OTI Launches Transparency Reporting Toolkit Focused on Content Takedowns

Today, New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) releases The Transparency Reporting Toolkit: Content Takedown Reporting. This latest edition of OTI’s transparency reporting toolkit series surveys how internet platforms and telecommunications companies are reporting on content takedowns and identifies best practices for doing so. Such reporting has become an increasingly important accountability mechanism as tech companies have taken on the role of speech gatekeepers, often removing or blocking large amounts of user content for various legal or policy reasons.

To produce this newest iteration of the Transparency Reporting Toolkit, OTI surveyed 35 technology companies that issue content takedown-related transparency reports of some kind and identified the key features of the most clear and comprehensive reports. This toolkit is the first holistic assessment of how technology companies in the United States and around the world are reporting on a wide range of different types of takedowns, including those based on government demands, intellectual property-based requests, and violations of a company’s own content guidelines.

This edition of the toolkit complements the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability Around Online Content Moderation, which were released in May by OTI and a coalition of organizations, advocates, and academic experts who support the right to free expression online. It is the latest in a series of toolkits that started in 2016 when OTI and Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society released the first Transparency Reporting Toolkit, which focused on reporting about government demands for user data. The release of OTI’s newest toolkit also coincides with today’s Content Moderation and the Future of Online Speech conference in New York City, the third in a series of conferences focused on the policies and processes by which internet companies attempt to moderate content at scale. OTI co-sponsored the previous two conferences earlier this year in Washington, DC and Santa Clara.

The following statement can be attributed to Kevin Bankston, Director of New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“Given the awesome power that tech companies play in defining what speech is and is not allowed online today—a power they are being pressured to use even more aggressively every day—we need real transparency and accountability about how that power is being applied. Company-issued transparency reports about content takedowns are a key tool for providing that accountability, but right now many companies are issuing reports that are incomplete or unclear, or aren’t issuing reports at all. Our latest Transparency Reporting Toolkit is intended to provide a complete survey of the field of content takedown reporting as it stands now, and push companies to adopt the best practices we’ve identified. The public and policymakers deserve a more complete picture of how free expression is being regulated on the internet today.”

The following statement can be attributed to Spandana Singh, Policy Program Associate at New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“Transparency reporting is a critical tool to understanding how technology and telecommunications companies are managing our speech and expression, and how often this expression is being targeted by governments and other parties.It is our hope that this assessment of how technology and telecommunications companies are reporting on content takedowns across multiple content categories will be a valuable resource that will inform more granular and standardized transparency reports in the future.”