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...
The state has passed a law that sets higher security standards for net-connected devices made or sold in the region. It demands that each gadget be given a unique password when it is made. From BBC News.
California governor Jerry Brown signed regulations into law last Friday (Sept. 30) that should make it easier for Californians to know whether they’re speaking to a human or a bot. From Quartz.
A federal judge in California ruled this month that the government cannot force Facebook to break the encryption on its popular Messenger voice app in a criminal case in which agents wanted to intercept a suspect’s conversations, according to several individuals familiar with the case. From The...
There’s a lot of talk these days about “content moderation.” Policymakers, some public interest groups, and even some users are clamoring for intermediaries to do “more,” to make the Internet more “civil,” though there are wildly divergent views on what that “more” should be. From EFF.
Imagine ending up in jail with no understanding of what the charges against you are, no idea what legal process you will be facing, and no idea what happens if you appeal your conviction- or even how to appeal. It sounds like a Kafka novel, but that’s how social media platforms operate today. It has...
On April 16, 2018, the Supreme Court of British Columbia, Canada, issued a decision denying Google's request to change an injunction requiring it to delist search engine results globally in the Equustek case.
Read more at I&J Retrospect.
President Trump signed a bill Wednesday that gives federal and state prosecutors greater power to pursue websites that host sex-trafficking ads and enables victims and state attorneys general to file lawsuits against those sites.
Read more at The Washington Post.
Federal authorities have taken down Backpage.com, a major classified advertising website that has been repeatedly accused of enabling prostitution and sex trafficking of minors.
Read more at The New York Times.
On March 21, 2018, the US Senate passed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), a revised version of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which will make intermediaries liable for "knowingly assisting, supporting, or facilitating a sex trafficking...
On March 14, 2018, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki announced that the platform would begin featuring excerpts of Wikipedia articles under YouTube videos on "significantly debated" topics.
Read more at I&J Retrospect.