[Air-L] Drowning in the Flood: Social Media Platforms’ Failure to Manage Harmful and Pro-Terror Content During Israel-Hamas War‏

[Edan Ring]

Dear Colleagues,
I think this new and timely report might interest many of you researching
social media platforms' trust and safety policies and moderation -

The Israel Internet Association <https://en.isoc.org.il/> recently
published a new study assessing the performance of various social media
platforms in handling harmful content and disinformation.

In an age when social media platforms are a central tool for public
discourse and access to information, user safety on these platforms is of
utmost importance. Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, these very
platforms have been flooded with harmful, toxic and offensive content,
including gruesome footage of the October 7 attacks filmed by the attackers
themselves, with hate speech, misinformation and other violations of
platform policies appearing at speeds and volumes that the platforms were
unprepared to contend with. The Israel Internet Association set out to
assess the extent of the platforms’ failure to contend with this
phenomenon, and how true they remained to their public promises to ensure
user safety in the current state of emergency.

Our study evaluated the nature and quality of responses received from
leading social media platforms, assessing the manner in which they reacted
to complaints and reports of policy-violating content. The data is drawn
from a pool of hundreds of reports submitted by the Israel Internet
Association’s Internet Safety Hotline
<https://en.isoc.org.il/the-internet-safety-hotline> (recognized by most
major social media platforms as a Trusted Flagger) during the first two
months of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

For a brief summary of the paper and findings: Drowning in the Flood:
ISOC-IL Releases New Study Documenting Social Media Platforms' Failure to
Enforce Safety Policies
<https://en.isoc.org.il/about/news-room/isoc-il-releases-new-study-documenting-social-media-giants-failure-to-enforce-safety-policies>

See the full data and analysis here: Drowning in the Flood: Social Media
Platforms’ Management of Harmful and Pro-Terror Content During the October
7 Attack and the Israel-Hamas War
<https://en.isoc.org.il/policy-community/policy-papers/oct7-social/drowning-in-the-flood>

The findings are troubling, and show that response times were exceedingly
slow, with little to no action on weekends. Handling of content requiring
manual review or contextual understanding was notably poor, revealing
significant differences between content types and across different
platforms. We show that the same platforms have succeeded in similar
situations in other countries, suggesting that success is possible when
appropriate resources are channeled into achieving it. We present detailed
recommendations as to how to remedy the present situation, and emphasize
that responsibility lies not only with the platforms but also with
governments and legislators, who permit these companies to operate with
minimal transparency and accountability.

Best wishes

Edan


* Edan Ring** | VP Community Affairs** | *
*Israel Internet Association ISOC-IL*

054-6680085 | www.isoc.org.il | edan.ring at isoc.org.il <rani at isoc.org.il> |
איגוד-האינטרנט.ישראל <http://xn----zhcbgfhe2aacg8fb5i.xn--4dbrk0ce/>


--
---
Visit my website: https://www.edanring.co.il/