katzenberger 🇺🇦<p>For every <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/moderation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>moderation</span></a> decision that restricts or removes content or accounts, the <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/EU" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>EU</span></a>'s "Digital Services Act" (<a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/DSA" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>DSA</span></a>) obliges <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/platforms" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>platforms</span></a> to submit a "statement of reasons" (SoR) to a "DSA Transparency Database".</p><p>As of today, this affects 23 designated Very Large Online Platforms (<a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/VLOP" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>VLOP</span></a>s).</p><p>(Don't get excited, SoRs by law must not contain any <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/PII" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>PII</span></a> – also, there is no "case number" that you could cross-reference to moderation decisions affecting your posts. It's more of a "Statistics Database" than a "Transparency Database").</p><p>A study that became available last week ("DSA Transparency Database: Auditing Self-reported Moderation Actions by Social Media.") looked at the database, with not so surprising findings:</p><p>»Our analyses reveal that (i) the platforms adhered only in part to the philosophy and structure of the database, (ii) the structure of the database is partially inadequate for the platforms’ reporting needs, (iii) the platforms exhibited substantial differences in their moderation actions, (iv) a remarkable fraction of the database data is inconsistent, (v) the platform <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/X" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>X</span></a> (formerly <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/Twitter" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Twitter</span></a>) presents the most inconsistencies.«</p><p><a href="https://arxiv.org/html/2312.10269v4#S6" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">arxiv.org/html/2312.10269v4#S6</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/DSATransparencyDatabase" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>DSATransparencyDatabase</span></a> <a href="https://mastodon.de/tags/SocialMedia" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>SocialMedia</span></a></p><p>[Updated the number of VLOPs]</p>