heat to the department and made them unwillingly complicit in his First Amendment violations.

The good news is all of the above. Plus this: the Alameda County Sheriff's Department has issued a new policy two weeks after this infamous incident -- one that forbids employees from being the asshat Sgt. Shelby was.

"Agency members shall not, purposefully and knowingly, use or broadcast any copyrighted body of work in a manner that will adversely impact the level of professionalism, performance, conduct and productivity that is expected of a peace officer or professional staff member," and "Copyrighted work shall not be used in a manner as to limit the public’s ability to exercise their First Amendment rights as set fourth [sic] in the United States Constitution."

Sure, cops violate policy all the time, along with the laws they're supposed to be enforcing. But this bullshit actually turned into a specific ban on playing copyright gotcha with the people who pay their paychecks. That is good news, even if it's inevitable someone will violate the policy and suffer nothing more than a paid vacation.

(Qualified) good news! But let's just briefly address this assertion made in this article at Motherboard:

People have a First Amendment right to film the police.

Not exactly true. Several circuits have affirmed or established this right. But we're still waiting on a Supreme Court declaration that this action is not only lawful, but protected. All odds point to SCOTUS agreeing this much is true. But, at this point, it's not actually a "right." Unfortunately, YMMV depending on your jurisdiction. Sgt. Shelby's actions were complete bullshit. But whether or not it violated a right remains to be seen. And, as long as the Supreme Court leaves this question unanswered, people will be arrested for filming cops. And cops will escape lawsuits for violating rights that haven't been "clearly established" by the top court in the land.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, alameda, copyright, david shelby, free speech, music, police, recording police, taylor swift

Daily Deal: The Dynamic 2021 DevOps Training Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

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Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

Taliban Creates A New Content Moderation Challenge For Social Media

from the but-what's-their-opinion-on-section-230 dept

The news out of Afghanistan is distressing on many levels, and it's bizarre to think that there's a Techdirt relevant story there, but (unfortunately) it seems like every story these days has some element of content moderation questions baked in. As the Taliban took over the country, it seems that they had a bone to pick... with Facebook. Facebook has banned the Taliban for a while, and has said that it will continue to do so, even as it takes over running the country of Afghanistan. And, the Taliban seem... pretty upset about it.

THE TALIBAN SPOKESMAN, Zabihullah Mujahid, emerged from the shadows on Tuesday and devoted part of his first press conference to a rant about Facebook, in which he accused the tech giant of violating the Islamist group’s right to free speech by banning them from all its platforms....

[....]

Journalists, Mujahid suggested, should ask people at Facebook “who are claiming to be promoters of freedom of speech,” why the Islamist movement that seized power from Afghanistan’s elected government is banned from posting on any Facebook-owned platform, including Instagram and WhatsApp.

Yeah, so, I didn't think I'd be lecturing the Taliban on how freedom of speech works, but this is not that. Of course, the Taliban is not exactly associated with supporting a "right to free speech," so this is already bizarre. But, more to the point, as we've addressed at length, no private company owes anyone the right to use their website. That's just not how it works.

That said, it is interesting to see just how the various social media platforms are now struggling with the question of how to deal with the Taliban wanting to use their platform. Even if they were banned before for being a terrorist group, does that change when they're the running the country?

So far, Facebook and YouTube have said that the Taliban are banned from their platforms, per US sanctions policies. Twitter does not have a ban but told Recode that it takes down individual pieces of violent content. Eventually, though, more social media companies could start relaxing their rules on the Taliban, if the group gains legitimacy in the international community, experts say.

However, as the Washington Post noted in an article, Taliban supporters have become increasingly sophisticated in using social media in ways that abide by the platforms' rules to avoid getting banned for policy violations:

In accounts swelling across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram — and in group chats on apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram — the messaging from Taliban supporters typically challenges the West’s dominant image of the group as intolerant, vicious and bent on revenge, while staying within the evolving boundaries of taste and content that tech companies use to police user behavior.

The tactics overall show such a high degree of skill that analysts believe at least one public relations firm is advising the Taliban on how to push key themes, amplify messages across platforms and create potentially viral images and video snippets — much like corporate and political campaigns do across the world.

And, of course, all this really does is (once again) highlight the impossibility of doing content moderation well at scale. Groups that some deem as terrorists, others (including themselves) will often declare to be freedom fighters. And, of course, it gets tricky if you just rely on the US government's designations as well -- after all the US had Nelson Mandela listed as a terrorist until 2008. That's not to compare Mandela to the Taliban, but to note that official designations are fraught with tricky questions as well.

But this is also why various websites should have a pretty free hand in determining their own moderation policies, rather than having any government tell them who is and who is not allowed to be on any platform.

Filed Under: afghanistan, content moderation, free speech, taliban
Companies: facebook, twitter, youtube

T-Mobile Confirms Major Hack, Social Security Numbers And Drivers License Data Exposed

from the here-we-go-again dept

Earlier this week reports emerged that T-Mobile was investigating a massive hack of the company's internal systems, resulting in hackers gaining access to a massive trove of consumer information they were selling access to in underground forums. Initial estimates were that the personal details of 100 million customers had been accessed (aka all T-Mobile customers). After maintaining radio silence as it investigated the hack, T-Mobile has since released a statement detailing the scale of the intrusion. In short, it was smaller than initial claims, but still massive and terrible:

"Our preliminary analysis is that approximately 7.8 million current T-Mobile postpaid customer accounts’ information appears to be contained in the stolen files, as well as just over 40 million records of former or prospective customers who had previously applied for credit with T-Mobile. Importantly, no phone numbers, account numbers, PINs, passwords, or financial information were compromised in any of these files of customers or prospective customers."

While T-Mobile notes that none of the PINS used by former or prospective postpaid (billed regularly month to month) customers were accessed, T-Mobile does note that 850,000 active T-Mobile prepaid customers had their names, phone numbers and account PINs exposed. Many others had their social security numbers, drivers license/ID information, and other data exposed:

"Some of the data accessed did include customers’ first and last names, date of birth, SSN, and driver’s license/ID information for a subset of current and former postpay customers and prospective T-Mobile customers."

While it's understood why T-Mobile would collect some of this data during a credit check, it's not clear exactly why it needed to keep this data after the credit check is complete. This, again, is the kind of stuff you could tackle with a basic US privacy law with meaningful penalties for companies that keep getting hacked. For T-Mobile customers I think this is maybe the fifth or sixth time the company has been hacked since 2018. You have to think clear, basic, and consistently enforced federal guidelines and penalties would incentivize companies to not over-collect data and properly secure their systems.

Instead we stand around, shrug, complain that it's impossible or too hard to have competent governance on this subject, and nothing changes. And when consumers then get hacked (again), the best they get are platitudes like "free credit reporting," which prove utterly useless given they've received "free credit reporting" the last 75 times their data wasn't properly secured.

It's not clear how many of these kinds of repeated scandals we need to see before the federal government crafts some basic, competent guard rails, but it's abundantly clear that, thanks to a broad cross-industry coalition of lobbyists with near-unlimited budgets, it's not going to be anytime soon.

Filed Under: data breach, drivers licenses, hack, social security numbers
Companies: t-mobile

Video Games, Once Demonized, More Regularly Utilized For Positive Health Benefits

from the life-is-a-game dept

For decades now, video games have been largely demonized by a certain segment of the population that probably were annoyed when great evils like jazz music and chess were also demonized. Video games, say this group, make kids lazy and fat, degrade social skills, keep them from going outside and hitting each other with sticks or something, and also make them all violent school shooters. That many of these same charges were levied on such horrible activities as chess, Dungeons & Dragons, or any of the other moral panics we kicked off appears to be lost on most everyone. Video games are evil, full stop.

Until they're not, of course. And, fortunately, the tide continues to turn as more and more people play video games more and more. Already we've seen studies suggesting that gaming can actually be a very healthy activity, even for children. But not just for children. Gaming can also, according to a new study, be beneficial for older folks when it comes to combatting depression.

Playing video games might look like a fun way to spend an afternoon. "They get addicting," said Laurie Featherstone, age 60, who lives in Millcreek. But it can also be so much more.

"When you go to someone like me and say, 'I'm depressed,' you expect me to say, 'Well, you should take some medicine or you should go to therapy.' So we're really proposing a third, very odd option to patients," said Shizuko Morimoto, a University of Utah population health sciences professor.

Morimoto, a neuroscientist, treated Featherstone with video games designed to target the cognitive control center of the brain which malfunctions in depressed patients.

Morimoto ran several clinical trials with patients of depression between the ages of 60 and 85. The games were developed specifically to combat malfunctioning parts of the brain that lead to depression, so, no, this isn't Grandma mowing people down in Call of Duty. But that isn't really the point, as video games have been demonized beyond just shooters or violent games. But like anything else, a tool, or video game, can be good or bad depending on how you use it.

One is a word game; the other, a gardening game. "Flowers are growing and you're tapping on watering buckets and you're shooing away bugs and you're looking at the weather," he said.

But there's much more going on behind the colorful flowers. The better you get at the game the harder it becomes. It also charts your progress, giving vital feedback and improving care.

Featherstone said it's an intense workout. "It felt like I'd gone out and ran you know, a 5K race and but with my brain," she said.

The NIH has offered a $7.5 million grant to expand this study into a much larger population. The point here isn't that all video games are good for you, or that all of them are bad for you. Either assertion is self-evidently stupid. The point instead is that there is nuance to all of this and blanket policies or grand statements devoid of that nuance are silly.

Are video games good for you, or bad? It depends, but we can now say for sure that the most panicked among us are wrong.

Filed Under: depression, health, moral panic, video games

Content Moderation Case Study: BoingBoing Begins Disemvoweling The Trolls (2007)

from the dealing-with-trolls dept

Summary: One of the challenges for any website that allows for user content — no matter the size of the website — is how to deal with trollish behavior. There are a variety of options available, including just deleting such comments, but one option that got attention in the mid-2000s was the idea of disemvoweling: literally removing the vowels from any comment deemed trollish. This was something of an update on concept of merely “splatting out” letters (i.e., replacing certain letters with ‘*’ to make them less searchable and to create some level of disassociation from the initial word).

The history of disemvoweling is not entirely agreed upon, though it is clear that James Joyce used the word to describe writing without vowels in Finnegan’s Wake, published in 1939. Many people associate the modern use of it with Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who wrote in the comments on her own blog (Making Light) about how she had removed the vowels from someone who was trolling.

Other users then referred to this as disemvoweling. The word and its usage as a moderation mechanism appeared in other places before, including in a 1990 version of the RISKS Digest newsletter discussing a proposed anti-hacking law.

Nielsen Hayden embraced the power of disemvoweling, and supported efforts to make it easier to do. (She initially said she removed vowels by hand).

In August of 2007, the popular blog (and former zine) Boing Boing announced that it had relaunched and brought back comments, with Nielsen Hayden joining the site to help with community management. This immediately resulted in questions about whether or not BoingBoing would now embrace disemvoweling as a technique to manage trolls as well. Nielsen Hayden suggested that it might, but she did not expect it to be that frequent:

"Glad to see comments back. With TNH moderating should we expect frequent dis-envoweling?

Only if it's warranted. I doubt I'll have frequent cause to use it.” --Teresa Nielsen Hayden

The blog did embrace disemvoweling as a technique, though. Others on the Boing Boing team talked about how it seemed to work quite well. Xeni Jardin noted that while it did involve a fair bit of human effort, it appeared to be mostly effective.

We hired a community manager, and equipped our comments system with a secret weapon: the "disemvoweller." If someone's misbehaving, she can remove all the vowels from their screed with one click. The dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized.

Now, once again, the balance mostly works. I still believe that there is no fully automated system capable of managing the complexities of online human interaction — no software fix I know of. But I'd underestimated the power of dedicated human attention.

Plucking one early weed from a bed of germinating seeds changes everything. Small actions by focused participants change the tone of the whole. It is possible to maintain big healthy gardens online. The solution isn't cheap, or easy, or hands-free. Few things of value are. -- Xeni Jardin

In a separate piece, then BoingBoing writer Cory Doctorow talked about it as a way to “remove the poison” from online conversations.

For example, Teresa invented a technique called disemvowelling -- removing the vowels from some or all of a fiery message-board post. The advantage of this is that it leaves the words intact, but requires that you read them very slowly -- so slowly that it takes the sting out of them. And, as Teresa recently explained to me, disemvowelling part of a post lets the rest of the community know what kind of sentiment is and is not socially acceptable. -- Cory Doctorow

However, he also noted that it often needed tools to make it workable, as doing it by hand was not scalable:

When Teresa started out disemvowelling, she removed the vowels from the offending messages by hand, a tedious and slow process. But shortly thereafter, Bryant Darrell wrote a Movable Type plugin to automate the process. This is a perfect example of human-geek synergy: hacking tools for civilian use based on the civilian's observed needs.

But there aren't enough Teresas to go around: how do we keep all the other message-boards troll-free? Again, the secret is in observing the troll whisperer in the field, looking for techniques that can be encapsulated in tutorials and code. There is a wealth of troll whisperer lore that isn't pure intuition and good sense, techniques that can be turned into tools for the rest of us to use. -- Cory Doctorow

The concept did get a bit more attention after that. The following year, Time Magazine described disemvoweling as one of the “Best Inventions of 2008” (even though disemvoweling was developed before that year). Almost exactly one year after BoingBoing did it, various Gawker blogs announced plans to also begin disemvoweling troll comments with a tool built into their content moderation system.

Company Considerations:

• What are other techniques like disemvoweling that can be alternatives to simply deleting trollish comments?
• Is disemvoweling an effective strategy for dealing with trollish behavior in forums?
• For making use of disemvoweling, is it worth investing in building tools to make the process usable across multiple moderators? If so, what features would those tools need to have? How would those tools be rolled out?
• Should there be different types of moderation (deletion, disemvoweling, etc.) applied to different types of content? If so, what should those differences be?
• In this case study, the websites' traffic was fairly small and moderation was by a handful of moderators. What would a company need to consider, in terms of content policy and moderation tools, if they want to use disemvoweling on websites that have much much larger communities and hundreds of moderators reviewing content?

Issue Considerations:

• Would removing vowels simply make trolls angrier and more determined to troll a website?
• Is disemvoweling more effective than simply deleting content since it also acts as a signal of what is not acceptable behavior on a particular site?
• Do trolls adapt to techniques like disemvoweling and find other ways to troll, making it only a short term solution?
• Does disemvoweling actually highlight the comments, making curious readers try to figure out what it’s saying?

Resolution: The focus on disemvoweling eventually went out of favor. Boing Boing dropped the practice, as did other sites that had embraced it. In 2009, a writer for Albany’s Times Union newspaper noted that a corporate lawyer had ordered him to stop disemvoweling comments on his blog posts for the newspaper, though it was not clearly explained why the lawyers were concerned about it.

Most of the discussion about disemvoweling disappeared as well, other than a brief flare up when Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos apparently suggested in a brainstorming session that they should allow some users to pay to disemvowel entire stories (and other users can pay to re-vowel them later). It appears this idea did not gain any support.

Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

Filed Under: content moderation, disemvowelling, james joyce, teresa nielsen hayden, trolls
Companies: boingboing

Judge Says Voting Machine Company Can Continue To Sue Trump's Buddies Over Bogus Election Fraud Claims

from the but-will-they-be-judgment-proof-by-the-time-judgment-arrives? dept

A federal judge has said Dominion's lawsuit against a former Trump lawyer can move forward. Sidney Powell -- the self-proclaimed "Kraken" -- was supposed to storm into federal courts and present irrefutable evidence President Joe Biden's position as president had been fraudulently obtained.

Instead, Powell -- like several other pro-Trump lawyers with more time than common sense -- proved nothing but their own willful ignorance and inability to abide by the rules of their law licenses. Powell is not only facing a billion-dollar lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems, but also possible sanctions in Michigan.

Powell has claimed her allegations against Dominion -- repeated in press conferences and court filings -- were just the heated rhetoric that often accompanies "disputed" elections (even if the Kraken was doing most of the disputing). While that may be a decent defense against defamation allegations (i.e., "no reasonable person would take my partisan shit-talking as statements of fact"), it kind of falls flat when the same allegations are presented as sworn allegations in court filings attempting to challenge the election outcome.

Powell's assertions that the alleged defamation was just crazy talk have dead-ended in federal court. As the court sees it, Dominion should be allowed to move forward and dig into the "these are/aren't facts" assertions by Sidney "Krack Happens" Powell. (h/t Brad Heath)

The court's dismissal [PDF] of Powell's motion to dismiss is this summer's best beach read because it casts so much shade it makes the heat waves tolerable. And while it's casting a long, low-key snarky shadow over Powell's attempt to escape a billion-dollar judgment, it refuses to let any of her co-conspiracy theorists off the hook, like Rudy Giuliani and one of the weirdest symptoms of late-stage capitalism, hyper-partisan bedding manufacturer, MyPillow.

How far away from facts did these defendants get (allegedly)? Welp:

Dominion alleges that each Defendant made defamatory statements about its role in the 2020 election. Those statements are too numerous to summarize in their entirety…

But many are still summarized. It takes several pages. A large portion of the alleged defamatory remarks were delivered via social media platforms and contained multiple exclamation points, which are considered marks of authenticity by the sort of people who are easily swayed by exclamation points.

The court also discusses Mike Lindell and MyPillow. It goes further than social media accounts. Lindell also runs his own production company, which has produced a "documentary" about the "fraudulent" 2020 election that is promoted nonstop by Lindell.

All three defendants want out of this lawsuit. Powell raises jurisdictional counterarguments as well as her patented "but I was just talking out of my ass!" defense. Giuliani asserts that Dominion's claims for damages are improper. And Lindell claims his company hasn't actually made any statements about the election, even if he's been using the company's money (and social media accounts) to make claims about the election.

None of this matters, at least as this point. Dominion's lawsuits can continue, says the court, while taking some shots at the attempting-to-flee defendants. As for Powell, the former Trump lawyer, there's this opening admonishment:

As an initial matter, there is no blanket immunity for statements that are “political” in nature…

And this:

Powell cannot shield herself from liability for her widely disseminated out-of-court statements by casting them as protected statements about in-court litigation; an attorney’s out-of-court statements to the public can be actionable, even if those statements concern contemplated or ongoing litigation.

For example:

Powell has stated publicly that she has “evidence from [the] mouth of the guy who founded [Dominion] admit[ting that] he can change a million votes, no problem at all.” PShe told audiences that she would “tweet out the video.” These statements are either true or not; either Powell has a video depicting the founder of Dominion saying he can “change a million votes,” or she does not.

Lindell and MyPillow get slapped even harder. The court notes that Lindell claims he can back up his statements with verifiable facts but has yet to present any evidence that supports his claims that Dominion "flipped" votes and conspired to throw the election for Biden. This sets the table for this amazing sentence by the court -- one that should make Lindell fear for his finances.

As a preliminary matter, a reasonable juror could conclude that the existence of a vast international conspiracy that is ignored by the government but proven by a spreadsheet on an internet blog is so inherently improbable that only a reckless man would believe it.

If Lindell isn't staggered by this sentence, he's stupider than he appears. And this gets added on top of that:

Dominion also alleges that Lindell was made aware of that countervailing evidence in Dominion’s retraction letters, id. ¶¶ 63, 69, but—instead of reconsidering his claims in light of the mountain of evidence against them—doubled down and “dare[d] Dominion to sue [him],” id. ¶ 160.

Lindell must love compounding his mistakes. While this was being written, Lindell was in South Dakota hosting a 72-hour conspiracy theory-laden "cyber symposium" where he made additional claims about evidence he apparently doesn't possess that cannot possibly back the claims about Dominion he continues to make.

Giuliani's procedural motions are also tossed, allowing Dominion to continue to sue all three defendants. While it's unlikely Dominion will extract more than a billion dollars from any of the individual defendants, it seems unlikely any of these Trump-toadying loudmouths will escape the lawsuits unscathed. They played to Trump's base and are now in danger of losing. And it's guaranteed the man they idolize will do nothing to save them from the consequences of their Trump-enabled actions. When you're winning, Trump is willing to take part of the credit. But when you're losing, you're on your own.

Filed Under: defamation, elections, kraken, sidney powell, voting machines
Companies: dominion