IGF 2020 WS #254 The interaction of platform content moderation & geopolitics

Information

Session

Thematic Track:

Topic(s):

Content Blocking and Filtering
Freedom of Expression
Platforms

Organizer 1: Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Organizer 2: Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group

Speaker 1: Pratik Sinha , Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Juan Carlos, Civil Society, Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC)
Speaker 3: Monika Bickert, Private Sector, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 4: Tarleton Gillespie , Technical Community, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)

Format:

Round Table - U-shape - 90 Min

Description:

In January 2020, a United States drone strike targeted and killed a top general of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) - Qassem Soleimani. Solemani was commander of the Quds Force—an elite unit of the IRGC which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The strike attracted strong reactions from within Iran and millions of individuals and organizations flocked to Instagram to share their views about the killing. With an estimated 24 million active users, and as one of the few western-built social media apps not banned by the government, Instagram is an important communications tool in Iran. In the days following the event, accounts of Iranian newspapers, news agencies, at least 15 Iranian journalists, as well as several human rights activists and celebrities were either suspended or censored by Instagram. While the full scope of censorship on Instagram around Solemani's killing is not known, its parent company Facebook clarified that it removed “posts commending or supporting groups labeled foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department”. Although the company later restored some profiles, posts containing information or references about Soleimani's death were deleted permanently. Facebook's decision to go beyond U.N. terrorist sanctions lists and censor posts published by media professionals, and unaffiliated users raises questions about its stated commitment to the values of free expression and ensuring that its users have a “voice.” The incident also illustrates how private platforms like Facebook and Twitter that are not elected bodies are emerging as an influential force in international and geopolitical affairs. Whether we consider platforms taking action against accounts allegedly backed by the Chinese government to spread disinformation on Hong Kong protests, or Facebook's informal agreement with the Israeli government to work together to address incitement on its platform, it is increasingly apparent that platforms content moderation standards, business practices, and its relationships with nation states effectively arbitrate which narratives can reach the global public. While content moderation are essential functions of a platform's business, policies and practices of global platforms carry with them the capacity to reshape the dynamics of public discourse and are also changing the way political power can be organized and exercised across borders. In the absence of transparency and accountability, the rules and procedures for content moderation established and enforced by private platforms pose a threat to democratic culture as they can severely limit participation and impact the individual interests of the platform’s users—particularly minority groups and marginalized communities at risk. This workshop will examine how platforms content moderation standards are reconfiguring traditional allocations of responsibility, accountability, and power in societies. Panelists will examine content moderation practices to highlight how constantly evolving and malleable standards and guidelines can contribute to differential treatment of similar content on platforms. The aim of the discussion is to draw attention to how inconsistency in enforcement of content moderation standards can reinforce and magnify existing power disparities. The workshop will posit steps to foster greater transparency and accountability towards even enforcement of community standards on platforms.

Issues:

This workshop seeks to deep-dive into content moderation practices of platforms in order to highlight policy gaps that leave platforms vulnerable to manipulation by individual preferences, majority-rule mentality or through state or geopolitical pressures. While the content moderation practices of social media platforms like Facebook have received a lot of attention, this workshop aims to draw attention to moderation of content on end-to-end encrypted communication platforms like WhatsApp that make enforcing community standards a challenge. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has suggested that the company will deploy tools to detect “patterns of activity or through other means, even when we can’t see the content of the messages” it remains unclear what these tools will be or their impact on user privacy and integrity of encrypted messaging systems. A key focus of discussions will be to assess if coordination between digital platforms and governments has evolved into a vector through which political power can be exerted, consolidated, and restricted in non-transparent ways. Finally, the steps that platforms can take in order to limit being co-opted as a tool in geopolitical conflicts will be discussed.

Policy Question(s):

How do the variety of political, and regulatory contexts shape the different ways in which content moderation decisions and enforcement of community standards take place on platforms? What kind of formal and informal arrangements have developed between digital platforms and governments to limit the proliferation of state-backed misinformation/ disinformation, hate speech, and violent or terrorist content? What are the challenges associated with moderation of content on encrypted platforms like WhatsApp? How is Facebook tackling these challenges currently and what are some of the steps it is considering to improve moderation on WhatsApp? How can platforms foster greater transparency and accountability in enforcement of community standards? What are the opportunities/ limitations associated with proposals for auditing of moderation algorithms by researchers and other third parties? Are the new forms of frameworks being explored by platforms to improve transparency and accountability around content moderation decisions for e.g. Facebook's Oversight Board robust enough to balance competing interests, values and narratives?

Expected Outcomes:

This workshop is a continuation of IGP's work around building cooperative solutions to tackle the challenges associated with content moderation. The immediate goal of the workshop is to bring together regulators, academic researchers, representatives from technology companies and civil society to discuss new ideas for introducing transparency and accountability in content moderation practices. Another aim of the workshop is to further knowledge sharing on regulatory and technical developments in order to tease out the similarities and unique challenges associated around content moderation in different jurisdictions.

Relevance to Internet Governance: As more and more of our social interaction moves online, and given the role that private entities have in deciding what narratives are available in the public discourse, it is crucial that we examine the content moderation practices of platforms. Platforms cannot claim to be neutral arbiters while simultaneously opting to cooperate with one side of a disputed narrative without considering the broader, significant implications of their actions. A focus on content moderation slices through platforms' claims of neutrality and allows us to question their claim of deserving certain legal rights and obligations. It allows us to understand how platforms can uphold consistent policies in the face of competing societal expectations, different experiences, cultures, or value systems. By understanding moderation as a fundamental aspect of a platform's service, we can ask new questions about their power in society.

Relevance to Theme: Uneven enforcement of content moderation standards can lead platforms to become a proxy battle in which disputing narratives and activities emerge and collide. Vague criteria for content removal and account suspensions, lack of procedural transparency, algorithmic bias, and informal relations between platforms and governments contribute to eroding the trust of users on both sides of these opposing narratives. This workshop will focus on steps platforms can take towards improving trust in their content moderation decisions including audits of algorithms, publishing data on its internal practices, providing robust data on its content removal and account suspension practices, particularly in conflicted territories.

Discussion Facilitation:

Prior to the IGF workshop, the organizers will hold an online meeting to improve engagement amongst speakers and identify the substantive issues that will be addressed during the discussion. The discussion will build on recent decisions on content removal and account suspensions in order to highlight policy gaps in existing content moderation practices and standards. Representatives of platforms will be given an opportunity to respond to these views and highlight the steps being taken to address these issues. An open mic session follows the main session to enable the audience and remote participants, not only from Europe but from stakeholders from other countries to join the conversation and present their experiences, opinions, suggestions, etc., on how to move the debate forward and identify action areas. To broaden participation, social media (Twitter and Facebook) will also be employed and online moderators will be charged with distilling the discussion using a dedicated hashtag.

Online Participation:

Usage of IGF Official Tool.

SDGs:

GOAL 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
GOAL 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
GOAL 17: Partnerships for the Goals