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A new body for judging social media complaints has been launched in the EU using money originating from Meta, the parent company of Facebook.
Some may ask: What has this got to do with nicotine? In the main, very little, outside some social media accounts perhaps being able to appeal to the new body if they think they have been unjustly suspended for violating nicotine-related terms and conditions.
But looking closer, we can see an interesting parallel between this development and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World (FSFW), the arm’s-length research funding body Philip Morris International (PMI) tried to create to provide money to research projects in the area of harm reduction.
PMI said that after providing the funding, it had nothing to do with the foundation, which has since cut ties with the tobacco giant and changed its name to Global Action to End Smoking. It was wholly down to the then-FSFW staff to fund what projects they wanted.
But almost no one would take FSFW money, leaving it as a very rich pariah in the tobacco research world. The reasoning was that, even though it was an unconditional funding grant, the mere fact the money came from Big Tobacco tainted it, the FSFW, and any projects it would fund simply by association.
That’s so Meta
Compare this to the recent announcement of the creation of Appeals Centre Europe. It will initially be the final arbiter on policy violation decisions made by social media companies for the social media platforms Facebook, TikTok and YouTube, with the idea that it would then expand to include more platforms over time.
The Appeals Centre received a degree of legitimacy from the Irish Coimisiún na Meán (Media Commission), which certified it as an “out-of-court dispute settlement body” under the EU Digital Services Act – though it will be able to take on cases from across the EU, not just Ireland.
But funding to set up the Appeals Centre came from the Oversight Board Trust, which it is safe to say most people have not heard of before. That’s because the board is a Meta-funded trust established to oversee content decisions on its platforms.
Which begs the question: How is that any freer from conflicts of interest than the FSFW? Why has it been given a veneer of acceptability by regulators when the FSFW soundly failed to make any headway in tobacco research? Is it because the Appeals Centre is another arm’s length away from the arm’s-length Oversight Board Trust?
Because really it does not seem to make it any freer from influence. Future funding for the Appeals Centre will be through fees charged per case to social media companies as well as a “nominal” €5 dispute fee from users who raise cases that is refunded if they win.
A double standard?
This then brings up whether social media platforms would choose to join or choose to continue funding a body that rules against them and puts their decision-making process on banning or penalising social media accounts in a bad light. Knowing this, will the body make many rulings against the companies that pay it?
Really the effort is just the latest attempt to “corporate wash” social media – an industry that is quickly becoming almost as problematic as tobacco. Given that, why should we accept an arbitrations body funded by social media companies making judgements on social media–related appeals when we will not accept a research body given money by a tobacco company giving money to tobacco researchers?
If one is tainted by association, then surely the other is too. It is too late to make much difference to the FSFW, which, as mentioned above, has moved on and is now working on a PMI-free funding model as Global Action to End Smoking. It does suggest that any future projects in a similar vein will continue to be met with scepticism.
Perhaps the answer, such as it is, is not to be more sympathetic to unconditional, distanced tobacco funding for research but to be more critical of tech funding going towards decisions that impact on their future business.
– Freddie Dawson TobaccoIntelligence staff
