The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law will host a hearing this afternoon on Gonzalez v. Google, one of two terrorism-related cases currently before the U.S. Supreme Court that implicate Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

We’ve written before about how the Court might and should rule in Gonzalez (see here and here), but less attention has been devoted to the other Section 230 case on the docket: Twitter v. Taamneh. That’s unfortunate, as a thoughtful reading of the dispute at issue in Taamneh could highlight some of the law’s underlying principles. At first blush, alas, it does not appear that the Court is primed to apply that reading.

Read the full piece here.

It seems that large language models (LLMs) are all the rage right now, from Bing’s announcement that it plans to integrate the ChatGPT technology into its search engine to Google’s announcement of its own LLM called “Bard” to Meta’s recent introduction of its Large Language Model Meta AI, or “LLaMA.” Each of these LLMs use artificial intelligence (AI) to create text-based answers to questions.

Read the full piece here.

The topic of social media’s impact on childhood mental health has rapidly emerged as a hot-button political debate, becoming the subject of a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and earning a mention in President Biden’s State of the Union address. And indeed, there is a growing body of research that shows children are increasingly struggling with mental-health issues. That is a real problem, but it’s one that shouldn’t be unfairly conflated with the practice of data collection for targeted advertising.

Read the full piece here.

The free speech wars are escalating at North Carolina’s flagship university.

At its January, meeting the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill board of trustees directed the university administration to “accelerate its development of a School of Civic Life and Leadership.” Not surprisingly, the mandate has led to objections from UNC faculty members asserting that it is their province to determine curriculum. The president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, Belle Wheelan, has weighed in suggesting that the university’s accreditation may be at risk if the trustees don’t rescind their directive.

Read the full piece here.

In our previous post on Gonzalez v. Google LLC, which will come before the U.S. Supreme Court for oral arguments Feb. 21, Kristian Stout and I argued that, while the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) got the general analysis right (looking to Roommates.com as the framework for exceptions to the general protections of Section 230), they got the application wrong (saying that algorithmic recommendations should be excepted from immunity).

Read the full piece here.

Later next month, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google LLC, a case that has drawn significant attention and many bad takes regarding how Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be interpreted. Enacted in the mid-1990s, when the Internet as we know it was still in its infancy, Section 230 has grown into a law that offers online platforms a fairly comprehensive shield against liability for the content that third parties post to their services. But the law has also come increasingly under fire, from both the political left and the right.

Read the full piece here.

Twitter has seen a lot of ups and downs since Elon Musk closed on his acquisition of the company in late October and almost immediately set about his initiatives to “reform” the platform’s operations.

One of the stories that has gotten somewhat lost in the ensuing chaos is that, in the short time under Musk, Twitter has made significant inroads—on at least some margins—against the visibility of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) by removing major hashtags that were used to share it, creating a direct reporting option, and removing major purveyors. On the other hand, due to the large reductions in Twitter’s workforce—both voluntary and involuntary—there are now very few human reviewers left to deal with the issue.

Read the full piece here.

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” says Al Pacino’s character, Michael Corleone, in Godfather III. That’s how Facebook and Google must feel about S. 673, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA).

Read the full piece here.

Background…

As leaders of the U.S. Senate work to pass the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the ongoing lame-duck session, some reports suggest that S. 673, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), could be added to the legislative package. Approved in September 2022 by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the JCPA aims to boost the fortunes of traditional media companies by forcing “covered” online platforms to pay for digital journalism accessed via their services. The bill would require that platforms continue to display digital journalism, while setting out an intricate process whereby digital-journalism providers would collectively negotiate the price of content with platforms.

But…

This quixotic attempt to prop up flailing media firms will create legally sanctioned cartels that harm consumers, while forcing online platforms to carry and pay for content in ways that violate long-established principles of intellectual property, economic efficiency, and the U.S. Constitution.

Read the full explainer here.