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Content Moderation Case Study: Twitter Experiences Problems Moderating Audio Tweets (2020)

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Summary: Since its debut in 2007, Twitter hasn't changed much about its formula, except for expanding its character limit from 140 to 280 in 2007 and adding useful features such as lists, trending topics and polls. Twitter has embraced images and videos, adding it to its original text-only formula, but seemed to have little use for audio. That changed in June 2020 when Twitter announced it would allow users to upload audio-only tweets. Remaining true to the original formula, audio tweets were limited to 140 seconds, although Twitter will automatically add new audio tweets to a thread if the user's recording ran long.With Twitter engaged in day-to-day struggles moderating millions of tweets, critics and analysts expressed concern the platform would be unable to adequately monitor tweets whose content couldn't be immediately discerned by other users. The content would be unable to be pre-screened by moderators -- at least not without significant AI assistance. But that assistance might prove problematic if it caused more problems than it solved by overblocking.There was also the potential for harassment. Since abusive audio tweets relied heavily on other Twitter users reporting, abusive audio tweets could be posted and remain up until someone noticed and reported it.Another issue audio tweets raised wasn't about proactively flagging and removing unwanted content, but that this new offering excluded certain Twitter users from being a part of the conversation.

Within hours of the first voice tweets being posted, deaf and hard-of-hearing users began to criticize the tool, saying that Twitter had failed to provide a way to make the audio clips accessible for anyone who can't physically hear them.-- Kiera Frazier, YR Media
The new feature debuted without auto-captioning or any other options that would have made the content more accessible to Deaf or hard of hearing users.There were other potential problems, such as users being exposed to possibly disturbing content with no heads up from the platform.
'You can Tweet a Tweet. But now you can Tweet your voice!' This was how Twitter introduced last week its new audio-tweet option. In the replies to the announcement [another user asked], Is this what y'all want? ... reposting another user's audio tweet, which used the new feature to record the sounds of porn.-- Hanna Kozlowska, OneZero
Unlike other adult content on Twitter, the recording of porn sounds was not labelled as sensitive by Twitter or hidden from users whose account settings requested they not be shown this sort of content.Company considerations:
  • Is it possible to proactively filter audio content to be flagged, prevented from being posted, or quickly removed?
  • If an audio tweet was reported, should Twitter remove this feature from the user immediately or wait until it is reviewed? If the tweet violates Twitter's content policy, should they temporarily or permanently take away this feature from the user?
  • Should unmoderated audio be labelled as sensitive if they are reported until cleared by moderators/AI?
  • Should users be given the option to hide/block all audio tweets?
Issue considerations:
  • What makes audio-only moderation different from text, image, or video moderating? Is audio-only moderation more challenging?
  • What are other proactive methods of moderating audio content? Would they be more or less effective than relying on users flagging abusive content?
  • Is AI reliable enough to handle most instances of unwanted content without the assistance of human moderators?
  • How can platforms ensure that audio-only or visual-only content be accessible to those who have a hearing or visual disability or impairment?
Resolution: Twitter responded to the concerns of the Deaf and hard-of-hearing by apologizing for not considering the implications of an audio-only option.
We're sorry about testing voice Tweets without support for people who are visually impaired, deaf, or hard of hearing. It was a miss to introduce this experiment without this support.Accessibility should not be an afterthought.-- Twitter
The platform fixed some issues with visual accessibility and said it was implementing a combination of auto- and human-captioning to give Deaf persons a way to access this content.As for the porn-audio tweet, Twitter flagged it after it was reported but did not appear to have any other approach to dealing with questions around adult content in audio tweets. It appears sensitive content is not as easy to detect when it's in audio form, which means that for now, it's up to users to report unwanted or abusive content so that Twitter can take action.Originally published on the Trust & Safety Foundation website.

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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Jul-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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Japanese Police Arrest Man For Selling Modded Save Files For Single-Player Nintendo Game

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We've already written a few times about how Japan's onerous Unfair Competition Prevention Law has created what looks from here like a massive overreach on the criminalization of copyright laws. Past examples include Japanese journalism executives being arrested over a book that tells people how to back up their own DVDs, along with more high-profile cases in which arrests occurred over the selling of cheats or exploits in online multiplayer video games. While these too seem like an overreach of copyright law, or at least an over-criminalization of relatively minor business problems facing electronic media companies, they are nothing compared with the idea that a person could be arrested and face jail time for the crime of selling modded save-game files for single player game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

A 27-year old man in Japan was arrested after he was caught attempting to sell modified Zelda: Breath of The Wild save files.As reported by the Broadcasting System of Niigata (and spotted by Dextro) Ichimin Sho was arrested on July 8 after he posted about modified save files for the Nintendo Switch version of Breath of The Wild. He posted his services onto an unspecified auction site, describing it as “the strongest software.” He would provide modded save files that would give the player improved in-game abilities and also items that were difficult to obtain were made available as requested by the customer. In his original listing, he reportedly was charging folks 3,500 yen (around $31 USD) for his service.
Upon arrest, Sho admitted that he's made something like $90k over 18 months selling modded saves and software. Whatever his other ventures, the fact remains that Sho was arrested for selling modded saves for this one Zelda game to the public. And this game is fully a single-player game. In other words, there is not aspect of this arrest that involved staving off cheating in online multiplayer games, which is one of the concerns that has typically led to these arrests in Japan within the gaming industry. This is more like people getting mods for their owned games, along with save game files being traded, something that has existed in gaming for as long as the industry has existed.As Kotaku notes, this isn't wholly new for Japan.
While this might seem wild, being arrested for selling save files, it’s not a new situation in Japan. Police in Japan have previously arrested folks for modifying video game software which violates the Unfair Competition Prevention Law in Japan. This same law was also used by Nintendo to sue a go-kart company in 2017. In 2015, another man in Japan was arrested after selling cheats in the popular online shooter Alliance of Valiant Arms.
Except, again, in most of those instances the police were arresting those selling mods and cheats for online multiplayer games. That's, frankly, bad enough, but we're now talking about the arrest of a person for selling save game files for a single-player game.And the real question becomes: who is this arrest protecting? The selling of these files doesn't take any considerable money out of Nintendo's pocket. It doesn't harm other players of the game in the way cheating in online games does. So why is this arrest even happening? And, if there's no good answer to that question, why is such a poorly written law that allows for this arrest remaining in place?

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posted at: 12:00am on 15-Jul-2021
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)

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