Latest / Ctrl-Alt-Speech / The TAKE IT DOWN Takedown

Transcript

The TAKE IT DOWN Takedown · Ctrl-Alt-Speech

• 0:00
  Ben Whitelaw: So Mike, we've got an episode today about open protocols.
• 0:02
  Ben Whitelaw: It's a, a theme that runs through today's control alt speech.
• 0:05
  Ben Whitelaw: So I thought I'd start today with a user prompt from Surf, which is an app from the creators of Flipboard, which uses the AT protocol.
• 0:15
  Ben Whitelaw: we'll talk more bit about it in the intro, but the way that, surf gets you to engage on its app is to ask you to search the social web.
• 0:24
  Ben Whitelaw: So I want you to, I want you to search verbally, search the social web.
• 0:30
  Mike Masnick: Verbally search the social web, huh?
• 0:32
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 0:33
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 0:33
  Mike Masnick: well, I, I will say that this has been a, good week for the social web, as I discovered at South by Southwest, with a bunch of conversations, including with the creator of Surf, and also with the CEO of Blue Sky.
• 0:48
  Mike Masnick: So we.
• 0:49
  Mike Masnick: There's a lot going on in the social web, and we'll talk about some of it in a moment, but what about you?
• 0:54
  Mike Masnick: If you were to search the social web, what would you be finding?
• 0:57
  Ben Whitelaw: well I've made the mistake of going into one of my social apps and looking at what things I'd searched for recently.
• 1:04
  Ben Whitelaw: always a dangerous thing.
• 1:05
  Ben Whitelaw: And I found Zero Day, which is a Netflix, series about cyber hacking, which I dunno if you have seen Very good.
• 1:13
  Ben Whitelaw: I was looking for some reactions to it because I really enjoyed it.
• 1:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Stars, Robert De Niro and, quite present in terms of the US government situation.
• 1:21
  Ben Whitelaw: So, tried to kind of see what reactions there were to it.
• 1:24
  Mike Masnick: I was gonna say, I was wondering you're searching for zero day, that that's, you know, usually for hacks, so I was wondering if you were turning into a bit of a hacker, Ben.
• 1:31
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah, no comment, no comment.
• 1:43
  Ben Whitelaw: Hello, and welcome to the 50th episode of Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation.
• 1:52
  Ben Whitelaw: It's March the 13th, 2025, and this week's episode is brought to you with financial support from the future of online Trust and safety fund.
• 1:59
  Ben Whitelaw: And from our sponsor today, resolver, the leading provider of risk intelligence and advisory services.
• 2:04
  Ben Whitelaw: This week we're talking about a whole range of topics, including decentralized social media.
• 2:09
  Ben Whitelaw: User appeals and a big new book that's dropped about meta.
• 2:14
  Ben Whitelaw: My name is Ben Whitelaw and I'm the founder and editor of Everything Moderation, and I'm joined by, a recently traveled Mike Masnick, who is, who is just back from South by Southwest.
• 2:22
  Mike Masnick: a not yet recovered.
• 2:26
  Mike Masnick: Mike Masnick, south by Southwest, is always absolutely exhausting.
• 2:29
  Mike Masnick: It is impossible to find time to sleep as far as I can tell in the few times I've been, uh, and this was no exception.
• 2:36
  Ben Whitelaw: I've not got a chance to go.
• 2:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike, tell us a bit about what it's like, and what your experience was this time round.
• 2:42
  Mike Masnick: Uh, it's hard to, hard to describe.
• 2:44
  Mike Masnick: There's a, there's, you know, a ton of people, a ton of things going on all at once.
• 2:49
  Mike Masnick: The city, gets completely overwhelmed.
• 2:51
  Mike Masnick: there will be very, very long lines for barbecue, but it is worth it because the barbecue is always excellent.
• 2:57
  Mike Masnick: there's always a lot of really smart people around, a lot of wonderful people to talk to.
• 3:00
  Mike Masnick: It's impossible to get anywhere in any amount of reasonable time.
• 3:04
  Mike Masnick: You'll miss half the things that you think you want to go see.
• 3:06
  Mike Masnick: but yeah, it's, you know, it's a time.
• 3:09
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, just, just like all good conferences, you don't see enough and, and you eat and you eat too much.
• 3:15
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:16
  Mike Masnick: No, it's, it's pretty intense.
• 3:17
  Mike Masnick: But you know, the, the really good thing about South By is that there are always a ton of really good and really smart people.
• 3:23
  Mike Masnick: and you can be walking down the street and as happened to me on Monday morning, I was walking down the street and not paying attention, and all of a sudden Corey Ero grabs me and it's just like, Mike.
• 3:33
  Mike Masnick: So, so you have moments like that,
• 3:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Nice.
• 3:36
  Mike Masnick: which was fun.
• 3:38
  Mike Masnick: Um.
• 3:38
  Mike Masnick: But yeah, it's, there's a ton of smart people.
• 3:40
  Mike Masnick: I had so many great conversations.
• 3:42
  Mike Masnick: I met, met a bunch of really smart people, got to hang out with a bunch of old friends I hadn't seen in a while.
• 3:48
  Mike Masnick: and a lot of catching up, a lot of talking, a lot of good idea sharing.
• 3:51
  Mike Masnick: Um, really, really, you know, it's always sort of mind stimulating.
• 3:54
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 3:55
  Ben Whitelaw: And you, managed to squeeze in an interview with the, the CEO of Blue Sky Jay grabber.
• 4:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, you know, ding, ding, ding.
• 4:03
  Mike Masnick: Ding, ding, ding.
• 4:04
  Ben Whitelaw: Mike's on the, on the board of Blue Sky.
• 4:06
  Ben Whitelaw: We must, we must declare, yeah.
• 4:08
  Ben Whitelaw: I dunno if you declared that in the interview.
• 4:10
  Ben Whitelaw: I dunno if it was just in the version I saw
• 4:12
  Mike Masnick: yeah, I mean, there wasn't, I didn't have an opportunity.
• 4:15
  Mike Masnick: I don't know, I don't know if the intro, the CEO of South by, did the intro.
• 4:20
  Mike Masnick: I don't even remember if they, said that or not.
• 4:22
  Mike Masnick: Uh, it's a good point.
• 4:23
  Mike Masnick: Um, but yeah, I mean, Jay was the, the main attraction.
• 4:28
  Mike Masnick: My role was just to throw some questions at her,
• 4:32
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 4:33
  Mike Masnick: but it was a fun interview.
• 4:34
  Mike Masnick: It was on the main stage.
• 4:35
  Mike Masnick: it seemed to be really popular.
• 4:36
  Mike Masnick: Apparently there was a really long line to get in.
• 4:38
  Mike Masnick: we got a lot of really good feedback from it.
• 4:40
  Mike Masnick: People really interested in what she had to say.
• 4:42
  Mike Masnick: the video of it is online on YouTube.
• 4:44
  Mike Masnick: Um, if folks wanna see it.
• 4:45
  Mike Masnick: I think it was a really detailed exploration of Blue Sky, what it's trying to do and why it's different than other.
• 4:52
  Mike Masnick: Social apps out there.
• 4:53
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, she does a, a really good job of kind of unpacking some of the particularly moderation, features that users can, can use to kind of customize their experience.
• 5:02
  Ben Whitelaw: she uses the phrase, kind of choose your own adventure, which I think is a nice summation of, how the, direction in which platforms are moving, I would say, and, and obviously what makes Blue sky really interesting.
• 5:12
  Ben Whitelaw: and she has a great t-shirt on, which attracted a all of attention.
• 5:15
  Mike Masnick: That was the news story.
• 5:16
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, that that was the one that broke the news.
• 5:19
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, she, for those who didn't see, she was wearing a t-shirt that looked very similar to one that Mark Zuckerberg had worn before.
• 5:24
  Ben Whitelaw: but hers said, a world without Caesars.
• 5:27
  Mike Masnick: In Latin.
• 5:28
  Ben Whitelaw: in Latin.
• 5:29
  Mike Masnick: right?
• 5:29
  Mike Masnick: Because the, the original it was, uh, mark Zuckerberg apparently designed his own t-shirt.
• 5:34
  Mike Masnick: It wasn't just that he wore his t-shirt and his t-shirt was a play on a, a Caesar, statement also in Latin, which the original was basically it.
• 5:43
  Mike Masnick: Effectively it's Caesar or no one.
• 5:45
  Mike Masnick: Basically, I am your king.
• 5:47
  Mike Masnick: and so Zuck was, it's Zucker, no one, uh, in Latin, which is also again, sort of saying, Zuckerberg saying, I am your king.
• 5:56
  Mike Masnick: And so, yes, Jay's t-shirt looked exactly the same, had Latin phrasing in the same font, except saying A world without Caesars.
• 6:04
  Mike Masnick: It's fairly clever.
• 6:05
  Ben Whitelaw: very clever.
• 6:06
  Ben Whitelaw: Very clever, nice to be saying something without saying something at all.
• 6:10
  Mike Masnick: Yes.
• 6:11
  Mike Masnick: Yes.
• 6:11
  Mike Masnick: I think, one of the media outlets said something along the lines of, it was shit posting on stage.
• 6:17
  Mike Masnick: Without saying anything,
• 6:19
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah,
• 6:20
  Mike Masnick: there's now tremendous demand for that t-shirt, and I believe that Blue sky is planning to sell the T-shirt.
• 6:25
  Ben Whitelaw: Ah, okay.
• 6:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 6:27
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I'll get my order in.
• 6:29
  Ben Whitelaw: one question I had around, one of the things she said was around about the kind of billionaire proof.
• 6:34
  Ben Whitelaw: An element of blue sky and, and how the nature of it running on, on the protocol means that it's less likely to be bought by a billionaire.
• 6:42
  Ben Whitelaw: I've seen a kind of bit of discussion about that afterwards.
• 6:45
  Ben Whitelaw: from your point of view, do you really think that, a site like Blue Sky is exempt from being taken over by an Elon Musk type figure?
• 6:52
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 6:53
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I have been using the term, billionaire resistant rather than billionaire proof,
• 6:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 7:00
  Mike Masnick: and I will stand by that.
• 7:01
  Mike Masnick: Uh, so, you know, the argument is that.
• 7:06
  Mike Masnick: as Jay made clear, the nature of everything being open and replicable and people are trying right now to replicate different aspects, all different aspects of the blue sky at Protocol Stack, we're seeing more and more of that happen every day and there's more coming and the companies extremely excited about that, unlike most companies where it's like other people trying to copy what you're doing and, and.
• 7:26
  Mike Masnick: take your users and all that.
• 7:28
  Mike Masnick: Blue sky is very, very supportive of that.
• 7:30
  Mike Masnick: but part of that is I've referred to also as like the technological poison pill.
• 7:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Mm-hmm.
• 7:36
  Mike Masnick: Which is that if Blue Sky, the company does anything bad, and again, ding, ding, ding, you know, just repeating, I'm on the board.
• 7:43
  Mike Masnick: But, if they do anything bad or horrible, if I turn out to be a horrible board member and direct them to, not that I have the full power to do that, but you know, tell them do these bad, horrible things that will be bad for your users.
• 7:55
  Mike Masnick: It is set up so that users can exit other people can build everything.
• 8:00
  Mike Masnick: You can bring your users, you can bring your content, and Blue Sky will have no control over it.
• 8:04
  Mike Masnick: Therefore, that gives the company itself incentive not to do those bad awful things.
• 8:09
  Mike Masnick: I think the example Jay used was inserting ads between every post.
• 8:12
  Mike Masnick: but that also makes it less.
• 8:15
  Mike Masnick: Attractive for a billionaire to come in and take it over, because if they do, then that same thing happens, right?
• 8:20
  Mike Masnick: So if an Elon comes in and takes it over, rather than everybody having to go reform somewhere else, you can just very quickly.
• 8:27
  Mike Masnick: Move to a different platform and bring all your content with you and bring all your followers with you, which we couldn't do when Elon took over Twitter.
• 8:34
  Mike Masnick: So it's, it's resistant, but I mean, there's always a risk that, a, a billionaire could do something bad or that the company itself could do something bad, but it, it's designed to make that less likely to align the incentives better with the users.
• 8:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, I will say that Jay is, is a very good, speaker on these topics.
• 8:51
  Ben Whitelaw: She does a, great job of kind of explaining blue sky for those who maybe aren't as, clear on what it is and what it's built on.
• 8:57
  Ben Whitelaw: And also I came away from it just being pretty hopeful about the future of social media generally, which is something that hasn't happened for a while, Mike.
• 9:03
  Ben Whitelaw: So congratulations to you and you and Jay for inspiring a bit of hope in, uh, at this time.
• 9:08
  Ben Whitelaw: couple of things to mention.
• 9:10
  Ben Whitelaw: a few bits of admin.
• 9:11
  Ben Whitelaw: You know, we've got a couple of projects that we're working on outside of control alt speech that are worth mentioning.
• 9:16
  Ben Whitelaw: You've got a new podcast, you mentioned it a couple of weeks back, about section two 30.
• 9:20
  Ben Whitelaw: I've got some bad news.
• 9:22
  Ben Whitelaw: you were referred to as a veteran journalist
• 9:26
  Mike Masnick: Oh,
• 9:27
  Ben Whitelaw: in, in the promotion of this podcast.
• 9:29
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, and then I just wanted to flag it to you.
• 9:32
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh.
• 9:34
  Ben Whitelaw: think it's unfair
• 9:36
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Ben Whitelaw: experience maybe, but
• 9:38
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, veteran man.
• 9:40
  Mike Masnick: Take me out back and shoot me.
• 9:42
  Mike Masnick: This is, is bad.
• 9:44
  Mike Masnick: But yeah, the new podcast series, it's a limited series.
• 9:46
  Mike Masnick: I, I forget, I honestly forget how many episodes.
• 9:49
  Mike Masnick: it is, it's either six or seven, I think.
• 9:51
  Mike Masnick: it's called Otherwise Objectionable Available wherever you get podcasts.
• 9:55
  Mike Masnick: Um, but the first episode is out now.
• 9:57
  Mike Masnick: and it, it's a documentary style podcast.
• 9:59
  Mike Masnick: It's not, it's not this nonsense.
• 10:01
  Mike Masnick: Ben, where, where, where I just chat randomly.
• 10:05
  Mike Masnick: I'm really impressed with the production team and kind of what they've done.
• 10:09
  Mike Masnick: They're amazing interviews in there.
• 10:10
  Mike Masnick: In the first episode we have Jeff Kassoff and Eric Goldman and Jessica Ian, and a bunch of other sort of tech policy experts.
• 10:19
  Mike Masnick: coming up soon, we have.
• 10:20
  Mike Masnick: Both of the co-authors of Section two 30.
• 10:23
  Mike Masnick: We have the lawyers who were involved in a bunch of the early cases.
• 10:26
  Mike Masnick: It's a really, really fun podcast.
• 10:27
  Mike Masnick: I'm, I'm very excited and happy that it's out, out in the world.
• 10:30
  Ben Whitelaw: Nice.
• 10:31
  Ben Whitelaw: I've heard rumors that it's gonna be as big as cereal.
• 10:33
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, that's, that's, that's what I'm hearing on o on the podcast
• 10:38
  Mike Masnick: some somebody was telling, somebody was telling me that, yeah, we need to add a murder somewhere in it.
• 10:43
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, some will claim that that's what is about to happen to section
• 10:46
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 10:46
  Mike Masnick: Seriously.
• 10:48
  Ben Whitelaw: um, and from my side, you might have heard that I did a, an event with a couple of great newsletter creators in January, an event we called marked as urgent.
• 10:56
  Ben Whitelaw: And we're doing another one of those in London at the end of March or in a couple of weeks time.
• 11:00
  Ben Whitelaw: if folks are in London, uh.
• 11:02
  Ben Whitelaw: And there's a big trust and safety conference going on do come along.
• 11:05
  Ben Whitelaw: We'll include details in, the show notes and also in tomorrow's everything moderation.
• 11:12
  Ben Whitelaw: And then, yeah, basically my, we, we'll run into today's stories At the end of today, we've got a great bonus chat, with, a great, company called Resolver.
• 11:20
  Ben Whitelaw: many controller speech listeners will know that next week is the annual Game Developers conference, and there's a lot of interest in player safety at the conference as, you'd expect.
• 11:31
  Ben Whitelaw: We are gonna talk to Carly Chadwick, who's, the head of platform trust and safety delivery.
• 11:37
  Ben Whitelaw: Some of the trends that she's seeing in the gaming space at the moment.
• 11:40
  Ben Whitelaw: if you listen in, you'll see me gently, but firmly being put in my place about a couple of things, which, which is worth listening to.
• 11:48
  Ben Whitelaw: so.
• 11:49
  Mike Masnick: I don't put you in your place enough.
• 11:50
  Mike Masnick: Is that what?
• 11:51
  Mike Masnick: Is that what I.
• 11:52
  Ben Whitelaw: It wasn't a request, Mike, it wasn't a request.
• 11:56
  Ben Whitelaw: obviously I wasn't here last week, Mike, but I did listen into the podcast and you talked a lot about the risk that the current US administration poses from an internet safety perspective.
• 12:05
  Ben Whitelaw: That's where we're gonna start today's summary of stories and, you're gonna take us through a piece that is published on the Verge about the Take It Down Act and some of the threats that that poses.
• 12:15
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, so the Take It Down Act is, it's this bill, it came out last year.
• 12:20
  Mike Masnick: it almost got pushed into, into the final, you know, must pass funding bill at the end of last year.
• 12:25
  Mike Masnick: And then at the, basically at the very end, it was stripped out of it.
• 12:28
  Mike Masnick: it is one of these laws, like many of the, internet regulation.
• 12:32
  Mike Masnick: Laws that on its face, if you just sort of read what it's about, you're like, yeah, that makes sense.
• 12:37
  Mike Masnick: We should absolutely do that.
• 12:38
  Mike Masnick: And then when you get into the details you realize, oh wait, no, this would be really bad.
• 12:41
  Mike Masnick: We shouldn't do that.
• 12:42
  Mike Masnick: And so it's one of those, those complicated things.
• 12:45
  Mike Masnick: The issue that it is about is.
• 12:47
  Mike Masnick: what is commonly referred to within the, the space is NCII or non-consensual intimate imagery.
• 12:54
  Mike Masnick: the thing that used to be referred to as revenge porn, before people realize that's, that's a horrible name for it.
• 13:00
  Mike Masnick: but it's, you know, Generally, intimate imagery of someone who not want that shared, that is a real problem and it has been a real problem on the internet for a very long time.
• 13:09
  Mike Masnick: that kind of content is often weaponized and it is often, creates real problems for people.
• 13:14
  Mike Masnick: And we've, talked about it,
• 13:15
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, two weeks ago, breeze Lou, the profile in Wired.
• 13:18
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Ben Whitelaw: Really, really tough stuff.
• 13:20
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 13:20
  Mike Masnick: Exactly.
• 13:21
  Mike Masnick: and so even at the end of that story, we, I think we had mentioned that, she was pushing for the Take It Down act because she wanted, legal support for this, what's happened in the last few weeks, which has made the law, I.
• 13:33
  Mike Masnick: Get a lot more attention is one that it passed the Senate through unanimous consent, which means they didn't even have a vote.
• 13:38
  Mike Masnick: Somebody just mentioned like, is anyone gonna protest this?
• 13:41
  Mike Masnick: And nobody, none of the senators stood up to protest for it.
• 13:44
  Mike Masnick: So it is passed the Senate and is in the house.
• 13:47
  Mike Masnick: Mike Johnson, who is the speaker of the house, who has basically control over what will move, has said that he is interested in moving this bill.
• 13:54
  Mike Masnick: So it sounds like that is likely.
• 13:56
  Mike Masnick: the first lady, Melania Trump.
• 13:58
  Mike Masnick: has been promoting the bill as well, and then in the state of the union or the joint address to Congress, last week or I.
• 14:05
  Mike Masnick: Was it last week?
• 14:06
  Mike Masnick: Time makes no sense anymore.
• 14:08
  Mike Masnick: Um, I think it was last week.
• 14:09
  Mike Masnick: Donald Trump also promoted it as one of the things that he was pushing for though, as he is known to do.
• 14:15
  Mike Masnick: He says the thing that he's supposed to say on the teleprompter, and then he goes a little bit off script.
• 14:19
  Mike Masnick: So in this case, he talked about it and then he went off script immediately and said that he intended to use this law to take down content because nobody has had a more.
• 14:30
  Mike Masnick: Unfair experience online.
• 14:31
  Mike Masnick: Nobody in the world, Ben, has been treated more unfairly online than Donald Trump.
• 14:37
  Ben Whitelaw: I agree.
• 14:38
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 14:38
  Mike Masnick: Well anyways, uh, I wrote something about that where I was looking at it and saying like, well, here we have the president of the United States admitting outright that he plans to abuse this law, to take down content that he feels is unfair to him.
• 14:51
  Mike Masnick: That should be a sign.
• 14:53
  Mike Masnick: That the law is not properly written in a way that avoids abuse, and that is the major problem.
• 14:58
  Mike Masnick: And that is the point that is raised in this really wonderful piece in the Verge by, Addie Robertson, saying that the take down act isn't a law, it's a weapon.
• 15:06
  Mike Masnick: It is a weaponized bill that can be easily used, be easily abused by any particular government.
• 15:14
  Mike Masnick: By people who want to take content offline.
• 15:16
  Mike Masnick: it doesn't have safeguards built into it.
• 15:19
  Mike Masnick: There are similar laws.
• 15:20
  Mike Masnick: I mean, the most, striking similarity that a lot of people refer to is things like, the DMCA in the US copyright context where if you find infringing content on a website, you can notify that website and it's the notice and take down process where, the site.
• 15:36
  Mike Masnick: If they remove the content upon receiving a notice, they receive immunity or a safe harbor.
• 15:41
  Mike Masnick: So you can't be sued for infringement if you remove it upon notice.
• 15:45
  Mike Masnick: It's more involved in that because the DMCA also has, a counter notice option where whoever uploaded the original content, if they are noticed and their content is removed, they can counter notice it, the site can put that content back up.
• 15:58
  Mike Masnick: And if the copyright holder still feels that it's a problem, they then have, I think it's 10 days, I forget now, to file a lawsuit and the platform remains.
• 16:08
  Mike Masnick: in a safe harbor.
• 16:09
  Mike Masnick: So they're protected as long as they follow that notice and take down and counter notice process.
• 16:13
  Mike Masnick: there is also a provision in the DMCA, which is very poorly written and, rarely effective, which effectively tries to limit, Fake notices, on non infringing material, that is written so poorly that it can almost never be used in an effective way.
• 16:30
  Mike Masnick: There are a few cases like really on the margins, but mostly it is ineffective and we've seen it.
• 16:35
  Mike Masnick: We've seen that it has been abused.
• 16:37
  Mike Masnick: There have been multiple studies on the DMCA and how that DMCA is used to take down content that is not infringing.
• 16:43
  Mike Masnick: various reports, depending on different platforms have said that somewhere in the range of 50 to 60% of notices, DMCA notices are false notices for non infringing content, which should be kind of.
• 16:56
  Mike Masnick: That seems like a problem and, that is already concerning.
• 16:59
  Mike Masnick: Now we move to the Take It Down Act, which is a similar sort of thing, but for NCII, it has none of those already problematic and weak safeguards.
• 17:07
  Mike Masnick: In the DMCA, there's no counter notice set up.
• 17:10
  Mike Masnick: There's no punishment for sending false notices.
• 17:13
  Mike Masnick: And so therefore, it is designed in a manner that, is very much set up for people to use it, to abusively, take content down, and then the enforcement side of it.
• 17:23
  Mike Masnick: In many ways is left up to the FTC and we right now have an incredibly.
• 17:30
  Mike Masnick: Biased.
• 17:31
  Mike Masnick: FTC An FTC, that has made it clear that it wants to use the powers of the FTC to punish certain companies almost entirely on an ideological partisan basis.
• 17:42
  Mike Masnick: it is, you know, opened an investigation and it is, pretty clear that it is not going to do anything to punish X.
• 17:49
  Mike Masnick: it's unclear if it will punish meta might depend on how nice Mark Zuckerberg is to the administration, but it might go after other.
• 17:57
  Mike Masnick: Sort of enemies of the Trump administration.
• 18:00
  Mike Masnick: So why in the world would anyone support this bill right now?
• 18:05
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I understand why the sort of MAGA world will, because it is a weapon that they plan to weaponize.
• 18:10
  Mike Masnick: but the bill is co-sponsored by a Democrat and you have a whole bunch of Democrats who are supporting it because they are reading the summary of the bill and the title of the bill, and they think it's a good bill.
• 18:20
  Mike Masnick: And so you know, I'm happy that.
• 18:21
  Mike Masnick: the Verge had this article sort of laying out just really how problematic the bill is, and I still think the fact that Donald Trump himself made it clear that he, you know, I don't think he even understood the bill, but that, his first reaction to seeing what the bill was supposed to do is, is to talk about how he was gonna use it to take down criticism of himself.
• 18:39
  Mike Masnick: Which should set off alarm bells.
• 18:41
  Mike Masnick: And so I don't understand why anyone has been supporting this bill, but it, there's a very good chance that it, this bill will become law in the very near future, and then it will likely be widely abused.
• 18:51
  Ben Whitelaw: and what does that abuse kind of look like?
• 18:53
  Ben Whitelaw: Do you think, Mike?
• 18:54
  Ben Whitelaw: what are the potential implications of that, across platforms, that are governed by it?
• 18:59
  Mike Masnick: I think there's two elements to be aware of.
• 19:01
  Mike Masnick: I mean, there there's more, but within the time we have, let's do two.
• 19:05
  Mike Masnick: So the first is just the ability of anyone to, force any kind of content down.
• 19:10
  Mike Masnick: because you can make these bogus claims and because the risk of, failing to, take down content when you receive a notice is so high.
• 19:17
  Mike Masnick: platforms will be very quick to take down content.
• 19:19
  Mike Masnick: and again, like I said, you know, with the DMCA, we've seen that, somewhere 50, 60% of DMCA notices are probably bogus.
• 19:26
  Mike Masnick: what we've learned is that, there's lots of content.
• 19:29
  Mike Masnick: I mean, everybody listening to this podcast knows this.
• 19:31
  Mike Masnick: There's lots of content online that's someone doesn't like, and historically there was no real mechanism to, you could complain, but the only legal mechanism to remove any kind of content.
• 19:42
  Mike Masnick: Especially in the US was copyright law, and therefore, anytime anyone didn't like any content, they would immediately jump to making a copyright claim because it's just a legal process.
• 19:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Even if it didn't involve copyright.
• 19:53
  Mike Masnick: Yes.
• 19:54
  Mike Masnick: And, and often it had nothing to do with copyright and even like, people would use it for legitimately bad content.
• 19:59
  Mike Masnick: I mean, I know, I remember there were a bunch of stories about like, people seeing anti-vax content, which is, dangerous, problematic content, but people would file copyright claims on it to try and take it down.
• 20:09
  Mike Masnick: But then also there was lots of stuff like, we've had DMCA notices filed against our articles a bunch.
• 20:15
  Mike Masnick: there was this guy who.
• 20:17
  Mike Masnick: For years, he ran one of the first NCII related sites that people would send in, intimate imagery of, former partners or whoever, and he would post it to his website.
• 20:28
  Mike Masnick: He got sued and, the FTC cracked down on him and we wrote about all that and he used A-D-M-C-A claim to try and take down our article.
• 20:36
  Mike Masnick: He also used A-D-M-C-A claim to try and take down the FTC settlement page against him.
• 20:41
  Mike Masnick: But that's what happens when you have a tool that allows people to take content down.
• 20:44
  Mike Masnick: They're going to use it, it's a legal tool.
• 20:46
  Mike Masnick: It looks scary.
• 20:47
  Mike Masnick: Companies don't wanna take the risk and liability.
• 20:49
  Mike Masnick: They'll often just take that content down.
• 20:51
  Mike Masnick: Now, giving them a tool that's even stronger than the DMCA, it's clear that a lot of abuse is gonna happen.
• 20:56
  Mike Masnick: So that's one side of the abuse.
• 20:58
  Mike Masnick: The second is what I was describing with the FTC.
• 21:00
  Mike Masnick: If you have a weaponized FTC that can enforce this law, then they get to pick and choose who they're going to enforce it against.
• 21:07
  Mike Masnick: And what has been made clear in this administration is that.
• 21:11
  Mike Masnick: Every enforcement action is only going against, ideological enemies, not any sort of legitimate purpose.
• 21:17
  Mike Masnick: And therefore it will definitely be weaponized by this administration to go after perceived enemies, all over the place.
• 21:24
  Mike Masnick: They'll just say that they wouldn't take stuff down.
• 21:26
  Ben Whitelaw: And what's the likelihood that it doesn't make it through the house?
• 21:28
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean, is there something done to educate representatives about what could happen if it passes?
• 21:33
  Mike Masnick: I have no idea.
• 21:34
  Mike Masnick: I mean, definitely Civil Society has been speaking out about it.
• 21:37
  Mike Masnick: the Center for Democracy and Technology raised the alarms last year.
• 21:40
  Mike Masnick: They've been the loudest on it and the most thorough.
• 21:42
  Mike Masnick: And, they're great.
• 21:43
  Mike Masnick: They know what they're talking about, and they've been making an effort.
• 21:45
  Mike Masnick: EFF has recently picked up on it as well and has been talking about it.
• 21:49
  Mike Masnick: Others have as well.
• 21:50
  Mike Masnick: but it's a concern.
• 21:52
  Mike Masnick: the Republicans hold the house.
• 21:53
  Mike Masnick: it's a very, very narrow margin.
• 21:55
  Mike Masnick: The last bill that got a lot of attention, like this was obviously cosa.
• 21:59
  Mike Masnick: and eventually the Repub enough Republicans realized that that could be used for censorship, that they sort of bailed on it.
• 22:05
  Mike Masnick: that was before they knew that they had the trifecta of, you know, holding the house, the Senate, and the administration.
• 22:12
  Mike Masnick: Um, which, now they do.
• 22:13
  Mike Masnick: So maybe they don't mind weaponizing it.
• 22:16
  Mike Masnick: A lot of them, I don't know if they have the votes.
• 22:18
  Mike Masnick: The real trick is like making sure that none of the Democrats will vote for it.
• 22:22
  Mike Masnick: I assume that there is some effort going on on the hill.
• 22:25
  Mike Masnick: I, I'm not privy to that kind of stuff, but I would hope that Democrats can be taught that this is a bill that will be weaponized by the Trump administration.
• 22:33
  Mike Masnick: obviously right now there's bigger issues with sort of the funding and the government.
• 22:38
  Mike Masnick: I.
• 22:38
  Mike Masnick: That may shut down, even though I still find it funny that the media is still reporting on the, budget, and the, funding bills.
• 22:44
  Mike Masnick: when we have Elon Musk shutting down the government no matter what happens with Congress, but that's, that's an aside.
• 22:50
  Mike Masnick: That was last week's discussion.
• 22:52
  Ben Whitelaw: The same end by a different means.
• 22:54
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Mike Masnick: So, I don't know that it's immediate because right now they're focused on that.
• 22:58
  Mike Masnick: But in theory, that could be solved today or tomorrow.
• 23:01
  Mike Masnick: and then they could try and get back to business.
• 23:03
  Mike Masnick: And I wish that more Democrats realize that it is not business as usual, and a bill like this is not, you know, it's not what it says on the tin.
• 23:11
  Mike Masnick: And it is very problematic in all sorts of ways.
• 23:14
  Mike Masnick: And, giving.
• 23:16
  Mike Masnick: The administration more power to punish websites for, things they don't like, is not something that, that anyone should be doing right now.
• 23:23
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 23:23
  Ben Whitelaw: Thanks Mike.
• 23:23
  Ben Whitelaw: That's a really, really helpful overview.
• 23:25
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm, I'm sure we will come back to this on feature episodes of Controlled Speech.
• 23:28
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm gonna move us on now to a story that, has been very loudly talked about on a bunch of different news networks this week.
• 23:36
  Ben Whitelaw: I think the, Take It Act stuff has been kind of probably bubbling under the surface a little bit and likely to erupt.
• 23:41
  Ben Whitelaw: But this next story is, one that has attracted a lot of attention.
• 23:44
  Ben Whitelaw: For reasons we'll kind of discuss.
• 23:46
  Ben Whitelaw: this is a new book that's come out about Facebook.
• 23:49
  Ben Whitelaw: if you remember, a, a few years ago now, it was the whistle Blowing of Francis Haugen.
• 23:53
  Ben Whitelaw: This is a, big book serialization that's come out this week by a woman called Sarah Wynn Williams.
• 24:00
  Ben Whitelaw: And the book is called Careless People.
• 24:01
  Ben Whitelaw: Now, I might have a lot of book guilt already.
• 24:04
  Ben Whitelaw: There's uh, there's a lot of.
• 24:06
  Ben Whitelaw: There's a lot of books I ha I buy and never get Round to reading.
• 24:09
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, I'm gonna try and avoid this being one.
• 24:12
  Ben Whitelaw: it's attracted a lot of attention.
• 24:13
  Ben Whitelaw: This week she's given an interview to NBC News in which she explains what's in the book and I'll talk a bit bit about who she is and, what she says.
• 24:20
  Ben Whitelaw: she worked at Facebook from 2011 to 2017 as director of Global Public Policy and worked within essentially kind of Joel Kaplan's team.
• 24:30
  Ben Whitelaw: Joe Kaplan is the new Nick Clegg for those, uh, who, and I will forever refer him to him as that.
• 24:38
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, he's the new Nick Clegg, so he is the chief global, public policy head.
• 24:43
  Ben Whitelaw: So whatever grandiose title he has now, and she worked within his team working on public policy in primarily Asia and Latin America.
• 24:51
  Ben Whitelaw: got a lot of exposure to Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg and other members of the, Facebook team and her book, her memoir, is essentially the latest insight into the kinda machinations of Facebook as a company that controls large sways of, of the, Globe's speech and access to the internet, frankly.
• 25:09
  Ben Whitelaw: she says a number of things in it, which have been variously reported on.
• 25:12
  Ben Whitelaw: She alleges sexual harassment against Kaplan, which Facebook say, He was cleared of back in 2017.
• 25:20
  Ben Whitelaw: she goes into, more detail about an SEC filing that she submitted last year about Facebook, uh, misleading investors.
• 25:29
  Ben Whitelaw: she talks a bit about how Zuckerberg was interested in moving into China, some of which has been reported before.
• 25:35
  Ben Whitelaw: And, she also Talks a bit about the culture of, the company, and she says various things about how Sandberg asked her to, take flights during her, her pregnancy, even when she wasn't very sure about flying.
• 25:45
  Ben Whitelaw: And, and so you get a sense, of what Facebook was like primarily in that period between 2011 and 2017.
• 25:51
  Ben Whitelaw: Obviously a long time ago now.
• 25:53
  Ben Whitelaw: But it's a fascinating there's been a fascinating reaction to the book.
• 25:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Book came out on Tuesday in the us it actually came out today in the uk.
• 26:00
  Ben Whitelaw: So, I've got it on order.
• 26:02
  Ben Whitelaw: it's one of those things, Mike, that, says a lot about the company and the platform, and we try not to talk too much about specifics in companies they change a lot of the time, but.
• 26:12
  Ben Whitelaw: I think it's still worth discussing.
• 26:14
  Ben Whitelaw: there's also been a bit of an update this week that made you feel like it was also worthy of a story in today's control or speech
• 26:21
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I mean, you know, the, the book sounds interesting, but I'm always a little skeptical of any of these sort of like, tell alls from the insiders.
• 26:28
  Mike Masnick: you know, it often feels like, they have an ax to grind, and a mix of the stories that have come out that are in the book.
• 26:34
  Mike Masnick: I haven't read it yet either.
• 26:36
  Mike Masnick: I'm gonna get outta the library at some point, but some of this stuff has been reported before, and it's sort of reported here again in sort of incendiary language.
• 26:44
  Mike Masnick: I've seen a number of former, Facebook meta employees on social media who have been reporting that the incidents that are reported in the book that they were part of were not reported fairly or accurately.
• 26:57
  Mike Masnick: Um, so I think there's some concern about that.
• 26:59
  Mike Masnick: but the thing that really caught my attention though.
• 27:02
  Mike Masnick: You know, it's, it's worth reading these books and getting the perspective, but recognizing that it's, from a single person's perspective and, and maybe not putting full weight into it.
• 27:10
  Mike Masnick: but the thing that really caught my attention this week was the fact that Meta basically tried to stop the publication of the book.
• 27:15
  Mike Masnick: This only came out yesterday really, where they apparently, as part of, her exit agreements, there was a severance agreement that included a non-disparagement clause and meta is alleging that she violated the non-disparagement clause.
• 27:30
  Mike Masnick: In this, and so as a, sign of Mark Zuckerberg's new commitment to free speech, they, they tried to enforce this against her, and went to an arbitration, set up basically making a claim against both the author Sarah Win Williams and the publisher, which is an imprint of McMillan.
• 27:48
  Mike Masnick: The arbitrator came out yesterday with a, ruling, noting two things.
• 27:52
  Mike Masnick: One, McMillan the publisher.
• 27:54
  Mike Masnick: Did not sign the severance agreement with meta and therefore is not bound by it.
• 27:58
  Mike Masnick: And therefore the arbitrator has no jurisdiction over the publisher at all.
• 28:02
  Mike Masnick: So they're sort of out of the story.
• 28:05
  Mike Masnick: But they did say that the publisher was the one who showed up.
• 28:08
  Mike Masnick: Sarah herself did not show up.
• 28:10
  Mike Masnick: And so they sent notices to her and told her again that she had to reply by today, this morning, Thursday morning, two days after the book came out in the US I'll note.
• 28:20
  Mike Masnick: and she had ignored it, but over the weekend.
• 28:23
  Mike Masnick: As part of her promotional efforts for the book, she had gone on a podcast, a popular podcast is the description, and talked about how they were trying to shut her down and silence her by talking about the arbitration claim.
• 28:35
  Mike Masnick: So the arbitrator was like, okay, well now she clearly knows about it.
• 28:38
  Mike Masnick: And so one in general, it's probably not a good idea to completely ignore an arbitration move against you on a contract.
• 28:44
  Mike Masnick: She may be in violation of the contract, but The bigger thing is like meta making this effort in the first place, right?
• 28:50
  Mike Masnick: Like there is this term, which I am associated with, called the Streisand Effect.
• 28:56
  Ben Whitelaw: I was gonna bring it up.
• 28:57
  Ben Whitelaw: I was gonna bring it up.
• 28:58
  Ben Whitelaw: It's a perfect example.
• 28:59
  Ben Whitelaw: No.
• 29:00
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, and the whole idea is like, it's based on this idea that if you go legal to try and silence someone, it is only going to generate way more attention for that work.
• 29:09
  Mike Masnick: And like, I was probably less, I was less interested in reading the book until I saw that meta was trying to silence it, and that, that's why I'm gonna reserve at the library because I, I would now like to read this book.
• 29:20
  Mike Masnick: even as I'm a little skeptical of some of the writing, but doing this just, it seems so counterproductive.
• 29:25
  Mike Masnick: Like just let it play out.
• 29:27
  Mike Masnick: You know, respond like they responded by saying like, this is old news and misleading, and just let it, it'll disappear in two weeks.
• 29:33
  Mike Masnick: People are gonna forget about it.
• 29:35
  Mike Masnick: but doing this makes it look like, oh wait, there's something serious in this book that you're trying to silence Mr.
• 29:40
  Mike Masnick: Free speech, you know, returning to our free speech roots.
• 29:44
  Ben Whitelaw: Oh, it's delicious irony, isn't it?
• 29:46
  Ben Whitelaw: That you know, the platform who are claiming they're returning to, you know, having more speech and fewer mistakes, shutting down a publisher who they don't have an agreement with.
• 29:56
  Ben Whitelaw: it's textbook stuff.
• 29:57
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Mike Masnick: So the, I mean, the arbitration agreement, the arbitrator, did come up with this thing saying, because she indicated that she was aware of the arbitration effort, that she is now banned from promoting the book and to the extent possible distributing or selling the book.
• 30:11
  Mike Masnick: But that's the publisher.
• 30:12
  Mike Masnick: That's not her, but she's not supposed to promote it.
• 30:14
  Mike Masnick: I don't see how that flies, I mean.
• 30:16
  Mike Masnick: it depends on the, actual nature of the, the severance agreement and the non-disparagement clause in there.
• 30:21
  Mike Masnick: I think basically at this point she's being punished because she, she didn't show up for the arbitration hearing.
• 30:26
  Mike Masnick: and so we'll see what happens there.
• 30:28
  Mike Masnick: But either way, none of that, it doesn't really help meta, even if they technically win this arbitration and maybe she'll like, have to pay up some money or something.
• 30:37
  Mike Masnick: it's just gonna draw with that much more attention to the book.
• 30:39
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 30:40
  Ben Whitelaw: I mean there's, at the end of the day, it's still a very large company trying to silence a memoir.
• 30:44
  Mike Masnick: It's, it's a terrible look.
• 30:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 30:46
  Ben Whitelaw: whatever clause is in whatever contract it, doesn't look great, but
• 30:50
  Mike Masnick: And I'll, I'll have to, the details here may matter a lot, but there have been efforts, especially in the last few years, in part because of the Me Too movement to pass these laws that basically say non-disparagement clauses around sexual harassment are not enforceable.
• 31:03
  Mike Masnick: and so there may be some elements of that in there, because again, she did make accusations around sexual harassment in some form or another.
• 31:11
  Mike Masnick: So.
• 31:11
  Mike Masnick: That kind of stuff might be exempted because of various laws.
• 31:14
  Mike Masnick: But again, I think most of those are kind of state laws and so I'm not sure where she's located or which state laws apply for this.
• 31:20
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 31:21
  Ben Whitelaw: we'll move on to other stories, but it, it is worth noting, at least I'm very cynical of the 3, 4, 5 people who suddenly come out of the woodwork to kind of push back against one person's version of events.
• 31:32
  Ben Whitelaw: You know, it's very straightforward.
• 31:33
  Ben Whitelaw: We both work in, in the media, Mike, we know how straightforward it is for a company to call upon some of its many thousands of employees to, push back against a
• 31:42
  Mike Masnick: yeah, I mean,
• 31:43
  Ben Whitelaw: events.
• 31:44
  Ben Whitelaw: So.
• 31:44
  Ben Whitelaw: Uh, again, like I'm, I'm trying to kind of keep an open mind at this
• 31:47
  Mike Masnick: yeah.
• 31:48
  Mike Masnick: Right.
• 31:48
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:49
  Mike Masnick: It's not fair to say that I'm, and, and I'm not saying that the book is, inaccurate or not, but I, I am saying that like there are people I know who I, trust and who weren't like, you know, out there.
• 32:00
  Mike Masnick: I, I've spoken to a few people who are former meta employees and certainly not meta boosters,
• 32:05
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 32:05
  Mike Masnick: uh, by any stretch of the imagination, and they were sort of skeptical of the book as well.
• 32:09
  Mike Masnick: So I have some skepticism about some of the stories of the book.
• 32:11
  Mike Masnick: I think it's one person's view, which is always interesting.
• 32:14
  Mike Masnick: But we should remember that it's one person's view.
• 32:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 32:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Okay.
• 32:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Cool.
• 32:18
  Ben Whitelaw: interesting stuff.
• 32:18
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm, I'm sure there'll be plenty more media coverage this week.
• 32:21
  Mike Masnick: 1, 1 more quick point on this, because I actually do think it's important.
• 32:24
  Mike Masnick: You know, one of the big stories that has come out about this is, is the story about the stuff in China.
• 32:28
  Mike Masnick: and, and I did wanna raise this, I, meant to raise it earlier, but now I'm thinking about we should, definitely include it.
• 32:32
  Mike Masnick: One of the things that, like Kat and I talked about last week as an example, and this was before all the controversy with this book was like the example of.
• 32:40
  Mike Masnick: Facebook and Vietnam and what sort of compromises are they willing to put in?
• 32:44
  Mike Masnick: And the discussion that Kat had, which I think was really important to think about, was that there is a nuanced discussion to be had about if we're trying to get into a country that doesn't have that much freedom of speech, do we make certain compromises to enable at least some kinds of online speech is nothing.
• 33:01
  Mike Masnick: better or worse than some, but more, limited amounts of speech.
• 33:05
  Mike Masnick: And so I think a lot of the China story could be seen in that light.
• 33:09
  Mike Masnick: You know, it sounds like internal discussions about what are we okay with, what is Facebook okay with to try and get into China?
• 33:15
  Mike Masnick: China is obviously a very large market.
• 33:17
  Mike Masnick: It is presented in the book and in the media reporting on the book as if it is a very clear case of like, oh, Facebook compromising with its principles, which might be true.
• 33:26
  Mike Masnick: It may absolutely be true.
• 33:27
  Mike Masnick: But there is another possible reading of it that is Facebook considering internally, like how far are we willing to go to try and get some openness, some ability for people in China to use Facebook to speak.
• 33:38
  Mike Masnick: Is that better than none at all?
• 33:40
  Mike Masnick: And the fact that, you know, no compromise, no final setup was ever done suggests that, these are internal brainstorming things that does happen and people can have a nuanced discussion about that.
• 33:49
  Mike Masnick: What trade offs are we willing to do that is non But that doesn't it could be that, I certainly wouldn't put a past Mark Zuckerberg to be terrible and evil and say that like, no, you know, we're, just gonna screw over users and, and allow the Chinese government to spy on everyone.
• 34:03
  Mike Masnick: But I, I
• 34:03
  Ben Whitelaw: or, or whether they had the right people in the room or the right information available.
• 34:07
  Ben Whitelaw: Right.
• 34:08
  Ben Whitelaw: That's the other thing, because, win Williams is a New Zealander.
• 34:11
  Ben Whitelaw: She's a former diplomat.
• 34:13
  Ben Whitelaw: I'm sure she has a bunch of, great skills.
• 34:15
  Ben Whitelaw: Is she qualified to make decisions about.
• 34:18
  Ben Whitelaw: the way in which meta kind of moves into parts of Latin America or Asia, probably not, you know, probably not.
• 34:23
  Ben Whitelaw: And, and this is the, goes back to the kind of culture point about how, Big companies based in the west coast of the us you know, make decisions for the rest of the world.
• 34:31
  Ben Whitelaw: And I think that's kind of, it's a thread that's been running for the last, you know, 15 years essentially and is keeps coming up.
• 34:37
  Ben Whitelaw: But this is the latest, one of those.
• 34:39
  Ben Whitelaw: cool.
• 34:39
  Ben Whitelaw: We've, got probably time for like a, a few different stories, Mike.
• 34:41
  Ben Whitelaw: maybe three smaller stories to run through.
• 34:44
  Ben Whitelaw: Um.
• 34:44
  Mike Masnick: and go quick.
• 34:45
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 34:46
  Ben Whitelaw: Famous last words.
• 34:47
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, lead us off with the story about the Reddit rules check.
• 34:50
  Ben Whitelaw: We both had this on our list, so I'm, kind of excited about this one.
• 34:53
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, this is, this is really cool.
• 34:55
  Mike Masnick: Uh, so the Reddit has launched this new feature, which is as you're, posting content, you can do a rule check before, which is basically, I assume, AI driven.
• 35:03
  Mike Masnick: before you post something, you can have it checked to see if, the AI thinks you violated the rules rather than, Punish first where you post something, then you get yelled at, this content was taken down and you get all mad.
• 35:13
  Mike Masnick: It just sort of gives you a feedback and says like, Hey, this violates the rules.
• 35:17
  Mike Masnick: We probably aren't gonna allow you to post it and therefore you can adjust.
• 35:20
  Mike Masnick: I'd be interested to see how this works in practice.
• 35:22
  Mike Masnick: Right.
• 35:23
  Mike Masnick: this could be used for gaming where you sort of like figure, how can I.
• 35:25
  Mike Masnick: walk right up to the line without getting in trouble and all sorts of stuff, but as like a feedback tool and as sort of like a, trying to train the user into like not violating our rules.
• 35:34
  Mike Masnick: I think this is great.
• 35:35
  Mike Masnick: I think it's really amazing and, I'll be interested to see if other sites start to pick up on it because.
• 35:39
  Mike Masnick: seems like a really good concept and like a technical approach to, teaching users about what the rules and what the limits of the rules are.
• 35:46
  Mike Masnick: So I think this is a really cool experiment.
• 35:47
  Mike Masnick: I'd love to see how it works out with Reddit.
• 35:50
  Mike Masnick: I could see areas where it will fail, but I'd love to see how it goes and I'd love to see other sites trying some, something similar as well.
• 35:56
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, we, I feel we've kind of jumped ahead here.
• 35:58
  Ben Whitelaw: We've talked about moderation being, ai being used for moderation, almost, moderator level, you know, being used to kind of enforce policies and, but actually we've kind of almost seemed to jumped at a little bit and read it, which have a, a strong history of creating moderator tools and, doing user engagement have kind of gone one step further here, which is really exciting.
• 36:15
  Mike Masnick: it's very cool.
• 36:16
  Mike Masnick: It's very cool.
• 36:16
  Ben Whitelaw: Really like it.
• 36:17
  Ben Whitelaw: the story that I picked out this week, Mike, is a story about the online dispute settlement bodies.
• 36:24
  Ben Whitelaw: We talked about this in the podcast, in the past, it's a DSA, specific, provision where users can now apply to have their content reviewed by a very specific, online dispute settlement body.
• 36:36
  Ben Whitelaw: and they will, Work with the platforms to figure out whether the right rules were followed and you can kind of essentially complain if you, feel like your content was taken down unnecessarily or if you reported it, nothing was done.
• 36:48
  Ben Whitelaw: And ACE is, Appeal Center Europe.
• 36:51
  Ben Whitelaw: It's one of the five or six ODS bodies that have started kinda reviewing content on different platforms.
• 36:57
  Ben Whitelaw: Ace works specifically with Facebook, YouTube, and also TikTok.
• 37:01
  Ben Whitelaw: And it's released some data, just a small data set about some of the initial cases it's reviewed.
• 37:07
  Ben Whitelaw: What it said in a blog post, which we'll link to in the show notes, is that it's had 1500 people, submit appeals against their content in the last three months, I think, since the start of the year.
• 37:17
  Ben Whitelaw: And so far it has gone through 150 ish.
• 37:21
  Ben Whitelaw: appeals specifically related to Facebook.
• 37:24
  Ben Whitelaw: Every, platform needs a, a different data, agreement.
• 37:27
  Ben Whitelaw: and at the moment it only has an agreement with, Facebook it's gonna start to, uh.
• 37:31
  Ben Whitelaw: look at appeals from TikTok and YouTube shortly.
• 37:34
  Ben Whitelaw: And of those 150, about half of them apparently, have been ruled against the original decision made by Facebook.
• 37:41
  Ben Whitelaw: So the ODS body is kind of pushed back against the original, decision to either leave the content up or to pull it down.
• 37:47
  Ben Whitelaw: And that's interesting because, you know, that suggests that there's a kinda high proportion of, decisions made by platforms, that aren't, according to policy.
• 37:55
  Ben Whitelaw: whether or not this stuff scales, we don't know.
• 37:57
  Ben Whitelaw: we're at a very early stage of this, but I think it's really interesting to see some of this data come out at an early stage.
• 38:02
  Ben Whitelaw: And, yeah, looking forward to seeing more of this and also more, data from the other ODS bodies as well.
• 38:07
  Mike Masnick: Yeah.
• 38:07
  Mike Masnick: No, I, I, I think it's cool as I'm glad that we're getting the data, as a reminder, like the rulings of these bodies are not binding.
• 38:12
  Mike Masnick: So we'll also have to see, whether or not the platforms actually listened to them.
• 38:16
  Mike Masnick: But it's interesting to see.
• 38:17
  Mike Masnick: The other thing that I think is interesting is, 1500 complaints.
• 38:20
  Mike Masnick: I'm sort of trying to do the math and like, does that build up to a real business?
• 38:24
  Mike Masnick: Because, you know, part of the idea here is that ACE has to be self-sustaining.
• 38:28
  Mike Masnick: And all the other ones, you know, and so, I'm not sure that's enough.
• 38:31
  Mike Masnick: And so,
• 38:32
  Ben Whitelaw: It's a big question about what the throughput is of, of these appeals.
• 38:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Like can the platforms promote them enough?
• 38:37
  Ben Whitelaw: Will they promote them enough to its users?
• 38:39
  Ben Whitelaw: And then will you have enough ODS bodies to kind of process them?
• 38:42
  Ben Whitelaw: We, we don't know.
• 38:43
  Mike Masnick: yeah, and, and then the speed with which they process them.
• 38:45
  Mike Masnick: So, you know, 1500 complaints in, they've done 141 decisions, less than 10%.
• 38:51
  Mike Masnick: I don't know.
• 38:51
  Mike Masnick: It'll be interesting to see the, the sort of, all of this, how quickly they can do it, how many complaints are coming in, how closely related, but we're starting to see data and that's, that's fascinating.
• 39:00
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 39:01
  Ben Whitelaw: One platform that's not bound by an ODS body or, or isn't covered by an ODS body as yet, I believe is Spotify.
• 39:07
  Ben Whitelaw: and they're the subject of the third small story that we've got today, Mike.
• 39:11
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, this was, an interesting story.
• 39:13
  Mike Masnick: there've been some sort of interesting trust and safety questions around Spotify and sort of what content is allowed on there around like podcasts and stuff.
• 39:19
  Mike Masnick: But this one came out, there was Andrew Tate, who is just a horrible person.
• 39:23
  Mike Masnick: If you don't know who he is, like consider yourself lucky.
• 39:26
  Ben Whitelaw: Don't, don't Google it.
• 39:27
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, I'll, I'll leave it at that.
• 39:29
  Mike Masnick: He is a terrible person, but he sort of apparently set up a class on Spotify and it was just as awful as an awful person would, create.
• 39:36
  Mike Masnick: and the interesting thing here, I think was that Spotify employees kind of revolted on this one.
• 39:40
  Mike Masnick: And so there was sort of an internal, slack channel where people were calling out how terrible it was.
• 39:46
  Mike Masnick: That, Spotify was allowing Andrew Tate and his class to be on the platform.
• 39:50
  Mike Masnick: and so it's sort of an interesting statement on, seeing employees within a company standing up and saying like, Hey, no, we don't want this on our platform.
• 39:58
  Mike Masnick: We're not comfortable working for this company that would enable this sort of awful content.
• 40:02
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah, we saw that back in January as well.
• 40:04
  Ben Whitelaw: When Mark Zuckerberg made his, his announcement, we saw a lot of meta employees revolt internally on Slack and, to an extent publicly as well.
• 40:12
  Ben Whitelaw: but this is an example of, of actually having, you know, some effect and that content was taken down.
• 40:16
  Ben Whitelaw: So, it's a reminder to, trust and safety professionals, even though you potentially feel like you don't have a, a voice, um, these things can change, let's round up our stories this week, Mike, with a tiny story that BBC published this week about, an interview with Roblox, his CEO.
• 40:32
  Ben Whitelaw: we don't have loads of time to go into it, but, it basically is a sit down with Dave Zuki, I think is how you pronounce it.
• 40:39
  Ben Whitelaw: And, he talks about their approach to safety online and to child safety.
• 40:43
  Ben Whitelaw: ROBLOX is obviously used by millions children online, often gets, criticized for its approach to it, AI safety in particular.
• 40:51
  Ben Whitelaw: And what's interesting here is that.
• 40:52
  Ben Whitelaw: He basically says that if parents don't think Roblox is safe, then they shouldn't be allowing their children to use it.
• 40:59
  Ben Whitelaw: And I thought that was just a really interesting, reaction to this question of child safety is something we come back to a lot.
• 41:05
  Ben Whitelaw: And I, I appreciated the honesty and the originality of the response basically to say, if you aren't sure as a parent, that your child is safe, then better to, Be on the, side of safety, to seed onto one side because, you have to be sure yourself.
• 41:18
  Ben Whitelaw: So I thought that was an interesting, line from that interview.
• 41:20
  Mike Masnick: Yeah, and I think it's, think some people are reacting negatively to this kind of saying, like, oh, well he's not taking responsibility, but no, I mean, he's, right to some extent, right?
• 41:29
  Mike Masnick: Like the parents are the sort of first defense for children's use of, technology and devices and services.
• 41:35
  Mike Masnick: And so saying like, look, The parents have a role here is I think, an important statement and I'm glad that he's willing to do it because I think a lot of tech CEOs, because they're being yelled at so much, they, sort of internalize the idea that the entirety of the responsibility has to be on them, but it can never be right.
• 41:50
  Mike Masnick: I mean, responsibility has to be spread around to a number of people for him to say like, okay, look, if you don't trust me, don't use it, I think is a really honest statement and I think it's a good one to hear.
• 41:59
  Ben Whitelaw: Yeah.
• 42:00
  Ben Whitelaw: I dunno if Zaki or or anybody from Roblox is gonna be at the GDC conference next week in San Francisco.
• 42:06
  Ben Whitelaw: but it's a neat segue into our bonus chat.
• 42:09
  Ben Whitelaw: for those who haven't been to the conference and, and I'm yet to make my debut, but it's a, a huge conference with some of the biggest games developers where they're talking about innovation, creativity, and, player safety.
• 42:19
  Ben Whitelaw: we talked about this with Carly Chadwick, the head of.
• 42:22
  Ben Whitelaw: Platform trust and safety delivery at Resolver, which provides a range of risk, intelligence and advisory services.
• 42:28
  Ben Whitelaw: And Resolver has actually been around even before Facebook, Mike, they're that old.
• 42:32
  Mike Masnick: Wow.
• 42:32
  Mike Masnick: Okay.
• 42:33
  Mike Masnick: I didn't realize that.
• 42:34
  Ben Whitelaw: yeah.
• 42:34
  Ben Whitelaw: So, um, yeah, we get into that with Carly and, uh, I hope listeners enjoy our bonus chat this week.
• 42:50
  Ben Whitelaw: Great to have you join us on Control Speech.
• 42:52
  Ben Whitelaw: Carly, thanks very much for making the time.
• 42:54
  Ben Whitelaw: before we start, before we get into the kind of gaming questions, for those who aren't familiar, tell us a little bit about Resolver and what it does.
• 43:01
  Karley Chadwick: Of course.
• 43:02
  Karley Chadwick: Uh, thank you for having me, Ben.
• 43:03
  Karley Chadwick: so resolver trust and safety, has been going strong for about 20 years now.
• 43:07
  Karley Chadwick: Actually we're coming up to our 20th, anniversary, which is really exciting.
• 43:11
  Karley Chadwick: but we started in 2005.
• 43:13
  Karley Chadwick: Under a slightly, different name.
• 43:15
  Karley Chadwick: Actually, we were known as Crisp back in the day, and we were really set up with our mission around keeping children safe online.
• 43:22
  Karley Chadwick: that started, with our founder Adam Hildreth, who whilst working in a different venture, very quickly identified unfortunately, how at risk children were, from grooming and other predatory behavior online.
• 43:36
  Karley Chadwick: thus this crisp dream came to life.
• 43:38
  Karley Chadwick: So, like I said, it's, been 20 years.
• 43:41
  Karley Chadwick: We've been combating online abuse ever since.
• 43:44
  Karley Chadwick: That central aim still really being about keeping children safe when they are online.
• 43:49
  Karley Chadwick: But that has since expanded out.
• 43:51
  Karley Chadwick: So today we work with social media companies, search engines, NGO Partners, regulators, you know, just to name a few to deliver on that mission.
• 44:02
  Karley Chadwick: our expertise has stretched a lot more wider than just child safety now.
• 44:07
  Karley Chadwick: So we are, core online harm specialists in everything from that original child safety goal right through to hate speech, counter-terrorism, suicide, self-harm.
• 44:18
  Karley Chadwick: and we're doing all of that, from our original base here in Leeds, which is where I'm speaking to you from now.
• 44:24
  Karley Chadwick: All of our other global offices, through that network of online, technical intelligence and our threat analyst teams.
• 44:32
  Ben Whitelaw: Brilliant.
• 44:32
  Ben Whitelaw: and so talk a little bit about what those threat analyst teams do then.
• 44:36
  Ben Whitelaw: How, what role do they play and what information they're providing to the platforms and services you work with.
• 44:42
  Karley Chadwick: yeah, good question.
• 44:43
  Karley Chadwick: One of my favorite things about Resolver is our diversity, and I think this has never been more apparent.
• 44:50
  Karley Chadwick: Then with those threat analyst teams, so our, human intelligence, we have them working 24 7 and they're covering all manner of languages, global markets, risk spaces, and those people have got some of the most interesting backgrounds I've ever seen.
• 45:07
  Karley Chadwick: We've got ex-military.
• 45:09
  Karley Chadwick: X law enforcement, sociologists, we've got people who have come from academia, so people who've studied, psychology, linguistics, criminology, you know, you name it.
• 45:19
  Karley Chadwick: And they're all coming together to combine that knowledge that they've got, with our technical expertise to find all of those online hams that I just mentioned.
• 45:28
  Karley Chadwick: And I think going back to that 24 7 aspect risk is global.
• 45:33
  Karley Chadwick: we all know that, within the industry, but I think what's really important and what's special about those threat analysts is recognizing that risk is also localized.
• 45:43
  Karley Chadwick: Now, what may manifest as a risk on one platform in say, the German speaking market, it's not necessarily going to be the case in the Korean speaking market.
• 45:53
  Karley Chadwick: You know, we can't rely on our understanding of hate speech in North America.
• 45:58
  Karley Chadwick: To be able to tackle the risk of hate speech in France, we really need a localized understanding of what is that nuance in that region to be able to really, and most effectively proactively monitor what those risks are, not just for the users who are in those spaces, but for those platforms and those companies as well.
• 46:17
  Karley Chadwick: So they are really well placed to do that.
• 46:19
  Karley Chadwick: They're employing all of, all of those, great skills, that behavioral analysis, that osint geolocating, you know, just to name a few of their skillset, to find what is happening in that region, what's happening today, what might be happening tomorrow to best protect people and that, God, that could be anything from what's the trajectory of neo-Nazi radicalization in Spain.
• 46:43
  Karley Chadwick: How is this latest, technology feature going to be used to share CSAM?
• 46:48
  Karley Chadwick: Or how are bad actor communities going to exploit an upcoming major event, say, an election?
• 46:54
  Karley Chadwick: what's going to happen globally, to impact those spaces?
• 46:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Mm.
• 46:58
  Ben Whitelaw: Interesting.
• 46:59
  Ben Whitelaw: And we were talking before, before we started, you, you're a German speaker yourself.
• 47:03
  Ben Whitelaw: You start as an analyst.
• 47:04
  Ben Whitelaw: and what are the kind of major events that you've worked on in the past really spring to mind when you, think about the, threat analysis and threat detection space that you've, you've worked with.
• 47:13
  Karley Chadwick: that's a really good question.
• 47:15
  Karley Chadwick: And I think go, unfortunately, you know, in the field that we're in, there's been quite a few events over recent years that come to mind.
• 47:23
  Karley Chadwick: COVID being one of them, the US election, The most recent and the one prior to that.
• 47:28
  Karley Chadwick: for me as a threat analyst, my very first, uh, incident, let's call it, which really brought to my mind how fast-paced this industry is, was unfortunately Christchurch.
• 47:41
  Ben Whitelaw: Mm.
• 47:42
  Karley Chadwick: I say it in interviews when we recruit people, the very best thing about.
• 47:47
  Karley Chadwick: The world of trust and safety is that every day is different.
• 47:50
  Karley Chadwick: you, don't know what's gonna happen next month, next year.
• 47:53
  Karley Chadwick: the risk is ever evolving.
• 47:55
  Karley Chadwick: And that was never more so the case for me than the morning of Christchurch.
• 48:00
  Karley Chadwick: And I remember coming into the office as, you know, as we all do with my internal to-do list.
• 48:07
  Karley Chadwick: I'm gonna finish that project.
• 48:08
  Karley Chadwick: I'm gonna go make a start researching this.
• 48:11
  Karley Chadwick: And walked into an office that was alive with activity in a way that I'd never seen before.
• 48:16
  Karley Chadwick: we had people literally running from desk to desk trying to make sense of what was going on.
• 48:22
  Karley Chadwick: And it, and it was, it was horrific, from a linguistic standpoint, which is my background.
• 48:27
  Karley Chadwick: brought to light that exploitation element of what are people going to do, or what tactics are people gonna employ to be able to get content that really shouldn't be online?
• 48:38
  Karley Chadwick: Online.
• 48:39
  Karley Chadwick: and with Christchurch, we were seeing, every 30 seconds, a reupload of the livestream was making, its way onto a platform.
• 48:47
  Karley Chadwick: It was first uploaded in Indonesian and then you'd see it being posted in Korean and then it would make its way to Spain.
• 48:55
  Karley Chadwick: that for me was one of those events.
• 48:58
  Karley Chadwick: And unfortunately, there's been a few more over the years.
• 49:01
  Karley Chadwick: but for me, that was the first one that really made me sit up straight and go, oh, okay.
• 49:06
  Karley Chadwick: this is really serious now.
• 49:08
  Ben Whitelaw: I remember it was like playing whack-a-mole for lots of platforms, wasn't it?
• 49:11
  Ben Whitelaw: Um, really tough.
• 49:13
  Ben Whitelaw: so how does resolvers, capabilities in threat detection apply to gaming then?
• 49:17
  Ben Whitelaw: You know, we've got, thousands of people gathering in San Francisco this week for GDC, you've done increasing amounts of work in the gaming space in recent years.
• 49:25
  Ben Whitelaw: What emerging threats have you seen?
• 49:27
  Ben Whitelaw: In gaming platforms versus perhaps social media and, and marketplaces?
• 49:31
  Karley Chadwick: Oh, where do I start?
• 49:34
  Karley Chadwick: I think it's important to start with the acknowledgement of they are.
• 49:37
  Karley Chadwick: Interestingly, quite similar.
• 49:40
  Karley Chadwick: So the threats that we see in gaming, in a way are some of the evergreen risks that we've always been seeing on social media platforms.
• 49:48
  Karley Chadwick: they are slightly tweaked as you would expect them to be, to, The opportunities that are available in gaming that might not necessarily be anywhere else.
• 49:57
  Karley Chadwick: but God, we could do many episodes talking about the swatting risks, predatory monetization, increased risk of ransomware and, harassment that we're seeing take place online.
• 50:08
  Karley Chadwick: and it just, goes to show really how big the gamification of risk has become in, say, the past.
• 50:16
  Karley Chadwick: Two, three years certainly.
• 50:18
  Karley Chadwick: But it's one of those that it really sits at the intersectionality of a lot of other risk spaces, you know, and it can be really insidious in that regard for a risk that let's say hate speech.
• 50:31
  Karley Chadwick: it's one of the first ones that cropped mine.
• 50:34
  Karley Chadwick: When you ask someone what's some, some of the, more inappropriate things that happen on gaming, people will always talk about hate speech.
• 50:42
  Karley Chadwick: And it always starts with that friendly banter approach because a big group of like-minded people have all come together.
• 50:50
  Karley Chadwick: They all feel really safe, they're all here for the same reason, the same interest.
• 50:55
  Karley Chadwick: and that's when the banter starts Because unfortunately in, in some of these spaces where these communities are gathering, they have the sense that they are less moderated.
• 51:04
  Karley Chadwick: So they can get away with saying a little bit more that they know is inappropriate and it goes unchecked and it, goes a little bit further from there.
• 51:12
  Karley Chadwick: And those are the spaces where we find that banter situation quickly escalate.
• 51:19
  Karley Chadwick: And then it becomes harassment, and then we, we see these risks very quickly, morph and represent risks to child safety, suicide, and self harm, even terrorism, which for me, talking about gaming, radicalizations got to be up there, I think, as one of the biggest, the biggest risks.
• 51:39
  Karley Chadwick: gaming's a natural conversation starter, which is a really, you know, it's a really positive thing.
• 51:44
  Karley Chadwick: Like I said, we get people come together around a game that they all like, or a trend within a game that they all like, you know, everyone remembers the Fortnite dances.
• 51:54
  Karley Chadwick: and that they get a community going in that regard.
• 51:57
  Karley Chadwick: And I want to be clear, like that's not necessarily a, bad thing.
• 52:01
  Karley Chadwick: one of the greatest things about social media in, in the past, you know, two decades.
• 52:05
  Karley Chadwick: Has been the ability for millions of people worldwide to form those connections, those safe communities, to share experiences, to make friends.
• 52:15
  Karley Chadwick: And that's a brilliant thing.
• 52:16
  Karley Chadwick: But when that community gets centered around something that's not so positive, that's where we get into a really dangerous space.
• 52:24
  Karley Chadwick: That's where, under the veil of sharing things that are like-minded to that community.
• 52:30
  Karley Chadwick: we get those risks proliferating a lot more than, than we necessarily would've done.
• 52:35
  Ben Whitelaw: one thing I wanted to ask about was, physically augmented spaces, you know, the kind of augmented reality, um, virtual reality.
• 52:42
  Ben Whitelaw: 'cause again, this, these are new spaces are emerging where harms differ, in terms of their scale, in terms of their, definition almost, and how we deal with those.
• 52:51
  Ben Whitelaw: How do you think that that changes the nature and severity of, some of the harms and also the work the resolver does?
• 52:57
  Karley Chadwick: So these worlds, you know, it's their unique selling point.
• 53:01
  Karley Chadwick: They blend the digital with the physical, and for me that raises the stakes of the risks get stakes way higher, One of the biggest risks we see with these physically augmented worlds is harassment.
• 53:17
  Ben Whitelaw: Mm-hmm.
• 53:17
  Karley Chadwick: And there's this long held belief by certain users of these spaces that what you say and what you do, they bear no consequence.
• 53:26
  Karley Chadwick: 'cause you know, hey, well it's online, right?
• 53:28
  Karley Chadwick: You know, what's, what's the harm?
• 53:30
  Karley Chadwick: how can you possibly.
• 53:32
  Karley Chadwick: me and punish me for this thing that, it was only said online.
• 53:35
  Karley Chadwick: It, doesn't count.
• 53:36
  Karley Chadwick: augmented harassment, unfortunately, we're seeing it become quite egregious from virtual stalking, sexual harassment, right through to unfortunately sexual assault taking place between users, of these spaces.
• 53:50
  Karley Chadwick: And they're, they're increasingly.
• 53:53
  Karley Chadwick: Testing the parameters of what's possible within that world.
• 53:57
  Karley Chadwick: And unfortunately for me, biggest piece that I don't think people are aware of is just how much information about yourself you are giving away when you are, when you're using augmented realities.
• 54:11
  Karley Chadwick: We are seeing gamers increasingly use their home surroundings as part of the game experience, and they're sharing this with who they believe to be other friends, other gamers within these realities, and they're not meaning to.
• 54:26
  Karley Chadwick: Revealing where they live, where are they at that moment, you know, where do they go to work?
• 54:31
  Karley Chadwick: Where do they go to school?
• 54:32
  Karley Chadwick: And this is, really opening users up to those, some of those risks that I mentioned earlier around swatting and, and other security threats that can be really quite serious and can, snowball really quite quickly.
• 54:44
  Karley Chadwick: you know, back to that idea of it's not real life, you know, what's the harm, This is arguably one of those factors that makes it hard to monitor.
• 54:54
  Karley Chadwick: It makes it hard to identify because, you know, in these quasi virtual quasi real experiences, where do you draw the line with freedom of expression?
• 55:03
  Karley Chadwick: Where, where do you stop the creativity when it, stops being creative?
• 55:07
  Karley Chadwick: certainly for a lot of these experiences where people are making these modifications to make it their own experience, it really can feel like every man for themselves or, you know, this is a, a lawless experience.
• 55:20
  Karley Chadwick: like I said, when we were chatting about gaming earlier, there are a lot of similarities between risks that are happening on gaming and risks that are taking place, on non-gaming platforms or in other social media spaces.
• 55:33
  Karley Chadwick: and unfortunately I think how resolve and monitor all of this history does, unfortunately repeat itself.
• 55:39
  Karley Chadwick: So whilst bad actors will constantly adapt their behavior, they're constantly going to change the way that they act in the face of the environment that they're in.
• 55:50
  Karley Chadwick: we are going to see and have seen patterns to the risks.
• 55:54
  Karley Chadwick: That we first saw at the first invention of social media, 15, 20 years ago.
• 55:59
  Karley Chadwick: users are getting to grips with how to use gaming, certainly how to use these AR experiences, and they're trying to push those boundaries between what is and isn't possible.
• 56:10
  Karley Chadwick: And that line, you know, it really is blurred.
• 56:13
  Karley Chadwick: So until we have that distinction of what is clear, I think we're going to have a lot of users who are emboldened to take advantage of it.
• 56:22
  Ben Whitelaw: The multifaceted nature and, and the constantly evolving nature just really demonstrates the importance of the work that Resolve is doing.
• 56:29
  Ben Whitelaw: And we'll continue to do, hopefully, for another 20 years.
• 56:32
  Ben Whitelaw: so Carly, thanks so much for joining us today on Control of Speech.
• 56:35
  Ben Whitelaw: Really appreciate your time and uh, thanks for coming on.
• 56:38
  Karley Chadwick: Thank you so much.