Digital Content

Democratic leaders and industry officials cast GOP talk of cracking down on tech’s content moderation practices as out of touch with conservative values. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who helped author Section 230, said “calls for government regulation of online speech and the business practices of private corporations run counter to everything conservatives claim to believe.” Sen Wyden added altering liability protections would unleash “an onslaught of bad-faith lawsuits and pressure campaigns” on tech companies.

After last week’s deadly white-nationalist domestic terror attack on two New Zealand mosques, and the shooter’s concurrent live-stream of the attack, House Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), has written a letter to the CEOs of four major technology companies (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Microsoft) urging them to prioritize the immediate removal of violent terrorist content, including that of far-right, domestic terrorists.

Stung by obscene and pointed criticism, Rep Devin Nunes (R-CA) has sued Twitter and three users for defamation, claiming the users smeared him and the platform allowed it to happen because of a political agenda. The complaint, which was filed in Henrico County Circuit Court in Virginia, seeks $250 million in damages.

The gatekeeper and competition issues caused by app stores aren’t going away. At the same time, solutions to them should seek to maintain the convenience, security, and privacy benefits of software that is at least somewhat screened, since we’ve learned from experience that allowing any app, from anywhere, to have unfettered access to a user’s computer or other device is not good, either. No one wants smartphones to become like the virus and “toolbar”-infested Windows 98 family computers of the past.

As privacy scandals mount at firms such as Facebook, Presidential candidate Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is positioning her data tax as a way to make technology companies think twice about how they share and profit from users’ data. But implementing such an idea might be difficult, experts noted. Taxing data means you have to know what such information is worth, for instance. Former Facebook employee Antonio García Martínez says data is often compared to oil, but that's a poor analogy because unlike oil that has a clear price, the ultimate value of data is unknown.

Federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into data deals Facebook struck with some of the world’s largest technology companies, intensifying scrutiny of the social media giant’s business practices as it seeks to rebound from a year of scandal and setbacks. A grand jury in New York has subpoenaed records from at least two prominent makers of smartphones and other devices, apparently. Both companies had entered into partnerships with Facebook, gaining broad access to the personal information of hundreds of millions of its users.

Nielsen says set-top-box/return-path data coming from pay-TV providers and other sources can underrepresent certain viewer groups -- in particular Hispanic and African-American homes, compared to other household types. Compared with official US Census estimates and Nielsen’s representative national panel, these homes -- many coming from cable, satellite and telco platforms -- underrepresent Hispanics by 33%, Spanish-language dominant Hispanics by 49% and African Americans by 34%.

“This is for the first time 100-plus premium channels—not the junk nobody wants—purely over the top, a mobile-centric platform, for $35 a month.” And soon, it might be the last time. This was AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson describing the promise of DirecTV Now just 27 months ago, as the company launched what would become one of the video business’ fastest growing subscription over-the-top products.

Today, 30 years on from my original proposal for an information management system, half the world is online. It’s a moment to celebrate how far we’ve come, but also an opportunity to reflect on how far we have yet to go.To tackle any problem, we must clearly outline and understand it. I broadly see three sources of dysfunction affecting today’s web:

30 years on, the web has been "hijacked by crooks" who could destroy it, world wide web creator Tim Berners-Lee said. It's morphed into a platform where disinformation spreads like a contagion, hate foments and personal privacy has been relinquished to the highest bidder looking to make a quick buck. Now, the 63-year-old said, he's working to fix the online world he helped create, and launched two major efforts in Nov to turn the web around. The first is the Contract for the Web, which he says will make the web more trustworthy and less susceptible to some of today's problems.