MC Weekly Update 7/4: Trivial Pursuits

Moderated Content

Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos weigh in on the latest online trust and safety news and developments:

Twitter Corner

• Twitter continues to break its product, this time by limiting how many tweets people can see and requiring people to log in to view anything. Advertisers must be thrilled! - Aisha Counts/ Bloomberg News, Ashley Capoot/ CNBC, Ramishah Maruf/ CNN, Amanda Silberling/ TechCrunch, Tamia Fowlkes, Julian Mark/ The Washington Post
• Linda Yaccarino, the “CEO,” belatedly weighed in on day four of the debacle with an “explanation” that makes… absolutely no sense. - @lindayacc
• Meanwhile, Linda is desperately trying to reassure advertisers Twitter is a grownup platform by rejoining the Tech Coalition, an industry membership organization for collaboration to address online child sexual exploitation and abuse. - Alexa Corse/ The Wall Street Journal
• A group of academics and researchers sent an open letter opposing the EU’s proposed Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse. Alex supports strong end-to-end encryption, but has some thoughts on what they get wrong.
• Apropos of nothing, Meta is launching its Twitter competitor, Threads, on July 6. - Salvador Rodriguez/ The Wall Street Journal
• Meta’s Oversight Board overturned a decision to leave up a video in which Cambodian Prime Minister ​​Hun Sen calls for violence against his political opponents, calling on Meta to suspend his Facebook and Instagram accounts for six months in light of his use of social media to incite violence and the history of violence and repression in the country. - Regine Cabato and Rebecca Tan/ The Washington Post, Oversight Board
  • Prime Minister Sen responded by quitting Facebook to join TikTok and Telegram. We’re sure he’ll be very respectful and not at all incite-y on his new accounts while he threatens to ban Facebook in the country. - Joel Guinto/ BBC News

Legal Corner

• TikTok finally admitted to funding the legal challenge of Montana’s app ban brought by creators in the state… after the creators told The New York Times who was funding them. - Sapna Maheshwari/ The New York Times
• Tech industry association NetChoice filed yet another lawsuit against state social media regulations, challenging an Arkansas law requiring age verification for social media users and parental consent for those under 18. - Rebecca Kern/ Politico Pro, Krista Chavez/ NetChoice
• In India, a court dismissed a case brought by Twitter last July challenging government orders to block certain accounts and posts and fined the company the equivalent of $61,000 for its failure to comply with the orders. - Sankalp Phartiyal/ Bloomberg News, Manish Singh/ TechCrunch
• Twitter’s legal challenge against government orders to block certain accounts and posts under recent regulatory updates to the country’s IT rules and fined the company the equivalent of $61,000. - Sankalp Phartiyal/ Bloomberg News, Manish Singh/ TechCrunch
  • It's a bleak decision that does not give any credence to any of Twitter’s arguments, fully credits all of the government’s arguments, and does not show any concern for freedom of expression. - Vasudev Devadasan/ Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy
  • While Twitter could appeal, the challenge was filed in the pre-Musk era, so Evelyn is not holding her breath.
• What is more American than sports and eating? Don’t ask Evelyn, as Alex stumps her with an Australian twist on American trivia. - Bianca Hrovat/ Sydney Morning Herald, Inga Neilsen/ 9News

Join the conversation and connect with Evelyn and Alex on Twitter at @evelyndouek and @alexstamos.

Moderated Content is produced in partnership by Stanford Law School and the Cyber Policy Center. Special thanks to John Perrino for research and editorial assistance.

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