What the end of Metas moderation meansPublished inThe Medium BlogSent as aNewsletter3 min readJust now-- Today is Friday, January 17th. Theres only one other Friday the 17th in 2025, happening in October.Issue #248: moderation, small language models, David Lynch, and post-death password sharingMetas announcement last week that they were gutting their fact-checking efforts and changing their approach to moderation on their platforms caught people by surprise. Meta (and Mark Zuckerbergs) framing for the changes was about free speech; technology and social media scholar Danah Boyd sees the move as one that simply puts more of Metas users in harms way (warning: strong language in there). This isnt about free speech, she writes on Medium. Its about allowing some people to harm others through vitriol and providing the tools of amplification to help them.Moderation and Trust & Safety teams exist at tech companies for myriad reasons, but prime among them is keeping their users safe or at least, that used to be the case. As Ryan Broderick points out in Garbage Day, Meta giving up means that their social networks will immediately fill up with hatred and harassment. but Meta is betting that the average user wont care or notice.As worrying as Metas moves are for its own users (and for their own employees, as they began dismantling their internal DEI efforts last week as well), I also fear what their impact will be on the larger industry. Users should expect more protections, not less; even just from a purely bloodless business perspective, telling your users to expect more harmful content seems short-sighted? I dont know anyone who wakes up thinking theyd like more hate in their daily social media diet. Mediums approach to moderation isnt changing, by the way; our platform rules and the way we implement them is core to how the company works.If this all makes you think I need to delete Facebook, just know it will take ~20 steps and at least a month, according to UX designer Robert Stribley, who walks through the process for those interested.What else were readingWhats coming next in the world of AI? Look for the growth of small language models trained on much smaller, more specific datasets than their large cousins says machine learning engineer Sergei Savvov. (Towards Data Science)Facebooks former VP of Global Communications Caryn Marooney shares a useful framework for big communications moments, like, say, when you have difficult news to share: S.W.I.M.S: Strategy Broad strategy or pivotW: Why Why now, why youI: In Action Specific, measurable actionsM: Mistakes Mistakes will happenFrom the archiveThe Straight Story 25 Years Later Lynchs winding road to the heartIf youre a David Lynch fan, this retrospective review of his film The Straight Story is worth revisiting. Film reviewer Lance Li makes a case for it being among Lynchs best films; despite not bearing a lot of his hallmark bizarre touches, it shows the depth of Lynchs personal connection to his art. The film could as easily as well be on par with a TV melodrama, but whenever it does seem like its gonna preach, Li writes, it does exactly the opposite to get across the same message.Your daily dose of practical wisdom about digital estate planningHeres the least fun yet most important life tip Ive seen recently: You need to have a strategy for what happens to your online accounts if you suddenly die, and that means starting with a password-sharing plan on a service like 1Password. (Jeffery Smith)