How should social media companies disclose government content moderation?
When: Jan. 24, 2023 3:00 PM ET
Where: Virtual
Featuring:
- [Keynote Speaker] Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.)
- [Moderator] Shoshana Weissmann, Digital Director and Fellow, R Street Institute
- Neil Chilson, Senior Research Fellow, Technology and Innovation, Stand Together
- Kaitlin Sullivan, Director, Content Policy, Meta
- Emma Llansó, Director, Free Expression Project, Center for Democracy and Technology
Governments across the world request that platforms provide them with user information, preserve user content and remove user content hundreds of thousands of times every year. These requests are generally reported in bulk by type of request rather than individually and can include everything from legal orders to notifications of potential platform policy violations (which can be done by anyone) to emails and other unofficial or casual alerts. And these requests range from fully legitimate to extremely questionable. Generally, transparency of government actions is good, and because governments are taking action related to free speech rights, more disclosure of these actions is ideal.
But what would it take? Is it possible at this scale? What are the barriers to disclosure? (For example, it is still prohibited to publish counts of National Security Letters that a company receives.) We will discuss these questions and more during the panel.
