Liz Carolan, Founder of Digital Action, shares what caught her eye this week in the tech accountability space:
- Earlier in the week the BBC’s Abdirahim Saeed published a story about how members of the Taliban have been exploiting the $8 blue tick to finally get “verified” on Twitter – a big win for that group’s propaganda goals. In response to the article Twitter has been quietly removing the “blue ticks” from those accounts mentioned – but it hasn’t actually changed any policies (as far as we know – they aren’t replying to journalists requests for comment). This does feel like something that “old Twitter”, with its resourced regional and human rights teams, would have been on top of or at least responsive to. However it does align with what our partners told us when we surveyed them; that stories of bad behaviour by platforms might get individual content or account action – but what does it actually take to get policy change.
- ICYMI – Casey Newton (who friends at Twitter told me they themselves were reading to figure out what was going on in the takeover last week) has a long form piece in NY Magazine this week, in case you can’t wait for the inevitable movie version of this story.
- Good news this week: Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa – who has highlighted the “weaponization” of social media by those in power trying to silence her work – was acquitted of politically motivated charges against her. There has been a concerted civil society effort to keep pressure and global focus on this case, and it is heartening to see, as Ms Ressa said herself, truth and justice win.
- In other news – the “This is fine” meme turned 10 this week. There is a nice write up and interview with the original creator about how his work took on a life of its own in the Boston Globe.