El País: Kicking toxic people off social media reduces hate speech on the internet. “An internal study by Facebook, which analyzed interactions between 26,000 users, reveals that excluding extremist community leaders is an effective means of eradicating hate speech on social media, particularly over the long term.”
BuzzFeed News: Midjourney Allegedly Banned A Journalist After He Created AI Images Of Donald Trump Getting Arrested. “Many are envisioning — some gleefully — what a Trump arrest would look like. Among them is Eliot Higgins, best known as the founder of open-source investigative journalism website Bellingcat. This week, Higgins used the AI image generator Midjourney to depict Trump’s arrest. He shared 50 images on Twitter, and they quickly went viral. As a result, he said on Wednesday, Midjourney appeared to have banned him from the service. Midjourney did not immediately respond to a request for comment. (The word ‘arrested’ is now banned on the platform.) “
US Soccer: Statement From U.S. Soccer Board Of Directors Yates Implementation Committee Chair Danielle Slaton. “As we advance our action plan for addressing the report’s recommendations, U.S. Soccer has now published soccer records from SafeSport’s Centralized Disciplinary Database to publicly identify individuals in our sport who are currently subject to discipline, suspended or banned.”
News@Northeastern: Now Banned By Tiktok And Others, Andrew Tate Rode Wave Of Online Misogyny, Says Northeastern Expert. “Tate, a British-American social media influencer, is well known for making misogynistic comments in his videos, which have been removed from TikTok but at one point had billions of views. In the videos, Tate referred to women as property, described how he would attack a woman who accused him of cheating, and said he doesn’t believe that depression is real (Tate says his comments were taken out of context). Following a public outcry, last week he was banned from YouTube, TikTok and Facebook. But experts say that Tate is not acting in a silo; in fact, online misogyny has been on the rise for years, and social media platforms are not built to handle it.”
TechCrunch: Judge tosses Trump’s lawsuit over his lifetime Twitter ban. “A federal judge in California dismissed Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Twitter Friday, dimming at least one avenue the former president and prolific tweeter might have used to get back to his platform of choice. Trump’s argument that the social media company and its then-chief executive Jack Dorsey violated his right to free speech failed to convince Judge James Donato of the Northern District of California, to put it lightly.”
Mashable: Truth Social already censoring content, bans user who made fun of Trump Media CEO. “Web developer Matt Ortega signed up for the Truth Social service and soon discovered an email from Truth Social telling him that his account had been banned. Ortega confirmed the authenticity of the email and ban in a private message to Mashable. Furthermore, Ortega had never posted a single thing to Truth Social as his account was one of the many still on the waitlist to join. Ortega was banned simply because of the username he used to sign up for the platform: @DevinNunesCow.”
Fast Company: This is where hateful trolls go after they are banned from mainstream social media. “Ever wonder what happens to Twitter or Facebook users after they’re thrown out for hate speech? A team of researchers from Germany, the U.K., and the United States found out. Their research process was creative: They gathered 29 million posts from Gab, a right-wing platform known for its neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, and anti-Semitism, and then backtracked to find users’ other profiles on Twitter or Reddit, some of which had been suspended.”
Motherboard: Scammer Service Will Ban Anyone From Instagram for $60. “Scammers are abusing Instagram’s protections against suicide, self-harm, and impersonation to purposefully target and ban Instagram accounts at will, with some people even advertising professionalized ban-as-a-service offerings so anyone can harass or censor others, according to screenshots, interviews, and other material reviewed by Motherboard.”
Techdirt: Naturopath Sues Twitter After It Bans Her Account For Spreading Medical Misinformation . “This lawsuit [PDF], however, has an actual lawyer behind it. And by actual lawyer, I mean a lawyer whose representation may be less useful than no representation at all. The lawyer helping the plaintiff bring this constitutional violation lawsuit against Twitter is David Yerushalmi, perhaps best know for being a bit bigoted himself.”
BBC: Twitter suspends Marjorie Taylor Greene over ‘misleading’ Covid posts. “Twitter has temporarily suspended Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene for posting ‘misleading’ information about coronavirus. The social media giant said her account would be in ‘read-only mode’ for 12 hours.”
Techdirt: Facebook Is Banning Anyone Charged With Participating In Capitol Hill Insurrection . “At the very least, this does raise some questions. Since it’s just based on charging, and not on conviction, what happens if the charges are dropped or the person is acquitted? That may be unlikely with many (if not all) of the January 6th folks, but it does raise some questions. And is the ban permanent? So far, the initial January 6th cases, against those who didn’t seem to do that much once in the Capitol, have involved relatively mild sanctions. Will that also include a lifetime ban from Facebook? Should it?”
ABC News: Twitter restricts account of expert who mocked China leader. “A New Zealand academic says Twitter temporarily restricted her account after she mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping. University of Canterbury Professor Anne-Marie Brady is an expert on China’s attempts to exert political influence around the world and has been an outspoken critic of its ruling Communist Party. Last week, she sent tweets poking fun at the party’s 100th anniversary celebrations.”
TechCrunch: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Ridiculous Lawsuit Against Facebook Gets Tossed Out Of Court. “As you may recall, last summer we wrote about what we referred to as an ‘insanely stupid’ lawsuit that Robert F. Kennedy had filed against Facebook on behalf of his wacky anti-vax organization ‘Children’s Health Defense’ (CHD). The issue, of course, is that Facebook blocked CHD from posting the usual conspiracy theories and medical disinformation that RFK Jr. has been known to spread.”
NPR: Facebook Ban On Donald Trump Will Hold, Social Network’s Oversight Board Rules. “Facebook was justified in its decision to suspend then-President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the company’s Oversight Board said on Wednesday. That means the company does not have to reinstate Trump’s access to Facebook and Instagram immediately. But the panel said the company was wrong to impose an indefinite ban and said Facebook has six months to either restore Trump’s account, make his suspension permanent, or suspend him for a specific period of time.”
CNET: Facebook’s oversight board to rule on Trump’s suspended accounts. “Facebook’s content oversight board plans to rule on Wednesday whether Donald Trump will be able to access the platform he was booted from, amid concerns the former president could incite violence like the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill. The board tweeted its plans on Monday morning.”
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