Archive for June, 2019
User Data as Public Resource: Implications for Social Media Regulation
Jun 28th
Revelations about the misuse and insecurity of user data gathered by social media platforms have renewed discussions about how best to characterize property rights in user data. At the same time, revelations about the use of social media platforms to disseminate disinformation and hate speech have prompted debates over the need for government regulation to assure that these platforms serve the public interest. These debates often hinge on whether any of the established rationales for media regulation apply to social media. This paper argues that the public resource rationale that has been utilized in traditional media regulation in the U.S. applies to social media. The public resource rationale contends that, when a media outlet utilizes a public resource – such as the broadcast spectrum, or public rights of way – the outlet must abide by certain public interest obligations that may infringe upon its First Amendment rights. This paper argues that aggregate user data can be conceptualized as a public resource that triggers the application of a public interest regulatory framework to social media sites and other digital platforms that derive their revenue from the gathering, sharing, and monetization of massive aggregations of user data.
Private Regulation of Speech
Jun 21st
Governments around the world are increasingly turning to private internet platforms as de facto regulators of internet users’ speech. In the United States, newly enacted legislation has expanded internet intermediaries’ liability for users’ communications for the first time in two decades. In the European Union, the Commission has proposed making social media companies proactively monitor and remove user communications relating to terrorism. Pressure to combat violent extremism has already led to troubling errors – including platforms removing political speech, videos posted by human rights organizations, and users’ discussions of Islamic religious topics.
Politico: Facebook’s digital currency could trigger new D.C. battles
Jun 19th
By MATEI ROSCA and PATRICK TEMPLE-WEST
***
But with this big step into the tightly regulated world of finance, the company will expose itself to a type of regulatory intrusion that is not common in its traditional realm of online media. Chief among the concerns, according to experts, are the possibilities that Facebook’s global coin could be exposed to money laundering using the company’s main website and its sister platforms WhatsApp and Instagram.
“Facebook coin will do for money laundering what Facebook did for fake news — likely lead to an explosion in terrorist financing,” said Charlie Delingpole, CEO of Comply Advantage, an anti-money laundering consultancy.