The Wall Street Journal / Katie Deighton
Rest of World / Russell Brandom
How the Oversight Board sparked a standoff in Cambodia →“On the speech and platform side, the most interesting thing to note is how little Meta had to do with anything that happened. Meta’s internal moderators wanted to leave the post up, remember, and Hun Sen’s announcement only came in response to the Oversight Board decision.”
Reuters / Tyler Clifford and Sharon Bernstein
Biden administration appeals ban on social media contacts →“The notice of appeal filed on Wednesday signals the government’s plan to ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans to review the ruling in a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s efforts to persuade social media companies to police posts it considered disinformation.”
The Rebooting, Substack / Brian Morrissey
Twilight of the open web →“More publishers will look to ‘protect’ their content from bots and scraping, relying increasingly on paywalls and creating a doom loop in which the open web becomes an even more frustrating experience.”
Columbia Journalism Review / Adam Piore
Up in the Air: Graydon Carter’s Air Mail →“I think they understand this quasi-fictional way of life as being under attack from young, progressive, angry people on the internet. I think they think of themselves as not having to engage with internet culture or internet criticism,” said senior Vox culture correspondent Constance Grady. “I think they see that as being part of ‘the problem’ and are sort of proud of the idea of rising above it—and as such, of not having to care about racism and police brutality, because those are unpleasant topics that they don’t like thinking about.”
The Atlantic / Kaitlyn Tiffany
We’re in a golden age of illegal sports streams →“The Kafkaesque conditions of the system have led baseball fans into a life of crime. We are in a golden age of illegal sports streaming: There are many, many easily accessible and surprisingly high-quality sites, with crisp videos and fine enough sound.”
The New York Times / Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson
Disinformation researchers fret about fallout from judge’s order →“It’s bananas that you can’t show a nipple on the Super Bowl but Facebook can still broadcast Nazi propaganda, empower stalkers and harassers, undermine public health and facilitate extremism in the United States,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “This court decision further exacerbates that feeling of impunity social media companies operate under, despite the fact that they are the primary vector for hate and disinformation in society.”
Los Angeles Times / Brian Merchant