Studing of the effects of the digital economy and the adoption of broadband deployment on the US economy
Heralded as the world’s toughest watchdog of Silicon Valley technology giants, Europe has clamped down on violent content, hate speech and misinformation online through a thicket of new laws and regulations over the past five years. Now there are questions about whether the region is going too far, with the rules leading to accusations of censorship and potentially providing cover to some governments to stifle dissent.
Tech giants have long tinkered with ways to grow outside the core businesses they dominate. Now those efforts are becoming urgent. A confluence of forces is behind Big Tech’s business-model ferment. Blowback over privacy abuses and misinformation threatens ad-driven strategies at Facebook and Google built on harvesting people’s information and maximizing the time they spend glued to the internet.
Facebook’s announcement in late April that it had set aside $3 billion to $5 billion to settle claims that it mishandled users’ personal data suggested a strong consensus by federal regulators that the social media giant needed to be held accountable. But the reality behind the scenes at the Federal Trade Commission is far more complicated, reflecting the politics and give-and-take of the negotiations.
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