Digital Content

Tech companies appear to be concerned that they might face some unintended consequences as a result of a battle over whether President Donald Trump violates the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter. In court papers submitted the week of Aug 13, the Silicon Valley group Internet Association is urging a federal appellate court to clarify that Twitter can continue to block users -- regardless of whether Trump may legally do so.

The Content Creators Coalition has told the Federal Trade Commission that its members need government protection from big edge providers they say are abusing their dominant positions on the Web.  That came in a filing with the FTC, which is launching a broad review of its competition and consumer protection regime. It also comes as the agency is newly charged with overseeing network neutrality after the Federal Communications Commission deeded it oversight in the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

[Commentary] “Operation Golden Gate” was the name of a 1948 plan among the followers of a political movement known as Technocracy Inc. to converge on the San Francisco Bay area. These self-described Technocrats gathered from around the country to educate the public in their central belief: that politicians lacked the ability to effectively manage the complexities of the modern world and that the public should delegate decision-making instead to a small group of technological experts.

Photo fakery is far from new, but artificial intelligence will completely change the game. Until recently only a big-budget movie studio could carry out a video face-swap, and it would probably have cost millions of dollars. Artificial Intelligence (AI) now makes it possible for anyone with a decent computer and a few hours to spare to do the same thing. Further machine-learning advances will make even more complex deception possible—and make fakery harder to spot. These advances threaten to further blur the line between truth and fiction in politics.

Facebook has made a mint by enabling advertisers to identify and reach the very people most likely to react to their messages. Ad buyers can select audiences based on details like a user’s location, political leanings and interests. And they can aim their ads at as few as 20 of the 1.5 billion daily users of the social network. Brands love it. So do political campaigns. But microtargeting, as the technique is called, is coming under increased scrutiny in the United States and Europe.

Hundreds of Google employees, upset at the company’s decision to secretly build a censored version of its search engine for China, have signed a letter demanding more transparency to understand the ethical consequences of their work.

To understand how digital technologies went from instruments for spreading democracy to weapons for attacking it, you have to look beyond the technologies themselves.

[Zeynep Tufekci is an associate professor at the University of North Carolina and a contributing opinion writer at theNew York Times]

Public-radio companies PRX and PRI are merging in a bid to capitalize on the surging popularity of podcasts and other digital formats as listeners and content creators migrate away from traditional broadcast radio.

Google is rolling out the online library of US political ads it promised lawmakers in 2017, along with a report detailing political ad-spending trends across its platforms.

For most Americans, exposure to different content and ideas on social media has not caused them to change their opinions. But a small share of the public – 14% – say they have changed their views about a political or social issue in the past year because of something they saw on social media, according to a Pew Research Center survey of U.S. adults conducted May 29-June 11.