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Meet the 'Deciders,' the gatekeepers of free speech on the internet

Meet the 'Deciders,' the gatekeepers of free speech on the internet

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Last year, the "Deciders" held a meeting at Stanford Law School's faculty lounge. Both individually and together, the elite few in the lounge that day wield enormous influence over the future of free speech on the internet. Working for companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Yahoo, everyone at the low-key meeting was in charge of their respective companies' policies on takedowns and censorship. They dubbed themselves the Deciders in tribute to Twitter's Nicole Wong, who got the nickname while serving as deputy general counsel at Google. A report from New Republic explains how the Deciders work, how they came to meet, and how they're shaping all of our futures.