Content Moderation Case Studies: Twitter Clarifies Hacked Material Policy After Hunter Biden Controversy (2020)
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Summary: Three weeks before the presidential election, the New York Post published an article that supposedly detailed meetings Hunter Biden (son of presidential candidate Joe Biden) had with a Ukrainian energy firm several months before the then-Vice President allegedly pressured Ukraine government officials to fire a prosecutor investigating the company.The "smoking gun" -- albeit one of very dubious provenance -- provided ammo for Biden opponents, who saw this as evidence of Biden family corruption. The news quickly spread across Twitter. But shortly after the news broke, Twitter began removing links to the article.Backlash ensued. Conservatives claimed this was more evidence of Twitter's pro-Biden bias. Others went so far as to assert this was Twitter interfering in an election. The reality of the situation was far more mundane.As Twitter clarified -- largely to no avail -- it was simply enforcing its rules on hacked materials. To protect victims of hacking, Twitter forbids the distribution of information derived from hacking, malicious or otherwise. This policy was first put in place in March 2019, but it took an election season event to draw national attention to it.The policy was updated after the Hunter Biden story broke, but largely remained unchanged. The updated policy explained in greater detail why Twitter takes down links to hacked material, as well as any exceptions it had to this rule.Despite many people seeing this policy in action for the first time, this response was nothing new. Twitter had exercised it four months earlier, deleting tweets and suspending accounts linking to information obtained from law enforcement agencies by the Anonymous hacker collective and published by transparency activists Distributed Denial of Secrets. The only major difference was this involved acknowledged hackers and had nothing to do with a very contentious presidential race.Decisions to be made by Twitter:- Does the across-the-board blocking of hacked material prevent access to information of public interest?
- Does relying on the input of Twitter users to locate and moderate allegedly hacked materials allow users to bury information they'd rather not seen made public?
- Is this a problem Twitter has handled inadequately in the past? If so, does enforcement of this policy effectively deter hackers from publishing private information that could be damaging to victims?
Questions and policy implications to consider:- Given the often-heated debates involving releases of information derived from hacking, does leaving decisions to Twitter moderators allow the platform to decide what is or isn't newsworthy?
- Is the relative "power" (for lack of a better term) of the hacking victim (government agencies vs. private individuals) factored into Twitter's moderation decisions?
- Does any vetting of the hacked content occur before moderation decisions are made to see if released material actually contains violations of policy?
Resolution: The expanded version of Twitter's rules on hacked material remain in force. The additions to the policy in response to questions about its takedown of the Post article more clearly state what is or isn't allowed on the platform. The expanded rules presumably also make it easier for moderators to make informed decisions, rather than simply remove any information that may appear to be the result of hacking.Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.
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posted at: 12:00am on 27-May-2021
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Warner Bros. Bullies Airbnb Hobbit-Themed Offering Into Changing Its Name Over 'Hobbit' Trademark
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We've covered intellectual property issues that revolve around Tolkien's Lord of the Rings properties before. By now, everyone should know that any use of or homage to those properties, or even coincidental usage, will typically result in angry letters from lawyers. What's even more fun about all of that is you get to play the game called, "Whose lawyers are going to write the angry letter this time?" Between the Tolkien estate and its IP management partners and Warner Bros., the studio behind the LotR films, they have managed to block an unrelated wine business from using the word "hobbit," bullied a pub named "The Hobbit" to get it to change its name before recanting said bullying, and got a Kickstarter project shut down for trying to create a real-world "Hobbit house."This is where it's worth reminding everyone that Tolkien did not come up with the word "hobbit". That word already existed, though it meant something different than how Tolkien used it to name his race of diminutive folk. The Kickstarter example above is apropos to this post specifically, as it seems that Warner Bros. is at it again, having forced an Airbnb listing clearly designed to be another homage to Tolkien's hobbit homes in the Shire to change its name.The Okanagan homage to middle earth that doubles as a popular Airbnb spot officially has a new name. It’s now the Second Breakfast Hideaway.“And the h***** mountain hole is now a Second Breakfast Hideaway (I'm still full from the first one),” the AirBNB owners wrote in a May 22 post.The popular Airbnb named for its likeness to the housing in J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of Rings books went on the hunt for a new name following a threat from Warner Bros. which owns the trademark to the word hobbit. Christine Le Combe and her husband purchased the Halfling Hideaway, located roughly 30 minutes east of Osoyoos, last year and renamed it the Hobbit Mountain Hideaway. It's been a popular vacation destination since it opened in 2019. Earlier this week, Le Combe was contacted by entertainment media company Warner Bros. and was told the word “hobbit” is trademarked and they asked her to take down the listing. Unfortunately, the source post doesn't bother to interrogate whether the takedown request from Warner Bros. is remotely valid. I would very much argue that it is not, considering that Warner Bros. use of the term "hobbit" is solely focused on movies and movie merchandise, both of which are a far cry from the hospitality and rental business. But Warner Bros. also has deep pockets and the folks behind this Airbnb listing likely do not, which is why trademark bullying works. The threat of Warner Bros. taking this far enough for it to see the inside of the courtroom is almost certainly an extinction level scenario for the former Hobbit Mountain Hideaway.So, instead, a movie studio gets a rental property to change its name. And that sucks, no matter how positive the victims of this bullying want to be.“Having to get out of my comfort zone and engage with the community has been a good experience,” Le Combe said.“I really didn’t think that somebody would copyright the word hobbit and then try to hunt a person down if they use the word hobbit because it’s not like I meant any harm. The hobbit house is an homage to the favourite book series of a lot of people.” It's almost as though at Warner Bros. there is some sort of all-seeing eye that scours the physical and digital worlds for any use of the term "hobbit", all in an effort to track and strike down those that would use it. If only there were some usable analogy I could reference for that without getting sued...
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posted at: 12:00am on 27-May-2021
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