Was The Washington Post‘s decision to drop a cartoon about technology and media companies seeking to curry favor with President-elect Donald Trump motivated by other editorial content on the topic or was it “anticipatory obedience” to Trump or The Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos?

Award-winning editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned from The Washington Post after editors opted not to publish her cartoon depicting Jeff Bezos (current owner of The Washington Post) and other technology and media executives bowing at the feet of an enormously large President-elect Donald Trump. Telnaes wanted to comment on the perception that many technology and media companies were seeking to curry favor with the incoming Trump administration. If true, it could be seen as “anticipatory obedience” to Trump given his hostility towards US media outlets and his threats of retribution against them if elected.

The Washington Post claims the decision was due to other recent and upcoming editorial content covering the same topic. It is hard to know if that is true, but, if any part of the decision was related to the incoming Presidency or media ownership then it is a worrying case of censorship undermining freedom of the press and Telnaes’ artistic freedom.

Meta announced it is ending its fact-checking program which saw independent third-party fact-checkers review and rate the accuracy of content on Meta’s platforms. Mark Zuckerberg’s video announcing the changes cites “mistakes” and “censorship” as the reason for the change. Meta intends to adopt an X-style Community Messages program where users write and rate notes that accompany posts. There are legitimate criticisms of the approach and the difficulty achieving “cross-ideological agreement on truth” in an increasingly partisan world, but without Meta’s money propping up the fact-checking industry will see entities close having wider implications.

Reuters reports that the shift from fact-checking has been in motion for more than a year but it is unlikely that the announcement coinciding with the upcoming inauguration of Donald Trump was a coincidence. Zuckerberg conceded that the result of the US election influenced the decision to change content moderation approach.
Relatedly, Meta also made important changes to its Hateful Conduct policy to “allow more speech by lifting restrictions on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse.” As GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said:

“Zuckerberg’s removal of fact-checking programs and industry-standard hate speech policies make Meta’s platforms unsafe places for users and advertisers alike. Without these necessary hate speech and other policies, Meta is giving the green light for people to target LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, and other marginalized groups with violence, vitriol, and dehumanizing narratives. With these changes, Meta is continuing to normalize anti-LGBTQ hatred for profit — at the expense of its users and true freedom of expression. Fact-checking and hate speech policies protect free speech.”

I recommend GLADD’s statement for a detailed look at the changes to the Hateful Content policy.

Zuckerberg’s language around the changes is in keeping with how the tech platform bosses are increasingly using freedom of speech to further open the door to hate speech. We know contentious content, disinformation and misinformation fuel the social platforms’ business models, but these changes also represent cow tailing to Trump and other conservative commentators. It is politics, not policy.

Factors impacting retention include perceived low incomes and poor working conditions, limited career development opportunities and a lack of awareness and understanding of available training options. The study also highlights that new skills are needed in the sectors, including around digitalization and AIAI is tech and marketing speak for a range of technology that imitates human intellect. Learn more  →. And it also identifies that, while some efforts have been made to recruit from historically underrepresented groups, the need for greater diversity and inclusion in the creative workforce remains.

While Facebook and Instagram are largely closed platforms, Meta’s Threads platform became federated last year. This raised questions about what Meta’s changes to their hate speech might mean for content pushed from Threads to Mastodon. Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko expressed concern that Meta’s moves are “deeply troubling” and “a concern to anyone with a conscience,” encouraging Threads users who are also concerned should move to Mastodon. He also made it clear that any posts initiated on Threads and published to Mastodon through Threads’ fediverse-sharing must not contravene Mastodon’s content policies. She said, “Mastodon will take action on hate speech and any Threads account violating Mastodon’s existing policies.”

As I said on social media yesterday, maybe it is time to let the haters have Facebook and Instagram? It looks like I am not the only one thinking it. With Meta’s announcement it is ending fact-checking on its platforms and the rolling back of hate speech rules iIt looks like users are starting to reconsider their use of the platforms. People have been hitting Google to search for information about how to close a Facebook, Instagram an Threads account, with related search terms seeing a 5,000% increase since the fact-checking announcement was made. Also up are searches for alternatives to the Meta platforms. It is hard to say if this will translate into actual account closures but it certainly indicates people are considering their options.

Speaking of American President’s with adversarial relationships with the media, the late President Jimmy Carter also had tensions with the press. By no means could you categorise Carter’s behaviour towards journalists in the same way as Trump – hostile, reviling and retaliatory – but the political climate post-Watergate saw a press pack that assumed all President’s had something to hide and they were adamant to find it. His outsider charm coming from Georgia, his piety and aloofness and the actions of his extended family, among other things, became headline fodder. Carter’s loss to Ronald Regan after a single term meant the media’s beat ups marred his Presidential legacy. As the article notes, Carter’s image underwent a remarkable rehabilitation in the eyes of the media after his term in office, thanks in part to his work on human rights, conflict resolution and the eradication of debilitating diseases – and of course, to hindsight.

An academic paper looking at government regulation of digital technologies and how it can establish legitimacy in the face of neo-liberal critiques of government and populist attacks on public institutions. Many cites of conflict exist for digital regulation: reaching consensus between diverse stakeholders with differing motivations, regulation becoming the ‘cost of doing business’ for incumbents while acting as a barrier for new entrants and the independence and authority of regulators versus the risk of regulatory capture. I am looking forward reading this article.