Platforms

The Supreme Court avoided a definitive resolution of challenges to laws in Florida and Texas that curb the power of social media companies to moderate content, leaving in limbo an effort by Republicans who have promoted such legislation to remedy what they say is a bias against conservatives. Instead, the justices unanimously agreed to return the cases to lower courts for analysis. The laws were prompted in part by the decisions of some platforms to bar President Donald J. Trump after the Jan.

Rep Shontel Brown (D-OH) has introduced The Securing Elections from AI Deception Act, legislation to prohibit the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to deprive or defraud individuals of their right to vote and require disclaimers on AI-generated content. The legislation would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission and applies to federal, state, and local elections. The Securing Elections from AI Deception Act has 46 original cosponsors and is endorsed by the NAACP, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice.

The free flow of information and the exchange of ideas is the lifeblood of our cultural lives and our democracy. Humans need connections to one another like they need air and water. And a democracy needs citizens to exchange information and ideas. That is what democracy is all about: competing ideas in a debate that plays out freely over time. With freedom of thought and expression, democracy thrives. In contrast, the first goal of the tyrant is to control thought and information.  Today we are confronting that challenge.

Rep Andrew Clyde (R-GA) reintroduced the Free Speech Defense Act to eliminate government-by-proxy censorship. The Free Speech Defense Act:

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Biden Administration's contacts with social media platforms to combat what administration officials said was misinformation. The lawsuit, spearheaded by Republican state attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana, had fared well in the lower courts, at one point resulting in an unprecedented injunction that blocked top government officials from communicating with social-media

New York State legislators recently put a stop to personalized social media feeds for the under 18 set, citing mental health harms. The law they passed takes an unusual approach to the challenging task of regulating social media by focusing on algorithms, rather than platforms or specific content. Lawmakers say the algorithms are addictive. Research agrees—mostly.

Connecting the dots of recent research suggests a new future for traditional websites:

Generative AI makes things up. It can't distinguish between fact and fiction.

Sens Todd Young (R-IN) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) introduced the Artificial Intelligence Public Awareness and Education Campaign Act, bipartisan legislation to help raise awareness and boost public trust in artificial intelligence (AI).

Donald Trump recently gave his most extensive public comments to date on artificial intelligence. “It is a superpower, and you want to be right at the beginning of it, but it is very disconcerting." Trump also mentions receiving $12 million for his campaign from unnamed Bay Area “super-geniuses,” a subtle marker of his emergence as the standard-bearer of the right-leaning, crypto-loving wing of Silicon Valley. Given how often Trump flip-flops, it’s worth focusing on what’s most consistent about his relationship with Silicon Valley: His status as a walking embodiment of the “move fast and br