On May 11, 2022, the Fifth Circuit reinstated Texas state law HB 20 which allows private parties to sue tech platforms with 50M+ MAUs for their censorship of user-generated content based on “the viewpoint of a user or another person”. On May 13, technology lobbying groups NetChoice and the Computer...
On May 11, 2022, the Fifth Circuit reinstated Texas state law HB 20 which allows private parties to sue tech platforms with 50M+ MAUs for their censorship of user-generated content based on “the viewpoint of a user or another person”. On May 13, technology lobbying groups NetChoice and the Computer...
On May 10, whistleblower Daniel Motaung filed a lawsuit in Nairobi against Meta and Sama, Meta’s main content moderation subcontractor in Africa. In 2019, Sama recruited Motaung from South Africa to work as a content moderator. Motaung, represented by Mercy Mutemi of Nzili and Sumbi Advocates, with...
On April 18, 2022, the Delhi High Court held that Domain Name Registrars are intermediaries under sec. 2(1)(w) of India’s 2000 Information Technology Act. Justice C. Hari Shankar rejected the injunction filed by Snapdeal which challenged Domain Name Registrars for using its trademark in domain names...
On March 30, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pablo Rodriguez, and the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, David Lametti, announced a new expert advisory group on online safety as the next step in developing legislation to address harmful online content. The expert advisory group...
By June, Indonesia's finance and communications ministries are expected to finalize new rules permitting the government to fine and criminally charge social media companies. These rules follow the November 2020 Ministerial Regulation 5, issued by the Indonesian Ministry of Communication and...
Australia's federal government has been pushing for new ‘anti-trolling legislation’ that would see defamation liability shift from owners of social media pages onto social media platforms as it believes the legislative changes would go a long way towards reducing online harm, but the Labor party...
On March 22, 2022, Russian lawmakers amended the “fake news” laws with fines and prison sentences. The law, signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 4, criminalized specific types of news coverage over the invasion of Ukraine and could force more social networks out of the country. From P...
On March 17, 2022, lawmakers introduced the Online Safety BIll to Parliament. The proposed regulation would grant Ofcom the power to fine non-compliant companies, force them to improve their practices, and block non-compliant sites. Since its first draft in May 2021, the Bill now includes changes to...
The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2021 currently before the Kenyan parliament seeks to repeal the Copyright Act’s sections 35B, 35C and 35D which have been in place since 2019. Respectively, the provisions cover notice and takedown procedures that can impose criminal liability and fines on ISPs...
On December 3, 2021, Zimbabwe enacted its first data protection law, the Data Protection Act [Chapter 11:12], which addresses the controlling, processing, and cross-border transfer of personal data. The law establishes the Cyber Security and Monitoring Center and grants data protection authority to...