Are Platforms Ready for Elections?

In this week's round-up of the latest news in online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation, Mike and Ben cover: Elon Musk's X appoints new safety chiefs as it seeks to rebuild ads business (Fortune) X’s ‘complimentary’ Premium push gives people blue checks they didn’t ask for (The Verge) Mozilla Research: Platforms’ Election Interventions in the Global Majority Are Ineffective (Mozilla) Implementing the Online Safety Act: Additional duties for ‘categorised’ online services (Ofcom) Social networks could quit Britain under online safety laws, Reddit claims (The Telegraph) Patreon is taking Reddit’s approach to content moderation (The Verge) Facebook has blocked Kansas Reflector (Kansas Reflector) The episode is brought to you with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, and by our launch sponsor Modulate, the prosocial voice technology company making online spaces safer and more inclusive. In our Bonus Chat at the end of the episode, Modulate's Director of Marketing Mark Nolan chats with Mike about the the recent launch of the Gaming Safety Coalition, why its important for Modulate to work with other companies to create stronger gaming environments and the importance of a hybrid approach to T&S. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and Bluesky. Ctrl-Alt-Speech is the podcast where we make sense of the major debates shaping online speech, platform power, content moderation and the future of the internet. It’s co-hosted by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) and Ben Whitelaw (Everything in Moderation).