2025-08-24
Nick Clegg's toughest day at Meta? Not when the leadership team were warned of a ‘palpable risk’ of a repeat of Molly's death (and went on to refuse additional child safety resource.) When they suspended Donald Trump after January 6th (h/t @gabyhinsliff) [image]
The Guardian
An interview with Nick Clegg about Zuckerberg's “masculine energy”, Silicon Valley's “cloying conformity” and “combination of machismo and self-pity”, and more
When Britain's former deputy PM took a job at Meta, nothing could have prepared him for the ‘cloying conformity’ of the tech world.
2025-04-24
Today you'll hear a lot of PR about Ofcom's measures to prevent children being algorithmically recommended suicide and self-harm content. In the small print, Ofcom says these apparently sweeping measures... will cost tech firms £3,000 to £20k per annum. @mollyroseorg [image]
The Guardian
Ofcom outlines 40+ child safety measures for websites and apps to introduce from July 2025 or face large fines under the Online Safety Act, including age checks
Companies will be legally required to block children's access to harmful content under UK's Online Safety Act or face large fines
2024-09-17
Instagram's announcement is another PR-driven attempt to get ahead of what regulation will soon require - & while welcome, with no upfront age assurance & lots of previously announced measures is far less than the sum of its parts @mollyroseorg https://www.bbc.com/...
New York Times
Instagram unveils Teen Accounts, a sweeping update to boost privacy and limit intrusive effects for under-18 users, including making accounts private by default
The app, which is popular with teenagers, introduced new settings and features aimed at addressing inappropriate online contact and content …
2024-09-14
Appalling decision. Facebook and Instagram are awash with harmful content, which will now get baked in to Meta's AI products. History repeats and replicates, seemingly with regulatory consent
TechCrunch
Meta restarts training its AI systems on UK users' public Facebook and Instagram posts, having “incorporated regulatory feedback” to be “even more transparent”
Paul Sawers / TechCrunch :
2024-08-28
As it emerges that Durov's arrest was linked to Telegram's failure to cooperate on CSA investigations, have to wonder what Meredith Whittaker and Matthew Hodgson are now planning to do differently https://www.politico.eu/...
Politico
French administrative document: alongside Pavel Durov, French authorities issued an arrest warrant for his Telegram co-founder and brother Nikolai in March 2024
PARIS — French authorities issued arrest warrants for Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his co-founder brother Nikolai in March …
2024-06-17
Another powerful intervention from the US Surgeon General calling for Congress to approve warning labels for social media platforms used by children - and a reminder of why it's so important @SenSchumer brings #KOSA to a floor vote without delay https://www.nytimes.com/...
New York Times
The US Surgeon General says platforms should add a “warning label” saying that “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents”
One of the most important lessons I learned in medical school was that in an emergency, you don't have the luxury to wait for perfect information.
2024-04-13
Children as young as 9 being added against their will to WhatsApp groups encouraging & promoting self-harm. This disturbing investigation is part of a growing trend and underscores that @Ofcom need to urgently plug gaps in their #OnlineSafetyAct proposals https://www.bbc.com/...
The Guardian
As Meta lowers the minimum age for WhatsApp users from 16 to 13 in the UK and EU, after announcing the move in February, child safety groups criticize the move
Jamie Grierson / The Guardian :
@Livingstone_S ... Agreed - the discussion about them lowering the age limit is somewhat meaningless when there's no rigorous age assurance in place. Having worked with the team, can assure you this has been a rigorous investigation.
The Guardian
As Meta lowers the minimum age for WhatsApp users from 16 to 13 in the UK and EU, after announcing the move in February, child safety groups criticize the move
Jamie Grierson / The Guardian :
2024-04-11
Meta sets out some new tools to mitigate the risks of E2E, including client-side image scanning - and in doing so, confirms its decision not to scan against known child abuse images is a conscious choice, not driven by technical barriers. @Ofcom, 👀 https://about.fb.com/...
Wall Street Journal
Instagram plans to automatically detect and blur nude images DMed to teens, and show a pop-up to the sender and the recipient, rolling out in the coming months
Obscured photos and warnings will discourage users from exchanging nude photos with potential strangers
2024-02-01
Lindsay Graham tells Mark Zuckerberg he has blood on his hands. He's right. Impressive bipartisanship on display as the @JudiciaryDems #TechHearing gets underway.
Washington Post
A recap of the US Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on kids' online safety, with testimony from the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord
Lindsay Graham tells Mark Zuckerberg he has blood on his hands. He's right. Impressive bipartisanship on display as the @JudiciaryDems #TechHearing gets underway.
TechCrunch
Microsoft and X say they support the Kids Online Safety Act; Meta, Discord, and TikTok demur, citing criticism from groups or supporting only some parts of KOSA
how much they care & the promises—are empty. It is the voices & stories of the advocates who joined me today that will create real change. We will win this fight for the Kids Onlin...
2024-01-30
Meta will give data access to to ‘a select group of researchers’. This definitely doesn't look like attempted academic capture or attempts to skew the evidence base on youth wellbeing, absolutely not.
TechCrunch
Meta partners with the Center for Open Science to share data for researching online well-being, before January 31's Congressional hearing on kids' online safety
2023-12-07
As of today, @messenger's child abuse and grooming risk profile sharply increases. Inherently preventable harm, dressed up as a privacy measure, that's really a Trojan horse for @Meta's antitrust objectives (1/2)
The Verge
Meta rolls out end-to-end encryption to Messenger by default for one-on-one chats and calls, fulfilling a yearslong promise; E2EE for group chats remains opt-in
Meta is now rolling out end-to-end encryption for one-on-one chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook, finally fulfilling …
2023-12-04
Extraordinary filing that alleges @Harvard ended its online disinformation programme, led by the renowned @BostonJoan & working on @FrancesHaugen's disclosures, after a $500 million donation from Mark Zuckerberg's foundation. Academic capture writ large https://live-whistleblower-aid.pantheon site.io/ ...
Washington Post
Disinformation scholar Joan Donovan claims in a whistleblower filing that her superiors dismissed her after Harvard got Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's $500M gift
In a whistleblower complaint, she breaks her silence over events that unsettled other misinformation researchers
2023-11-09
It's a big day as @Ofcom releases it's first draft Code for the #OnlineSafetyAct. On an initial read, the proposed response to illegal content, including child sexual abuse, needs a shot of ambition (1/7) [image]
Financial Times
Ofcom's CEO on the regulator's new powers to police tech: kids are the first priority, companies must detect and remove CSAM, and working in harmony with the EU
Where the laws have different scope, it's important that implementing them does not create conflicts for companies
2023-11-08
Meta whistleblower Arturo Béjar asked @mosseri what he considered acceptable number of unwanted sexual advances for teens on @instagram. As the risk profile soars because of how it intends to introduce E2E, we all deserve to hear an answer https://www.bbc.com/...
CNN
Former Meta consultant Arturo Béjar's Senate testimony: Meta executives ignored warnings of harms to teens and carefully crafted metrics to downplay the issue
Meta's top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, ignored warnings for years about harms to teens on its platforms such as Instagram …
2023-10-25
A really important knock-on impact of AI-generated child sexual abuse: diverting already stretched capacity away from the detection and removal of existing forms of child abuse material, inc images produced as a result of grooming and coercion
The Guardian
The Internet Watch Foundation warns that generative AI is being used to create child sexual abuse imagery, and finds ~3K AI-made abuse images breaking UK law
Internet Watch Foundation finds 3,000 AI-made abuse images breaking UK law — The “worst nightmares” about artificial intelligence …
2023-09-20
'We don't think people want us reading their messages', says @meta, conveniently neglecting: 🔵 they already scan unencrypted DMs for CSA content 🔵 they're investing in homomorphic E2E to enable targeted advertising based on our DMs https://www.bbc.com/...
TechCrunch
The UK's parliament passes the Online Safety Bill, in the works since 2019, paving the way for Royal Assent and the bill becoming law in the coming days
Controversial UK legislation that brings in a new regime of content moderation rules for online platforms and services …
Of course the framing is as tactical as it is disingenuous, given it'll galvinise privacy activists to project the usual false but tedious binary arguments, and provide the perfect smokescreen for @Meta to press ahead with its antitrust objectives
TechCrunch
The UK's parliament passes the Online Safety Bill, in the works since 2019, paving the way for Royal Assent and the bill becoming law in the coming days
Controversial UK legislation that brings in a new regime of content moderation rules for online platforms and services …
2023-09-01
@Glen_Pounder ... Surely the real story: the privacy hawks within the company won the battle over rollout. The tech is perfectly robust, but it'll need regulatory cover for Apple to push it out in the face of privacy activist opposition. And in the meanwhile...
Wired
Ahead of child safety group's campaign to pressure Apple to scan iCloud for CSAM, Apple says such sans may lead to a “slippery slope of unintended consequences”
Child safety group Heat Initiative plans to launch a campaign pressing Apple on child sexual abuse material scanning and user reporting.