Digital Content

The most ideological members of Congress shared news stories on their Facebook pages more than twice as often as moderate legislators between Jan. 2, 2015, and July 20, 2017. Members of Congress with very conservative or very liberal voting records shared news links in about 14% of all their posts. But members with more moderate ideology scores shared links to news stories in just 6% of their posts. Some of the outlets included in the study were linked to exclusively by Democrats or by Republicans in Congress.

[Commentary] There is a justified fear that the tech titans will use their power to protect and extend their dominance, to the detriment of consumers. The tricky task for policymakers is to restrain them without unduly stifling innovation. 

[Commentary] What if Google posted your search history online? All of it, I mean—even the stuff you looked at years ago (or perhaps yesterday) in Incognito Mode. If that question doesn’t send a shiver down your spine, my guess is you’re probably not a Millennial. And to those Millennials who think that Incognito Mode truly protects your data by fully anonymizing your online browsing, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but—that isn’t really the case.

Twitter is planning to notify users who may have been exposed to Russian propaganda during the 2016 presidential election, the company's head of public policy said during the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, "Terrorism and Social Media: #IsBigTechDoingEnough?". While the hearing was ostensibly about how social media companies can better combat terrorism, it veered onto other topics, primarily Russia.

In this report, I inaugurate the first in a series of big data analyses that will chart long-term trends. In the same way that researchers track political, economic, and social activities, it is useful to deploy social media and event histories to identify patterns in internet search behavior regarding President Doanld Trump. Using this information, I find several important developments:

[Commentary] The rules and incentive structures underlying how attention and surveillance work on the internet need to change. But in fairness to Facebook and Google and Twitter, while there’s a lot they could do better, the public outcry demanding that they fix all these problems is fundamentally mistaken. There are few solutions to the problems of digital discourse that don’t involve huge trade-offs—and those are not choices for Mark Zuckerberg alone to make. These are deeply political decisions.

As Facebook updates and tweaks its service in order to keep users glued to their screens, countries like Bolivia are ideal testing grounds thanks to their growing, internet-savvy populations. But these changes can have significant consequences, like limiting the audience for nongovernmental news sources and — surprisingly — amplifying the impact of fabricated and sensational stories. Facebook announced plans to make similar changes to its News Feed around the world.

The Supreme Court agreed to reconsider one of the most contentious issues in the business world: whether online retailers must collect sales taxes. By taking on a law passed by South Dakota's legislature for the express purpose of testing its legality, the court will return to an issue it addressed 25 and 50 years ago, before consumers did nearly 10% of their shopping on the internet.

Netflix, Amazon, and the major film studios have sued the makers of "The Dragon Box," a device that connects to TVs and lets users watch video without a cable TV or streaming service subscription. Joining Netflix and Amazon as plaintiffs in the suit are Columbia Pictures, Disney, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. The suit asks for financial damages and an injunction preventing Dragon Media from continuing the alleged copyright infringement.