Digital Content

Congress' stall on technology policy is empowering courts to handle important decisions about everything from liability to content moderation. Technology moves faster than Congress can keep up with, and in the absence of new laws, lasting decisions about tech regulation are being determined by judges and courts across the country. Federal agencies, state governments, and attorneys representing different interests and motives for trying to regulate the tech industry are pushing cases forward. A high-profile instance came last week when the Supreme Court 

From Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe, authorities are imposing internet shutdowns at staggering rates. In 2022 alone, governments and other actors disrupted the internet at least 187 times across 35 countries — breaking our #KeepItOn record for the number of countries to hit the kill switch in a single year. Not only are shutdowns resurging after a decrease at the height of the pandemic, they’re lasting longer, targeting specific populations, and are being wielded when people need a connection the most — including during humanitarian crises, mass protests, and active conflict and war.

Internet usage has continued to grow, and at the end of 2022, there were 5.54 billion Internet users, meaning that 69% of people worldwide have Internet access. Here are some facts:

The Supreme Court heard arguments over whether internet platforms may be sued for aiding and abetting international terrorism by failing to remove videos supporting the Islamic State.

In a case with the potential to alter the very structure of the internet, the Supreme Court did not appear ready to limit a law that protects social media platforms from lawsuits over their users’ posts.

As the collection of personal information by internet companies is encroaching more and more on the privacy of every American, US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and US Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI)  introduced legislation to strengthen online privacy protections for children when websites collect their personally identifiable information.

US Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI) and John Thune (R-SD) reintroduced the Internet Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (Internet PACT) Act, bipartisan legislation which updates the Communications Act of 1934 by requiring social media companies to establish clear content moderation policies and holding them accountable for the content that violates their own policies or is illegal. There is widespread bipartisan agreement that social media platforms have inconsistent and opaque content moderation practices due to a lack of accountability.

US Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced two bills to protect kids online and prevent harm by social media companies. The 

I’m fascinated and impressed by the new Bing, and the artificial intelligence technology (created by OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT) that powers it. But I’m also deeply unsettled, even frightened, by this A.I.’s emergent abilities. It’s now clear to me that in its current form, the A.I. that has been built into Bing — which I’m now calling Sydney — is not ready for human contact. Or maybe we humans are not ready for it. This realization came to me when I spent a bewildering and enthralling two hours talking to Bing’s A.I.

Northern Virginia is home to about 275 data centers, handling at least a third of the world’s online use, with dozens more of the massive structures either under construction or planned as local officials seek to tap into the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue generated by an industry that requires few government services in return.