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June 2021
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Content Moderation Case Study: Pretty Much Every Platform Overreacts To Content Removal Stimuli (2015)

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Summary: Content moderation at scale often involves significant tradeoffs between diverse interests. It is often difficult for those without experience in the field to recognize these competing interests.Social media services aren't just beholden to their users. They're also at the relative mercy of dozens of competing interests at all times.Users expect one thing. A bunch of governments expect another. Internal policies and guidelines result in another layer of moderation. Then there are the relatively straightforward obligations platforms must fulfill to retain their safe harbors under the DMCA.
So what happens when all of these competing interests collide? Well, according to multiple studies, the most common side effect is over-moderation: the deletion of content that's not in violation of anything, just in case.For the past half-decade, Stanford Law School's Daphne Keller has been tracking platforms' responses to external stimuli: the pressures applied by outside interests that -- for good or evil -- want social media services to expand their moderation efforts.And for most of that half-decade, Keller has seen "good faith" efforts expand past the immediate demands to encompass preemptive removal of content that has yet to offend any one of the hundreds of stakeholders applying legal pressure to US-based tech companies.The research shows large companies are just as preemptively compliant as smaller companies, even though smaller companies have much more at risk.

The easiest, cheapest, and most risk-avoidant path for any technical intermediary is simply to process a removal request and not question its validity. A company that takes an if in doubt, take it down approach to requests may simply be a rational economic actor. Small companies without the budget to hire lawyers, or those operating in legal systems with unclear protections, may be particularly likely to take this route.
Multiple studies are cited, and they appear to reach the same conclusion, whether it involves a platform with millions of users or a small group catering to a niche audience: when it doubt, take it out.Decisions to be made by platforms:
  • Should a premium be placed on protecting user content in the face of vague takedown demands?
  • Does protecting users from questionable takedown demands result in anything more quantifiable than "goodwill?" 
  • Are efforts being made to fight back against mistargeted or unlawful content removal requests? Is the expense/liability exposure too costly to justify defending users against unlawful demands from outside entities?
Questions and policy implications to consider:
  • Do platforms ultimately serve their users' interests or the more powerful interests applying pressure from the outside?
  • Is staying alive to "fight another day" ultimately of more use to platform users than taking a stand that might result in being permanently shut down? 
  • Is it wise to attempt to satisfy all stakeholders in content moderation issues? Should platforms choose a side (users v. outside complainants) or is it wiser to "play the middle" as much as possible?
  • Are there fungible advantages to deciding users are more important than outside entities who may have the power to dismantle services specializing in third-party content?
Resolution: The war between users and outside interests continues. As pressure mounts to moderate more and more content, users are often those who feel the squeeze first. The larger the platform, the higher the demands. But larger platforms are more capable of absorbing the costs of compliance. Smaller ecosystems need more protection but are often incapable of obtaining the funds needed to fight legal battles on the behalf of their users.True balance is impossible to achieve, as this research shows. Unfortunately, it appears preemptive removal of content remains the most cost effective way of satisfying competing moderation demands, even if it ultimately results in some loss to platforms' user bases.Originally posted to the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

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posted at: 12:01am on 10-Jun-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Denuvo Is Still Claiming It's In The Anti-Piracy Business Even As Games Continue To Strip Out Denuvo Post-Launch

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For a three year period or so, we had a ton of coverage on Denuvo, a DRM platform once touted as undefeatable. That era of invincibility soon crumbled completely, with cracking groups eventually figuring out how to get around the DRM. Cracking times on games went from months, to weeks, to days, to essentially games being cracked at launch. Games started patching Denuvo out of games, which is roughly the equivalent of admitting defeat. In response, Denuvo began claiming that it's platform was still a success because it could protect some games for some number of hours at the time of launch and the company apparently believed that really should be good enough. The company also announced a pivot to providing anti-cheat software for online games, though publishers began ripping that out of their games at record speed as well.So, where are we now? Well, the new status quo appears to be this: Denuvo still advertises both its anti-piracy and anti-cheat platforms as successes while games that use the software are still having them peeled out via patches. Notably, Denuvo's marketing material now reflects the emphasis on the initial release window, where Denvuo claims its platform can protect a game for 14 days after launch, during which publishers earn "59% of their revenue from their new title."As with all things Denuvo, this claim should be taken with enormous grains of salt for a variety of reasons. First, that revenue claim seems spurious, given how many games make revenue in how many different ways. Online games make their revenue on an ongoing basis, while single-player only games may make the largest chunk at release. But many single-player games make lots of money on an ongoing basis by embracing their modding community, updating games to keep them relevant to new buyers, releasing DLC, etc. It's also worth noting that Denuvo has failed spectacularly to protect many, many titles for anything close to 14 days.But most important to note is that this represents the continued moving of the goalposts by Denuvo. The platform was once touted as "the end of gaming piracy." Now the focus is on 14 days of protection. Why? Well, the answer is that games long in existence are still patching Denuvo out.

When Monster Hunter: World launched on Steam in 2018 it came with a DRM system to deter pirates by requiring online activation to launch the game. This is often a source of ire for players because of a perception that it causes higher CPU usage and more frequent utilisation of storage devices that could affect gameplay or damages hardware. Denuvo has denied these claims.Monster Hunter: World’s latest patch has removed around 500MB of files from the game, and the steam page no longer states that MH:W has some form of DRM.
That post, in addition to noting Denuvo's denial that the DRM has literally any performance impact on a gamer's machine, also goes on to claim that "it is not uncommon for companies to remove the DRM in a patch once it is no longer necessary."That may be true for Denuvo's anti-piracy platform specifically, but it certainly is not the case for how DRM has been handled generally throughout gaming's history. In addition, think about what is being said in that claim. A DRM that has at least some utility and no performance impact on gaming machines is stripped by publishers like that of Monster Hunter: World because... why? Just because of public perception on gaming performance? A perception that exists at launch? Why, after a couple of years of the game being sold, would the publisher now even bother to strip out the DRM if it has no actual negative downside?Well, there are three possible answers. One is that the game publisher knows that, in fact, Denuvo does have an effect on the game's performance on a buyer's machine. Another is that the game publisher realizes that the DRM does not in fact have any actual utility. The third option is that the game publisher concludes that both are the case.Either way, a successful product doesn't get stripped out of games through patching. Unsuccessful products do that. No matter what Denuvo wants to claim for itself in its marketing material.

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posted at: 12:01am on 10-Jun-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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