Facebook this week finally put into writing what users—especially politically powerful users—have known for years: its community “standards” do not, in fact, apply across the whole community. Speech from politicians is officially exempt from the platform’s fact checking and decency standards, the company has clarified, with a few exceptions. Facebook communications VP Nick Clegg, himself Read more about Both YouTube and Facebook allow politicians to ignore their community standards.[…]

Google recommends that anyone using its translation technology add a disclaimer that translated text may not be accurate. The US government’s Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) nonetheless has been relying on online translation services offered by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to read refugees’ non-English social media posts and judge whether or not they should be Read more about US immigration uses Google Translate to scan people’s social media for bad posts – Er, don’t do that, says everyone else, including Google[…]