The Ultimate Content Moderation Challenge

CNN obtained an internal memo to Meta's (formerly Facebook's) content moderation team that noted that “political speech is ineligible for fact-checking. This includes the words a politician says as well as photo, video, or other content that is clearly labeled as created by the politician or their campaign.” The memo was in direct response to requests for guidance from Meta's internal and external fact checkers. Continue Reading →

SCOTUS Reinterprets 1A, Too

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a former Washington state high school football coach had a right to pray on the field immediately after games. We're going to talk about this, Elon Musk's pending purchase of Twitter, and what "Freedom of Speech" means under the new SCOTUS tonight, June 28 at 6:30 p.m. ET here in NYC at the Newhouse Advanced Media Lab Series event: What is Freedom of Speech? Continue Reading →

The Road to Hell…

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, and Bernie Sanders asked that the U.S. establish uniform charging accessory standards, arguing that planned obsolescence in consumer electronics causes financial stress and environmental harm. (This follows similar legislation in the EU that will force consumer electronics to adopt USB-C connectors by 2024.) Continue Reading →

New Bipartisan Bill Would Force Google to Break Up its Ad Business

The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act was introduced Thursday by a group of key senators on the Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust: the ranking member and chair, Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., as well as Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. If passed, the bipartisan bill would force Google to break up its ad business. Continue Reading →

Texas v. The Internet

HB 20, a new Texas law, prohibits social media platforms with more than 50 million users in the U.S. from moderating content on the basis of “viewpoint.” It creates a catastrophic new liability for tech platforms serving Texas, which the law says cannot be excluded from service. This is headed for SCOTUS. Continue Reading →

Is crypto frying the planet? Asking for a friend.

The White House would like to get to the bottom of this whole "is cryptocurrency going to destroy the climate or not" thing. The Office of Science and Technology Policy announced it's putting together a report that assesses whether digital assets “impede or advance efforts to tackle climate change” and makes moves toward a “clean and reliable electricity grid.” Continue Reading →

Crypto Lobbying is Booming

According to Bloomberg, "In the first three quarters of 2021, about a third of contributions to Wyoming Republican Cynthia Lummis’s campaign committee came from crypto executives or investors." Continue Reading →