{"id":31145,"date":"2020-10-15T19:51:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mathewingram.blog\/?p=31145"},"modified":"2020-10-15T19:51:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-15T19:51:00","slug":"facebook-twitter-and-what-news-is-fit-to-share","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2020\/10\/15\/facebook-twitter-and-what-news-is-fit-to-share\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Twitter and what news is fit to share"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note<\/em><\/strong>: This was originally written for<\/a> the daily newsletter at the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unprecedented move Wednesday, both Facebook and Twitter took steps to limit the distribution<\/a> of a news story from a mainstream publication, on the grounds that it was a) based on hacked emails and b) of questionable accuracy. Twitter actually prevented users from posting a link<\/a> to the story, and in some cases prevented users from clicking on existing links to it as well, showing them a warning instead with a message<\/a> saying the story violated the company’s terms of service. Facebook didn’t stop anyone from posting a link to the story, but reduced its reach by tweaking the News Feed algorithm<\/a> so fewer users would see it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story was a <\/a>New York Post<\/a><\/em> report<\/a> alleging that Hunter Biden introduced his father Joe to the head of a natural gas company in the Ukraine. The source? Emails allegedly retrieved from the younger Biden’s laptop by a computer repair shop and given to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani. In Twitter’s case, the company argued that the story breached its policy against<\/a> distribution of content obtained through hacking, and said documents included with the story also contained an individual’s name and identifying information, which is against privacy rules<\/a>. Facebook, meanwhile, said its position against “hack and leak” operations required it to reduce the distribution of the story while it was being fact-checked<\/a> by third-party partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These moves, not surprisingly, triggered an avalanche of accusations of censorship<\/a> from conservatives. Sen. Josh Hawley went so far as to argue in a letter to the Federal Election Commission that removing the story<\/a> was a benefit to Biden, and therefore amounted to a campaign finance violation, and said the Judiciary Committee will vote<\/a> on whether to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to explain his actions. Others, including Sen. Ted Cruz<\/a>, argued that Facebook and Twitter had breached the First Amendment. Rep. Doug Collins said that the blocks were<\/a> “a grave threat to our democracy.” These arguments, of course, ignore the fact Facebook and Twitter are protected by the First Amendment<\/a>, and also by Section 230 of the CDA, which allows them to make content-moderation decisions without penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Many of these accusations are clearly being made in bad faith, and are a variation on the “platforms censor conservatives” canard that has been rattling around Congress<\/a> for years without a shred of evidence. At the same time, however, it’s true that the decisions made by the two platforms are problematic<\/a> in a number of ways. For one thing, Twitter’s policy not to allow users to post “content published without authorization” is extremely vague, and could theoretically block not just questionable stories<\/a> from the New York Post<\/em>, but valuable investigative stories based on leaked content, including the Pentagon Papers and virtually everything from WikiLeaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This highlights a broader problem with both platforms, and that is a lack of detail about their policies, and how and when they are likely to be implemented. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the company didn’t do<\/a> a good job of explaining itself when it first blocked the Post story, but the followup wasn’t much help either. Facebook, meanwhile, has a habit of just pointing to the algorithm as though it is a magic wand that can erase any problem that comes up, and routinely promises things that never come to pass<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere will be battles for control of the narrative again and again over the coming weeks,\u201d Evelyn Douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School, told the New York Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThe way the platforms handled it is not a good harbinger of what\u2019s to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not only infuriating<\/a> for those who would like some clarity<\/a> on the decision-making at these platforms, but it makes it that much easier for bad faith actors like Hawley and Cruz et al. to argue that<\/a> the companies are doing something unsavory or illegal, which leads to show-trial style hearings that often amount to a lot of sound and fury<\/a>, signifying very little. If we are to trust these giant tech corporations to make decisions around what kind of journalism can be shared on their networks, we’re going to need a lot more transparency and a lot less hand waving<\/a>.
<\/p>\n

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Note: This was originally written for the daily newsletter at the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer In an unprecedented move Wednesday, both Facebook and Twitter took steps to limit the distribution of a news story from a mainstream publication, on the grounds that it was a) based on hacked emails … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Facebook, Twitter and what news is fit to share”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}