Platforms

Tech companies' calls for or against “regulating technology” do not mean much in and of themselves. The irony is that for years, lobbyists have had a field day with the opposite framing, that “regulation stifles innovation.” After the idea caught on, it effectively paralyzed democratic lawmakers who did not want to be seen as old-fashioned or getting in the way of exciting technologies and digital opportunities. Looking at what companies do in practice, beyond touting support for “regulation,” is revealing.

Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) introduced a bill that would strip online platforms such as Facebook and Twitter of liability protections if their technology spreads misinformation about coronavirus vaccines or other public-health emergencies. Sen Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) joins Klobuchar as a co-sponsor.

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would strive to build a maximalist, interconnected set of experiences straight out of sci-fi — a world known as the metaverse. The company’s divisions focused on products for communities, creators, commerce, and virtual reality would increasingly work to realize this vision. The metaverse is having a moment; coined in Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel, the term refers to a convergence of physical, augmented, and virtual reality in a shared online space.

Sens Roger Wicker (R-MS), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), and Todd Young (R-IN) introduced the Funding Affordable Internet with Reliable (FAIR) Contributions Act. The legislation would direct the Federal Communications Commission to conduct a study into the feasibility of collecting Universal Service Fund (USF) contributions from internet edge providers such as YouTube, Netflix, and Google. The FAIR Contributions Act would:

At the start of the pandemic, a group of data scientists at Facebook held a meeting with executives to ask for resources to help measure the prevalence of misinformation about Covid-19 on the social network. The data scientists said figuring out how many Facebook users saw false or misleading information would be complex, perhaps taking a year a more, according to two people who participated in the meeting.

Should Google get front-facing internet platforms should be regulated as common carriers or public utilities has been kicking around for a while. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a l

Sen Steve Daines (R-MT) introduced the Preserving Political Speech Online Act (S.2338) to crack down on Big Tech and online platforms’ ability to discriminate against users based on their political speech and beliefs. Daines’ bill would enforce equal access to political candidates on online platforms as well as create a provision to prohibit the removal of content based on political beliefs. The Preserving Political Speech Online Act will:

Tim Wu, President Joe Biden’s competition adviser on the National Economic Council, said “There is a growing sense that the forms of market power we see today are often different from the ones that the merger guidelines had in mind.

The Internet Association (IA) has been shedding staff, losing influence on Capitol Hill and shrinking to near-obscurity in media coverage of tech policy debates in Washington, even as the industry faces controversies ranging from alleged monopolization to privacy to how it treats its legions of workers. The declining prominence of IA, a nine-year-old group that used to call itself “the unified voice of the internet economy,” comes as a larger fragmentation is splitting the tech industry’s lobbying efforts into factions. In its place, other tech-focused advocacy groups—including a new startu

President Biden is taking decisive action to reduce the trend of corporate consolidation, increase competition, and deliver concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers, and small businesses. This Executive Order established a whole-of-government effort to promote competition in the American economy. The Order includes 72 initiatives by more than a dozen federal agencies to promptly tackle some of the most pressing competition problems across our economy. Once implemented, these initiatives will result in concrete improvements to people’s lives. The Order tackles four issues t