Platforms

President Donald Trump’s vow to scour “the dark recesses of the internet” came as deadly gun violence provoked ire over fringe online platforms like 8chan, an anonymous message board that has hosted a racist manifesto linked to Aug 3's deadly shooting in El Paso (TX). But any effort to curb dangerous extremism online will run into a host of obstacles:

President Donald Trump accused Google of favoring negative news stories about him in the 2016 presidential election, apparently in response to a report on Fox News. In a series of three tweets on Aug 6, President Trump said he had met in the Oval Office with Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, who told him the company didn’t boost Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election, wouldn’t interfere with the 2020 election, and wasn’t involved with the Chinese military. “We are watching Google very closely!” Trump said in a tweet on Aug 6.

Despite broad efforts to crack down on misinformation ahead of the 2020 election, the primary season so far has been chock full of deceptive messages and misleading information.  More sophisticated tactics that have emerged since 2016 threaten to derail the democratic process by further polluting online debate. And the seemingly unending influx of fakery could plant enough suspicion and cynicism to throw an otherwise legitimate election into question. "Far more people have gotten the idea that you can throw a U.S.

Justice Department Antitrust Division Chief Makan Delrahim has briefed Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) on his unit’s newly launched investigation into the tech sector. Sen Klobuchar, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee's Antitrust Subcommittee, said, “My hope is that they’re very serious about this investigation.” And Sen.

Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission is examining Facebook’s acquisitions as part of its antitrust investigation into the social-media giant—to determine if they were part of a campaign to snap up potential rivals before they could become a threat. Facebook disclosed the FTC’s antitrust investigation in its earnings announcement recently, but provided few details.

Lately, politicians and news sources have been repeating a persistent myth about, of all things, technology law. The myth concerns a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, generally known as Section 230 or CDA 230. CDA 230 isn’t about neutrality. In fact, it explicitly encourages platforms to moderate and remove “offensive” user content. That leaves platform operators and users free to choose between the free-for-all on sites like 8chan and the tamer fare on sites like Pinterest.

Sen Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation to curb addictive and deceptive techniques that tech giants use to exploit users. The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (SMART) Act would ban certain features that are designed to be addictive, would require choice parity for consent, and would give users the power to monitor their time spent on social media. The bill:

Four years ago, technology companies were widely seen as having a positive impact on the United States. But the share of Americans who hold this view has tumbled 21 percentage points since then, from 71% to 50%. Negative views of technology companies’ impact on the country have nearly doubled during this period, from 17% to 33%, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Nearly one-in-five (18%) now volunteer their impact has been neither positive nor negative or that it is mixed, or they offer no opinion.

PBS has secured carriage for its member stations on YouTube TV’s live TV and on-demand subscription service. Launching later in 2019, YouTube TV will livestream all PBS member stations that choose to participate.This is the first digital partnership of its kind for PBS and represents an important step as PBS expands its digital footprint to engage viewers where, when and how they consume content. In addition to the live channels for PBS and PBS KIDS, YouTube TV subscribers can access this content through YouTube TV’s VOD service and its DVR service with no storage space limits.

On July 24, 2019 the Federal Trade Commission, together with the Department of Justice, announced a record-breaking $5 billion penalty for Facebook, alleging the company had repeatedly misled its users about the way advertisers and app developers could obtain their personal data. What did Facebook do wrong? What are the components of the settlement? What does it all mean for Big Tech? Let's dive in.