EFF: Blunt Policies and Secretive Enforcement Mechanisms: LGBTQ+ and Sexual Health on the Corporate Web
Blunt Policies and Secretive Enforcement Mechanisms: LGBTQ+ and Sexual Health on the Corporate Web The free and open Internet has enabled disparate communities to come together across miles and borders, and empowered marginalized communities to share stories, art, and information with one another and the broader public—but restrictive and often secretive or poorly messaged policies by corporate gatekeepers threaten to change that. Content policies restricting certain types of expression—such as nudity, sexually explicit content, and pornography—have been in place for a long time on most social networks. But in recent years, a number of companies have instituted changes in the way policies are enforced, including demonetizing or hiding content behind an age-based interstitial; using machine learning technology to flag content; blocking keywords in search; or disabling thumbnail previews for video content. While there are some benefits to more subtle enforcement mechanisms—age rest...