Technology

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, there has been burgeoning awareness of the hate speech on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. While activists have pressured these companies to improve their content moderation, few groups (outside of the German government) have outright sued the platforms for their actions.

Thatbecause of a legal distinction between media publications and media platforms that has made solving hate speech online a vexing problem.

Take, for instance, an op-ed published in the New York Times calling for the slaughter of an entire minority group. The Times would likely be sued for publishing hate speech, and the plaintiffs may well be victorious in their case. Yet, if that op-ed were published in a Facebook post, a suit against Facebook would likely fail.

The reason for this disparitySection 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which provides platforms like Facebook with a broad shield from liability when a lawsuit turns on what its users post or share.The latest uproar against Alex Jones and Infowars has led many to call for the repeal of section 230 & but that may lead to government getting into the business of regulating speech online.Instead, platforms should step up to the plate and coordinate their policies so that hate speech will be considered hate speech regardless of whether Jones uses Facebook, Twitter or YouTube to propagate his hate.

A primer on section 230

Section 230 is considered a bedrock of freedom of speech on the internet.Passed in the mid-1990s, it is credited with freeing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube from the risk of being sued for content their users upload, and therefore powering the exponential growth of these companies.If it weren&t for section 230, todaysocial media giants would have long been bogged down with suits based on what their users post, with the resulting necessary pre-vetting of posts likely crippling these companies altogether.

Instead, in the more than twenty years since its enactment, courts have consistently found section 230 to be a bar to suing tech companies for user-generated content they host.And itnot only social media platforms that have benefited from section 230; sharing economy companies have used section 230 to defend themselves, with the likes of Airbnb arguing they&re not responsible for what a host posts on their site.Courts have even found section 230 broad enough to cover dating apps.When a man sued one for not verifying the age of an underage user, the court tossed out the lawsuit finding an app usermisrepresentation of his age not to be the appresponsibility because of section 230.

Private regulation of hate speech

Of course, section 230 has not meant that hate speech online has gone unchecked.Platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter all have their own extensive policies prohibiting users from posting hate speech.Social media companies have hired thousands of moderators to enforce these policies and to hold violating users accountable by suspending them or blocking their access altogether.But the recent debacle with Alex Jones and Infowars presents a case study on how these policies can be inconsistently applied.

Jones hasfor years fabricated conspiracy theories, like the one claiming that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax and that Democrats run a global child-sex trafficking ring.With thousands of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, Jones& hate speech has had real life consequences.From the brutal harassment of Sandy Hook parents to a gunman storming a pizza restaurant in D.C. to save kids from the restaurantnonexistent basement, his messages have had serious deleterious consequences for many.

Alex Jones and Infowars were finally suspended from ten platforms by our count & with even Twitter falling in line and suspending him for a week after first dithering.But the varying and delayed responses exposed how different platforms handle the same speech.

Inconsistent application of hate speech rules across platforms, compounded by recent controversies involving the spread of fake news and the contribution of social media to increased polarization, have led to calls to amend or repeal section 230.If the printed press and cable news can be held liable for propagating hate speech, the argument goes, then why should the same not be true online & especially when fully two-thirds of Americans now report getting at least some of their news from social media. Amid the chorus of those calling for more regulation of tech companies, section 230 has become a consistent target.

Should hate speech be regulated

But if you need convincing as to why the government is not best placed to regulate speech online, look no further than Congressown wording in section 230.The section enacted in the mid-90s states that online platforms &offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive, as well as the potential for even greater control in the future as technology develops& and &a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity.&

Section 230 goes on to declare that it is the &policy of the United States . . . to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet.& Based on the above, section 230 offers the now infamous liability protection for online platforms.

From the simple fact that most of what we see on our social media is dictated by algorithms over which we have no control, to the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to increased polarization because of the propagation of fake news on social media, one can quickly see how Congresswords in 1996 read today as a catalogue of inaccurate predictions. Even Ron Wyden, one of the original drafters of section 230, himself admits today that drafters never expectedan &individual endorsing (or denying) the extermination of millions of people, or attacking the victims of horrific crimes or the parents of murdered children& to be enabled through the protections offered by section 230.

It would be hard to argue that todayCongress & having shown little understanding in recent hearings of how social media operates to begin with & is any more qualified at predicting the effects of regulating speech online twenty years from now.

More importantly, the burden of complying with new regulations will definitely result in a significant barrier to entry for startups and therefore have the unintended consequence of entrenching incumbents.While Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter may have the resources and infrastructure to handle compliance with increased moderation or pre-vetting of posts that regulations might impose, smaller startups will be at a major disadvantage in keeping up with such a burden.

Last chance before regulation

The answer has to lie with the online platforms themselves.Over the past two decades, they have amassed a wealth of experience in detecting and taking down hate speech.They have built up formidable teams with varied backgrounds to draft policies that take into account an ever-changing internet.Their profits have enabled them to hire away top talent, from government prosecutors to academics and human rights lawyers.

These platforms also have been on a hiring spree in the last couple of years to ensure that their product policy teams & the ones that draft policies and oversee their enforcement & are more representative of society at large.Facebook proudly announced that its product policy team now includes &a former rape crisis counselor, an academic who has spent her career studying hate organizations . . . and a teacher.&Gone are the days when a bunch of engineers exclusively decided where to draw the lines.Big tech companies have been taking the drafting and enforcement of their policies ever more seriously.

What they now need to do is take the next step and start to coordinate policies so that those who wish to propagate hate speech can no longer game policies across platforms.Waiting for controversies like Infowars to become a full-fledged PR nightmare before taking concrete action will only increase calls for regulation.Proactively pooling resources when it comes to hate speech policies and establishing industry-wide standards will provide a defensible reason to resist direct government regulation.

The social media giants can also build public trust by helping startups get up to speed on the latest approaches to content moderation. While any industry consortium around coordinating hate speech is certain to be dominated by the largest tech companies, they can ensure that policies are easy to access and widely distributed.

Coordination between fierce competitors may sound counterintuitive.But the common problem of hate speech and the gaming of online platforms by those trying to propagate it call for an industry-wide response.Precedent exists for tech titans coordinating when faced with a common threat.Just last year, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube formalized their &Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism& & a partnership to curb the threat of terrorist content online.Fighting hate speech is no less laudable a goal.

Self-regulation is an immense privilege.To the extent that big tech companies want to hold onto that privilege, they have a responsibility to coordinate the policies that underpin their regulation of speech and to enable startups and smaller tech companies to get access to these policies and enforcement mechanisms.

GoProlatest action camera isn&t expected to be revealed until later this month, but we just caught a pretty good glimpse of the thing. The Hero 7 made an early appearance as part of an in-store display posted by an Imgur user (though the link appears to no longer be active) and spotted by The Verge.

Therenot a lot to go on, save for a few display images on top of a display of older Hero models. The shots feature three different colors — black, white and silver — and note that the devices are waterproof up to 10 meters. Thatthe same as the Hero 6.

There also appear to be two distinct SKUs — one with a simple front-facing screen (the black model) and the other without. Likely there will be a price gulf between the two, as well. Thatsomething the company has done in the past with the line. Really, therenot much in the way of revelations here.

Introduced roughly this time last year, the Hero 6 was capable of shooting 4K video at 60 FPS and boasted a custom built GP1 processor. The action camera has long been GoProbread and butter and has, in fact, become synonymous with the brand. Of course, plenty of other companies have tried their hands at competing (and often cheaper) devices, causing the company to diversify its offerings.

In the case of the Karma drone, however, that didn&t go according to plan, causing the company to reduce its headcount and redouble its efforts on its core business.

Imagine you get a monthly paycheck on the 15th of the month but your bills come in on the 1st of the month. Between the 15th and 1st you must set a portion of your check aside to pay bills. This becomes a complicated budgeting equation. How much can I spend today vs how much do I need to set aside

In a perfectly rational world people would reduce their consumption by the amount needed to afford their bills and have money left over to make it to the next payday. Sadly, this isn&t what happens. When income and bills are farther apart, we struggle to make the math work.

Researchers Brian Baughand Jialan Wangfound that financial shortfalls & payday loans and bank overdrafts & happen 18% more when there is a greater mismatch between the timing of someone&s income and the bills they owe.

We come up short.

Baugh offers some reasoning: When we get paid, we spend money. More money than usual. Research fromArna Olafsson and Michaela Pagelsupports this. They find that both poor and rich households respond to the receipt of income, with the poorest households spending 70 percent more when they get paid than they would on an average day and the richest households spending 40 percent more. This inclination to spend more on payday makes the monthly budget harder to balance & and sometimes makes it unable to balance at all.

Many fintech companies are starting to address pay period timing, in hopes they can close the gap between income and consumption needs. Apps like Even, Earnin and PayActive provide people with instant access to their paycheck. Gig economy employers like Uber and Lyft have features that allow drivers to cash out immediately after they drive. For people who would otherwise get paid on a monthly schedule, this is critical. Jesse Shapiro of Harvardfound that food stamp recipients consume 10 to 15 percent fewer caloriesthe week before food stamps are disbursed. Even a few days matter. In Baughstudy, the difference between a paycheck period of 35 days vs a paycheck period of 28 days resulted in 9% more instances of financial distress.

The question we should be asking now is what is the optimal timing for pay periods Too long between checks causes hardship, but how short should pay periods become These fintech companies are offering to &Make Any Day Payday& with promises that people can &Get your paycheck anytime you want.& While this smooths the gap between pay periods, given Olassofresearch, it may also serve to increase spending if everyday is payday.

To dive deeper into this problem, our team sought to understand what employees preferred. As a reminder, our preferences don&t always represent whatbest for us. You may want to eat that chocolate cake, but that doesn&t mean it will help you with your summer dieting goals. However, we were curious: do people have the intuition that more frequent pay periods are better, and how frequent is optimal To do this weasked384people making less than median income ($30,000 a year) to tell us their preferred pay schedule. Using Google Consumer Surveys, we gave them six payment schedules to choose from: Annual, Monthly, Bi-weekly, Weekly, Daily or Hourly.

Whatshouldpeople say If everyone acts rationally, we would expect people to say they want to get paid hourly & immediately after working. Ittheir money and they would be best off with unfettered access to it.

This is not what we found. Instead, people prefer to get paid on a bi-weekly or weekly schedule. Aggregating everyoneresponses, people preferred bi-weekly (37.2%), followed by weekly (26.6%).

Why aren&t more people choosing hourly or daily While we can&t be sure, one guess is that Baughfindings ring true. Weekly and biweekly paychecks can act as a self control device for spending. If paydays were every day, they may be more tempted to spend on non-critical items, leaving less money for bills. Weekly and biweekly paychecks also serve as a way to fix the misalignment of income and bills that Baugh cites drives overdrafts and payday loans. Our team interviewed 40 people in Fresno, California and found this to be a popular budgeting strategy & one paycheck is used for the family car payment and one is used for rent.

When we break out responses by income, we find some correlational differences across income groups. People reporting less than $6,000 income (50% below poverty line) are more likely to opt for an immediate pay schedule. As peopleincome level rises above poverty (or part time status), the preference for weekly and bi-weekly pay schedules increases.

We also asked people to tell us how they would describe their personal need for money when paying their bills over the past year.No surprise, but the more people felt they needed money for immediate bills (or feeling scarce) the higher the demand for more frequent paychecks (hourly or weekly).

The verdict

More research is needed to determine the effects of the growing trend to offer instant access to your paycheck. These apps can bridge critical gaps for people living paycheck to paycheck, but they may also have some detrimental effects if Baugh and Olafssonfindings hold. If apps help people make everyday payday, and each payday results in higher spending, the end of the month may be much harder to get to.

Key insights for companies trying to improve peoplefinancial lives

1. Help move people off a monthly pay cycle.Our study suggests that lower income individuals don&t prefer monthly and other research suggests it has costly implications for their financial lives.
2. Help people match up their income and their bills.Lenders can do this upon loan origination or fintech apps (like EarnUp) can help people automate timing.
3. Provide (thoughtful) access to the paycheck.Apps could ask people up front to precommit to when they want to take money from their paycheck. This would still allow people to have access, but could possibly slow down an urge to withdraw too frequently.