Dear journalists, venture capitalists, TikTok teens and other ThinkFluencers: before hot-taking on how to regulate online speech, please consider reading some of the foundational work in this area.

Start with @Klonick's groundbreaking

Follow with @daphnehk on the overall regulatory structure of online speech:

https://t.co/gSO5mGbeHG
Read @jkosseff's book before ever typing 2-3-0 on your keyboard:

https://t.co/pgWg4Y5SWc
Read @evelyndouek on the risks of coordinated moderation:

https://t.co/g6AsXh77Qs
Pre-order @jilliancyork to understand the global human-rights context:

https://t.co/fbF9YyO4PL
...and please base your opinions on empirical work:

https://t.co/a4ywB527nf
https://t.co/itcQ0qQuIx
https://t.co/attzjnqVSx
https://t.co/nl3RTsJYYV
https://t.co/wNDhnRxEAr

https://t.co/02FVTTzda0
If you find yourself typing one of these phrases:

"This was a simple decision that should have been taken years ago"

"A private platform should be able to do whatever they want"

"This violates the First Amendment"

"Blockchain..."

You might want to start at the top again.
When you are done with the real experts, you can fall asleep to this talk I gave on balancing all of the difficulty equities here:

https://t.co/bQ3QWuPtgZ
A much more thoughtful list: https://t.co/7B7A0zZEYn
Some more suggestions from folks... for the experiences of abuse victims, @sarahjeong's Internet of Garbage:

https://t.co/Ou0XNpmi2o
On disparate impact of algorithms and moderation by @safiyanoble

https://t.co/jJtW7p7nDQ
@TarletonG's Custodians of the Internet on how decisions are made and the impact on moderators:

https://t.co/k59816NAX7
as well as @CaseyNewton's reporting:

https://t.co/FvInjYHfxt
Before she was famous for her COVID work, @zeynep wrote one of the best books on government/citizen/platform power. Unfortunately, all too relevant in the age of elected autocrats.

https://t.co/igPWChY2Pb

More from Internet

There are lots of problems with ad-tech:

* being spied on all the time means that the people of the 21st century are less able to be their authentic selves;

* any data that is collected and retained will eventually breach, creating untold harms;

1/


* data-collection enables for discriminatory business practices ("digital redlining");

* the huge, tangled hairball of adtech companies siphons lots (maybe even most) of the money that should go creators and media orgs; and

2/

* anti-adblock demands browsers and devices that thwart their owners' wishes, a capability that can be exploited for even more nefarious purposes;

That's all terrible, but it's also IRONIC, since it appears that, in addition to everything else, ad-tech is a fraud, a bezzle.

3/

Bezzle was John Kenneth Galbraith's term for "the magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it." That is, a rotten log that has yet to be turned over.

4/

Bezzles unwind slowly, then all at once. We've had some important peeks under ad-tech's rotten log, and they're increasing in both intensity and velocity. If you follow @Chronotope, you've had a front-row seat to the
Many conversations happening on #WhatsApp (WA) groups about new #WhatsAppPrivacyPolicy .
This thread has arguments to help ditch WA & move to @signalapp:
https://t.co/En4fe9VxUN
Share, use, copy-paste, modify with understanding as you deem fit on any platform in whole or part
1/n

Note: No affiliations, conflict of interest
Info presented with NO bias, prejudice, malice or indemnity.
Open to corrections: individual tweets may be deleted, tweets added to thread or corrected as replies.
Points that are unclear or uncertain are marked with "(?)".
2/n

CONTENT OF WA MESSAGES SHALL REMAIN ENCRYPTED END TO END.
BUT, there's data: contacts, group affiliations, co-affiliations, locations (live?), frequency of contacts, *tags* generated when we send or forward a message or file to contacts or groups, links, clicks on links, etc.
3/n

It is unclear whether this data is anonymized.
NOTHING in latest policy *prevents* the collection, retention, sharing or sale by FaceBook (FB: owner of WA) of this data in part or whole whether with identifying information or anonymized.
Meme source:
https://t.co/nMDTUlb0rl
4/n


Companies need to make money & generate profits:
To create software, install & maintain infrastructure.
Google, FB, Insta, Amazon etc sell data created from our content & data generated from our interactions (searches, clicks, purchases etc).
This makes many uncomfortable.
5/n

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