Session
Organizer 1: Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 1: Mishi Choudhary, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Syed Mohammad Haroon Haroon, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Kritika Goel, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Meghnad S, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 2: Syed Mohammad Haroon Haroon, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 3: Kritika Goel, Private Sector, Asia-Pacific Group
Speaker 4: Meghnad S, Civil Society, Asia-Pacific Group
Format
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: Considering the nascent discourse on this topic, a roundtable format will ensure that all speakers get an adequate opportunity to address all relevant points/questions pertaining to the topic. Given the slightly broader and international scope of this session, it is anticipated that there will be several issues to address and we wish to engage with multiple experts from differing fields. Even after the submission of this proposal, the plan is to reach out to more experts who could be key expertise on this topic and could enrich the discussion from their experience/research/field work.
Duration (minutes): 90
Format description: Considering the nascent discourse on this topic, a roundtable format will ensure that all speakers get an adequate opportunity to address all relevant points/questions pertaining to the topic. Given the slightly broader and international scope of this session, it is anticipated that there will be several issues to address and we wish to engage with multiple experts from differing fields. Even after the submission of this proposal, the plan is to reach out to more experts who could be key expertise on this topic and could enrich the discussion from their experience/research/field work.
Policy Question(s)
A. Whether partnerships between social media companies and independent fact-checking organisations enables a healthier information landscape?
B. Given recent developments, what are the anticipated opportunities and challenges in content moderation going forward?
C. How can the law and policy on content moderation facilitate a healthier online space - to ensure that freedom of expression is not unduly curbed in an attempt to curb the proliferation of mis-disinformation?
What will participants gain from attending this session? Through this session, SFLC.in aims to engage with professionals across different spheres - such as law, policy, fact-checking and researchers. We aim to identify the key implications of such a shift and devise concrete action plans to combat mis-disinformation by creating community-wide engagement and awareness. In addition, the session will also explore how the legal and policy landscape could be altered to foster a more civic and healthy landscape for public discourse online. These discussions will be essential in building ground-level awareness of how a shift to community-led fact-checking could be effective if the public is educated on what steps they can take to identify and remedy the harms arising out of misinformation and hate speech.
Description:
On 10th January 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta Platforms, announced that there will be significant changes to their content moderation policies, in which Meta will discontinue their work with fact-checking organisations. His reasoning behind this step is to reinforce the right to free expression online. Alternatively, Meta will introduce a system similar to that of community notes. This announcement comes in the midst of a major political shift in the United States of America, given the outcome of the 2024 US Presidential Election. Considering the vast usage of social media platforms around the globe, this move highlights the complex and insurmountable nature of content moderation in the social media landscape. Identifying and moderating harmful content has become even more challenging since the advent of artificial intelligence based technologies such as deepfakes. Moreover, there is ever-growing advancement in the photo-realism of such content — that can blur the thin lines of what one considers to be true or false. Furthermore, law and policy on this aspect has failed to envisage the practical implications of preventing dissemination of mis-disinformation on free speech online. This dichotomy becomes even more sensitive given that mis-disinformation often intersects with other forms of harmful content such as online gender-based violence, discriminatory and hate speech. Consequently, fact-checking and media literacy could be crucial first steps in building digital resilience on social media platforms. This session will explore how trust and resilience in the social media landscape can still be built through initiatives that educate people on the basics of fact-checking and how they can improve their engagement with platforms to ensure accountability and reliability of information in the social media landscape.
On 10th January 2025, Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta Platforms, announced that there will be significant changes to their content moderation policies, in which Meta will discontinue their work with fact-checking organisations. His reasoning behind this step is to reinforce the right to free expression online. Alternatively, Meta will introduce a system similar to that of community notes. This announcement comes in the midst of a major political shift in the United States of America, given the outcome of the 2024 US Presidential Election. Considering the vast usage of social media platforms around the globe, this move highlights the complex and insurmountable nature of content moderation in the social media landscape. Identifying and moderating harmful content has become even more challenging since the advent of artificial intelligence based technologies such as deepfakes. Moreover, there is ever-growing advancement in the photo-realism of such content — that can blur the thin lines of what one considers to be true or false. Furthermore, law and policy on this aspect has failed to envisage the practical implications of preventing dissemination of mis-disinformation on free speech online. This dichotomy becomes even more sensitive given that mis-disinformation often intersects with other forms of harmful content such as online gender-based violence, discriminatory and hate speech. Consequently, fact-checking and media literacy could be crucial first steps in building digital resilience on social media platforms. This session will explore how trust and resilience in the social media landscape can still be built through initiatives that educate people on the basics of fact-checking and how they can improve their engagement with platforms to ensure accountability and reliability of information in the social media landscape.
Expected Outcomes
SFLC.in aims to conduct digital and media literacy training to inform a wider group of stakeholders about how different forms of illegal content interferes with their human rights and what immediate measures they can take to create a more trustworthy information landscape online.
We also aim to develop exhaustive resources on how the larger public can learn to identify and report instances of harmful content online. This session will enable us to obtain key insights from relevant experts from a variety of field on the nature of all the possible avenues that civil society organisations can undertake to deal with this anticipated shift.
Hybrid Format: 1. There will be an onsite and online moderator. The onsite moderator will handle the engagement from in-person attendees. For online attendees, the online moderator will take a stock of questions/inputs. At the end of each segment, there will be an open round of questions and answers from both onsite and online attendees
2. A comprehensive agenda will be chalked out to ensure that the online and onsite speakers/attendees/moderators get an adequate opportunity to engage with each other through the discussion. A list of guiding questions will be captured within this agenda, along with tentative time slots for each segment of the session. Both online and onsite speakers shall be given a fair opportunity to respond to each others points during the discussion. We will also make sure that online and onsite attendees get a fair opportunity to interact with the speakers for this session.