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Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Misinformation During A Pandemic (2020)

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This series of case studies is published in partnership with the Trust & Safety Foundation to examine the difficult choices and tradeoffs involved in content moderation. Learn more »Summary: In early 2020, with the world trying to figure out how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the big questions faced by internet platforms was how to combat mis- or disinformation regarding the pandemic. This was especially complex, given that everyone -- including global health experts were trying to figure out what was accurate themselves, and as more information has come in, the understanding of the disease, how it spread, how to treat it, the level of risk, and much, much, has kept changing.Given the fact that no one fully understood what was going on, plenty of people rushed in to try to fill the void with information. Most social media firms put in place policies to try to limit or take down misinformation or disinformation using a variety of policies and tactics. But determining what is misinformation as opposed to legitimate truth-seeking can be very tricky in the midst of a pandemic.In late March, as the pandemic was hitting full swing, an article appeared on the website Medium by Aaron Ginn, a self-described Silicon Valley growth hacker, arguing that the response to COVID-19 was overblown and driven by hysteria. The piece included many citations of credible data and reports, but also included a few quotes significantly downplaying the risk of COVID-19, including saying that its transmission rates are very similar to seasonal flu.The story started to spread widely, mainly after a number of Fox News hosts started tweeting it. As the story got more and more attention, Carl Bergstrom, a professor of biology at the University of Washington, decided to critique Ginn's article in great detail via an extended Twitter thread. Bergstrom makes a fairly compelling case that Ginn's lack of expertise in epidemiology led him to making a number of mistakes in his analysis, in particular, not understanding how viruses spread, and how that information is tracked. He also argued that Ginn cherry-picked certain data to support a thesis. Bergstrom and others started arguing that Ginn's Medium piece was (perhaps not intentionally) misinformation.Decisions to be made by Medium:

  • Should the piece be allowed to remain on the platform or should it be taken down?
  • Are there alternatives to taking the piece down or leaving it as is?
  • If the piece is taken down, should the user be banned?
  • What policies do a potentially well-meaning, but possibly incorrect, piece about a pandemic violate?
Questions and policy implications to consider:
  • How do you distinguish mis- and disinformation from potentially well-meaning, but inexperienced analysis?
  • Should earnest but incorrect information be allowed?
  • How does that analysis change when human health is at stake?
  • Do pieces like this need to be judged against official government and healthcare sources? If so, how is that reconciled with constantly updated information from those sources?
  • If articles like this are taken down, does that create more credibility for articles that remain on the site?
  • If articles like this are left up, does that create more credibility problems for other articles on the site, that may have a much stronger and more competent analysis?
  • Does taking down an article like this create political backlash?  If so, does that matter?
  • Do the site and its management want to feel responsible if people take bad health advice that was posted to their site, and possibly come to harm from it?
Resolution: Medium chose to quickly take down Ginn's piece about a day after it went up and 13 hours after it went viral. In fact, the article was taken down while Bergstrom was writing out his tweet thread critiquing it. Indeed, Bergstrom ended his thread early upon learning that the article was taken down.That was not the end of things, however. The article was reposted to the site ZeroHedge, and copies were stored and reposted in other places as well. It also created a short-lived uproar among those who felt that Medium's moderation decision was unfair. The Wall Street Journal celebrated Ginn, saying that after being targeted for censorship, it only made Ginn more influential. Other publications, including the NY Times, the Washington Post, and Slate, all wrote about the dangers of amateurish analysis in the midst of a pandemic.Ginn, at one point, appeared to be fine with Medium's decision, saying that internet platforms are free to associate with whom they want, (though he has since removed the tweet saying that). He has continued to use other social media to argue that the claims about COVID-19 were overblown.

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posted at: 12:00am on 18-Jul-2020
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Internal Investigation Shows The Houston PD's Narcotics Units Was An Unsupervised Mess

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The Houston PD decided to take a look at itself after a botched drug raid ended with two people killed by officers. The raid was predicated on pure bullshit. Officer Gerald Goines turned two Houston residents into dangerous drug traffickers by using a nonexistent confidential informant, drugs Goines had stashed in his squad car, and a narrative unsupported by any actual facts. Claims of heroin trafficking by a violent drug dealer were undercut by the raid itself, which turned up no heroin or the gun the (fake) informant claimed he saw.Officer Goines is now former officer Goines. He's facing multiple state and federal charges, including two counts of felony murder. This sort of thing doesn't just happen. It's not an anomaly formed in a pristine environment. The almost-nonexistent oversight of the Houston PD's drug warriors led directly to Goines' deadly concoctions. An internal review of the drug unit by the Houston PD shows officers operated with indifference, carelessness, and negligence. Officer Goines may have been the worst of the 175 officers, but he was far from the only one abusing the system to engage in unsupervised drug warrior freelancing. (via Grits For Breakfast)

The report’s authors wrote that while reviewing Goines and Bryant’s casework from 2016 to 2019, they found 404 errors and a “high level of administrative errors and overall lack of attention to detail” while completing required paperwork.Auditors found that in the 84 casefiles they reviewed, Goines submitted evidence late 48 percent of the time (40 times) and made unauthorized informant payments 18 times. A quarter of the cases he filed -- 21 -- did not have tactical plans, the critical documents that officers create showing how they plan to carry out a search warrant raid.Four times, investigators found cases with no search warrant on file. Three cases included problems where there was inadequate documentation about the case’s informant. Two dozen cases lacked case review sheets. Auditors found discrepancies in Goines’ expenses 23 times. In two cases, there were discrepancies in evidence, and another two cases, evidence submission slips were missing.
The full report [PDF] breaks this down by officer. It appears Officers Goines and Bryant had developed a working relationship that made bending/breaking rules easier. When working together, they relied heavily on "controlled buys." This made it easier to obtain cash from supervisors who seemed unwilling to ask questions -- even when the officers failed to submit paperwork or justify expenditures. In some cases, it appears payments to CIs were broken up into smaller chunks to avoid mandated supervisory reviews. In other cases, Goines and Bryant did not get approval for payments or paid well above the going rate for information leading to very small drug busts.The sloppiness of officers' work was indirectly encouraged by the indifference of their supervisors.
The audit also found “overwhelmingly” the need to improve administrative procedures, specifically, supervisory review of case files and case tracking. About 25 percent of the time, supervisors failed to sign case file review sheets, and auditors found many cases were turned in six months to a year late -- far longer than the 10 working days allotted by policy.
And the problems go all the way to the top. Police Chief Art Acevedo has been holding onto this report for weeks, refusing to allow the public to see just how corrupt and unrestrained his narcotics division is. Acevedo finally released the report (via Twitter) after the Houston Chronicle released a series of articles discussing the department's lack of transparency. This unconventional release may have been additionally prompted by another set of criminal charges being brought against police officers by the Houston DA.
Prosecutors probing a Houston police narcotics unit announced charges against six former officers tied to a fatal 2019 drug raid. Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg accused the former officers of lying on police reports and other documents as part of a scheme to enrich themselves.[...]Besides the new charges Goines and Bryant face, Ogg announced charges against former HPD Lt. Robert Gonzales, Sgts. Clemente Reyna and Thomas Wood and Goines’ old partner.
It appears several officers and supervisors in the Houston Police Department feel this isn't going to end well for them. They're getting out before the department gets to them.
In the months after the raid, Goines retired from HPD. Bryant also retired, along with Goines’ other former partner, Hodgie Armstrong. Three supervisors — Sgt. Clemente Reyna, Sgt. Tommy Woods and Lt. Robert Gonzales also retired. Former Narcotics Commander Paul Follis was transferred to a different post, the Hobby Airport Division.
There's some good news at the end of all of this. Some reforms are now in place to reduce the likelihood of this sort of tragedy repeating itself. A supervisor is now required to be on the scene during warrant deployment. No-knock warrants have to be approved by the chief himself (or his "designee"). Officers can no longer use municipal court judges for warrant approval. And, finally, body cameras are mandatory for all drug warrant service. They must be activated before officers leave their vehicles and cannot be shut off until the scene and all suspects are secured. All evidence collected must be logged and photographed. All interactions with informants must be documented and, more importantly, all informants will be subject to periodic background checks and random face-to-face interviews with PD supervisors.This may fix some things going forward. But a more permanent solution would be to dismantle the current unit and reform it using other officers -- officers who've proven worthy of trust. Officers who've been in a system this devoid of oversight and accountability are pretty much ruined. They need to be given the shortest leash and the least amount of responsibility until they've proven they can handle more. Without a major overhaul, the next horrendous abuse of power is still an inevitability.

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posted at: 12:00am on 18-Jul-2020
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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