The Risk of Decentralization in Social Media

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

ActivityPub Hub 

• A new Stanford Internet Observatory report by David Thiel and Renée DiResta found a significant issue with child abuse content in the largest decentralized social media communities that make up the Fediverse. They argue that current online safety tools must be adapted for decentralized social networks. - Cristiano Lima/ The Washington Post
• Meta’s Threads announced future support for ActivityPub, the technical protocol that powers the Fediverse, but Alex doesn’t think that will ever happen. - Casey Newton/ Platformer
  • Instagram’s Adam Mosseri and his Threads communications team insist it’s coming. - @threadsapp
• So what kind of trust and safety and legal headaches might this create? Alex has plenty of ideas.
• One consequence might be another boon for the booming trust and safety as a service industry. - Tim Bernard/ Tech Policy Press
• That is, so long as “decentralized” doesn't become a synonym for “we don't need to invest in trust and safety.” Speaking of which, Bluesky finally responded to its failure to block usernames with racial slurs after weeks of controversy and radio silence. - Jay Graber/ Bluesky

X Corner?!

• If you drink enough of the kool aid, eventually you spill a steady stream of corporate buzzwords when you find out your company was renamed to “X” overnight by your CTO. - @lindayacc
• Shockingly, the company formerly known as Twitter continues to have “negative cash flow” and “heavy debt” as ad revenue drops 50%. - Amanda Macias, Lora Kolodny/ CNBC, Jahnavi Nidumolu, Krystal Hu/ Reuters
• Meanwhile, the “CEO” is trying to convince advertisers to come back while Bloomberg published an investigation into reports that hateful and harmful content has increased on Twitter since Elon Musk’s acquisition last year, including SIO findings that known CSAM was appearing on the site. - Aisha Counts, Eari Nakano/ Bloomberg News
  • The reporting clearly got under the skin of Twitter’s leadership team with a lengthy response from Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino with a whole bunch of unverifiable buzzwords about how the article was wrong. - @lindayacc
    • Case in Point: “99.99% of Tweet impressions are healthy. And we’re achieving this while defending our users’ right to free speech.”
  • The problem is that nothing is verifiable anymore since all the access to data for researchers has been cut off.

TikTok Corner

• The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University brought a challenge on behalf a group of independent researchers and journalists, the Coalition for Independent Technology Research, challenging a Texas state government ban on accessing TikTok, arguing the law violates First Amendment rights by inhibiting academic freedom to research and teach about the popular social app at public universities. - Melissa Mahtani/ CNN, Sapna Maheshwari/ The New York Times, Talal Ansari/ The Wall Street Journal, Drew Harwell/ The Washington Post, Knight First Amendment Institute
• The flashy rollout of the European Union’s Digital Services Act continues. Last week, EU Commissioner Thierry Breton and his team carried out a so-called “stress test” at TikTok’s Dublin offices and gave them a failing grade, but an “A” for agreeing to public humiliation. - Alex Barinka/ Bloomberg News

Alex's Cyber Doom and Gloom Corner

• Alex is among those saying a recently discovered Microsoft vulnerability exploited in a Chinese espionage campaign to access the unclassified emails of top administration officials is even worse than you think and not getting enough attention. - Shir Tamari/ Wiz, Sumathi Bala/ CNBC, Julian Barnes/ The New York Times, Jonathan Greig/ The Record by Recorded Future

Sports Corner

• Evelyn has an Aussie sports update and asks everyone to say a prayer for Chelsea and national team striker Sam Kerr's calf. - Naaman Zhou/ New Yorker

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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