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...
This decision is from July but just showed up in Westlaw. Mezey sued Twitter for suspending his account. The opinion doesn’t provide any background about the account or why Twitter suspended it. The court easily dismissed the lawsuit on Section 230 grounds. From the Technology & Marketing Law Blog. ...
Facebook has removed 82 pages, groups and accounts for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that originated out of Iran. From TechCrunch.
At least two Twitter accounts linked to the man suspected of sending explosive devices to more than a dozen prominent Democrats were suspended on Friday afternoon. From TechCrunch.
The Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Bill would restrict freedom of expression and press freedom, threaten the protection of journalistic sources, and undermine academic research in Britain. It would limit the right to access information online and it would sneak in a new, harsh border regime...
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has spoken out against the European Parliament’s copyright reform initiative, claiming that the legislation will limit free speech for fledgling content creators. From TBI Vision.
Alex Stamos on the risks of giving his former employer and other giant platforms the power to determine what people can—and can’t—say online. From MIT Technology Review.
Wael Abbas, a human rights activist focused on police brutality in Egypt, has been under arrest since May on charges of spreading fake news and “misusing social media.” Andy Hall, a labor rights researcher, has been fighting charges under Thailand’s computer crime laws because of a report published...
A peer-reviewed study of almost 1m Android apps has revealed how data from smartphones are harvested and shared, with nearly 90 per cent of apps set up to transfer information back to Google. From Financial Times.
I think we can all agree that Silicon Valley needs more adult supervision right about now. Is the solution for its companies to hire a chief ethics officer? While some tech companies like Google have top compliance officers and others turn to legal teams to police themselves, no big tech companies...