Facebook To Let French Regulators Investigate On Moderation Processes (techcrunch.com)

Facebook and the French government are working together to look at the social media company's efforts to moderate content on its site. "At the start of 2019, French regulators will launch an informal investigation on algorithm-powered and human moderation," reports TechCrunch. "Facebook is willing to cooperate and give unprecedented access to its internal processes." From the report: Regulators will look at multiple steps: how flagging works, how Facebook identifies problematic content, how Facebook decides if it's problematic or not and what happens when Facebook takes down a post, a video or an image. This type of investigation is reminiscent of banking and nuclear regulation. It involves deep cooperation so that regulators can certify that a company is doing everything right.

It's still unclear who's going to be in charge of this investigation. There could be regulators from France's telecom regulator (ARCEP), from the government's tech team (DINSIC), from the TV and radio regulator (CSA)... There's one thing for sure, the French government wants to focus on hate speech for now, so don't expect anyone from the privacy regulator (CNIL). The investigation isn't going to be limited to talking with the moderation teams and looking at their guidelines. The French government wants to find algorithmic bias and test data sets against Facebook's automated moderation tools.

Comments

"involves deep cooperation"

[sittingnut]

"... investigation is reminiscent of banking and nuclear regulation. It involves deep cooperation ..."
"... government wants to focus on hate speech for now, so don't expect anyone from the privacy regulator..."

first, we know what happens with banking regulation; nothing at all (except bail outs) after 2008 fiasco, as far as banks are concerned.

that government wants to regulate "hate speech", a nebulous term subjectively defined by political ideology, should concern all who want their freedoms protected against would be political masters bent on controlling and suppressing speech and critics.
that government doesn't want to regulate and protect citizens against violations of their right to privacy, mainly by the tech corp it is cooperating with to regulate "hate speech"(ie control speech), should increase that concern.

Re: "involves deep cooperation"

[lorinc]

To be honest, I prefer censorship to be issued by a government rather than a private company. I can vote for a new government, I cannot vote for the new board of a company that has a complete monopoly over its sector...

Of course, the best would be to have no censorship at all. However, it unrealistic (just think of defamation, it has to be punished and removed). In that case, I prefer it to be under the control of elected officials.

Re: "involves deep cooperation"

[AmiMoJo]

first, we know what happens with banking regulation; nothing at all (except bail outs) after 2008 fiasco, as far as banks are concerned.

Not in the EU. The rules that came in to prevent a repeat of that were quite tough and required banks to have a lot more in reserve. One of the reasons that the elite want Brexit is to get away from EU banking regulations.

that government doesn't want to regulate and protect citizens against violations of their right to privacy

Except France was one of the first to recognize the right to be forgotten and it was legal action in France that really pushed it to go EU wide.

Re:Treat Social Media like cigarettes

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you're right. Those 6 million deaths and $1+ trillion per year in healthcare costs and other economic losses are nothing for governments to bother themselves with.

Now tell me about gun control.