| HI all, it's Eric. Even in an age of walled gardens—when Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and Alphabet Inc.'s Google set the rules for much of public debate online—chaos reigns. Bad actors and ethical edge cases flourish. All three of these companies made indications this week of how they'd reassert control, but it's hard not to conclude the troublemakers will be able to stay a step ahead. Facebook said Thursday it would hurl some $130 million at the problem over six years, using that money to recruit a council of philosopher kings and empower them to weigh in on dubious Facebook content. (Facebook has also humbly likened this body to the U.S. Supreme Court.) The idea of such a board is refreshing. Facebook's leaders have convincingly argued the world shouldn't trust them to decide what speech deserves censoring. There are still a lot of reasons to doubt Facebook, though. The company itself gets to pick these moral arbiters, who won't write their own rules but just weigh in on particularly tough cases. Its pledge of resources also comes a year after it announced the board's existence, and it's not clear whether it will be operating in time for the 2020 presidential election. For its part, Twitter did what Twitter likes to do: Talk about a far-out idea that is far away from implementation. The company is funding a "small, independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media," said Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey in a series of tweets. Dorsey's idea, if it ever comes into being, would result in a technical standard allowing various companies to take in the content people post to social media, then compete for users by moderating it in different ways. One company's algorithm might block a broader range of controversial content; another might only display videos. "The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard," wrote Dorsey. Both Twitter and Facebook, in other words, would like to offload the thorniest content moderations challenges to someone else. While they mull the future, YouTube reminded everyone this week of the fraught moderation decisions tech companies are making in the present day. The video service finally said it would "no longer allow content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation. This applies to everyone, from private individuals, to YouTube creators, to public officials." The company had previously refused to take down videos posted by popular conservative YouTuber Steven Crowder that attacked journalist Carlos Maza on the basis of his sexuality. Back in May, YouTube said it wouldn't take down Crowder's videos even after Maza's allegation that he was being bullied went viral. The issues the companies are facing aren't easy. There will always be a sense of whack-a-mole futility to wrangling bad actors on the internet. There have been victories, where so-called deplatforming has seriously diminished toxic voices like Milo Yiannopoulos. In September, Yiannopoulos complained that he had "spent years growing and developing and investing in my fan base and they just took it away in a flash." But it's been over three years since the 2016 election inspired a round of soul-searching among the U.S. social media giants. And this is how far they've gotten? Meanwhile, upstart companies like Discord have even weaker rules than the big tech giants, creating new gaps where bad actors can break through. The work continues.—Eric Newcomer | 
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