Digital Content

Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said he believes it is dangerous for people to focus more on their desired political outcomes than giving a range of voices the opportunity to be heard. He compared the current moment of political polarization to other periods of intense social change, including the civil-rights movement. “Some people believe that giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing people together,” he said. “I am here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.”

Twitter will continue to be lenient with world leaders who appeared to violate its policies against violent speech because the company believes preserving those tweets served the public interest. “The accounts of world leaders are not above our policies entirely,” the company said in a blog post.

A days-long feud between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Facebook intensified over the weekend as she openly accused the company of "taking money to promote lies." Facebook fired back via another social media platform, Twitter, where the company compared itself to broadcast television stations that ran a Trump ad and are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The "FCC doesn't want broadcast companies censoring candidates' speech," Facebook said.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Domino’s Pizza after a federal appellate court ruled that a blind customer can sue the chain under the Americans with Disabilities Act after he couldn’t fully use its website through screen-reading software. Domino’s had asked the Supreme Court to rule that the ADA didn’t apply to websites and apps, arguing the 1990 law predated the modern internet and that there were no firm rules businesses could comply with to make their online assets accessible.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled that European Union courts can demand Facebook actively monitor and delete illegal material such as hate speech. The court said there is nothing in EU current law stopping Facebook from searching and deleting duplicate posts of content that has been declared illegal. The court said the searches and deletion can be done in the EU but also worldwide should national courts demand it.

Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has been leading private meetings in Washington with tech industry leaders and civil society groups as part of the Senate Judiciary tech task force inquiry into social media and internet companies.

The broad language of Section 230 should not be interpreted in a way that gives platforms that host third-party content a special exemption from laws that apply to businesses generally, or creates an exemption from the kinds of health, safety, public interest, and economic regulation that governments at every level—from federal agencies to municipalities–engage in. To be clear at the outset, this does not mean that any and all regulations a government may want to enforce are good ideas. Some of them might be. Others might be terrible.

Congressional lawmakers are drafting a bill to create a “national commission” at the Department of Homeland Security to study the ways that social media can be weaponized — and the effectiveness of tech giants’ efforts to protect users from harmful content online. The draft House bill is slated to be introduced and considered next week. If passed, the commission would be empowered — with the authority to hold hearings and issue subpoenas — to study the way social media companies police the Web and to recommend potential legislation.

Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA) said that we have now seen how "the misuse of technology threatens our democratic systems, our economy, and our national security." "Western companies who help authoritarian regimes build censored apps or walled-garden versions of the internet are just as big a threat to a free and open internet as government actors," he said.