Latest / Ctrl-Alt-Speech / The UK Wants Us To Ask Your Age Before You Listen

Transcript

The UK Wants Us To Ask Your Age Before You Listen · Ctrl-Alt-Speech

• 0:00
  Ben Whitelaw: So once again, Mike, we are talking about AI on control alt speech, and
• 0:04
  Mike Masnick: no.
• 0:05
  Ben Whitelaw: who isn't right now, I'm afraid.
• 0:07
  Ben Whitelaw: and the platform that we're gonna be talking a bit about today's hugging face, which, uh, many of our listeners will know about, the hugging face prompt, is, I'm not sure if it's, if it's designed for us, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna pose it to you and you can gimme what you think.
• 0:22
  Ben Whitelaw: on the homepage of Hugging Faces website, it says, share your work with the world and build your Machine learning profile.
• 0:28
  Mike Masnick: Oh yes, because my machine learning profile is very big.
• 0:33
  Mike Masnick: Uh, now that's a fun one to try to respond to.
• 0:36
  Mike Masnick: I will say that I keep having conversations with people about productive uses of machine learning, ai, LLMs, and I am currently.
• 0:48
  Mike Masnick: As we speak, well, not like at this very second, but, but right before we recorded, been once again debating with people on the platform known as Blue Sky, that, yes, thank you, uh, machine learning.
• 1:01
  Mike Masnick: LLMs can be useful when used properly, but many people are using them poorly.
• 1:07
  Mike Masnick: So I will continue to share my work with where they are useful and when they are useful.
• 1:11
  Mike Masnick: But, uh, sometimes it's a a little bit of a challenge.
• 1:13
  Mike Masnick: Some people are very skeptical.
• 1:15
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay, so, so go to Blue Skype for your latest tips and tricks on, on using
• 1:20
  Mike Masnick: working on it.
• 1:21
  Mike Masnick: Uh, what about you?
• 1:22
  Mike Masnick: Uh, what, work do you have to share with the world about your ML profile?
• 1:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Well, no one wants to see my ML profile, at all.
• 1:30
  Ben Whitelaw: It's, non-existent.
• 1:31
  Ben Whitelaw: It's terrible.
• 1:31
  Ben Whitelaw: But you know, control al speech is, I would say, us sharing our work with the world.
• 1:36
  Ben Whitelaw: And, in that sense, I think this is a good place to start.
• 1:39
  Ben Whitelaw: we've got a lot to get through, so let's crack on today.
• 1:49
  Ben Whitelaw: Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation.
• 1:57
  Ben Whitelaw: It's July the 17th, 2025, and this week's episode is brought to you with financial support from the future of Online Trust and Safety Fund, and sponsored by the brilliant digital trust and safety partnership and industry initiative designed to promote a safer and more trustworthy internet.
• 2:13
  Ben Whitelaw: This week we're talking about playing whack-a-Mole with AI models being whacked by the UK's controversial child safety measures and being hit across the face by scams.
• 2:23
  Ben Whitelaw: Damn scammers.
• 2:24
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm Ben Whitelaw.
• 2:26
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm the founder and editor of Everything in Moderation, and I'm joined by, an increasingly AI literate.
• 2:32
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike Masnick, who, probably has a hugging face account, or is due to at any moment.
• 2:38
  Mike Masnick: I don't, I don't have a hugging face account.
• 2:41
  Mike Masnick: but I have been doing a lot of messing around with, AI tools lately.
• 2:44
  Mike Masnick: I was very pleased in the last few days.
• 2:46
  Mike Masnick: I have been wrestling with a vibe coding tool for the last couple weeks, trying to get one feature to work properly.
• 2:55
  Mike Masnick: Um, the tool that I built, that I wrote about last month, I have this task management tool that I built.
• 3:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, talk a little bit about that.
• 3:01
  Ben Whitelaw: 'cause we've, we've heard you've been doing this stuff, people might not have read the piece.
• 3:05
  Ben Whitelaw: You've essentially created your own like productivity
• 3:08
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 3:09
  Mike Masnick: and I keep, you know, sort of keep making it better.
• 3:12
  Mike Masnick: and for some reason I had one feature that I was trying to get work, and it was, bugging out on me a little bit and not quite working, but I did get it.
• 3:18
  Mike Masnick: It was like, really exciting.
• 3:20
  Mike Masnick: Um, but yeah, I mean, I, you know, I, I wrote this whole thing about it where it's.
• 3:24
  Mike Masnick: I like the idea of being able to control and use my own tools and, mold them to my needs specifically.
• 3:30
  Mike Masnick: And so I built a, it's a task management tool with a bunch of other features built in.
• 3:35
  Mike Masnick: I have it connected to my calendar and my email, so I can turn any email into a task, I can turn any calendar event into a task.
• 3:42
  Mike Masnick: I have a bunch of other sort of features in it, and it just sort of like.
• 3:46
  Mike Masnick: Manages my day now and it's built exactly to my needs.
• 3:49
  Mike Masnick: And, like, I, you know, played around with like every productivity tool ever invented all of them sort of required me to shift my brain to, act in the, the way that whoever created it things which wasn't exactly the way that my brain thinks.
• 4:04
  Mike Masnick: And now I have a tool that sort of matches the way I think.
• 4:06
  Mike Masnick: And, at least for me, I think it's made me a lot more productive.
• 4:10
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I mean my, desktop is a kind of graveyard of productivity tools and, you know, my browser, just has like, that's where productivity tools go to die.
• 4:19
  Ben Whitelaw: I've just got them kind of stacked up one by one.
• 4:21
  Ben Whitelaw: I never used them.
• 4:22
  Ben Whitelaw: has it made you more productive though, and how do you know?
• 4:25
  Mike Masnick: yeah.
• 4:25
  Mike Masnick: I, I don't know.
• 4:26
  Mike Masnick: I mean, yeah, I don't know for sure, but it, it is something that it has helped me sort of organize my day and I found it useful and so like keeping track of stuff.
• 4:35
  Mike Masnick: My issue is always like, I'm working on a million things at once, as you well know.
• 4:39
  Mike Masnick: And it's like.
• 4:40
  Mike Masnick: Stuff will sometimes fall through the cracks.
• 4:42
  Mike Masnick: and, I think this tool is keeping me much, much more organized.
• 4:46
  Mike Masnick: part of it is that it has a whole feature that sort of like forces me to slow down and sort of plan out my day and like look through like what am I actually gonna do today?
• 4:55
  Mike Masnick: and I have all these tasks out there, but which ones am I actually going to do today?
• 4:58
  Mike Masnick: And it sort of forces me to reflect on those things a little bit.
• 5:01
  Ben Whitelaw: clever.
• 5:02
  Ben Whitelaw: When are you gonna be, uh, launching your, giant software company?
• 5:06
  Mike Masnick: Well, this is the thing.
• 5:07
  Mike Masnick: It's like I, I, it is designed for me and me alone, and a couple people have asked me like, oh, can I, that really sounds like exactly what I want.
• 5:14
  Mike Masnick: Can I get an account?
• 5:14
  Mike Masnick: And I'm just like, no, I've turned off.
• 5:17
  Mike Masnick: You know, it has.
• 5:18
  Mike Masnick: it's funny'cause you use these vibe coding tools and they just naturally assume that you must be wanting to turn it into a big business.
• 5:23
  Mike Masnick: and so it has like a whole login and sign up for an account.
• 5:26
  Mike Masnick: And I was like, no.
• 5:27
  Mike Masnick: Like we're turning that off
• 5:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 5:29
  Mike Masnick: it is just for me, and I'm not letting anyone else use it.
• 5:32
  Mike Masnick: And so, yeah, it's, kind of cool.
• 5:34
  Mike Masnick: You can build your own though.
• 5:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Maybe I will, maybe I will.
• 5:36
  Ben Whitelaw: this tool sounds like it will come in handy next week, where you have a pretty packed week because you're gonna be at Trust Con 2025, the major trust and safety professionals conference held in San Francisco.
• 5:48
  Ben Whitelaw: a lot of our listeners will be going, many folks will be traveling over the weekend.
• 5:52
  Ben Whitelaw: They might be listening to the podcast as they, go.
• 5:54
  Ben Whitelaw: We hope people, arrive safely and en enjoy themselves.
• 5:57
  Ben Whitelaw: You'll be doing a bunch of sessions, but most notably.
• 6:02
  Mike Masnick: Yes.
• 6:03
  Mike Masnick: So if you're listening to this and you'll be at Trust Con, please come see Control Alt Speech Live.
• 6:08
  Mike Masnick: It's the final session of Trust Con, just like it was last year.
• 6:11
  Mike Masnick: It's Wednesday at four o'clock in the Grand Ballroom.
• 6:15
  Mike Masnick: A.
• 6:16
  Mike Masnick: It was a fun time last year and it will be slightly less fun this year because Ben, you will not be there, but.
• 6:24
  Mike Masnick: I still promise it'll be fun.
• 6:25
  Mike Masnick: we'll have a really good time and a really good discussion and, uh, yeah, so I'm, I'm hoping we have, we had a huge crowd last year and hopefully we'll have a huge crowd this year as well.
• 6:35
  Mike Masnick: And it's a great way to close out your trust con
• 6:36
  Ben Whitelaw: Indeed, I want it to go well.
• 6:38
  Ben Whitelaw: I want obviously you to, nail the hosting Mike, as you always do, but I also want folks to, to go along and heckle, uh,
• 6:45
  Mike Masnick: That's,
• 6:46
  Ben Whitelaw: to make and to make it tricky.
• 6:47
  Ben Whitelaw: So,
• 6:48
  Mike Masnick: man.
• 6:50
  Ben Whitelaw: so, you know, that's, I, I, I'm split.
• 6:53
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I'll be honest, I'm split between wanting it to go incredibly well, but
• 6:57
  Mike Masnick: are gonna be yelling.
• 6:58
  Mike Masnick: You are not as good as Ben.
• 7:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 7:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, exactly.
• 7:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Exactly.
• 7:02
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, for people who aren't going to trust Ghana, who, don't have a ticket, do not worry.
• 7:07
  Ben Whitelaw: The recording will be on the feed next week.
• 7:10
  Ben Whitelaw: we will be putting that out as usual, with a really great bonus chat, actually.
• 7:14
  Ben Whitelaw: So it's, it's all gonna be as last year, you'll be able to listen to it and hear the heckling and hear, hear, hear how well Mike does in my place.
• 7:23
  Ben Whitelaw: It's all good.
• 7:24
  Mike Masnick: There we go.
• 7:25
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, talking of bonus chats, we've got a really, great bonus chat today with, David Sullivan, the exec director of the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership.
• 7:33
  Ben Whitelaw: David tells us all about how the trust and safety framework has become an official international standard.
• 7:40
  Ben Whitelaw: What that means for trust and safety folks and companies who are interested in content moderation and how it's gonna be helpful for practitioners and regulators.
• 7:48
  Ben Whitelaw: So he's gonna unpack all of that for us.
• 7:50
  Ben Whitelaw: He's actually doing a talk at Trust Con about this, so it's very much hot off the press.
• 7:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Which is how we like it, a control al speech.
• 7:58
  Ben Whitelaw: does mean we've got a lot to get through today, Mike, so I might be ching us along, more than usual.
• 8:03
  Ben Whitelaw: we've got a lot to get through.
• 8:05
  Ben Whitelaw: and we're gonna start off, I think a lot of what we talk about on control or speech is, the kind of difference between what platforms say they do and what they actually enable.
• 8:14
  Ben Whitelaw: Knowingly or unknowingly and the kind of process of realization that companies go through when, they discover that the unintended action of a user has taken place.
• 8:26
  Ben Whitelaw: And, we are gonna be talking about the French founded company hugging face, which has built a bit of a reputation as, the nice, friendly face of ai, but has got itself into a bit of a pickle this week.
• 8:35
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, well it's, it's interesting and, and the question is like, whose pickle is it, I guess?
• 8:42
  Mike Masnick: Um, so there are a few things, right?
• 8:44
  Mike Masnick: And, I think most people listening to this podcast will recognize that, anyone will say that if you create a space online that allows people to.
• 8:53
  Mike Masnick: Upload or post any kind of content, anything that is user generated content, you have a trust and safety issue.
• 8:59
  Mike Masnick: it doesn't matter how or what.
• 9:00
  Mike Masnick: People will figure out ways to abuse it and people will figure out ways to do bad things with it.
• 9:04
  Mike Masnick: And you sort of need to figure out what you wanna do with it.
• 9:07
  Mike Masnick: And I think a lot of the entrepreneurs in the space come into this thinking like, we're we're just creating a, platform man.
• 9:14
  Mike Masnick: Like, what people do with it is their own business and, don't necessarily.
• 9:18
  Mike Masnick: Think through all of those consequences.
• 9:20
  Mike Masnick: and so this, I think, is an example of that to some extent.
• 9:24
  Mike Masnick: And it actually starts with a different platform, not hugging face, but an AI platform called Civic ai, which, has raised a ton of funding and got a whole bunch of money as like a place where people could upload different AI models for generating text to imagery.
• 9:41
  Mike Masnick: And, I, I think they raised money from Andreessen Horowitz, which is like the top of the top VC firms these days.
• 9:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 9:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Can I just say like, When I came across Civic ai, maybe, I don't know, a few months ago I thought it was C as in the, like the mammal, the kind of the, the animal.
• 9:56
  Mike Masnick: Right.
• 9:57
  Ben Whitelaw: and I was like, that's an interesting name for an AI company.
• 10:00
  Ben Whitelaw: And then I realized that actually it's C-C-I-V-I-T ai and there is no, like, the founder doesn't have like a strong connection to cts and they never owned a ct if,
• 10:12
  Mike Masnick: we don't know.
• 10:13
  Mike Masnick: I mean, but, but yeah, it probably not, uh, but anyways.
• 10:19
  Mike Masnick: so Civic AI was, getting criticized reasonably for years now.
• 10:22
  Mike Masnick: I mean, they've been around for a few years that a lot of the models that were being uploaded to their service were actually used for generating non-consensual, adult imagery of real people.
• 10:34
  Mike Masnick: And so, there are already all sorts of issues and there have been for years with what's known as NCII, non-consensual intimate imagery, which often was around like, people taking images of themselves, sending them to someone and then having them get out or something like that.
• 10:51
  Mike Masnick: Now this, the rise of AI generation tools in particular, image generation tools, Unfortunately, in many ways changed the game on that in terms of making it so that you could create fake such images.
• 11:02
  Mike Masnick: Deep fakes as we've said.
• 11:04
  Mike Masnick: And of course, because there are a lot of people in the world who gosh, I was gonna say awful, but you know.
• 11:10
  Mike Masnick: In some cases awful.
• 11:11
  Mike Masnick: And a lot of cases don't think through the consequences of what they're doing or don't think about the harm that they may be doing to other people without them realizing it.
• 11:19
  Mike Masnick: ran to this platform generally to create naked images of people that they were, you know, wanted to, to see naked, I
• 11:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Ben Whitelaw: And, and all of these kind of models and, uh, are named after celebrities, right.
• 11:31
  Ben Whitelaw: there's a lot of kind of targeting of celebrities.
• 11:33
  Ben Whitelaw: There's a lot of, a
• 11:35
  Mike Masnick: And so, and
• 11:35
  Ben Whitelaw: reveal public
• 11:37
  Mike Masnick: and, and in fact, different kinds of celebrities too.
• 11:40
  Mike Masnick: So there was definitely a lot, and obviously the majority of them being females
• 11:44
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Mike Masnick: You know, men are awful.
• 11:46
  Mike Masnick: Right?
• 11:47
  Mike Masnick: and so you know, so some of them are like the sort of world famous Hollywood stars and, stuff like that.
• 11:53
  Mike Masnick: A lot of them though were also like internet famous.
• 11:56
  Mike Masnick: So people who were.
• 11:58
  Mike Masnick: Popular more, you know, within certain communities and stuff, which is, I mean, they're both terrible, but in some ways, even even worse.
• 12:06
  Mike Masnick: and so civic AI has come under criticism for years about this, and they've talked about their own sort of attempts to deal with it.
• 12:12
  Mike Masnick: Not, well, I don't think they've ever held themselves out particularly well, but a few months ago they said that they were finally gonna ban all of these models, but they gave, they didn't do it immediately.
• 12:23
  Mike Masnick: they sort of gave model makers the ability to, download their models and gave'em a few days before they started to cut them all off.
• 12:30
  Mike Masnick: And eventually they cut out 50,000, or somewhere around 50,000 models that they, took down from their service.
• 12:37
  Mike Masnick: and.
• 12:38
  Mike Masnick: So this started with a story on 4 0 4 media.
• 12:41
  Mike Masnick: there was a report done that looked at the, you know, there were these researchers who had been following the models on civic AI and sort of used this to, to figure out how many models were taken down.
• 12:50
  Mike Masnick: But they were also looking at how much of the imagery that was created on civic AI was non-consensual, intimate imagery
• 12:57
  Ben Whitelaw: Because they had played, they played down how much NCI was on the platform, right?
• 13:02
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, they had put out a report in, 2023, at the end of 2023, saying that, I think less than 20% of the content they said was we would consider it to be PG 13 or above.
• 13:12
  Mike Masnick: and so these researchers went to study that and said like, no.
• 13:16
  Mike Masnick: And they even went back in time and kind of looked at where things were.
• 13:19
  Mike Masnick: And even in 2023 when all this was happening, it was probably.
• 13:25
  Mike Masnick: A much larger percentage.
• 13:28
  Mike Masnick: Obviously, some of that is subjective.
• 13:30
  Mike Masnick: You know, what counts as PG 13, which I should be clear since it's an American rating, right?
• 13:35
  Mike Masnick: PG 13 is an American
• 13:37
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I think we have this in the uk.
• 13:39
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah,
• 13:40
  Mike Masnick: don't know what the UK movie rating systems
• 13:43
  Ben Whitelaw: No, I think it's, I think that's the same.
• 13:44
  Mike Masnick: Okay, cool.
• 13:45
  Mike Masnick: Uh, and so the idea is like, you know, how, how, graphic the imagery is and, and everything like that.
• 13:51
  Mike Masnick: And, but now they're saying that like On Civic ai, you know, towards the end it was, up around like 80% of the imagery was this kind of imagery.
• 14:01
  Mike Masnick: All these models were taken down.
• 14:02
  Mike Masnick: But in the process of taking down all these models, these researchers sort of tracked which models were taken down.
• 14:07
  Mike Masnick: and then 4 0 4 media had a separate story about hugging face, which was basically a bunch of the people who were making and using these models re-uploaded them to hugging face.
• 14:17
  Mike Masnick: And so hugging face has about 5,000.
• 14:19
  Mike Masnick: So again, 50,000 were taken down from Civic ai, but about one 10th of those have been re-uploaded to hugging face because hugging face is also, it's different than Civic ai, but it's basically a repository for.
• 14:32
  Mike Masnick: Different AI models, LLM models, and people can download them.
• 14:35
  Mike Masnick: It's, if you're familiar with GitHub, it's sort of like a GitHub for ai.
• 14:40
  Mike Masnick: and there's different, things that you can, you can do with it there, but it's, it's a repository.
• 14:44
  Mike Masnick: And so people took these models and, part of this was an organized effort.
• 14:48
  Mike Masnick: It wasn't just like randomly people did this, but rather a bunch of people who were users of civic ai.
• 14:54
  Mike Masnick: Set up a Discord and a group where they were discussing all of this stuff and did a concerted effort to upload the models to hugging face, sometimes using the same names, but often trying to hide the fact of what they were.
• 15:07
  Ben Whitelaw: Oh, okay.
• 15:09
  Mike Masnick: And there's actually like somewhere, I think, in their discord or something.
• 15:13
  Mike Masnick: And this is again, based on, on really good reporting from 4 0 4 media.
• 15:16
  Mike Masnick: There's like a translation page where it's like, oh, if you're looking for a model that will produce naked images of this or that Hollywood star, go to this model which is uploaded to hugging face under the name like test model or you know, something benign where it is not clear if you're just looking at hugging face.
• 15:36
  Mike Masnick: So this presents.
• 15:37
  Mike Masnick: A tricky trust and safety problem for something like hugging face, right?
• 15:41
  Mike Masnick: If you're just seeing the model being uploaded and it's just called like test model or something totally benign, how do you know that it's really, a model that has been trained specifically to make, non-consensual imagery of a particular person, a real person, 4 0 4 media was able to like.
• 16:00
  Mike Masnick: You know, work backwards.
• 16:02
  Mike Masnick: And they had the list of all the models that were taken down from Civic ai, they had access to the Discord, and were able to, figure out, how these, models were up there.
• 16:11
  Mike Masnick: But again, so it, represents this really interesting thing, one in that like, You would hope that hugging face was, trying to block these models as well.
• 16:18
  Mike Masnick: And certainly should have been aware that when civic AI goes down, people are gonna start uploading.
• 16:22
  Mike Masnick: But also, again, it gets to like the difficulty of all of these things when people are trying to deliberately hide it and rename it.
• 16:28
  Mike Masnick: And being pointed there from elsewhere.
• 16:31
  Mike Masnick: It's not that people are going to hug and face and like searching for, I want to create naked images of so and so.
• 16:37
  Mike Masnick: becomes a, a somewhat more difficult problem, but it also sort of suggests the kind of whack-a-mole nature that we've seen with other kinds of content where, okay, this platform says, okay, this is no longer allowed here, and it goes away there, but it pops up somewhere else, often darker, often harder to control, often harder to, follow and keep track of.
• 16:57
  Mike Masnick: It's the whole like dark web issue all over again.
• 17:00
  Mike Masnick: That, we've seen in in other contexts.
• 17:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, and I wanna pick up on that'cause, the Civic ai, CEO has previously talked about this exact thing, and that platform garnered a lot of users because other NSF, not suitable for work platforms.
• 17:14
  Ben Whitelaw: they changed their policies around what models were allowed and so users flocked to civic ai.
• 17:20
  Ben Whitelaw: And so you have this, shifting of, of users between different platforms in exactly the way you talk about.
• 17:26
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, what are the ways we're kind of, we can get around this, like do we want platforms to be working more collaboratively to prevent this kind of.
• 17:35
  Ben Whitelaw: safety issue to prevent, you know, what is a huge and growing issue of NCI do.
• 17:39
  Ben Whitelaw: We do, we expect platforms to do that.
• 17:41
  Mike Masnick: I mean it's tricky in lots of ways.
• 17:43
  Mike Masnick: And, and, the 4 0 4 media article, which again, like you can't praise those guys enough'cause they're so good.
• 17:47
  Mike Masnick: But, they sort of raised the issue where it's like.
• 17:50
  Mike Masnick: This is difficult in, in all sorts of ways because there are times where it's like, it's okay to have models that will produce images of real people.
• 17:58
  Mike Masnick: And so they talk about like parody images or like protest images, you know, for like creating images of like a politician.
• 18:06
  Mike Masnick: there's always, with all these things, there's an element of.
• 18:09
  Mike Masnick: Is it the model that's the problem, or is it the users that are the problem is it the platforms that's hosting these things?
• 18:14
  Mike Masnick: and there's, as with anything, there's like some of all of those things, right?
• 18:20
  Mike Masnick: So like, could you see a world in which you have some sort of like, Database the, the platforms can, check against like a hash database of different models and say like, we've decided like we don't want this particular model.
• 18:34
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 18:35
  Mike Masnick: I mean maybe that limits some stuff, but like people will adjust the models and re-upload and it becomes very tricky to stop.
• 18:42
  Mike Masnick: You
• 18:42
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 18:43
  Mike Masnick: as with everything that I talk about here, like the answer is that it's always more complicated and there are no simple answers and.
• 18:50
  Mike Masnick: Some of this is societal, you know, where it's like, it would be nice if we trained, young men that, they're probably more productive and societally appropriate ways to, think about these things.
• 19:02
  Mike Masnick: Um, as opposed to, you know, having them channel their, desires, I guess in, in this manner.
• 19:08
  Ben Whitelaw: that's the kind of comment, Michael, that will get you shouted at by tech users.
• 19:12
  Ben Whitelaw: Because remember last week where you said that you suggested media literacy as a kinda long-term solution and they came back and said, we don't have time.
• 19:20
  Ben Whitelaw: do we have time to retrain men?
• 19:22
  Ben Whitelaw: And then that's, that's, that's an, that's another podcast that's, that's a different week.
• 19:25
  Ben Whitelaw: But, yeah, it's, it's a super interesting story and.
• 19:29
  Ben Whitelaw: there's lots to it, and I think this is something we will end up seeing, in other ways that we will end up talking about the whack-a-Mole.
• 19:35
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 19:35
  Mike Masnick: and one thing too, and again, this is another point that four four media raised, which I also is important is.
• 19:41
  Mike Masnick: It is often true that adult content leads the way in internet technologies, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 19:48
  Mike Masnick: And, nothing in this should, is suggesting that like adult content itself is inherently bad or problematic.
• 19:54
  Mike Masnick: There are places for that and there are uses for that.
• 19:58
  Mike Masnick: the main issue here is the non-consensual aspect of, of it, which, I think is, is something that.
• 20:04
  Mike Masnick: We as a society has have been learning more about and understanding more recently because it's, mostly a recent problem.
• 20:12
  Mike Masnick: Not entirely, like there are always stories going back for a long period of time, but it's something that more and more people are recognizing now as an issue and as with any issue that sort bubbles up.
• 20:22
  Mike Masnick: Recently, people are still sort of figuring out as a society how to deal with it and how to manage it.
• 20:27
  Mike Masnick: And we should be careful not to go too far.
• 20:29
  Mike Masnick: And then turning that into something like all adult content must be banned because there are efforts to do that as well.
• 20:35
  Mike Masnick: and so the arguments here are not in support of that, but rather, the consent part is really what's key here.
• 20:41
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, for sure.
• 20:42
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, it's interesting that you know, the idea of kind of AI models and NCIS as an emerging threat is only just kind of surfacing really.
• 20:50
  Ben Whitelaw: I feel like we're really at the start of that.
• 20:52
  Ben Whitelaw: but pornography is something that's been around a long time and that kind of leads us.
• 20:55
  Ben Whitelaw: Neatly into the next story.
• 20:57
  Ben Whitelaw: It's something that, is still being regulated or sought to be regulated by governments around the world.
• 21:03
  Ben Whitelaw: And, here in the uk there is a big moment next week where, some new codes that are designed to keep children safe, we'll come into.
• 21:12
  Ben Whitelaw: Practice.
• 21:13
  Ben Whitelaw: So platforms will, will need to have adjusted their operations and, we'll have to show ofcom the regulator that, it is abiding by these codes.
• 21:22
  Ben Whitelaw: I know all about this, Mike, because I spent my Sunday listening to the Ofcom, CEO Melanie do given interview, talk about Busman's holiday.
• 21:31
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, that's, that's how I spend my, uh, my weekends, at the moment.
• 21:35
  Ben Whitelaw: but it's a really interesting interview and I think it's worth talking about today.
• 21:39
  Ben Whitelaw: you managed to watch it as well, the course of us prepping for today's podcast.
• 21:42
  Ben Whitelaw: So, but I wanna give kind of listeners an overview of, of really who Melanie do is, what she's about, and then we can go into what she said.
• 21:49
  Ben Whitelaw: So she is, the CEO of of Ofcom.
• 21:52
  Ben Whitelaw: As I mentioned, she's been around for four years in the role and she was appearing on.
• 21:56
  Ben Whitelaw: The BBC is kind of major political Sunday talk show, which is called, the Sunday Show Run, and presented by a woman called Laura Konberg, very prominent UK political journalist.
• 22:05
  Ben Whitelaw: Um.
• 22:06
  Ben Whitelaw: the thing I wanna get across here is that this is a show that's listened to, watched by a lot of people.
• 22:10
  Ben Whitelaw: I didn't have the numbers for this year, but it's back in It was had 1.5 million viewers.
• 22:16
  Ben Whitelaw: so this is a, big way that, folks in the UK get their politics news, and the whole show was about online safety because of what's happening next week.
• 22:24
  Ben Whitelaw: Melanie Doers was, the main interviewee and there was a panel of, online safety experts as well.
• 22:29
  Ben Whitelaw: And she was asked by Laura Coonsburg about what these new codes will mean and whether they will keep children safe in a, the way that I think lots of people want.
• 22:41
  Ben Whitelaw: a couple of things to this, which I'm, keen to get your thoughts on her kind of performance and her responses, which I actually think were, pretty good.
• 22:49
  Ben Whitelaw: And then there is the coverage, by the BBC itself and, and some of the questions, what was interesting really was how Melin do gave a really, I think, coherent and very like, professional response to, questions around online safety.
• 23:03
  Ben Whitelaw: She, I thought she used the opportunity really well to talk about some of the.
• 23:07
  Ben Whitelaw: Companies that have agreed to off comm's new codes and have agreed to, for example, put up age verification, on their sites, PornHub being one of them.
• 23:17
  Ben Whitelaw: but she also pushed back at some of the kind of suggestion that off com and, and the government more broadly wasn't doing enough.
• 23:23
  Ben Whitelaw: which is something that child safety campaigners will often say that, that the regulation hasn't gone enough.
• 23:28
  Ben Whitelaw: there was.
• 23:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Some interesting questions around, kinda misinformation, which is a big topic in the UK very much since the last year when we had those Southport riots that we talked about on the podcast.
• 23:40
  Ben Whitelaw: And I think, doors did a really good job of saying that actually, misinformation is a very difficult thing to regulate and we're gonna wait for regulation from, ministers before doing anything with it.
• 23:51
  Ben Whitelaw: Basically overall, I thought she gave a really strong interview and, I think that's notable because.
• 23:56
  Ben Whitelaw: A there is a lot of criticism, ofcom for the regulation and for what platforms are going to be doing to comply with it.
• 24:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Over the next few weeks, we're gonna hear a lot more about that.
• 24:05
  Ben Whitelaw: But as far as people you kind of want to have at the top of an organization, like a regulator, I thought, you know, she did pretty well.
• 24:14
  Ben Whitelaw: And she doesn't give a lot of interviews.
• 24:16
  Ben Whitelaw: The last time I could find that she gave a, kinda as extensive interview as this was, to a UK newspaper last year.
• 24:22
  Ben Whitelaw: she doesn't really come out and talk about this a lot, so it was a notable moment for UK online safety and.
• 24:28
  Ben Whitelaw: Obviously, that deadline next week of, the 25th of July for companies to adhere to these codes is gonna be a big moment in time for UK online safety generally, and I think we'll ripple much further than that.
• 24:40
  Ben Whitelaw: what did you think of her performance?
• 24:42
  Ben Whitelaw: Before we get into the question she was asked.
• 24:45
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, it's always tough to tell, right?
• 24:48
  Mike Masnick: Because like someone in her position is, is in kind of an impossible position because it's just never gonna satisfy anyone, right?
• 24:56
  Mike Masnick: Like, she's sort of being told that she is in charge of making the internet safe.
• 25:00
  Mike Masnick: The internet is never going to be safe.
• 25:01
  Mike Masnick: Like just inherently, like this is the nature of society again.
• 25:05
  Mike Masnick: And so, there were polished media trained politician answers to questions.
• 25:13
  Mike Masnick: Some of which, you know, there were some that I thought she could have pushed back stronger on.
• 25:16
  Mike Masnick: I think she did push back on some and sort of pointed out that like there were some misinformation about the policies and how they were being implemented and how Ofcom was, treating it.
• 25:25
  Mike Masnick: You know, I think Some of what's important to think about too is like Ofcom has always tried to position themselves as sort of.
• 25:32
  Mike Masnick: You know, I used to joke that they, present themselves as the friendly regulator.
• 25:36
  Mike Masnick: You know, I don't think that's exactly true, but it's more like the reasonable regulator is the way they've positioned themselves.
• 25:41
  Mike Masnick: Whether or not that's true is, a different story, but they've always, been out there sort of trying to engage with.
• 25:47
  Mike Masnick: All different stakeholders and saying like, we're trying to understand.
• 25:49
  Mike Masnick: We're trying to balance the different stakes and, and the different interests and the different challenges here, and we're trying to find the path that works the best.
• 25:57
  Mike Masnick: And I think that's kind of what she showed in there is again, like, we're trying to do this now that allows, activists on one side or the other to say, oh, you're too much on the other side.
• 26:07
  Mike Masnick: Therefore you're not doing enough.
• 26:08
  Mike Masnick: and I think she did navigate that.
• 26:11
  Mike Masnick: but again, like I have my general complaints about, the online safety Act and sort of how it's being implemented and all that kind of stuff.
• 26:18
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 26:19
  Mike Masnick: you know, for her position, I think she did as, well as could be.
• 26:22
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, we'll get into that.
• 26:23
  Ben Whitelaw: 'cause there are a couple of platforms that have made big announcements this week.
• 26:26
  Ben Whitelaw: I thought it's worth noting that actually in an interview that I read with her.
• 26:31
  Ben Whitelaw: This might make you like her more.
• 26:33
  Ben Whitelaw: She suggested that she was skeptical about Jonathan Hate's book, the Anxious Generation, and I was like, that's, you know, similar to Mike.
• 26:41
  Ben Whitelaw: So I
• 26:42
  Mike Masnick: the way to my heart.
• 26:45
  Ben Whitelaw: I dunno if she was, yeah, if she was flirting with you from afar.
• 26:48
  Ben Whitelaw: The, the, I think also an interesting nugget.
• 26:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Do you know how many hours a day of her smartphone she uses?
• 26:55
  Mike Masnick: No, I have no idea.
• 26:57
  Ben Whitelaw: guess.
• 26:57
  Mike Masnick: Oh God.
• 26:59
  Ben Whitelaw: And she thinks this is bad, by the way.
• 27:01
  Mike Masnick: So it's gotta be a number that I'm gonna think is way too low.
• 27:04
  Mike Masnick: Uh, two hours.
• 27:06
  Mike Masnick: I
• 27:06
  Ben Whitelaw: Three,
• 27:07
  Mike Masnick: Three.
• 27:07
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 27:08
  Ben Whitelaw: three hours.
• 27:09
  Ben Whitelaw: She uses her phone for three hours a day.
• 27:10
  Ben Whitelaw: And she says that, that is bad.
• 27:13
  Ben Whitelaw: I would hate for her to see my usage stats.
• 27:15
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, seriously.
• 27:18
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, but you know.
• 27:20
  Ben Whitelaw: thought that her responses to the questions around smartphone usage were pretty good, despite the fact that she clearly doesn't spend a lot of time on her phone.
• 27:28
  Ben Whitelaw: let's get into the kind of platform announcements then.
• 27:30
  Ben Whitelaw: blue Sky.
• 27:31
  Ben Whitelaw: made an announcement, which,
• 27:32
  Mike Masnick: Bell.
• 27:33
  Mike Masnick: Bell.
• 27:33
  Mike Masnick: Where's the bell?
• 27:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike is on the border of Blue Sky.
• 27:37
  Ben Whitelaw: As many folks will know, we actually got a, uh, a message from one of our listeners.
• 27:42
  Ben Whitelaw: shout out to Barry who said that he wanted to hear the bell for this story.
• 27:47
  Ben Whitelaw: So we're kind of, we we're not mentioning it because of that, but it was in a useful, useful nudge.
• 27:53
  Ben Whitelaw: BL police, police sky are going to adhere to these.
• 27:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Children's codes by having some form of verification.
• 27:59
  Ben Whitelaw: I don't imagine you wanna match about it'cause you're not involved in a day-to-day basis, but, what did you make of that?
• 28:05
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 28:06
  Mike Masnick: And, also we should note Reddit similarly announced that, that they're going to be enforcing it as well.
• 28:11
  Mike Masnick: Um, look, yes.
• 28:12
  Mike Masnick: I am not involved in day-to-day decisions.
• 28:14
  Mike Masnick: I'm on the board.
• 28:15
  Mike Masnick: I am associated with the company.
• 28:18
  Mike Masnick: Take everything I say is, biased.
• 28:19
  Mike Masnick: Uh, if you want, I've made my position clear on age verification.
• 28:23
  Mike Masnick: I think it is a silly technology that doesn't work well.
• 28:27
  Mike Masnick: I think it has a whole bunch of problems.
• 28:28
  Mike Masnick: I think it doesn't solve the problems that people think it is solving.
• 28:31
  Mike Masnick: and I think that we're learning that as lots of different places around the world implement laws requiring it, we're seeing all of the problems with it, including the risks to privacy, all of which I've been extremely clear about.
• 28:45
  Mike Masnick: That said, there are laws that any company that wants to operate in certain countries has to comply with.
• 28:51
  Mike Masnick: And this is like an ongoing challenge of any internet company and figuring out if you want to provide services in different countries, there are different requirements and how do you balance that and, make those decisions is, an ongoing set of trade-offs.
• 29:05
  Mike Masnick: And debates and discussions.
• 29:07
  Mike Masnick: and so, anyone who wants to operate in the, in the UK has to do this.
• 29:11
  Mike Masnick: blue Sky announced their plans early.
• 29:13
  Mike Masnick: Reddit announced soon after.
• 29:15
  Mike Masnick: Within the next week, we're gonna hear from a bunch of others.
• 29:17
  Mike Masnick: as you mentioned and as was mentioned in the interview with, Ocom, ALO, which runs PornHub, is agreeing to, do the same thing as well.
• 29:25
  Mike Masnick: which is interesting in that they.
• 29:28
  Mike Masnick: PornHub has very clearly pushed back in the US on almost every state.
• 29:33
  Mike Masnick: In the interview, she says that this is the only jurisdiction that they've agreed to comply with.
• 29:37
  Mike Masnick: That's not entirely true'cause they did agree to comply with Louisiana because Louisiana had a very specific implementation that.
• 29:44
  Mike Masnick: PornHub was willing to, agree to, but every other state that has introduced, age verification rules, they have not, which to some extent is, depending on how you look at it, a statement that's saying that Ocom is being somewhat more reasonable in what they consider.
• 29:58
  Mike Masnick: an acceptable level of age verification, or age estimation or age assurance, which people will say are three different things.
• 30:06
  Mike Masnick: In reality, they all sort of blend together.
• 30:08
  Mike Masnick: the element that is interesting about the UK approach, again, I'm not approving of this, but the UK approach is effectively allowing companies to experiment.
• 30:19
  Mike Masnick: And figure out what is most effective.
• 30:22
  Mike Masnick: While in theory, and again, I don't think there's a way to do this without causing some privacy risk.
• 30:29
  Mike Masnick: that is the most privacy protective, and they're sort of willing to iterate and allow companies to iterate as that goes.
• 30:35
  Mike Masnick: That's better than many other places that are saying like, you have to do this specific thing.
• 30:41
  Mike Masnick: You have to scan faces, you have to upload IDs, or whatever it might be.
• 30:45
  Mike Masnick: Ofcom is allowing different companies to try different things.
• 30:48
  Mike Masnick: I think we're gonna learn a lot from those experiments.
• 30:50
  Mike Masnick: would I like it better if this was not a requirement and that if Blue Sky had not, put this in place probably, I think that would've been a better world.
• 30:59
  Mike Masnick: Um, but this is the world that we live in and companies have to operate under the laws that, they have.
• 31:03
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, and we don't have a lot of times going to it today.
• 31:06
  Ben Whitelaw: but the European Commission has unveiled its guidelines for online platforms about how to protect children this week, which includes a kind of its own age verification app.
• 31:18
  Ben Whitelaw: So it's taking a slightly more kind of concrete guided approach To the process than Ofcom currently is.
• 31:25
  Ben Whitelaw: So that is notable.
• 31:26
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm sure we'll come back to that
• 31:27
  Mike Masnick: And, and the one, one quick thing I wanna say on that was the EU Commission.
• 31:30
  Mike Masnick: When they did that, they released this announcement where they said that the age assurance methods must be accurate, reliable, robust, non-intrusive, and non-discriminatory.
• 31:38
  Mike Masnick: That's an impossible collection of things.
• 31:40
  Mike Masnick: Like there are no tools that, hit all of those points.
• 31:43
  Mike Masnick: And I think this is what I'm always concerned with, with sort of the magic wand thinking of like, if we say this is the way the technology has to work, that's the way the technology has to work.
• 31:52
  Mike Masnick: and that's impossible.
• 31:52
  Mike Masnick: And I worry about mandates that require the impossible.
• 31:55
  Mike Masnick: So that's, all I'll say on the EU commission setup.
• 31:57
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, just briefly, I wanna talk a bit about, the line of questioning that Melanie dos got from the BBC presenter.
• 32:05
  Ben Whitelaw: I was not very impressed with the level of questions and the insistence.
• 32:11
  Ben Whitelaw: Of Laura Kosberg to kind of suggest that Ofcom just needed to block certain kinds of content.
• 32:17
  Ben Whitelaw: She kept talking about how, parents didn't want to see particular kind of dangerous challenges on platforms or see, you know, nudity and, and wasn't it just simpler for, for them to block it?
• 32:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Not really understanding that that is incredibly difficult, has a bunch of kind of downsides and she kept going back to it and, and it made me think, you know, this is really why we.
• 32:38
  Ben Whitelaw: do the podcast, to have kind of open conversations about the intricacies and the challenges of balancing these, different priorities you know, of speech, of safety, of privacy and this kind of, you know, to your point about four or four media being such a gold standard for, for this stuff.
• 32:57
  Ben Whitelaw: The BBC, for me was a bit disappointing.
• 32:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 32:59
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 32:59
  Mike Masnick: And, I'll just say like, this is the thing that people who don't have experience or knowledge or, don't dig deeply into this world, think like, oh, this must be easy.
• 33:07
  Mike Masnick: Just take down the bad stuff and have no understanding of the trade-offs that, come about with that.
• 33:13
  Mike Masnick: And so it's like, if you want no bad stuff online, you should turn off the internet.
• 33:17
  Mike Masnick: Like you should make the internet not exist, right?
• 33:20
  Mike Masnick: all of these things have trade-offs.
• 33:21
  Mike Masnick: If you, if you never want there to be car accidents, you should ban all cars, right?
• 33:24
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 33:25
  Mike Masnick: but that has a cost to it.
• 33:27
  Mike Masnick: and so I thought those questions were very weak, but very standard is what you hear from the media all the time and from politicians all the time.
• 33:35
  Mike Masnick: And it's part of why we try and do what we do.
• 33:38
  Mike Masnick: Me on teter you and everything in moderation and both of us together here on controlled speech is get across the idea that these are, there are trade-offs and, these are difficult questions with no easy answers.
• 33:48
  Mike Masnick: And every time some media talking head goes off about like, well just.
• 33:52
  Mike Masnick: You know, just ban that stuff.
• 33:54
  Mike Masnick: You have to stop it.
• 33:55
  Mike Masnick: It's not a realistic solution, and it doesn't contribute productively to this discussion.
• 33:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, agreed.
• 34:00
  Ben Whitelaw: we are gonna race through Mike and I mean race through the final three stories we've got today.
• 34:07
  Ben Whitelaw: we've talked about my TV viewing habits this week.
• 34:10
  Ben Whitelaw: we wanna talk about your TV watching habits this week, and you've been watching a documentary about sextortion, which sounds fascinating.
• 34:20
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 34:20
  Mike Masnick: And this is also, it's also on UK tv.
• 34:22
  Mike Masnick: I, I had a VPN over to London to, to, to watch this.
• 34:26
  Mike Masnick: So
• 34:26
  Ben Whitelaw: The home of the home of good online safety tv,
• 34:29
  Mike Masnick: Yes, yes.
• 34:30
  Mike Masnick: Uh, it is available on YouTube if you are coming from a London IP address or if, you have an account on Channel Four's, online website, which I don't, but I did see it on YouTube.
• 34:41
  Mike Masnick: So it's really interesting.
• 34:42
  Mike Masnick: We have talked about sextortion scams before and how tragic they are and the impact of them, how widespread they are, how they're happening, and the challenges of, fighting them.
• 34:50
  Mike Masnick: And this documentary was fascinating.
• 34:53
  Mike Masnick: It's, it's only 45 minutes long.
• 34:55
  Mike Masnick: the person started is, is Jordan Stevens, who's a, music artist in the uk.
• 34:59
  Mike Masnick: Fairly successful, well-known.
• 35:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Can I just recommend one of his songs?
• 35:03
  Mike Masnick: yeah, go for it.
• 35:04
  Ben Whitelaw: what's the name of it?
• 35:05
  Ben Whitelaw: It's called Mama Do the Hump.
• 35:07
  Ben Whitelaw: an, it's, it's an absolute banger.
• 35:10
  Ben Whitelaw: Rizzo kicks you.
• 35:12
  Ben Whitelaw: I, I was very surprised when he did a documentary about online safety'cause uh, he's a quite a funny guy and a bit of a joker.
• 35:18
  Ben Whitelaw: But that song, excellent track,
• 35:21
  Mike Masnick: Well.
• 35:21
  Ben Whitelaw: Please continue.
• 35:22
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, sure.
• 35:24
  Mike Masnick: What, what, what's interesting is that what he did was, you know, he heard about Sextortion scammers and he partnered with people who understand how those scams work.
• 35:33
  Mike Masnick: And with some computer cybersecurity folks and they set a honey trap trying to get sex extorted And what they did was he got, with consent, a male model who gave him images that could be used to, could be sent to one of these scammers.
• 35:50
  Mike Masnick: you know,'cause they approach, pretend they're a young woman, send their own like AI generated stuff, but he, he got an actual male model to, volunteer to, or, they probably paid them I'm sure.
• 36:00
  Mike Masnick: And sent back things and then, you know, got scammed.
• 36:03
  Mike Masnick: And it's the same plot that we, we've talked about in, past episodes where as soon as the image is sent, the conversation switches and it's like, I'm going to destroy your life.
• 36:11
  Mike Masnick: You have 10 seconds to send me$200.
• 36:13
  Mike Masnick: But part of what they did was they got fake.
• 36:17
  Mike Masnick: gift cards.
• 36:17
  Mike Masnick: 'cause these guys always want gift cards.
• 36:19
  Mike Masnick: That's how they want you to send the money.
• 36:21
  Mike Masnick: they set up a fake website where when you went to redeem the gift card, it asked you to check a, there's a little popup.
• 36:28
  Mike Masnick: And if you click the popup saying like, you give it your location.
• 36:32
  Mike Masnick: the site would extract your location like down to one meter.
• 36:35
  Mike Masnick: Like they could figure out like in the thing the guy shows Jordan where he's sitting in his house and Jordan's like, oh my gosh.
• 36:43
  Mike Masnick: Like how that's like really, really scary.
• 36:46
  Mike Masnick: and so he sort of, they set up this, Honeypot trapped to get, and they get a scammer and they figure out where they are and then he flies to Nigeria to try and go confront the scammer and they go through this whole process.
• 36:59
  Mike Masnick: It's really fascinating, really interesting.
• 37:01
  Mike Masnick: He also talks to.
• 37:02
  Mike Masnick: They do confront that particular person who denies it, but there's a, they have a lot, they keep collecting a bunch of evidence.
• 37:09
  Mike Masnick: That is almost certainly that guy.
• 37:11
  Mike Masnick: But he also does have conversations with a bunch of people who admit to being these scammers, they all wear masks and stuff.
• 37:18
  Mike Masnick: and they talk about, but then he also talks to, the family of a victim who took his own life in the uk, who was a victim of this stuff, and to a bunch of his friends.
• 37:28
  Mike Masnick: And it's fascinating because you see sort of all the different sides of this story, and, and the important part is that they really present the idea that.
• 37:37
  Mike Masnick: People fall victim to these scams, and it's not the fault of the people who fall victim.
• 37:41
  Mike Masnick: And the most important thing is like one more people to know about the scam.
• 37:45
  Mike Masnick: So they recognize them when they're happening, but then also if people become victims of it, to talk to someone about it and not think that, the situation is hopeless.
• 37:53
  Mike Masnick: And so one point there's like a soccer match in memory of, this kid who ended up taking his own life.
• 37:59
  Mike Masnick: They talk to all of his friends and his friends are saying like, oh, we learned more about this.
• 38:03
  Mike Masnick: We understand.
• 38:03
  Mike Masnick: Like, oh, I wish he had come and, and spoken to me and we would've helped, and all these kinds of things.
• 38:07
  Mike Masnick: And I think that was really important.
• 38:08
  Mike Masnick: and as I was, cause I, I went and I watched it on YouTube.
• 38:12
  Mike Masnick: I saw there was like another, video that was recommended to me, the algorithm at work, uh, of Jordan also being interviewed by a TV presenter in the UK about this documentary.
• 38:23
  Mike Masnick: And that TV presenter was like banging on on him, like, oh, well the messages like, never, never speak to people you don't know online and never post, you know, naked pictures of yourself.
• 38:32
  Mike Masnick: And, and Jordan was really good in, pushing back and saying, look, look, people, humans are people, like we make mistakes.
• 38:38
  Mike Masnick: The more important, like, telling people just not to do anything is never gonna be useful.
• 38:42
  Mike Masnick: Like, yes, they should learn about it.
• 38:43
  Mike Masnick: And yes, like everyone should be better about this stuff, but the real message has to be don't think that you're trapped.
• 38:48
  Mike Masnick: if you get into one of these situations, if something bad happens, be willing to talk about it.
• 38:52
  Mike Masnick: And the more people talk about it, in the documentary at one point too, he's like going around the streets talking to people.
• 38:56
  Mike Masnick: Do you know about Sextortion?
• 38:57
  Mike Masnick: And like a couple of people admitted to him like, oh yeah, I was a victim of it.
• 39:00
  Mike Masnick: And he is like, we need more people to be talking about it.
• 39:02
  Mike Masnick: I, so I thought it was really well done and, I was really impressed by him in particular, in, in terms of how he handled the, the whole show and the discussion around it.
• 39:10
  Ben Whitelaw: Nice.
• 39:10
  Ben Whitelaw: We know, we know how hard it is to, you know, for people in documentaries and presenters.
• 39:14
  Ben Whitelaw: We've talked about it before.
• 39:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, you on the John Oliver show and, providing advice and guidance, but you know, making, programs that people will watch and that leave.
• 39:23
  Ben Whitelaw: The viewers with a better understanding of how online safety works is tough.
• 39:26
  Ben Whitelaw: So, props to channel four, and the production company for that.
• 39:30
  Ben Whitelaw: this next story, Mike, is actually a continuation of a theme.
• 39:33
  Ben Whitelaw: this is a blog post from the company Block party, which is a, tool that I've used in the past myself.
• 39:40
  Ben Whitelaw: really, really useful tool to help you understand what data that you make available.
• 39:47
  Ben Whitelaw: online and, and helps you kind of clamp that down so you are less at risk from scams and other things.
• 39:54
  Ben Whitelaw: And it's a slightly tragic tale of the block party intern who was non, ironically, completely true, was self scammed at the very start of her internship by some very, very clever, scammers who targeted her and.
• 40:11
  Ben Whitelaw: Her information, sent her an email, got her a phone number and then essentially did a gift, one of the classic gift card scams.
• 40:19
  Ben Whitelaw: and the blog, post kind of is a really honest and open.
• 40:22
  Ben Whitelaw: explanation of how it worked.
• 40:24
  Ben Whitelaw: basically she admits that they took advantage of her wanting to make a really good impression at the company of, of wanting to be seen as somebody who was helpful.
• 40:32
  Ben Whitelaw: And so when her boss, inverted commas, texted her to say, can you go out and get$5,000 worth of gift cards so that I can give them to the team, please send, Pictures and receipts.
• 40:45
  Ben Whitelaw: she did it and she spent eight hours, running around the city, pulling all these together only to find that it was not her boss texting her.
• 40:53
  Ben Whitelaw: It was, uh, a scammer.
• 40:55
  Ben Whitelaw: And, you mentioned there about the kind of need to talk about these things.
• 40:58
  Ben Whitelaw: I think this is a great example of that.
• 41:00
  Ben Whitelaw: I also think I was, probably very liable to do this back in my internship days.
• 41:04
  Ben Whitelaw: Like, like anybody would be.
• 41:06
  Ben Whitelaw: Right?
• 41:06
  Ben Whitelaw: and the fact that that scammers are targeting.
• 41:09
  Ben Whitelaw: people in that moment is just what I find interesting.
• 41:12
  Ben Whitelaw: We, we sometimes think that scammers is.
• 41:14
  Ben Whitelaw: Are targeting old people, folks with low IT literacy.
• 41:18
  Ben Whitelaw: No, these are smart young people who are being targeted at the moment, where they feel somewhat vulnerable at the start of a new, job or role.
• 41:26
  Ben Whitelaw: And, getting them to do something which in, in other situations they would, would have gotten onto.
• 41:31
  Ben Whitelaw: so again, great to be talking about this, We haven't got the, the, the intern's name, but block party for writing about this.
• 41:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, I'm a big fan of.
• 41:39
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 41:40
  Mike Masnick: And, and they were really clear.
• 41:41
  Mike Masnick: And in fact, like, you know, I know that Tracy, the, the CEO and founder of of Block Party posted on social media where she said, like, her gut reaction on finding out that this happened with the intern was like, oh my gosh, how could you, how could you do that?
• 41:53
  Mike Masnick: How could you be so stupid?
• 41:54
  Mike Masnick: but then realizing like, no, this happens.
• 41:57
  Mike Masnick: And I think this is important, and it ties into our previous story as well.
• 42:00
  Mike Masnick: Like, the scammers are professionals.
• 42:01
  Mike Masnick: The scammers are trying to scam.
• 42:04
  Mike Masnick: A hundred people a day or more.
• 42:05
  Mike Masnick: this is just an operation and they're just working the numbers and they have every trick in the book.
• 42:11
  Mike Masnick: And everyone as an individual, whether it's a, a sextortion scam or any kind of scam as a target, like you can be, so good and, and catch and block 99.9% if you fail once.
• 42:24
  Mike Masnick: it can be hugely destructive.
• 42:26
  Mike Masnick: The problem is that there's this stigma attached to it that if you fall for one of these scams, you must be stupid, and then you won't talk about it.
• 42:32
  Mike Masnick: You won't tell people.
• 42:33
  Mike Masnick: And often that's where we, get to the, the situations of, people dying by suicide
• 42:37
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 42:38
  Mike Masnick: because they feel hopeless and they feel like, oh my gosh, how could I have been so stupid?
• 42:42
  Mike Masnick: And I think we need to.
• 42:44
  Mike Masnick: This is why this, post was so great.
• 42:45
  Mike Masnick: We need to normalize the idea that like, no, you're a victim here, right?
• 42:49
  Mike Masnick: It's not because you were stupid, it's because you were targeted by someone who's a professional and all they do all day is try and figure out how to work on people's minds and trick them into doing these things.
• 42:59
  Mike Masnick: It is not the fault of anyone who falls for these things, and we really need to de-stigmatize the idea of falling for a scam, is because you're stupid.
• 43:07
  Mike Masnick: Everyone can.
• 43:08
  Mike Masnick: There are tons of people.
• 43:09
  Mike Masnick: There are, PhDs, there are professors, there are all people fall for these scams.
• 43:13
  Mike Masnick: that's how it works.
• 43:14
  Mike Masnick: Everyone will fall for a scam at some point,
• 43:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 43:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Agreed.
• 43:17
  Ben Whitelaw: and much like, you know.
• 43:18
  Ben Whitelaw: Real life crimes.
• 43:19
  Ben Whitelaw: You don't, turn around and criticize people for being stupid if, if you get robbed or you know, you provide them sympathy.
• 43:25
  Ben Whitelaw: That's very much the same approach we should take, I think with Scam.
• 43:28
  Ben Whitelaw: So a couple of, really great, public, messages, I think for people who might have been victim of scams or who know people that have been.
• 43:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Let's round up today, Mike, with, um, a little announcement that, Wikipedia have made for, uh, a tool that they created.
• 43:42
  Ben Whitelaw: This is, this is very cool.
• 43:43
  Ben Whitelaw: I didn't know much about this idea of, the Wikipedia test, but they have, taken an idea which you're gonna tell us a bit more about, and developed it into a kind of public policy tool that folks can.
• 43:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Use essentially to check whether regulation, like the online Safety Act here in the uk, whether that, would harm a site like Wikipedia, which is kind of a by word for, you know, openness and privacy, respecting, technology and, and knowledge sharing, which one of the best parts of the internet as far as I'm concerned.
• 44:12
  Ben Whitelaw: so this Wikipedia test is, is a set of questions, That force public policy experts to think through, am I doing something here that is unintended or that's gonna harm, users in ways?
• 44:22
  Ben Whitelaw: I didn't think you have a bit more of the background.
• 44:25
  Ben Whitelaw: I hear
• 44:26
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, so I mean, this came out of discussions that have been happening among a bunch of people for years now, which was, this recognition that almost all of the internet policies, including the ones we've been talking about today, were almost all written with just a few companies in mind.
• 44:40
  Mike Masnick: You know, Facebook, meta, Google, Twitter, YouTube, that's what everyone is thinking about.
• 44:45
  Mike Masnick: But the internet is much bigger than that.
• 44:46
  Mike Masnick: And if we regulate the internet, if it were just these big companies, then that's all you're gonna be left with.
• 44:52
  Mike Masnick: and all these other platforms are, going to, to have trouble.
• 44:55
  Mike Masnick: So, while back, Somebody had come up with this idea of the Wikipedia test saying like, test every regulation against Wikipedia.
• 45:04
  Mike Masnick: Now, I had taken that and run with it and wrote a post, basically saying like it should actually go beyond just Wikipedia and said we should have a test suite of, Websites that, any regulation that you have that touches the internet, you should run down this list of websites and say, how will it impact them?
• 45:22
  Mike Masnick: And so it included Wikipedia, it included things like GitHub, but it also included like small forums, like a knitting forum or like a music forum different things like that.
• 45:31
  Mike Masnick: Like how do they, and I included dirt in the list.
• 45:34
  Mike Masnick: Like how would this law impact each of these?
• 45:36
  Ben Whitelaw: And we've seen a lot of them, kind of full foul of regulation.
• 45:39
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 45:39
  Ben Whitelaw: We talked a bit about that, on the, on the podcast before.
• 45:41
  Ben Whitelaw: So, so is this Wikipedia test kind of, the outcome of those conversations?
• 45:46
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, so it's part of it.
• 45:47
  Mike Masnick: I mean, Wikipedia sort of took that and ran with it and, in their LinkedIn post about it, they thanked me and, and some others.
• 45:53
  Mike Masnick: what Wikipedia did here, which I think was really good, was then they took that and said like, well, what questions?
• 45:57
  Mike Masnick: You know, it's one thing to have that test suite.
• 45:59
  Mike Masnick: Then the question is like, what questions should you ask to judge whether or not this law will have a negative impact?
• 46:04
  Mike Masnick: and so I think it's really great.
• 46:06
  Mike Masnick: the one thing I will say, the reason I, I had always said it should be more than just Wikipedia is because we've seen some regulatory bodies already.
• 46:14
  Mike Masnick: Sort of write Wikipedia out.
• 46:16
  Mike Masnick: Like when Wikipedia raises this issue, they'll say, okay, it doesn't apply to nonprofits.
• 46:20
  Mike Masnick: Right?
• 46:20
  Mike Masnick: Like, that's the, like, the easy way out.
• 46:22
  Mike Masnick: But that still captures a bunch of things.
• 46:24
  Mike Masnick: So I do like this.
• 46:26
  Mike Masnick: I think, we should look to apply this to a wider, group of sites beyond just Wikipedia.
• 46:30
  Mike Masnick: But it's great that Wikipedia is doing this as well.
• 46:33
  Ben Whitelaw: And I imagine this is in part because, of the, ongoing, in the background conversation that is happening between Wikipedia and Ofcom, where Wikipedia is pushing back against the categorization that it has been given.
• 46:46
  Ben Whitelaw: and basically suggested that because of.
• 46:49
  Ben Whitelaw: The Online Safety Act, it's gonna be difficult to, operate in the way that it has always done with volunteer moderators that, follow certain procedures.
• 46:57
  Ben Whitelaw: So it feels like this is an ongoing conversation between regulators and platforms in a sense.
• 47:03
  Ben Whitelaw: and great to see, great to see this as a, new resource.
• 47:06
  Ben Whitelaw: Be fascinating to see if other platforms, apply it
• 47:09
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 47:09
  Ben Whitelaw: look forward to seeing more.
• 47:10
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 47:11
  Mike Masnick: And I, and I hope that it does become useful.
• 47:13
  Mike Masnick: And, you know, this is always about this conversation between regulators and the platforms and, and how these things should work, which I think actually leads us really nicely into the bonus chat, that I had, Just a little while ago actually with, David Sullivan of the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership, talking about their new standard, which I think should be really useful in these discussions and the discussions between platforms and regulators and with practitioners and, and sort of trying to understand how do you implement trust and safety.
• 47:40
  Mike Masnick: in a way that is actually useful.
• 47:42
  Mike Masnick: Creating a, a sort of straightforward language that everyone can use, that, uh, everyone's on the same page and people understand stuff, and we don't have some of the problems that maybe I talked about earlier with like TV presenters insisting like, well, why don't you just make the bad stuff disappear?
• 47:55
  Mike Masnick: these are serious issues that you need to have serious, nuanced conversations about.
• 47:59
  Mike Masnick: And I think, as you'll hear in my conversation with David, I think that this new standard helps You know, move us forward along that path of being able to have serious, thoughtful, nuanced conversations about how do you make online spaces safe?
• 48:22
  Mike Masnick: david Sullivan, welcome back to Control Alt Speech.
• 48:25
  Mike Masnick: We are glad to have you and the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership on as a sponsor for the bonus chat, and with something quite exciting.
• 48:34
  Mike Masnick: So this week, I think today you have officially released the safe framework, of trust and safety digital safety best practices as an approved ISO standard.
• 48:45
  Mike Masnick: So congratulations first of all.
• 48:47
  David Sullivan: Thanks Mike.
• 48:48
  David Sullivan: it's a pleasure to be back, and it's a pleasure to be back with this news in particular.
• 48:53
  Mike Masnick: So let's start out with the basics.
• 48:54
  Mike Masnick: What can you tell me about the framework?
• 48:57
  David Sullivan: So, the framework goes back to the formation and launch of the Digital Trust and Safety Partnership a little over four years ago.
• 49:04
  David Sullivan: and as I think you and, listeners to this podcast know, better than anyone else, when it comes to trying to figure out how to have safe and trustworthy digital products and services, but not.
• 49:17
  David Sullivan: Unduly constrained people's human rights, including the right to freedom of expression.
• 49:21
  David Sullivan: this is a really challenging matter.
• 49:23
  David Sullivan: And so our partnership really brought together companies providing all kinds of different digital services, around, I think a.
• 49:31
  David Sullivan: Simple but powerful idea about how to deal with this challenge, which is that, instead of trying to standardize what types of content or conduct should be allowed online, standardize the practices that all companies are using to address whatever risks are particular to those products or services.
• 49:52
  David Sullivan: so rather than saying, Hey, this is trying to get companies to agree on what types of, you know, content should be.
• 49:59
  David Sullivan: Promoted or demoted on their sites, or, you know, try to agree on definitions of really contested things like hate speech or what have you.
• 50:07
  David Sullivan: The idea is that all the companies are more or less.
• 50:09
  David Sullivan: Using the same types of practices as part of their trust and safety operations.
• 50:14
  David Sullivan: and let's, clarify those.
• 50:16
  David Sullivan: And so we do that with a framework that has five overarching commitments, that all companies can make, that are around product development, product governance, which is, you know, the rules and community guidelines and what have you, enforcement.
• 50:30
  David Sullivan: Of the product governance improvement over time, and transparency with the public.
• 50:36
  David Sullivan: so that's the framework.
• 50:38
  David Sullivan: and we've built that out also to include, a way of assessing how companies are implementing those practices.
• 50:45
  David Sullivan: and.
• 50:46
  David Sullivan: All of this is, I think, aimed to be scalable and proportionate so that companies can align with these best practices, without expecting, you know, small startups to do the same things that a big company like Meta or Microsoft is doing.
• 51:01
  David Sullivan: so that's the framework.
• 51:02
  David Sullivan: and it's been publicly available, in full for more than a year.
• 51:07
  David Sullivan: but it's now been published by the International Organization for Standardization and the.
• 51:12
  David Sullivan: International Electro Technical Commission, as a capital S international standard.
• 51:17
  Mike Masnick: And so what, what does it mean for it to be a Capital S standard?
• 51:23
  Mike Masnick: You know, both practically and I think philosophically what, why is that important?
• 51:28
  David Sullivan: So practically, what it means is that, in a vote by national standards bodies, and I can talk more about this if we like, that happened earlier this year.
• 51:37
  David Sullivan: Um, you had national standards, bodies from around the world decisively approve this to be a standard, from the, committee that's responsible for information technology standards within ISO and IEC.
• 51:50
  David Sullivan: so you've had, National bodies around the world, approve this document.
• 51:55
  David Sullivan: So it's going to have global recognition, in ways that are similar to other international standards, that folks working in trust and safety who are either working, come from the fields of information security, privacy, or AI may understand.
• 52:09
  David Sullivan: So in those fields you have, standards that are.
• 52:12
  David Sullivan: Very well known and well developed, with much more bells and whistles than what we have published.
• 52:18
  David Sullivan: Um, like ISO 27,001, which is the, international standard for information security.
• 52:24
  David Sullivan: and we hope that this standard can be a first step.
• 52:27
  David Sullivan: It's really the first standard of its kind for trust and safety, and one that can then allow.
• 52:33
  David Sullivan: Everyone around the world, whether you're companies, whether you are users of these services, whether you are, regulators and policy makers, to use the same concepts, the same terms, and embrace a similar approach, while still allowing for that kind of diversity of products and services that we all want.
• 52:52
  David Sullivan: 'cause that's what makes the internet work and work for everyone.
• 52:55
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, it it's interesting because.
• 52:58
  Mike Masnick: I think when people think of standards, they often think of sort of like rigid rules, and this is, you know, this is what everyone must do.
• 53:07
  Mike Masnick: And so I'm sort of curious, how do you, balance that with trust and safety, where it's this constant iteration and constantly people have to adjust and companies are, changing based on the realities of the world and sort of what's happening at that time.
• 53:19
  Mike Masnick: So how, how do you, turn that into a standard.
• 53:22
  David Sullivan: Yeah.
• 53:22
  David Sullivan: So there's all kinds of standards out there.
• 53:25
  David Sullivan: Um, standards are really, for anything that, that is kind of.
• 53:29
  David Sullivan: Measurable and repeatable, you can potentially have standards.
• 53:31
  David Sullivan: And so oftentimes you think of standards as either, technical standards.
• 53:35
  David Sullivan: A lot of, you know, code that we used for the, you know, for the internet and all kinds of, products and services are, based around technical standards and specifications.
• 53:45
  David Sullivan: But you also have standards that are really about frameworks and processes.
• 53:50
  David Sullivan: And if you think about something like the NIST cybersecurity framework, for example, that's not a technical.
• 53:56
  David Sullivan: Rigid specification that is, A interrelated set of concepts that allow everyone to get on the same page and talk about and understand things and how, how to do things, in a way where you can still have lots of variation.
• 54:11
  David Sullivan: that's been the inspiration for our approach.
• 54:13
  David Sullivan: That's why we have these five.
• 54:15
  David Sullivan: Overarching commitments.
• 54:16
  David Sullivan: And then we have examples of about 35 specific best practices, that companies can use to implement those commitments.
• 54:24
  David Sullivan: But which practices apply?
• 54:25
  David Sullivan: Really depends.
• 54:26
  David Sullivan: so for example, under our product governance, commitment, we have a best practice around, community governance.
• 54:34
  David Sullivan: Basically the idea of community self-regulation, the kinds of things that happen on services like Wikipedia or Reddit.
• 54:41
  David Sullivan: that's not an a best practice that's really applicable if you are a, you know, file sharing service or, you know, or a, you know, an online word processor or something like that.
• 54:53
  David Sullivan: so you need to have that variation, but then you also need to have a rigorous approach, and that's where our assessment methodology.
• 55:00
  David Sullivan: Which really aligns with a lot of the things that companies are already doing, both as part of enterprise risk management, as well as regulatory compliance with things like the Digital Services Act and what have you.
• 55:12
  David Sullivan: where you're identifying controls, documenting controls, testing those things, and doing that in a way where for the biggest companies, they do it in a way that's really, As sophisticated and rigorous as you can get, while having processes that can also be used by smaller companies.
• 55:27
  David Sullivan: Um, so that's how we approach that.
• 55:29
  Mike Masnick: I mean, is, part of the effort here kind of a recognition that historically a a lot of, internet companies kind of had to keep reinventing the wheel every time, you know, like new company would come along and sort of suddenly discover that they have to have some sort of safety practices in place and, sort of making it up along the fly, or kind of guessing what other companies were doing.
• 55:48
  Mike Masnick: Is that, is this
• 55:49
  David Sullivan: Or, or hiring people from other companies and having them, and Yes.
• 55:53
  David Sullivan: So I think, you know, and I, I was not present for the formation of DTSP.
• 55:59
  David Sullivan: I came along as the first executive director after the organization launched.
• 56:03
  David Sullivan: But I think that there was a question, when the companies came together to write up this framework about are we all.
• 56:10
  David Sullivan: Doing the same thing.
• 56:12
  David Sullivan: And the answer was yes, more or less.
• 56:15
  David Sullivan: You know, there's, differences and there's big differences in the way that different trust and safety teams are, structured depending on the size of companies and how they approach this stuff.
• 56:25
  David Sullivan: But ultimately people are doing the same thing.
• 56:27
  David Sullivan: And our goal, I think, really is for those five commitments to be kind of.
• 56:31
  David Sullivan: Exhaustive that everything in trust and safety can fall into those five buckets.
• 56:36
  David Sullivan: but underneath that, it's really up to the companies and depends on what type of product or service.
• 56:40
  David Sullivan: and that's similar, like I said, to other, types of international standards that are out there.
• 56:45
  David Sullivan: This is not reinventing the wheel.
• 56:47
  David Sullivan: There are a lot of standards that are really about concepts and guidelines and terminology.
• 56:51
  David Sullivan: that's also one thing I wanted to specifically highlight.
• 56:54
  David Sullivan: Is that, all international standards follow a common format.
• 56:59
  David Sullivan: They have a scope, which is what is in the standard and what isn't in the standard.
• 57:03
  David Sullivan: And then they have terms and definitions.
• 57:06
  David Sullivan: most international standards, You have to pay for, you have to pay for an individual license from iso.
• 57:11
  David Sullivan: Um, and you have to pay, oftentimes, couple hundred Swiss francs, in order to download an individual end user license for the standard, through the process by which our standard was approved, because we make the standard available on our website.
• 57:26
  David Sullivan: At no charge.
• 57:28
  David Sullivan: the standard is also available from iso, at no charge.
• 57:32
  David Sullivan: so that's unlike a lot of standards that are out there in the world, which will hopefully make this more accessible and usable, by everyone.
• 57:39
  David Sullivan: but also, on the ISO website, they have something called the online browsing platform where you can browse all of the international standards in the world and look for things like.
• 57:49
  David Sullivan: Terms and definitions and all of those are freely available through their platform.
• 57:55
  David Sullivan: what you now have that you did not have a month ago, is that if you search for trust and safety, in the online browsing platform, the definition from our standard.
• 58:05
  David Sullivan: ISO IEC 2 5 3 8 9 is there.
• 58:08
  David Sullivan: so we now have, internationally agreed definitions for some of the terms in this space based on what industry practitioners are doing, that hopefully is gonna help to improve and inform the conversation between companies.
• 58:22
  David Sullivan: Governments and NGOs and all of the people talking about trust and safety, online safety platform, governance, in a way that I think can lead to more productive conversations, going forward.
• 58:33
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 58:34
  Mike Masnick: I, I mean, I, I think that's great.
• 58:35
  Mike Masnick: I think that is part of, you know, there's been so much effort over the last, half decade to decade to, like recognize that some sort of.
• 58:44
  Mike Masnick: Standardization is important.
• 58:46
  Mike Masnick: just the language, even the term trust and safety.
• 58:49
  Mike Masnick: You know, that was sort of only, I think, really sort of agreed to generally in the last five years maybe.
• 58:55
  Mike Masnick: so it's, really, really interesting.
• 58:58
  Mike Masnick: just to close it out, for people listening to this, you know, obviously people listen to this, are interested in online speech and, trust and safety.
• 59:04
  Mike Masnick: What's the main thing that you hope that they get out of, looking at the standard.
• 59:08
  David Sullivan: So the first thing, is that, yeah, this is, I think, a way to respond to this market need for some sort of standardization, without the kinds of measures that really could constrain, you know, both the variety of internet services are out there and the different ways that people can use them to express themselves and organize and like live their lives online.
• 59:29
  David Sullivan: so hopefully, that.
• 59:30
  David Sullivan: You know, is the kind of bottom line that any company can use this, really internally, to benchmark, their practices, to see how they're doing, to use this as part of regulatory compliance.
• 59:42
  David Sullivan: You have companies who are members of DTSP, who have been using this as part of their risk assessments for the Digital Services Act.
• 59:51
  David Sullivan: you have companies that are not members of DTSP, who have also used this as part of their, risk assessments.
• 59:56
  David Sullivan: It's also something that's been recognized by some of the other online safety regimes around the world, like Australia.
• 1:00:02
  David Sullivan: but it's also something that can be done purely voluntarily because hey, you know, you might be saying inside a company, we want to know how we're doing.
• 1:00:10
  David Sullivan: And this is a way of kind of benchmarking what you're doing and aligning with others in industry, to take this forward.
• 1:00:16
  David Sullivan: The other thing is that, Companies, can join our partnership and help to shape the future of this standard.
• 1:00:23
  David Sullivan: so, all international standards need to be reviewed every five years.
• 1:00:27
  David Sullivan: in our case, we're planning to do that review a lot sooner than this, because we've been thinking for a little while, Hey, the landscape has changed, in trust and safety.
• 1:00:35
  David Sullivan: Since our best practices originally launched almost four years ago, the role of AI.
• 1:00:41
  David Sullivan: Trust and safety operations, for example, has changed a lot.
• 1:00:44
  David Sullivan: We may need to add some best practices, to think about that.
• 1:00:47
  David Sullivan: And so we have been planning to do that with sort of broad stakeholder engagement, public input opportunities, and we will be doing that, going forward in the near future.
• 1:00:57
  David Sullivan: but for specifically companies that have some kind of service where they're doing trust and safety, come on in and help us make sure that these standards, are applicable and useful to you.
• 1:01:07
  David Sullivan: so that, that.
• 1:01:07
  David Sullivan: That's really, I think, one of the key messages here.
• 1:01:10
  Mike Masnick: Great, and so people can download this from the ISO website.
• 1:01:14
  Mike Masnick: We'll put a link in the show notes as well, and from the DTSP website as well.
• 1:01:19
  David Sullivan: That's right.
• 1:01:20
  David Sullivan: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  David Sullivan: There's kind of identical versions, the ISO version and then the DTSP version and you can get them, either way at no cost to you.
• 1:01:28
  Mike Masnick: Excellent.
• 1:01:28
  Mike Masnick: Well, thank you so much.
• 1:01:30
  Mike Masnick: A fascinating project.
• 1:01:31
  Mike Masnick: I'm glad it's out in the world.
• 1:01:33
  Mike Masnick: and thank you for, coming on the podcast to talk about it.
• 1:01:35
  David Sullivan: Thanks so much, Mike.
• 1:01:39
  Announcer: Thanks for listening to Ctrl-Alt-Speech.
• 1:01:41
  Announcer: Subscribe now to get our weekly episodes as soon as they're released.
• 1:01:45
  Announcer: If your company or organization is interested in sponsoring the podcast, contact us by visiting ctrlaltspeech.Com.
• 1:01:52
  Announcer: That's C T R L Alt Speech.
• 1:01:55
  Announcer: com.
• 1:01:56
  Announcer: This podcast is produced with financial support from the Future of Online Trust and Safety Fund, a fiscally sponsored multi donor fund at Global Impact that supports charitable activities to build a more robust, capable, and inclusive trust and safety ecosystem.