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Ill Advice: A Case Study in Facebook’s Failure to Tackle COVID-19 Disinformation

Aoife Gallagher, Macckenzie Hart, Ciarán O'Connor

London: Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) (2021), 34 pp.

"Despite detailed policies on mis- and disinformation and promises to enforce them, social media platforms are failing to tackle prominent groups and individuals who spread false claims about COVID-19 and vaccines online. Using the World Doctors Alliance1 as a case study, a group that has spread var ... ious problematic, false and conspiratorial claims about COVID-19 and vaccines, ISD found that 78% of the group’s 1.2 million online followers are found on mainstream platforms (Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok) who claim to prohibit this kind of content. The Facebook pages of World Doctors Alliance members have a following of over 550,000 users, which increased by 13,215% between January 2020 and July 2021. Videos posted by these Facebook pages have been viewed more than 21.1 million times. These pages have accumulated a total of 5.77 million interactions since January 2020, with interaction rates increasing by 85% in the first six months of 2021 compared to the previous six months. Facebook posts mentioning the World Doctors Alliance or its members have attracted more than three million engagements on Facebook and are present in at least 46 different languages on the platform. ISD found that large proportions—often the majority—of the most engaged with content on Facebook mentioning the World Doctors Alliance or its members in English, Spanish, German and Arabic contained false, misleading or conspiratorial claims related to COVID-19 and vaccines. Organisations that are part of Facebook’s fact-checking program have debunked false claims made by the World Doctors Alliance 189 times since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite this extensive fact-checking effort, Facebook is failing to take decisive action on the group or its members. Facebook’s fact-checking program incorporates organisations from 115 countries, but there appear to be major gaps in fact-checking in non-English languages. ISD found minimal application of fact-checking labels across the four languages analysed, with lower application rates on posts in German, Spanish and Arabic than in English. Content that does contain fact-checking labels is still accumulating tens and sometimes hundreds of thousands of engagements." (Key findings) more

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Moderación de contenidos en Internet y protección de la libertad de expresión en redes sociales: Relatoría

Clara Luz Alvarez, João Brant, Rodrigo Gómez

México, DF: UNESCO;Observacom (2021), 34 pp.

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La protección del espacio cívico en línea: Un repaso a las amenazas actuales a la libertad de expresión en internet

Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) (2021), 32 pp.

"La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) tiene la misión de defender los derechos fundamentales mediante la contribución al diseño de políticas por parte del sector público y privado. Las respuestas de los gobiernos deben promover un espacio público amplio y robusto en internet. Este deb ... more

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No Excuse for Abuse: What Social Media Companies Can Do Now to Combat Online Harassment and Empower Users

PEN America (2021), 7 pp.

"To ensure that social media becomes safer, more open, and more equitable for all users, platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram must prioritize curbing online harassment. In this report, PEN America proposes concrete, actionable changes that social media companies should make immediately to ... more

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Counter-Terrorism, Social Media and the Regulation of Extremist Content

Levi J. West

In: Counter-Terrorism: The Ethical Issues

Seumas Miller; Adam Henschke; Jonas Feltes (eds.)

Edward Elgar Publishing (2021), pp. 116-128

"As highlighted above, the development and refinement of counter-terrorism policies and practices by social media and technology companies has come about as a function of the evolving nature of terrorist and extremist entities’ exploitation of said platforms. The challenges highlighted above, name ... more

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The "Hate Speech" Policies of Major Platforms During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ana Laura Pérez

Montevideo: UNESCO Office Montevideo and Regional Bureau for Science in Latin America and the Caribbean (2021), 32 pp.

"This document reports an increase in so-called “hate speech” posts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although dissimilar, such an increase can be observed in the transparency reports of the different platforms and the surge in content moderation since M ... more

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Watching the Watchmen: Content Moderation, Governance, and Freedom of Expression

London: Article 19 (2021), 86 pp.

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Taming Big Tech: A Pro-Competitive Solution to Protect Free Expression

London: Article 19 (2021), 42 pp.

"In this policy, ARTICLE 19 outlines how open markets, competition, and users’ empowerment can help address current freedom of expression challenges in online content curation. We offer practical solutions on how to achieve these objectives through a pro-competitive instrument: the unbundling of t ... more

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The Online Regulation Series: The Handbook

Tech Against Terrorism (2021), 170 pp.

"The Online Regulation Series Handbook provides an analysis of global online regulation, analysing over 60 legislations and regulatory proposals in 17 countries, and their implications for countering terrorist and violent extremist content. The Handbook is based on analysis published throughout Octo ... more

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Who Moderates the Social Media Giants? A Call to End Outsourcing

Paul M. Barrett

New York: New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights (2020), 28 pp.

"Content moderation—the process of deciding what stays online and what gets taken down— is an indispensable aspect of the social media industry. Without it, online platforms would be inundated not just by spam, but by personal bullying, neo-Nazi screeds, terrorist beheadings, and child sexual ab ... more

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Working Group on Infodemics: Policy Framework
Key Guidance

Maria Ressa, Marietje Schaake, Delphine Halgand-Mishra, Iris de Villars, Jenny Domino, Dan She et al.

Forum on Information & Democracy (2020), 127 pp.

"The Forum on Information & Democracy proposes a number of policy steps to democratic governments and their supporters. Transparency and accountability need to be shored up and content moderation should be done according to democratic mandates and oversight. The impact of new platforms where disinfo ... more

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Social Media Codes of Conduct: Reflections for Mediators

Jonathan Harlander, Maude Morrison

Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue (2020), 8 pp.

"This article summarises preliminary reflections for mediators on social media codes of conduct. Such codes of conduct, to be agreed upon by conflict stakeholders, would aim to prevent and mitigate the use of social media to exacerbate conflicts or jeopardise peace processes. Such codes of conduct w ... more

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Online Community Moderation
Key Guidance

Hilversum: RNW Media (2020), 12 pp.

"This knowledge brief showcases RNW Media's experience with online community moderation. It explains what community moderation means, why we believe it is an essential component of our Citizens' Voice programme, and the strategies we have developed together with our moderators to guide them in the w ... more

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Report on the Facebook Third-Party Fact-Checking Programme

London: Full Fact (2020), 33 pp.

"Full Fact first started working with Facebook on the Third-Party Fact-Checking programme in January 2019. When we joined the programme we committed to reporting regularly on its operation. Our first report, published in July 2019, covered January to June 2019.1 This second report details our experi ... more

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Las políticas de las grandes plataformas sobre discurso de odio durante el COVID-19

Ana Laura Pérez

Paris: UNESCO (2020), 32 pp.

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Between ‘filter bubbles’ and community leaders: An exploratory study of Facebook groups for Russophones/Russians in the Netherlands

Rashid Gabdulhakov, Daniel Trottier

Journal of Global Diaspora & Media, volume 1, issue 1 (2020), pp. 89-105

"Through an exploration of Facebook groups designed for Russophones and Russians in the Netherlands, this study considers online community belonging negotiations. In doing so, the article aims to address the role of online administrators (admins) in online community construction, seeking to enrich t ... more

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Glasnost! Nine Ways Facebook Can Make Itself a Better Forum for Free Speech and Democracy

Timothy Garton Ash, Robert Gorwa, Danae Metaxa

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2019), 27 pp.

"Following multiple controversies in the past two years, Facebook is seeking to implement much needed processes for self-regulation and governance to help regain the trust of the public, politicians, and regulatory authorities. Facebook has thus entered a new era of cautious glasnost, inviting resea ... more

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Beyond the “Big Three”: Alternative Platforms for Online Hate Speech

SCAN Specialised Cyber-Activists Network (2019), 13 pp.

"As the ‘big three’ social media platforms Facebook, YouTube and Twitter increasingly lose their relevance for young users, other social media, especially Instagram, step up to fill this space. Our research showed that hate groups and extremists wishing to influence minors or young adults with t ... more

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Polarisation and Peacebuilding Strategy on Digital Media Platforms: Current Strategies and their Discontents

Lydia Laurenson

Tokyo: Toda Peace Institute (2019), 17 pp.

This is the second of two policy briefs on polarisation. The first policy brief, “Polarisation and Peacebuilding Strategy on Digital Media Platforms: The Current Research,” reviewed the research, and concluded by recommending directions for future research. This brief describes interventions: (a ... more

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Social Media Platforms and Content Exposure: How to Restore Users’ Control

Maria Luisa Stasi

Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, volume 20, issue 1 (2019), pp. 86-110

"Social media platforms have become themain channel for people to communicate, access information and share content. A handful of giant platforms dominate the markets and, through a complex typology of conducts, are able to strongly affect users’ exposure to content, violating their privacy, as we ... more

Working Group on Infodemics: Policy Framework Key Guidance

Online Community Moderation Key Guidance

Working Group on Infodemics: Policy Framework
Key Guidance

Online Community Moderation
Key Guidance