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...
A bill before the Texas Senate seeks to prevent social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from censoring users based on their viewpoints. Supporters say it would protect the free exchange of ideas, but critics say the bill contradicts a federal law that allows social media platforms to...
As you know, the future of Section 230 looks bleak. This paper addresses the potentially non-hypothetical question of what happens when Section 230 gets carved back–or up. In theory, the First Amendment–the global bellwether protection for free speech–should partially or substantially backfill any...
On 1 April, the government of Singapore introduced the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill. Often referred to as the Singaporean anti-fake news law, it is expected to be enacted with a few changes in the coming weeks or months. From Verfassungsblog.
Last Monday, having spent the best part of a day reading the UK government's Online Harms White Paper, I concluded that if the road to hell was paved with good intentions, this was a motorway.
Nearly two weeks on, after full and further consideration, I have found nothing to alter that view. This...
Facebook recently said in a statement that the company had spent more than 18 months assessing “risk” across its platforms to help ensure that the Lok Sabha election was free from interference, both foreign and domestic. From The Hindu.
The UK government has just outlined its plans for sweeping new laws aimed at tackling illegal and harmful content and activity online, described by the government as ‘the toughest internet laws in the world’. While the UK proposal has some promising ideas for what the next generation of content...
In April 2018, House Republicans held a hearing on the “Filtering Practices of Social Media Platforms” that focused on misguided claims that Internet platforms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook actively discriminate against conservative political viewpoints. Now, a year later, Senator Ted Cruz is...
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has proposed an independent watchdog that will write a "code of practice" for tech companies.
Senior managers could be held liable for breaches, with a possible levy on the industry to fund the regulator. From BBC News.
On Monday, the U.K. Government published proposals for "tough new measures to ensure the U.K. is the safest place in the world to be online," claiming these to be the world's "first online safety laws." An independent regulator will be put in place with the "powers to take effective enforcement...
Australia has adopted a law that would penalize platforms and their executives for a failure to control what it calls “abhorrent violent material.” The law is deeply problematic, as was the extraordinarily compressed timeframe for its adoption (basically two days). The Special Rapporteur on Counter...