In a move that shouldn’t really surprise anyone, Meta has said that both Facebook and Instagram will be restoring Donald Trump’s accounts, which it had “indefinitely” suspended in the wake of the January 6th insurrection two years ago. As you’ll recall, after that suspension, the Oversight Board had agreed to hear Trump’s appeal of the suspension, resulting in it chastising Meta for giving a indefinite suspension. It noted that Trump did break the rules but the “indefinite” part of the suspension was a problem, as it was not at all transparent how that process worked, and Meta had no official setup for indefinite suspensions.
In response, Meta agreed that it would review the decision this month, once the suspension hit the two year mark. We just recently noted that Trump had formally asked Meta to lift the suspension as he’s gearing up to use the various social media apps as a part of his comeback tour/2024 stay out of jail Presidential campaign.
On top of that, with Elon Musk putting back Trump’s Twitter account, it was really only a matter of time until this happened.
Meta tries to claim that there was some big process as to how all this went down, but that feels like a pretty weak cover story:
To assess whether the serious risk to public safety that existed in January 2021 has sufficiently receded, we have evaluated the current environment according to our Crisis Policy Protocol, which included looking at the conduct of the US 2022 midterm elections, and expert assessments on the current security environment. Our determination is that the risk has sufficiently receded, and that we should therefore adhere to the two-year timeline we set out. As such, we will be reinstating Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the coming weeks. However, we are doing so with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses.
Like any other Facebook or Instagram user, Mr. Trump is subject to our Community Standards. In light of his violations, he now also faces heightened penalties for repeat offenses — penalties which will apply to other public figures whose accounts are reinstated from suspensions related to civil unrest under our updated protocol. In the event that Mr. Trump posts further violating content, the content will be removed and he will be suspended for between one month and two years, depending on the severity of the violation.
The company does basically say that it will be watching Trump’s account carefully to see if it’s pushing for civic unrest, but that… seems kinda silly. By that point, it will likely be too late.
Our updated protocol also addresses content that does not violate our Community Standards but that contributes to the sort of risk that materialized on January 6, such as content that delegitimizes an upcoming election or is related to QAnon. We may limit the distribution of such posts, and for repeated instances, may temporarily restrict access to our advertising tools. This step would mean that content would remain visible on Mr. Trump’s account but would not be distributed in people’s Feeds, even if they follow Mr. Trump. We may also remove the reshare button from such posts, and may stop them being recommended or run as ads. In the event that Mr. Trump posts content that violates the letter of the Community Standards but, under our newsworthy content policy, we assess there is a public interest in knowing that Mr. Trump made the statement that outweighs any potential harm, we may similarly opt to restrict the distribution of such posts but leave them visible on Mr. Trump’s account. We are taking these steps in light of the Oversight Board’s emphasis on high-reach and influential users and its emphasis on Meta’s role “to create necessary and proportionate penalties that respond to severe violations of its content policies.”
I don’t find this particularly problematic. Even if it feels like they retconned a “process,” at least there was some sort of process and a plan, which was my main critique of Musk’s way of making this same decision.
One thing I will note: it is interesting that this all comes after the revelation of Meta’s questionable Xcheck program, which was used to basically give high profile accounts (which almost certainly included Trump) a free pass on Facebook so they could break rules with something close to impunity. Just recently, the Oversight Board pressured Meta to make some pretty significant changes to Xcheck to make sure that it wasn’t abused by the powerful to violate Facebook’s rules with no consequence.
I guess we’ll soon find out whether the new program really works.
For what it’s worth, there has been a lot of hand-wringing from various organizations about how awful this is, with many pointing to the fact that Trump continues to spew conspiracy theories and nonsense over on Truth Social. But, if anything, that really kind of serves as a way to highlight how little this might actually mean. Trump posting to Facebook seems unlikely to do much more damage than he’s already doing by spewing crazy uncle nonsense over on his own site. It only really matters if you think that Trump’s postings to Facebook and Instagram are actually going to influence many people, and at this point, that seems unlikely. Those who are bought in seem bought in. Those who aren’t, aren’t. Is anyone expecting him to still continue changing people’s minds?
Filed Under: content moderation, donald trump, politics Companies: facebook, instagram, meta
You might recall how struggling satellite TV network DirecTV recently kicked right wing propaganda channel OANN off of its cable lineup because it simply wasn’t profitable. That prompted weeks of performative hysteria by the GOP about how they were being “unfairly censored,” even prompting involvement of numerous Republican AGs who apparently had nothing better to do.
Now DirecTV has decided to kick the slightly less feral right wing propaganda channel Newsmax off of its cable lineup, prompting Newsmax to immediately run “news stories” falsely claiming they’ve been unfairly censored:
To be clear, cable companies will air pretty much any monumental pile of garbage if it makes them money, so the idea that this is anything other than just a boring business decision is idiotic. That didn’t stop the House GOP, who immediately proceeded to concoct an elaborate fiction in a letter to DirecTV about how it was part of some nefarious left wing censorship cabal:
“It has recently been revealed that Congressional Democrats and the White House coordinated closely with private companies to de-platform, de-monetize, or otherwise limit the reach of viewpoints they oppose and classify them as ‘misinformation,’” the House Republicans wrote. “As members of the House Republican Conference, we are deeply concerned about this un-democratic assault on free speech.”
The GOP is desperate to protect a propaganda apparatus successfully built over 45 years across AM radio, television, and the Internet. It’s what all the phony support for Big Tech “antitrust reform” is about. It’s what the whining about TikTok is partially about. With an unfavorably saggy demographic shift among young Americans and extremely unpopular policies, propaganda is all the GOP actually has.
DirecTV was quick to issue a statement making it clear they would have kept the channel, but its cost just wasn’t worth extending its contract, and that if right wingers want to consume the channel’s propaganda they can still happily do so via the Internet:
“On multiple occasions, we made it clear to Newsmax that we wanted to continue to offer the network, but ultimately Newsmax’s demands for rate increases would have led to significantly higher costs that we would have to pass on to our broad customer base,” a DirecTV spokesperson told The Daily Beast shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
“Anyone, including our customers, can watch the network for free via NewsmaxTV.com, YouTube.com and on multiple streaming platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Google Play. We continually evaluate the most relevant programming to provide our customers and expect to fill this available channel with new content.”
Of course back when the GOP had something vaguely resembling a consistent ideology, meddling with the business decisions of major companies would have been frowned at. Now that the party has devolved into authoritarian gibberish and endless victimization porn to distract and agitate the base, it’s just dumb, performative bullshit, all the way down to bone marrow level.
Filed Under: cable news, cable tv, censorship, disinformation, misinformation, newsmax, propaganda Companies: directv, newsmax
Who is the Barbra Streisand of Bollywood? There’s a new documentary, produced by the BBC about India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Specifically, the documentary is focused on Modi’s relationship with India’s Muslim community, including his apparent role during some anti-Muslim riots (where over 1,000 people were killed) two decades ago. And, apparently, it doesn’t make Modi look very good. I know this because India has banned the documentary. And is also demanding that clips of the documentary be removed from the internet.
And Twitter (and YouTube) have complied.
The two-part documentary “India: The Modi Question” has not been broadcast in India by the BBC, but India’s federal government blocked it over the weekend and banned people from sharing clips on social media, citing emergency powers under its information technology laws. Twitter and YouTube complied with the request and removed many links to the documentary.
Of course, doing so seems to only be drawing more attention to the documentary.
The ban has only brought more attention to the program, with many people, including opposition politicians, protesting the move and providing links to download it.
There really should be a term for that sorta thing.
Anyway, this is why we mocked Elon’s professed “free speech absolutism” when he made claims about how his view of free speech was that it meant “that which matches the law.”
Except, that’s not supporting free speech. It’s supporting free speech suppression by governments. Indeed, as we pointed out (and were mocked for by Musk’s very vocal fans for), Twitter actually has a pretty long history of fighting back against government censorship in that country. Indeed, Musk whined about Twitter’s actions to fight for free speech in India.
If you believe in free speech, that means standing up against government censorship. Not bowing down to it. That’s not free speech at all. (And yes, YouTube should also not cave to this kind of nonsense, but YouTube hasn’t been running around taking as strong a “moral” stance as Musk has).
Either way, students in India are actually showing Musk and YouTube what fighting for free speech looks like as they’re refusing to back down:
“They will shut one screen, and we will open hundreds,” said Aishe Ghosh, one of the student activists who attended.
The Indian government is now arresting students for trying to screen the documentary, showing way more support and commitment to actual free speech than Elon Musk ever has.
Filed Under: censorship, documentary, free speech, india, narendra modi Companies: twitter, youtube
The TSA isn’t great at catching terrorists. It isn’t even great at catching contraband, failing nearly 100% of the time in audits of its efficiency. What it is good at is catching eye-catching things, most of them completely unrelated to providing safer travel.
Just recently, the TSA sent out a press release detailing the contraband it did manage to catch last year. The list has been republished by dozens of news agencies — none of which appear to have asked the TSA whether these seized oddities has prevented any terrorist acts.
Among the items, people either forgot were in their bags before going through the TSA checkpoint or deliberately tried to hide, were tasers, pepper spray canisters, bowling pins, demilitarized grenade canisters, hunting knives, brass knuckles, gardening tools and a wide variety of seemingly innocuous objects with sharp knives hidden inside.
What can obscure a deadly knife, you ask? Apparently, a lot. TSA confiscated an umbrella sword, lipstick that twists into a dagger and a comb with a knife hidden inside.
Patricia Mancha, a media spokesperson for TSA, said a couple of years ago in Houston, a man tried to get a meth balloon past a TSA checkpoint by hiding it in his breakfast burrito.
Great work, I guess, if that’s all we want from the TSA: seizures of umbrella swords, lipstick knives, and meth burritos. In most cases, this sounds like the TSA is pouncing on novelty impulse purchases — items purchasers likely believe are so hilarious they can’t truly be considered weapons. As for the meth burrito, that’s a completely different criminal issue that has little to do with the reason the TSA was created. While it’s understandable the TSA would prevent illegal items from being carried onto a plane, it’s focus is supposed to be on terrorists, rather than drug smugglers who aren’t planning on committing any terrorist acts.
But the TSA loves catching stuff that looks cool on the social media feed. Just recently, it announced on Twitter that it had prevented some terrorism by snagging an inert, but deadly looking, weapon.
Here’s what the tweet says, with relevant parts in bold:
Today @TSA officers @SATairport discovered this 84 mm caliber weapon in checked luggage. It was undeclared, as required when traveling with firearms or weapons. Here’s info about traveling with firearm.
The tweet linked to TSA guidelines on checking firearms and included the inexplicable hashtags #Monday and #SafetyFirst.
None of this was illegal, a fact the TSA was soon apprised of, but not before it decided to trumpet its (unwarranted) seizure on the internet. As Emma Helfrich explains for The Drive offshoot The War Zone, the alleged contraband was not only legal, the person possessing it had followed the rules the TSA linked to in its premature ejaculation.
The weapon the TSA briefly declared victory over was a Carl Gustaf 84mm recoilless rifle. Developed by Saab, the “weapon” possessed by this traveler had been rendered inoperable and safe for travel. The passenger was taking the inactive weapon to the Las Vegas SHOT (Shooting and Hunting Outdoors Trade) show.
Here’s how this went for the TSA:
On Monday, January 16 at 12:42 P.M. likely shortly after the weapon was confiscated, the @TSA_SouthWest Twitter account shared a post saying that they had discovered the weapon and claimed that the owner had neglected to declare it at the check-in counter when checking his luggage as TSA requires. This process allows the airline to openly communicate with TSA, informing them of any checked items on their upcoming outbound flights that would otherwise be a cause for concern if not reported.
TSA’s Southwest wing decided it needed to score some internet points. The agency was so happy to have seized non-contraband, it couldn’t wait for all the fact to come in before awarding itself a win via its Twitter account.
Once the facts came in, the TSA had to start playing defense.
The TSA’s tweet not only included a photo of the Carl Gustaf tucked away in a padded hard-shell case, just as their guidelines require, but a follow-up post shared by the agency a day later walked back the ‘undeclared’ statement. TSA admitted that the owner is now confirmed, as Express News reports, to have properly checked and declared the luggage containing the weapon with the help of the airline he’d be flying with.
While it’s nice the TSA walked back its declaration, the better move would have been to be sure of all the relevant facts before making unsubstantiated claims on social media. And this apology is meaningless to the person traveling with the weapon — one who followed all of the TSA’s rules just to see their travel plans derailed by an agency that decided to issue tweets first and ask questions later. When The War Zone asked for an explanation, it received some exonerative bullshit in response — a statement that said the weapon’s owner was to blame for surprising the TSA with their legally checked rifle.
In the end, out of “an abundance of caution,” as TSA described it in their tweet, the passenger was directed to re-book a different flight to Nevada and leave his weapon in TSA’s possession for a local family member to come and pick up. When contacted by The War Zone to ask why the passenger couldn’t still fly with his demilitarized Carl Gustaf after everything was resolved, a TSA southwest spokesperson replied as follows:
“The passenger did everything correctly, but TSA Officers were not aware the passenger declared the item. TSA recommends that if someone is traveling with large caliber weapons or similar items that they coordinate with TSA either a day or two prior to travel or allow enough time prior to the flight for TSA to validate the information/paperwork provided. These days with computers and graphics, our officers are required to validate paperwork provided with items such as these.“
Even if passengers do everything right, the TSA apparently believes it’s justified in treating them like they did everything wrong. Not only did it fire off an opportunistic tweet that ultimately advertised its inability to do its job right, it separated a passenger from their flight and their legally owned property.
And I don’t even know what to make of the last sentence of the TSA’s statement, which seems to imply tech advances have made it more difficult for TSA agents to stay on top of checked baggage paperwork.
All of this is extremely dumb. All the TSA needed to do was wait until the facts were in before making extremely online declarations about its security work. Law enforcement agencies like these often insist the public wait for all the facts to come in before passing judgment, but — as is shown here — are never willing to hold themselves to the same standard. The TSA was completely in the wrong but it was the person who followed all the rules that ended up being punished for mistakes they didn’t commit.
Filed Under: carl gustaf, seizures, terrorism, tsa
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This week, the NY Times had an article detailing how House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has formed a close bond with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a situation that many thought was impossible just a couple years ago when McCarthy seemed to see Greene as a shameful example of the modern Republican party’s infatuation with conspiracy theories, falsehoods, and nonsense.
The details of that article aren’t all that interesting for Techdirt, but there is one paragraph that certainly caught my attention:
Mr. McCarthy has gone to unusual lengths to defend Ms. Greene, even dispatching his general counsel to spend hours on the phone trying to cajole senior executives at Twitter to reactivate her personal account after she was banned last year for violating the platform’s coronavirus misinformation policy.
Later in the article, there are more details:
And by early 2022, Ms. Greene had begun to believe that Mr. McCarthy was willing to go to bat for her. When her personal Twitter account was shut down for violating coronavirus misinformation policies, Ms. Greene raced to Mr. McCarthy’s office in the Capitol and demanded that he get the social media platform to reinstate her account, according to a person familiar with the exchange.
Instead of telling Ms. Greene that he had no power to order a private company to change its content moderation policies, Mr. McCarthy directed his general counsel, Machalagh Carr, to appeal to Twitter executives. Over the next two months, Ms. Carr would spend hours on the phone with them arguing Ms. Greene’s case, and even helped draft a formal appeal on her behalf.
Now, let’s be clear: this is perfectly reasonable (as we’ve been describing) for politicians to state a case in favor of a certain course of action by platforms. It only reaches the problematic level when there is coercion involved.
But some folks, including in our comments, have been insisting that any interaction by any government official is automatically coercive. And, while I’m guessing they will argue here that “this is different,” because it was about reinstating an account, rather than taking one down, the simple fact remains, that it was government officials seeking to influence a moderation policy decision by a private company, effectively trying to sway that company’s own 1st Amendment protected right to decide for itself how to moderate.
The simple fact is that politicians on both sides of the aisle regularly are trying to influence how moderation occurs (often in contrasting ways). They’re allowed to try to persuade companies to act how they want, so long as there are no coercive elements there.
But, either way, this does go to reinforce the idea that the “Twitter Files” are simply cherry picking stories to suit their own political narrative, and apparently leaving out stories like this, where it was a high ranking Republican trying to influence a moderation decision.
Filed Under: coercion, content moderation, jawboning, kevin mccarthy, machalagh carr, marjorie taylor greene, persuasion Companies: twitter
Insurrectionist sprinter Josh Hawley has joined the growing chorus of GOP politicians who’ve spent years doing jack shit about U.S. consumer privacy abuses, and now want to pretend that banning a single app — TikTok — will protect American consumers from a problem they themselves created.
Hawley, who also enjoys pretending that he cares about stuff like antitrust reform and monopoly power, insists that a TikTok ban is necessary because he just cares so much about kids’ privacy and mental health:
“TikTok is China’s backdoor into Americans’ lives. It threatens our children’s privacy as well as their mental health,” he said on Twitter. “Now I will introduce legislation to ban it nationwide.”
The problem, as we note every time GOP FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr puts on a similar performance, is that these guys have spent their entire careers fighting against meaningful privacy and security standards, creating the very problem they’re now pretending to address.
They oppose privacy legislation of any kind. They oppose holding companies and executives accountable for privacy abuses. They oppose fighting corruption. They oppose expanding mental health care. And they fight tooth and nail to ensure that privacy regulators at the FTC routinely lack the staff, resources, or authority to police bad actors in adtech/telecom/apps consistently at any scale.
That has resulted in a parade of companies over-collecting consumer data and then selling access to it to any imbecile with a nickel. As such, banning TikTok does nothing. You’ve singled out one company in an ocean of international companies and services all doing effectively the same thing. And the Chinese government can buy all of this data from a rotating crop of dodgy data brokers.
The motivation here isn’t consumer privacy or national security. The Trumpist GOP hasn’t shown itself to be consistent enough politically, ethically, or intellectually to deserve having any of their comments or proposals taken at face value.
I still think the GOP hyperventilation over TikTok is, as most things the modern GOP does, a dumb performance. It agitates a xenophobic base and creates the flimsy impression the GOP is “doing something about China.” And, I’d all but guarantee the GOP-coddling execs at Facebook are working overtime behind the scenes to spread moral panic about a competitor.
But, more realistically I think, this hyperventilation over TikTok nudges the ball toward the GOP’s ultimate goal: forcing the sale of the most popular video app in America to one of their cronyistic BFFs. At which point, said BFFs will engage in all the same (or worse) behavior TikTok’s now engaged in.
Trump clumsily gave this game away a while back when he tried to offload the company to his Republican-allied buddies at Walmart and Oracle. I still think that’s the ultimate goal here. And not because the GOP cares about national security and privacy, but because some rich folks are in their ear drooling over the possibility of owning TikTok’s growing ad revenue.
Filed Under: bans, china, gop, josh hawley, mental health, privacy, republican, security, social media, surveillance Companies: tiktok
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