🛑 Big Tech, big trouble: President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission. His first order of business? Cracking down on tech companies like Google and Meta for censorship and content moderation. What’s standing in his way? The FCC needs Congress’ permission to make changes.
In Facebook jail? Do not pass go
Have you ever been thrown into Facebook jail? Look at Twitter or Reddit and it seems like just about anything (or nothing at all) can get you banned.
Enter the Oversight Board. This is Meta’s oversight board that checks Facebook and Instagram’s content moderation decisions. Last year it received almost 1.3 million appeals. That’s an appeal every 24 seconds!
Most of those appeals are about alleged violations of two community standards: violence/incitement and hate speech.
Like the Supreme Court
But for social media. Gizmodo got its proverbial hands on Meta’s 2022 report containing all this info. Some highlights:
- 92% of appeals were from people asking to get their accounts or content restored.
- 45% came from the U.S. and Canada. No surprise, given those are some of the biggest user bases.
They must have made a lot of decisions, right?
Uh, oh. Despite 1,290,942 appeals, the Oversight Board only made a handful of decisions. They published the results of 12 and overturned Meta’s decision 75% of the time. In another 32 cases, Meta said its own decision was incorrect, so they never made it to the Board.
If you’ve been banned from FB or IG, the Oversight Board will probably say, “Too bad, so sad.” You can appeal their decision here. But good luck with that.
Safe ways to get free stuff in your neighborhood
If you want to save money while connecting to your community, you have to join a buy nothing group. It’s exactly what it says on the tin: a group of neighbors with their own gift economy. You can join a Facebook group or even a community on NextDoor or other apps. Tap or click here to find out how Nextdoor and other apps help sell your old, used or battered tech.
3 ways Twitter could change immediately with Musk in control
Have you followed Kim on Twitter? You’ll get information on our latest stories, Kim’s Daily Tech Update, tips on deals and more. Find her at twitter.com/kimkomando. Speaking of Twitter. Elon Musk has been making headlines lately with his activity on the social media site.
The upcoming national social media boycott: Everything you need to know
Give up social media for the sake of a good cause. That’s the rallying point behind the upcoming nationwide boycott of Facebook and Instagram. Starting Nov. 10, activists will log out of their social media accounts to protest what they see as Facebook’s destructive role in American life.
Prison changes a man: About two weeks after his arrest in France, Telegram’s CEO says it’s not fair he was held responsible for others’ criminal activity on his app. Still, he calls it his “personal goal” to fix the problems. Step 1: Telegram’s updated FAQ page says users’ private chats are no longer protected from moderation. Cry me a river. Way too little, way too late.
Binge-watching too much TV? Here's how to cut back
A couple of months into the COVID-19 lockdown and you’ve probably got binge-watching down to a science. You’ve calculated your watch time and memorized when all your favorites air and when new content is coming out.
Check your phone! iPhone apps with 3.5 million downloads are stealing money
Malicious apps on official app stores like Google Play are nothing new. In the past year alone, thousands of money and data-stealing programs have been found and deleted by Google — and many more are probably still waiting to be discovered.
How to spot the worst Airbnb scams - and protect yourself next time you rent
Apps and smartphones have fundamentally changed the way we interact with the world. Instead of taking taxis, we call an Uber or Lyft. Instead of going to the grocery store, we get food delivered by Grubhub or Amazon. And when we travel, forget hotels — it’s all about Airbnb.