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11th Circuit Blocks Major Provisions of Florida’s Social Media Law
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled it is unconstitutional for Florida to bar social media companies from banning politicians, in a major victory for tech companies currently fighting another appeals court ruling that allowed a similar law in Texas to take effect.
In a detailed, 67-page opinion, the court rejected many of the legal arguments that conservative states have been using to justify laws governing the content moderation policies of major tech companies after years of accusations that the tech companies are biased against their political viewpoints.
Though the court struck down the most controversial aspects of the law, it did rule that some provisions could stand, including that people banned from the platforms should be able to access their data for 60 days.
Clearview AI Ordered to Delete Facial Recognition Data Belonging to UK Residents
Controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI has been ordered to delete all data belonging to U.K. residents by the country’s privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO also fined Clearview £7.5 million ($9.4 million) for failing to follow the U.K.’s data protection laws.
It’s the fourth time Clearview has been ordered to delete national data in this way, following similar orders and fines issued in Australia, France and Italy.
Clearview claims its facial recognition database contains some 20 billion images scraped from public sources like Facebook and Instagram. It previously sold its software to an array of private users and businesses, but recently agreed to restrict itself in the US to selling to federal agencies and police departments following a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
DC Attorney General Sues Mark Zuckerberg Over His Handling of the Cambridge Analytica Incident
Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine sued Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, accusing the Facebook co-founder of misleading the public on the company’s handling of privacy and personal data in connection with the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The suit, filed in D.C. superior court, represents Racine’s latest attempt to hold Zuckerberg personally liable after a judge rejected an attempt last year to name Zuckerberg as a defendant in an ongoing suit against Facebook over the same issue.
Racine’s office has been locked in a legal battle with Facebook for years over allegations the company failed to monitor third-party apps’ use of user data and failed to disclose the leak of data to Cambridge Analytica, the analysis firm used by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, on a timely basis. In 2018, Facebook said Cambridge Analytica may have had data from as many as 87 million of its users.
Why We Need a Public Internet and How to Get One
For weeks, tech news has been dominated by billionaire Elon Musk’s attempts to buy (and subsequently avoid buying) Twitter. And since Musk announced his plans in April, people have debated whether it’s better for online social spaces like Twitter to remain publicly traded companies — where they’re under pressure from shareholders — or be owned by a single wealthy figure like Musk.
But Ben Tarnoff, author of the upcoming book Internet for the People, believes there’s a better way. Tarnoff’s book outlines the history of the Internet, starting with its early days as a government-run network, which was parceled out to private companies with little regard for users. It discusses common proposals like lessening the power of Internet gatekeepers with antitrust reform, but it also argues that promoting competition isn’t enough: there should also be a political movement advocating for local, noncommercial spaces online. I spoke with Tarnoff about what that means — and why it’s not as simple as breaking up (or cloning) Twitter.
YouTube Removes More Than 9,000 Channels Relating to Ukraine War
YouTube has taken down more than 70,000 videos and 9,000 channels related to the war in Ukraine for violating content guidelines, including removal of videos that referred to the invasion as a “liberation mission.”
The platform is hugely popular in Russia, where, unlike some of its U.S. peers, it has not been shut down despite hosting content from opposition figures such as Alexei Navalny. YouTube has also been able to operate in Russia despite cracking down on pro-Kremlin content that has broken guidelines including its major violent events policy, which prohibits denying or trivializing the invasion.
Since the conflict began in February, YouTube has taken down channels including that of the pro-Kremlin journalist Vladimir Solovyov. Channels associated with Russia’s Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs have also been temporarily suspended from uploading videos in recent months for describing the war as a “liberation mission.”
Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four Was About Liberalism, Not Totalitarianism, Claims Moscow Diplomat
George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four was written to describe the dangers of western liberalism — not totalitarianism — a top Moscow diplomat has claimed.
“For many years we believed that Orwell described the horrors of totalitarianism. This is one of the biggest global fakes … Orwell wrote about the end of liberalism. He depicted how liberalism would lead humanity to a dead end,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, said during a public talk in Ekaterinburg on Saturday.
Published in 1949, the book is seen as a cautionary tale warning of the consequences of totalitarianism and mass surveillance. Orwell is believed to have modelled the totalitarian government depicted in the novel on Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
