Report from Euractiv In Brief – In a major one-on-one interview with leading podcaster Joe Rogan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the company’s public policy battles in Europe in the context of “censorship” and argued that incoming President Donald Trump should step...
UK CMA Open Probe of Google Search Under New Competition Law
Report from CNBC In Brief – The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation of Google under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumer’s Act (DMCC) to determine if the digital giant has “strategic market status” (SMS) under the new law...
TikTok Reported to be Planning Full Shutdown on Sunday Absent Reprieve
Report from Reuters In Brief – TikTok is reported to be planning to shutdown their US app on Sunday, January 19th if the US Supreme Court or Biden Administration does not issue an order delaying the effective date of the federal law requiring the company’s US...
OpenAI Removes Political Bias Landmine from AI Policy Document
Report from TechCrunch In Brief – OpenAI quietly edited its “Economic Blueprint” soon after release to remove language in the section on “the proper rules” for AI that called for AI models to be “politically unbiased by default”. The report is part of a public policy...
Supreme Court Justices Sound Amenable to Age Checks for Online Porn
Report from the New York Times In Brief – Several members of the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appear willing to overturn a 2004 decision that prohibited requiring online pornography sites to use age verification techniques to keep underage users off their...
Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Law
Report from Platform Economy Insights In Brief – The US Supreme Court decisively ruled against the First Amendment challenges of TikTok and a group of content creators against the federal law that requires the business to be sold by China-based ByteDance to a new...
EU Commission Expands X Investigation to Include Recommender Systems
Report from Euronews In Brief – As expected, the European Commission has announced the expansion of its ongoing investigation of X under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to include reviewing the operations of its recommender systems, including the algorithms that...
European Commission Reviewing Ongoing Big Tech Investigations (or Not)
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – The European Commission is reported to be undertaking an internal review of all the investigations of major US tech companies begun during the past year, including under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulating the largest...
Digital Giants Agree to Updated EU Hate Speech Code of Conduct
Report from The Verge In Brief – The European Commission announced that the Code of Conduct on Countering Illegal Hate Speech Online + has been formally integrated into the Digital Services Act (DSA). The updated code builds upon the initial EU Code of Conduct created...
President Trump Fully Revokes President Biden’s Executive Order on AI
Report from Bloomberg In Brief – President Donald Trump revoked President Biden’s Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence as one of the 78 Biden Administration executive orders and memorandums included in his Inauguration Day Executive Order fully rescinding...
EU Talking Google AdTech Breakup with US Remedies Trial Underway
Report from Euractiv In Brief – When the European Commission hit Google with a $3.45 billion fine for a range of anti-competitive practices in its vast AdTech business, the regulator ordered Google to end self-preferencing practices and implement measures to cease its...
US Second Circuit Asks NY State Court to Interpret Social Media Law
Report from MediaPost In Brief – New York’s highest court has agreed to review the state’s “Hateful Conduct Act” at the request of the US Second Circuit of Appeals which is considering a challenge to the law that requires social platforms to accept complaints about...
Australia’s 16-Year-Old Social Media Ban May Apply to More Platforms
Report from ABC News In Brief – With Australia’s 16-year-old age limit for social media going into effect on December 10, the country’s eSafety Commissioner has indicated that the ban could apply to more platforms beyond Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, and...
Meta Bringing Ad-Free Facebook and Instagram Subscriptions of the UK
Report from The Times In Brief – Meta has announced that it will offer ad-free versions of Facebook and Instagram by subscription in Great Britain. The move follows settlement of a privacy lawsuit brought by digital accountability advocate Tanya O’Connell and...
EU May Block Digital Gatekeepers from New Consumer Finance Data Regime
Report from the Financial Times In Brief – The European Union appears set to prevent the largest US tech giants from participating in a new system of consumer financial data sharing. The EU’s Financial Data Access (FiDA) regulation is intended to give consumers the...
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