Policymakers should remove special legal protections for tech platforms under Communications Decency Act Section 230, increase algorithm transparency and set clear data collection limits, the White House said Thursday, outlining principles for enhancing competition and tech accountability.
Section 230
Tech and antitrust staffers on the Senate Commerce and Senate Judiciary Committees top the list of potential successors to FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips, former officials and industry representatives told us.
Australia’s High Court correctly acknowledged that facilitating access to online content shouldn't “give rise to liability” for the facilitator, Public Knowledge said Wednesday. The High Court ruled Wednesday in Google v. Defteros that Google isn’t a publisher of sites it links. A “hyperlink is merely a tool which enables a person to navigate to another webpage,” the High Court wrote, overturning a Supreme Court of Victoria ruling saying Google is a publisher for linking news articles. The decision “provides additional strength for promoting a free and open internet where a diversity of views can flourish,” PK Government Affairs Director Greg Guice said. PK noted the concurring opinion raised an “interesting issue” on whether protection should be extended to paid content between Google and third parties. PK has “argued that such business dealings should be outside the scope of Section 230 protections because when the parties promoting content have a financial incentive to amplify the number of people who view said content, these parties should also have an incentive to more carefully examine the content they are promoting,” said Guice.
MindGeek and its adult video hosting site Pornhub materially contributed to the child sexual abuse materials on the site, and that makes it a content creator not entitled to Communications Decency Act Section 230 protections, plaintiffs told the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles Monday. In their opposition (docket 2:21-cv-04920) to MindGeek's motion to dismiss their suit (see 2205240029), the plaintiffs -- all of whom allegedly were juvenile subjects of sex trafficking and abuse videos hosted on the site -- said the MindGeek defendants knowingly benefited from their participation by soliciting, curating, modifying and reuploading illegal content. Counsel for the defendants didn't comment.
Blue state New York could soon join red states Texas and Florida in seeking to regulate social media companies. Despite opposition by tech and civil liberties groups, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is expected to sign a measure, passed Thursday by the Senate and Wednesday by the Assembly, to require social platforms to provide reporting mechanisms for hateful conduct. Also, the Assembly was expected to vote later Thursday on a Senate-passed measure that could make New York the first state with a digital right-to-repair law.
The tech industry and state officials were waiting Friday for a potential Supreme Court decision that could prove significant for social media content moderation practices. Various court decisions issued throughout the week raised questions about interpretation of Communications Decency Act Section 230 that some want the Supreme Court to settle.
A 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling last week against the SEC could have implications for FCC enforcement actions and the powers of administrative law judges like the FCC’s ALJ Jane Halprin, but it is too early to be sure how the ruling against the SEC applies to other agencies, said academics and communications attorneys in interviews. Based on that Jarkesy v. SEC decision, U.S. Supreme Court rulings and a pair of cases currently before SCOTUS, the outlook for ALJs at federal agencies -- including the FCC -- “looks a little shaky,” said Jeffrey Lubbers, an administrative law professor at American University. “I’d be surprised if this decision is the final word,” said former FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson, now with Wiley.
MindGeek and its streaming video services like Pornhub had no role in posting sexually explicit videos of a then-underage girl, and merely providing an online platform that can be used for unlawful purposes isn't illegal or actionable, MindGeek said Monday in a motion to dismiss (docket 2:21-cv-04920) filed with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. Suing MindGeek and its executives is the woman who was subject of those videos as well as nearly three dozen Jane Doe plaintiffs alleging videos of their abuse or trafficking when they were juveniles were posted to MindGeek sites. MindGeek said the suit also is barred by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Counsel for the plaintiff didn't comment Tuesday.
The Supreme Court might be showing interest in tech groups’ emergency appeal of a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order allowing a Texas social media law to be enforced, said court watchers this week. Texas responded Wednesday to NetChoice and Computer and Communications Industry Association, as requested by Justice Samuel Alito (see 2205160030).
The Supreme Court shouldn’t allow Texas’ social media law to be enforced, former Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., wrote the high court Tuesday in case 21A720 (see 2205160030). The Supreme Court should preserve the status quo and vacate the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ order allowing the state’s social media law to be enforced, argued Cox, who co-wrote Communications Decency Act Section 230 with then-Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. By requiring all viewpoints to be treated the same, Texas’ new law would “expose platforms to liability for moderating such loathsome content as racist diatribes, Nazi screeds, holocaust-denial misinformation, and foreign government propaganda,” Cox wrote in support of NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association. The associations filed an emergency application for immediate administrative relief with the high court.