;
Meta allowed its platforms to host a massive network of sextortion scammers and only took action when journalists began exposing their failures.
Remember, this is the same company that laid off trust & safety workers to cut costs 🧵 1/3
Now that the Senate has passed a bill to crack down on sexual deepfakes, here's a reminder that tech trade association Netchoice endorsed draft legislation that would have ALLOWED abusers & predators to share sexual deepfakes of victims – so long as they included a disclaimer.
When Meta conducted layoffs for its "year of efficiency," it offered a bump in severance & benefits to employees who agreed not to talk about their work or disparage the company. Now, a judge has ruled that those agreements were coercive. https://www.theregister.com/2024/07/22/meta_layoff_severance_agreements/
It's great news that the FTC is cracking down on student debt relief scams – but why is Google still running 80+ advertisements for a company that tricked consumers and pretended to be affiliated with the DOE?
NEW: The White House’s Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force has released policy recommendations for social media platforms.
These might seem like common-sense safeguards, but the industry has resisted every single one.
A new study by Guardian Australia shows that misogynist content is amplified –by default– for male users on Facebook & Instagram.
Of course, Meta also insists that MORE research is needed to prove that its platforms are harmful.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/21/we-unleashed-facebook-and-instagrams-algorithms-on-blank-accounts-they-served-up-sexism-and-misogyny
In this week's TTP newsletter, we talk about the structure & limitations of Meta's latest research project, and call back to the "Independence by Permission" framework that @prowag observed in an earlier academic partnership.
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www.techtransparencyproject.org
ICYMI: @MaxwellFrostFL and @RepRaskin are asking the Government Accountability Office to examine how much federal funding goes to anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers, which are not held to any standards for health, safety, or even sanitation.
House Democrats call for investigation into crisis pregnancy center funding
A pair of Oversight Committee Democrats are asking a government watchdog to investigate the amount of federal fundin...
thehill.com
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Today, we're talking about misinformation targeting migrants, Google's NCII problem, the FTC's crackdown on NGL, and Russian bots on X. Sign up here:
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