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tonyleachsf's review against another edition
4.0
Solid overview of the problems, challenges of content moderation online. Would recommend as a primer for anyone interested in this hard topic.
laurenkd89's review against another edition
3.0
Last summer, I listened to an episode of the podcast Radiolab called “Post No Evil.” In it, Jad and Robert discuss the rules of what is and isn’t allowed on popular platforms, focusing on Facebook. Reading through the Facebook posting policy, it seems straightforward - just don’t post hateful and inappropriate stuff. But putting that into practice is a whole other beast, one with a gray area so large you can’t even see the black and white. As the hosts say, “How do you define hate speech? Where’s the line between a joke and an attack? How much butt is too much butt?” These are questions that Facebook’s highest experts have to grapple with, especially now that Facebook is a global platform serving as an online public forum - as David Kaye calls them, “stewards of public space.” Although Mark Zuckerberg probably never imagined that his website would one day serve as a breeding ground for fake news, hate speech, trolls, spam, pornography, and more - it’s certainly become that now.
Since then, content moderation on social media has become a hot-button issue, with John Oliver and Hasan Minhaj covering it on their shows, and various real-life content moderators (“the janitors of the internet”) writing exposés on the horrors of what they have to see in their day-to-day jobs.
As the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression for the United Nations, David Kaye is in a unique position to discuss this issue. He’s been invited to policy meetings and hearings with the big tech giants, he has worked on task forces concerning online hate speech, and his work stems from a global mandate to control hate speech while promoting freedom of expression. SPEECH POLICE is an interesting, thought-provoking read on these intersections, serving as both a primer for readers who are new to this topic, and an in-depth look at conversations that are typically private to seasoned readers.
Kaye covers a variety of issues, from the more popular topics of how Facebook contributed to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar to the less known topic of undemocratic Internet Referral Units in Europe. He discusses how governments have and have not intertwined themselves with social media, what the legal and business obligations of platforms are to moderate content, how difficult it is to stamp out fake news, and how free speech plays into all of this.
If anything, Kaye makes you realize what a tough, tough job platforms have. “They have to make fine distinctions between the disturbing content that they all allow and the treats that they prohibit; between the insult that is kosher and the hate speech that is not; between legitimate journalism depicting horrors of the world and groups seeking to incite those horrors.” The lines in the sand are constantly moving, and it’s really hard to make policy that is consistent with these case-by-case decisions while still trying to make everyone happy.
In the end, Kaye puts forth two recommendations, one public and one private. But, in my opinion, this book is more informative than solutions-oriented. It really seeks to convey the complexity of the issue and how hard it is going to be to craft policy (both corporate and public policy) to adequately address online speech. He gives examples of laws like NetzDG in Germany that have tried to put sanctions on platforms for not addressing hate speech soon enough - and that’s in a country where hate speech (especially Nazi speech) is strictly illegal. I shook my head thinking about how ill-equipped our free-speech lauding and technologically-illiterate Congress is to work on a nuanced topic like this. But the threat of hate speech and fake news is as rampant as ever in the U.S., and we’re going to need some serious thought and action to prevent it from further infecting our society.
I can see this book likely being read as part of college courses on free speech and the Internet, but it’s a great read for anyone interested in the topic - which should be all of us.
Thank you to NetGalley and Columbia Global Reports for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Since then, content moderation on social media has become a hot-button issue, with John Oliver and Hasan Minhaj covering it on their shows, and various real-life content moderators (“the janitors of the internet”) writing exposés on the horrors of what they have to see in their day-to-day jobs.
As the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression for the United Nations, David Kaye is in a unique position to discuss this issue. He’s been invited to policy meetings and hearings with the big tech giants, he has worked on task forces concerning online hate speech, and his work stems from a global mandate to control hate speech while promoting freedom of expression. SPEECH POLICE is an interesting, thought-provoking read on these intersections, serving as both a primer for readers who are new to this topic, and an in-depth look at conversations that are typically private to seasoned readers.
Kaye covers a variety of issues, from the more popular topics of how Facebook contributed to ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar to the less known topic of undemocratic Internet Referral Units in Europe. He discusses how governments have and have not intertwined themselves with social media, what the legal and business obligations of platforms are to moderate content, how difficult it is to stamp out fake news, and how free speech plays into all of this.
If anything, Kaye makes you realize what a tough, tough job platforms have. “They have to make fine distinctions between the disturbing content that they all allow and the treats that they prohibit; between the insult that is kosher and the hate speech that is not; between legitimate journalism depicting horrors of the world and groups seeking to incite those horrors.” The lines in the sand are constantly moving, and it’s really hard to make policy that is consistent with these case-by-case decisions while still trying to make everyone happy.
In the end, Kaye puts forth two recommendations, one public and one private. But, in my opinion, this book is more informative than solutions-oriented. It really seeks to convey the complexity of the issue and how hard it is going to be to craft policy (both corporate and public policy) to adequately address online speech. He gives examples of laws like NetzDG in Germany that have tried to put sanctions on platforms for not addressing hate speech soon enough - and that’s in a country where hate speech (especially Nazi speech) is strictly illegal. I shook my head thinking about how ill-equipped our free-speech lauding and technologically-illiterate Congress is to work on a nuanced topic like this. But the threat of hate speech and fake news is as rampant as ever in the U.S., and we’re going to need some serious thought and action to prevent it from further infecting our society.
I can see this book likely being read as part of college courses on free speech and the Internet, but it’s a great read for anyone interested in the topic - which should be all of us.
Thank you to NetGalley and Columbia Global Reports for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
hm08's review against another edition
4.0
This was a quick overview on the issues we face today governing speech on social media platforms. The proliferation of American social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have led to the rise of a new type of "government" - it's interesting to see what kinds of issues have arisen with respect to the regulation of online speech and human rights on a global scale.
For how short this audiobook was, I appreciated the breadth of issues covered and the concise manner in which they were presented. The author does not claim to have found the cure-all to all these challenges to policing speech, but he certainly raised a variety of important questions and factors for consideration.
Coming from a place of being someone with legal training, I was admittedly a tad bit uncomfortable with Kaye's suggestion of relying on more creative forms of regulation and governance. It's almost a reflex of mine to dismiss extralegal measures and soft law as being merely perfunctory. Nevertheless, by the very end of the book, I was more convinced that the approach to seeking to balance freedom of expression and protection against harmful speech has to be a multi-pronged one integrating both traditional and non-traditional stakeholders.
This is my first time listening to a work of this author - I would definitely be looking up more of them.
For how short this audiobook was, I appreciated the breadth of issues covered and the concise manner in which they were presented. The author does not claim to have found the cure-all to all these challenges to policing speech, but he certainly raised a variety of important questions and factors for consideration.
Coming from a place of being someone with legal training, I was admittedly a tad bit uncomfortable with Kaye's suggestion of relying on more creative forms of regulation and governance. It's almost a reflex of mine to dismiss extralegal measures and soft law as being merely perfunctory. Nevertheless, by the very end of the book, I was more convinced that the approach to seeking to balance freedom of expression and protection against harmful speech has to be a multi-pronged one integrating both traditional and non-traditional stakeholders.
This is my first time listening to a work of this author - I would definitely be looking up more of them.
annarella's review against another edition
5.0
That's a great read for anyone who's interested in internet and free speech.
I appreciated the style of writing and how things were explained.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
I appreciated the style of writing and how things were explained.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
grisostomo_de_las_ovejas's review against another edition
3.0
David Kaye has changed my mind. Kind of.
Kind of, I say, because before reading this book, I held the sort of amorphous opinion on social media companies' role in policing content that I think many well-meaning people do. "They should do something, right? That sangfroid son-of-a-Zuckerberg is cashing in while the internet's overrun by fake news hucksters" And now I'm not so sure of that opinion.
As David Kaye points out, putting the regulatory burden of action on social media companies just isn't so simple.
Should we choose to do so, overworked and underpaid content moderators suddenly become the gatekeepers of what's okay to say and what's not. And given that social media companies will generally want to avoid friction with governments, said content moderators will be incentivized to operate with a sledgehammer, rather than a scalpel. Plus, Kaye notes, governments may not be the best judge of what belongs on the internet. In America, Donald Trump probably doesn't think his critics' tweets do. In Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta doesn't think the posts of opposition bloggers do. In Myanmar, one-time peacenik Aang Saun Suu Kyi doesn't think video recordings of government genocide do.
And even if all governments were well-intentioned, allowing a regulatory environment in which whispers from the feds could influence social media content moderation would amount to giving the government new powers sans legal process. If we agree governments shouldn't exercise prior restraint on certain topics, then it likely follows that they shouldn't be able to do the same while hiding behind a middleman.
So, if we're not okay with social media companies playing speech jury and executioner, how do we solve the problems of social media chicanery? Fake news and threatening content won't leave the platforms just because governments decide to get constitutionally circumspect. Unfortunately, it's here that Kaye begins to falter.
He suggests social media companies to tamp down the virality of bad content. That obviates the prior restraint issue (Facebook now says "You can shout down the well, but you can't use our super-megaphone "), but it still forces social media companies to play jury on what's bad.
Kaye also suggests that social media companies could take a decentralized approach to figuring out what's "bad", partnering with independent bodies in countries to form local speech guidelines. Recognizing the difficulty of that solution, Kaye adds that some of those bodies might need to reside out-of-state for their own safety. But something just doesn't sound right about out-of-state bodies deciding what in-state people get to say. Plus, who gets to pick the composition of these bodies? "The people"? What if the people don't like a minority? What if a minority (pick a reactionary religious sect) is represented and they don't like the people? Answer unclear.
Wrap-up: this book does a nice job illuminating the concrete consequences of asking social media companies to regulate content. The solutions it proposes are awkward and loose (as is the book's prose), but I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
Kind of, I say, because before reading this book, I held the sort of amorphous opinion on social media companies' role in policing content that I think many well-meaning people do. "They should do something, right? That sangfroid son-of-a-Zuckerberg is cashing in while the internet's overrun by fake news hucksters" And now I'm not so sure of that opinion.
As David Kaye points out, putting the regulatory burden of action on social media companies just isn't so simple.
Should we choose to do so, overworked and underpaid content moderators suddenly become the gatekeepers of what's okay to say and what's not. And given that social media companies will generally want to avoid friction with governments, said content moderators will be incentivized to operate with a sledgehammer, rather than a scalpel. Plus, Kaye notes, governments may not be the best judge of what belongs on the internet. In America, Donald Trump probably doesn't think his critics' tweets do. In Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta doesn't think the posts of opposition bloggers do. In Myanmar, one-time peacenik Aang Saun Suu Kyi doesn't think video recordings of government genocide do.
And even if all governments were well-intentioned, allowing a regulatory environment in which whispers from the feds could influence social media content moderation would amount to giving the government new powers sans legal process. If we agree governments shouldn't exercise prior restraint on certain topics, then it likely follows that they shouldn't be able to do the same while hiding behind a middleman.
So, if we're not okay with social media companies playing speech jury and executioner, how do we solve the problems of social media chicanery? Fake news and threatening content won't leave the platforms just because governments decide to get constitutionally circumspect. Unfortunately, it's here that Kaye begins to falter.
He suggests social media companies to tamp down the virality of bad content. That obviates the prior restraint issue (Facebook now says "You can shout down the well, but you can't use our super-megaphone "), but it still forces social media companies to play jury on what's bad.
Kaye also suggests that social media companies could take a decentralized approach to figuring out what's "bad", partnering with independent bodies in countries to form local speech guidelines. Recognizing the difficulty of that solution, Kaye adds that some of those bodies might need to reside out-of-state for their own safety. But something just doesn't sound right about out-of-state bodies deciding what in-state people get to say. Plus, who gets to pick the composition of these bodies? "The people"? What if the people don't like a minority? What if a minority (pick a reactionary religious sect) is represented and they don't like the people? Answer unclear.
Wrap-up: this book does a nice job illuminating the concrete consequences of asking social media companies to regulate content. The solutions it proposes are awkward and loose (as is the book's prose), but I'd still recommend it to anyone interested in the topic.
annarella's review
5.0
That's a great read for anyone who's interested in internet and free speech.
I appreciated the style of writing and how things were explained.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
I appreciated the style of writing and how things were explained.
Highly recommended!
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.
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