Speech

Child sexual abuse material is a well-known exception to the First Amendment, but the law around AI-generated simulations of it is vastly more complicated. Lawfare’s new analysis addresses some of my longstanding questions — along with others I hadn’t even thought to ask, including the status of tools that accidentally train on CSAM. It’s long, but if you’re interested in how AI will test the criminal justice and legal systems, absolutely worth the read.

Oral arguments in Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton — respectively concerning whether Florida and Texas can take over social network moderation — were finally put on the docket. Will we see a continuation of last year’s surprisingly circumspect internet law discourse? Or will Clarence Thomas decide the time is right for the crackdown he so craves? We may find out in a couple months!

Legal blogger Ken White (aka Popehat) isn’t outright ditching Substack over its decision to keep monetizing Nazi content. But he finds its claim of being a principled upholder of free expression, rather than a company pulling a widely recognized branding trick, a bit risible:

It’s from New York, and it would require large social media companies to let third-party services do things including blocking or muting content on behalf of users — basically mandating a certain level of free, open API access. Mike Masnick has some thoughtful analysis:

As 404 Media notes, an investigation into alleged “hacker-for-hire shop” Appin has been removed — Reuters says temporarily — after what Reuters calls a preliminary court order that the news outlet is fighting. There’s no clear evidence of factual errors here, which might make this a case of de facto press censorship in India. You can still read the feature here.

In a sitdown with Verge EIC Nilay Patel on Decoder, the 44th president discussed Joe Biden’s recently-signed executive order about AI, why Obama disagrees with the idea that social networks are a “common carrier,” and which iPhone apps he uses the most, now that he’s no longer president and he can use an iPhone.

The DOJ was granted (PDF) a stay of an injunction barring DHS, CISA, FBI, and other federal officials from contact with social media platforms about content moderation. The judge who wrote the injunction this summer claimed their requests about posts containing covid misinformation amounted to a violation of the First Amendment.

In a recommendation adopted today, it asks countries to quickly designate an authority for a network of Digital Services Coordinators under the EU-wide Digital Services Act, despite having several months left until the official February 2024 (Right now, the recommendation says under 10 percent of members have done so.) The network will help coordinate takedowns of illegal content on social media platforms, an effort the EU says it’s kicking into high gear following Hamas’ attack on Israel earlier this month.

Hamas is banned from most social media as a designated terrorist organization, but as The Washington Post lays out, it’s used a popular Telegram account to “strengthen supporters’ resolve, stir up anti-Israel rage in neighboring countries, defend its militants’ brutality and induce sympathy to the plight of Gaza.” As The New York Times wrote yesterday, it’s also recently hijacked hostages’ social media accounts to spread terror and propaganda — in ways that are particularly hard to safeguard against.

I worked my way through Trust & Safety Tycoon, and I was right: the brony call came back to haunt me. I encourage you to beat my score.

Techdirt’s Mike Masnick has helped put together a followup to online moderation simulator Moderator Mayhem, and I’ve barely gotten started, but it looks like just as much fun. You can find out more about Trust & Safety Tycoon on Techdirt or play it here.

First was X, then came Meta, now TikTok has put out a blog post on its moderation policies in response to EU commissioner Thierry Breton. The video platform says it’s removed over 500,000 videos and 8,000 livestreams in the region since the attacks on October 7th, and has also added more Arabic and Hebrew-speaking moderators to its ranks.

Courtesy of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, where law goes to die. The rule (requiring age verifications and health warnings on sites with a high percentage of adult content) was blocked in August through a lower court decision that’s now been overturned — without any explanation from the appeals court, which I guess we should expect by now.