By Kirsten Grind and John D. McKinnon
The world's biggest social-media companies, under fire for
failing to police content on their sites, have invited an array of
outside groups to help them figure out who should be banned and
what's considered unacceptable.
That solution is creating a new set of problems -- public
fights, complaints and legal battles.
Silicon Valley giants Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Google's
YouTube unit have made a concerted push to seek out input from
hundreds of groups, a growing number of which lean to the right.
The companies have become receptive to behind-the-scenes lobbying
as well.
Among the initiatives, Facebook has privately sought advice from
the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian public-policy
group, and its founder Anthony Perkins, according to people
familiar with those meetings. Twitter's Chief Executive Jack Dorsey
recently hosted dinners with conservatives, including Grover
Norquist, the founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform,
which advocates for lower taxes. Advisers on the left include the
Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group that keeps a list
of hate groups.
For users frustrated by the lack of clarity around how these
companies make decisions, the added voices have made matters even
murkier. Meetings between companies and their unofficial advisers
are rarely publicized, and some outside groups and individuals have
to sign nondisclosure agreements.
And in many cases, posts that are hateful to one group are
considered fair game -- or even uncomfortable truths -- to others
on the opposite end of the spectrum, opening a whole new arena to
continue the political and ideological fights that are often a
staple of social media.
When Twitter executives struggled with whether to follow other
Silicon Valley companies and remove conspiracy theorist Alex Jones
from the platform in August, Mr. Dorsey privately sought counsel
from Ali Akbar, a conservative political activist, Mr. Akbar
says.
Mr. Akbar advised Mr. Dorsey against kicking off Mr. Jones,
despite pressure from users and Twitter employees. Mr. Akbar argued
that Mr. Jones hadn't violated any of the site's rules -- a point
Mr. Dorsey also made when he explained the decision in a Twitter
post. Mr. Dorsey didn't disclose Mr. Akbar's involvement.
"It's important that Jack sought a right-of-center perspective
which cannot be found at Twitter," Mr. Akbar says. "Jack was
brave."
Twitter ultimately banned Mr. Jones about a month later, citing
a violation of its abusive-behavior policy.
Mr. Akbar says in 2018 he also complained to Mr. Dorsey about
potential discrimination against a survivor of the shooting at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who was in
favor of gun rights. The student wasn't "verified" on Twitter -- a
badge given to users that are in the public interest -- while
several other survivors of the shooting who were in favor of more
gun control were given the recognition.
After Mr. Akbar's intervention, the student's account was
verified, Mr. Akbar says.
Twitter spokesman Brandon Borrman says the company and its
executives personally maintain many outside relationships "to help
us benefit from other perspectives on the critical societal issues
we deal with." He says outsiders "never override our rules and no
outside adviser makes the ultimate decision or dictates our
actions," and that Twitter is working to be more transparent on the
outsiders involved in its process.
On the Alex Jones decision, Mr. Borrman says Mr. Dorsey "did not
and does not personally make enforcement decisions, he defers to
the deep expertise of the team."
The reliance on outside opinions goes along with other
initiatives tech companies have launched to build their defenses.
Companies have added complex internal guidelines on what kinds of
posts should be banned and hired thousands of new employees to
review content.
YouTube has boosted its "trusted flaggers" program -- groups
that are asked by the company to point out inappropriate content on
the site -- from 10 to more than 100 between 2017 and 2018.
Twitter's Trust and Safety Council spans about 48 organizations
around the world.
Facebook says it now consults with hundreds of organizations
after it decided late last year to seek more outside counsel on
issues like hate speech and misinformation -- broadly known as
"content moderation issues."
The tech companies have found themselves in an impossible
situation, given the billions of posts that are generated each
month and the conflicting agendas of their users, says Klon
Kitchen, who manages tech policy for the conservative Heritage
Foundation. The foundation has recently forged a relationship with
Facebook.
Mr. Kitchen has advised the company that these issues are not
likely to ever go away. "These are problems you manage, not
problems you solve," he says.
Peter Stern, who handles Facebook's outside engagement efforts
from the company's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters, says the
company now seeks advice from up to a dozen outside groups on each
policy decision it makes on its platform. He declined to say which
groups are consulted.
"If we change the policy, we're going to hear about it, so we
might as well involve them," Mr. Stern says. "We had been doing it,
but not in a systemized way."
Adam Thierer, a senior research fellow at the right-leaning
Mercatus Center at George Mason University, says he used to consult
with Facebook and other tech companies. The futility of trying to
please all sides hit home after he heard complaints about a debate
at YouTube over how much skin could be seen in breast-feeding
videos.
While some argued the videos had medical purposes, other
advisers wondered whether videos of shirtless men with large
mammaries should be permitted as well.
"I decided I don't want to be the person who decides on whether
man boobs are allowed," says Mr. Thierer.
Brian Amerige, a former Facebook senior engineering manager,
resigned from the company after seven years in October, in part
because he objected to the way it handled which content is
considered objectionable.
Mr. Amerige says he felt Facebook was trying to avoid allowing
anything controversial on the platform, and hampering free speech
in doing so. The move to involve more outside groups --
conservative or liberal -- is in his opinion only making things
worse.
"What happens when you have an undefinable principle and you
defer to other people? It becomes a bunch of one-off-decisions," he
says.
A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.
While outside groups are technically unpaid, the tech companies
contribute to some of the organizations they are seeking out for
guidance. Alphabet Inc.'s Google contributes to more than 200
third-party groups, including the Heritage Foundation, National
Cyber Security Alliance, and Americans for Tax Reform, according to
the company. Facebook and most other companies don't disclose their
donations to outside groups.
Executives see the outreach to a cross-section of groups in part
as a form of political protection, to defend against the allegation
that they are biased against conservatives, a complaint lodged
repeatedly last year by President Donald Trump and Republican
lawmakers. Some of the conservative groups tapped recently by tech
platforms complain that the companies defer too closely to the
Southern Poverty Law Center when defining what constitutes hate
speech.
Many companies and other groups rely on the center's list of
hate groups, counting nearly 1,000 across the U.S., according to
its website. The group also writes about some of those groups on
its "Hatewatch" blog.
Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty
Law Center, says the group lobbies tech platforms to remove content
it considers hate speech, such as when it successfully asked
Facebook to remove content posted by the League of the South, a
neo-Confederate group.
A spokesman for League of the South didn't respond to requests
for comment.
Mr. Hankes says the center doesn't always win the battle. Groups
that say it has too much sway are "overstating the influence that
we have," he says.
Gavin McInnes, a conservative activist and founder of the "Proud
Boys," which describes itself as "Western Chauvinist" and has
recently been linked to violence in New York and other states, has
been banned by Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It's not clear if
the companies consulted with the Southern Poverty Law Center on
their decisions.
The Southern Poverty Law Center designates the Proud Boys, which
Mr. McInnes left in November, as a hate group and has written
several online posts about Mr. McInnes. In one post, the group
quoted Mr. McInnes saying in a 2016 podcast and YouTube show, "We
will kill you. That's the Proud Boys in a nutshell. We will kill
you."
Mr. McInnes is planning to sue the Southern Poverty Law Center
in the coming days for its role in spreading what he claims is
defamatory and false information about him, according to his
attorney and a draft of the complaint. The suit plans to mention
the decisions by Facebook and Twitter to ban him.
Ronald Coleman, Mr. McInnes's attorney, says the SPLC has made
"a very concerted effort to destroy him."
A spokeswoman for the Southern Poverty Law Center declined to
comment. A spokesman for Twitter declined to comment. A spokeswoman
for Facebook says the center is "one of many groups we work with on
our hate-related policies."
Facebook executives have recently reassured some conservative
groups that the company doesn't exclusively look toward the
Southern Poverty Law Center for advice, according to people
familiar with the matter.
Several of the liberal-leaning organizations that Facebook works
with turned against the company in December, sending a letter that
criticized the company for its role in "generating bigotry and
hatred towards vulnerable communities and civil rights
organizations," according to a copy of the letter from groups
including the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility.
The groups, angry about outside interference on the platform,
urged chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to step down as chairman of
the board and promote new directors.
The group also asked Facebook to remove executive Joel Kaplan, a
conservative who has helped lead outreach to conservative
organizations but also sparked internal employee anger for
attending the hearings of then-Supreme Court nominee Brett
Kavanaugh in October. Facebook told the groups it would respond
this month, according to a spokeswoman.
At Twitter, Mr. Dorsey has led outreach to a broad swath of
conservatives, including at a dinner in Washington in June and
another in New York, according to attendees of the meetings.
Mr. Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform says he used the
opportunity to advocate for two "prominent conservatives" who had
been having trouble getting antiabortion ads on the platform. Mr.
Norquist, who declined to name the users, says Mr. Dorsey asked his
team to help get the issue resolved.
Conservative Jewish activist Laura Loomer says she didn't know
until recently that outside groups and individuals had privately
lobbied Twitter executives to remove her from the site in late
November.
In an email to Ms. Loomer, Twitter said she had violated its
hateful conduct policy for a tweet calling Ilhan Omar, the Muslim
congresswoman from Minnesota, anti-Jewish and supportive of Shariah
law. In an interview, Ms. Loomer says she was referring to a 2012
tweet from Ms. Omar in which the congresswoman wrote, "may Allah
awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
Among the groups that had complained to Twitter was the Council
on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy organization.
The council doesn't often step in to advocate against other
users, says Executive Director Zahra Billoo, but did so in the case
of Ms. Loomer based on her previous comments about Muslims. In
2017, Ms. Loomer tweeted after a terror attack in New York City,
"Leave it to Muslims to ruin everything. People can't even enjoy
#Halloween without those savages f**king everything up for
everyone."
Other organizations, including the civil-rights organization
Muslim Advocates, voiced similar complaints.
Twitter's email to Ms. Loomer didn't mention the
behind-the-scenes discussions. After her suspension, she handcuffed
herself to Twitter's New York headquarters in protest. Police cut
her free from the handcuffs after two hours.
Twitter's Mr. Borrman says Ms. Loomer's suspension "was the
result of multiple, repeated violations of the same rules, it was
not about any one tweet." He added that many organizations and
individuals contacted Twitter about her account over the years.
Ms. Loomer says she didn't post anything hateful or anything in
violation of Twitter's terms of service.
Twitter's hateful conduct policy says that users "may not
promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other
people" based on race, ethnicity, or gender, nor may users incite
harm toward others.
Ms. Billoo of the Council on American-Islamic Relations welcomes
tech companies' openness to feedback. In 2016, her own Facebook
account was suspended after she posted a photo of a hate letter
sent to a San Jose, Calif., mosque.
Ms. Billoo says she asked dozens of contacts to email everyone
they knew at Facebook, until someone internally took up the issue
and her account was resolved.
"You need to throw the kitchen sink at it," she says. "It's a
little like politics."
Write to Kirsten Grind at kirsten.grind@wsj.com and John D.
McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 08, 2019 12:25 ET (17:25 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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