Now that Meta is actively rolling out its content policy changes, we are deeply concerned that they will harm vulnerable people. If the company truly values free speech—and its users—it’s moving in the wrong direction. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/metas-new-content-policy-will-harm-vulnerable-users-if-it-really-valued-free
Meta has a clear and disturbing track record of silencing and further marginalizing those who are already oppressed, and then being less than forthright about their content moderation policy. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/metas-new-content-policy-will-harm-vulnerable-users-if-it-really-valued-free
While human rights and digital rights groups, as well as its users, have won important victories from Meta, these changes indicate the company will backslide rather than make improvements. We urge the company to redirect its focus to empowering historically marginalized speakers, rather than empowering only their detractors.
@eff https://mastodon.social/@eff/113789440544631242 you got two people running this account or something?
@mt The byline for Tuesday's statement is David Greene and Jillian C York. The byline for today's is them plus Paige Collings. I don't know what happened on Tuesday, whether they ate some bad chili or what, but they seem to have recovered from whatever temporary amnesia they were suffering from.
@mt @eff They updated the article with this info:
"Update: After this blog post was published (addressing Meta's blog post here), we learned Meta also revised its public "Hateful Conduct" policy in ways EFF finds concerning. We are analyzing these changes, which this blog post does not address, and will provide an update soon."
CC: @cairobraga Turns out they did not know it when publishing.
@elgregor @eff @cairobraga well that was fun. Glad they didn't try to cover the old post.
@mt @eff They posted this shortly after the blog entry you point to: https://mastodon.social/@eff/113794035082252926
Apparently the EFF saw one part of the announcement and not the other, and reacted to the positive bit (the bit where marginalized people can get banned by bad faith moderation or abuse of the report buttons)
@poundquerydotinfo @mt @eff
Dunno. This was all over the news at that point already, incl the MZ video etc. The EFF statement came fairly late. Outcry was already huge, also in mainstream media.
They didn’t see any of that? Dropping a press release without being properly informed??
Sure, I mean, sometimes just everything goes wrong and the author of the original piece also hit all the wrong notes in the lingo.
But I would have expected a mea culpa or sth.
@EloPup @mt @eff I think reading the original, it was far less positive than the headline proposed. To be clear: Facebook's previous "fact checking" system was controversial in leftish/reality-based circles too. People regularly had posts taken down for commenting correctly on COVID and/or for discussing LGBT issues or sex work in a positive context, or for criticizing misinformation and bigotry. Right now a Reddit thread on the subject (https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/1hxnt0i/its_total_chaos_internally_at_meta_right_now/) is packed with people pointing out they were regularly dinged, their accounts suspended, etc, for criticizing hateful bigoted comments on Facebook while the originals stayed up.
But the EFF also takes issue with many of the moderation changes in the original announcement (which didn't include the hateful conduct policy) such as the idea that moving to Texas will help and strongly implies it thinks the entire thing is an attempt to curry favor with Trump towards the end.
Again though, this is the EFF that backed a "Make trans people kill themselves" site over an independent network provider that didn't want to carry their content. I don't fully trust the EFF to make the right decision. I don't expect them to be allies, but I do expect them to respect the rights of those who do and recognize the power of institutions that align with neo-Nazi behavior and policies. In both cases, the EFF is falling far short of what's necessary.
@eff Yes, Meta *does* have a clear and disturbing record. Which is exactly why so many people were shocked and disappointed by the credulous statement you issued earlier this week.
It's good to see you acknowledging that statement was a mistake, but it's still jarring that you made it in the first place.
I'm a longtime supporter of the EFF, and I know nobody's perfect and mistakes happen. But I expect better of you than uncritically reporting Meta press releases. Please don't do it again.
@eff thanks for ur posts <3
@eff The simple announcement that they were moving the moderation team to Texas should have been a big enough red flag…
@eff we love you guys but… yeah duh
"It was our mistake to formulate our responses and expectations on what is essentially a marketing video for upcoming policy changes before any of those changes were reflected in their documentation."
Good on you to be clear this was your mistake. Ya shoulda known though.
All this evil rubbish money scraping filth should be replaced by open source solutions.
Nobody needs these profiteers…
@eff For the most part, it's pretty good (especially in pointing out FB's selective focus here and pushing harder for them to resolve their issues), although I'd be hesitant to put things which look like calls for censorship in there.
@eff Thank you!
I've never had an account on Facebook, Instagram, Threads or WhatsApp (and likely I never will). My decision to migrate here from Twitter was correct. No commercial social media platform can be trusted to put the interests of its users first.
Like you said, we can achieve a temporary victory with a lot of backlash, but such victories fail to transform into a comprehensive and reasonable policy. It's probably time to acknowledge that Big Tech is incapable of self-regulation.