EFF wants minimum standards for moderation by tech companies

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, along with other parties, has called on Facebook and Google to adopt a number of minimum standards when moderating content on their platforms. This should lead to more transparency about what is and is not allowed.

The minimum standards, which companies such as Facebook and Google must adhere to, must ensure that compliance with the guidelines is done in a fair, transparent and proportionate manner, while respecting the rights of users.

It revolves around three principles. First of all, the tech companies must publish how many messages or accounts they have temporarily or permanently deleted for violating their own guidelines. Second, affected users should be informed about the reasons for deleting their posts or accounts. Finally, the organizations believe that an independent person of flesh and blood should be involved in the content removal process and users should be able to do something against the removal of content or accounts.

The coalition states that these minimum standards are necessary, in view of, for example, the events of the violent protests in the American Charlottesville. Quite a few messages and accounts were closed at the time in an attempt to combat hate speech, but according to the coalition often completely innocent messages were also removed.

The organizations believe that the processes used by tech companies are often unnecessarily opaque and that no one wins when content is censored by secret algorithms without being accompanied by explanation or transparency. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the other parties believe that Google and Facebook have taken steps in the right direction, but that they are still insufficient. It is not yet clear whether tech companies such as Google and Facebook will follow up on the call.

In addition to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the coalition that introduced the standards includes the Center for Democracy & Technology, a group of academics and champions of freedom of expression.