Sometimes an empty chair can speak volumes. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence intentionally set up a unoccupied seat to shame Alphabet at Wednesday's hearing on foreign meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Source: Senators blast Google executives for not showing up to hearings on election meddling...
When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.Source: Mark Zuckerberg...
President Trump is speaking forcefully about fixing a growing problem affecting our national discourse. He says we may need to regulate the giant tech companies that control vast swaths of our information landscape, due to their bias.Source: Hey, Google, Facebook, Twitter – Trump's got a point. You need to do a better job of self-regulating...
Thousands of dark ads ran on Facebook around the 2016 presidential election in the United States and the British referendum on leaving the European Union. Some ads delivered divisive messages aimed at specific audiences. Some ads circulated misinformation — or told people not to vote.Source: What’s wrong with Facebook, Google and Twitter’s measures to make political ads more transparent...
Call 2018 the “Year of Deplatforming.” The internet was once celebrated for allowing fresh new voices to escape the control of gatekeepers. But this year, the internet giants decided to slam the gates on a number of people and ideas they don’t like.Source: When Digital Platforms Become Censors...
To subscribe to the monthly C&E email newsletter and event announcements click here. As lawmakers across the country move to regulate online advertising at the state level, strategists are increasingly concerned about the impact such laws will have on digital advertising campaigns.Source: As States Move to Regulate Digital Ads, Consultants Warn of Unintended Consequences...
Earlier this week I wrote a piece for the New York Times where I proposed a centuries-old framework for resolving our endless series of online free speech controversies.Source: A First Amendment Peace Plan for the Twitter Wars...
SAN FRANCISCO -- Left-leaning political activists accused Facebook of suppressing free speech when the social media giant removed an event listing this week that it said was part of a new disinformation campaign with ties to Russia.Source: The moment when Facebook’s removal of alleged Russian disinformation became a free speech issue...
Once upon a time, there was a fringe news outlet with a loud and dissenting opinion. A fatal shooting, it claimed, was not at all what it seemed to be: It was a hoax, orchestrated by some shadowy force—probably Communists—bent on replacing freedom with dictatorship.Source: Win or Lose, the Alex Jones Lawsuit Will Redefine Free Speech...
Facebook has removed four pages belonging to the controversial right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones following weeks of pressure from critics and similar moves from other tech platforms. The pages include one for Jones’ flagship radio show InfoWars as well as his fan page.Source: Facebook deletes InfoWars pages...
