Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee are asking social media video streaming sites to archive atrocities related to the Hamas attack on Israel.

In letters to X (formerly Twitter), Meta, TikTok and Google, the senators, led by Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), asked for information on their content moderation policies.

“While steps should be taken to curb attempts by Hamas to weaponize social media for its own ends, it is indisputable that social media platforms have already played a critical role in exposing the international community to the genocidal atrocities committed against Israel,” they wrote.

And while it might be the platforms’ policy to remove such violent and graphic videos, the senators said they should be archived “to aid in prosecuting war crimes, intelligence gathering, media reporting, and the historical record.”

The senators also asked the platforms how they are complying with sanctions that require the blocking of property or interests of Hamas.

In addition to Cruz, signing on to the letter were Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Ted Budd (R-N.C.), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.).

Senate Republicans are trying to modify an effort by Federal Communications Commission chair Jessica Rosenworcel to allow broadband schools and libraries funding to be used for Wi-Fi broadband on school buses, which is part of the chair’s “Learn Without Limits” effort to close the homework gap.

The bill would not prohibit the subsidies, but it would make sure that such use of broadband does not extend to kids accessing social-media outlets like short-form video streaming site TikTok.

The FCC plans to vote on Rosenworcel’s proposal at its meeting Thursday (October 19).

In advance of that vote, Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) have introduced the Eyes on the Board Act, which would prohibit children from accessing social media using subsidized services, devices or networks.

“The proposed expansion of funding is not only unlawful (the Commission has no authority to extend support to school buses without congressional direction) but would make the federal government complicit in enabling unsupervised access to distracting and addictive social media apps like TikTok and Instagram on kids’ bus rides to and from school,” the senators asserted.

Currently, under the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA), recipients of the FCC's E-Rate schools and libraries funding must certify that they have software to block children’s access to obscenity, child pornography and other sexual content, but there’s no requirement to prevent access to social media sites.

The legislation would:

1. “Limit kids’ use of distracting and addictive social media apps or websites at school by prohibiting schools or school districts from receiving E-Rate or Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) subsidies unless they prohibit access to social media on subsidized services, devices, and networks;”
2. “Promote parental limits and transparency on screen time in schools by requiring schools receiving E-Rate subsidies to adopt a screen time policy as a condition of receiving federal funding;”
3. “Provide parents and the public with needed transparency by requiring the FCC to create a database of schools’ internet safety policies.”

The Biden administration still wants the freedom to regulate social media platforms, just not in the way Florida and Texas laws are doing it.

The Justice Department, by way of Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, filed a brief this week with the Supreme Court asking it to hear an appeal of a suit against state laws that dictate how platforms can moderate certain content and that require them to explain to users how they are moderating it.

The brief asserts that prohibiting Facebook or Twitter from removing or banning some content violates the First Amendment rights of those social-media outlets, which Prelogar says have such speech protection.

Just as a newspaper opinion page aggregates outside content, and is protected by the First Amendment, so, too is social media's content moderation.

"When a social-media platform selects, edits, and arranges third-party speech for presentation to the public, it engages in activity protected by the First Amendment," Prelogar wrote.

But the protection is not absolute, she told the court. "That activity, and the platforms’ business practices more generally, are not immune from regulation,” the brief said. “But here, the States have not articulated interests that justify the burdens imposed by the content-moderation restrictions under any potentially applicable form of First Amendment scrutiny."

President Joe Biden is on the record backing reforms, if not elimination, of the protections from civil liability social-media sites enjoy under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and the administration clearly is not opposed to regulations requiring those sites to inform users of how they are making content-moderation decisions.

Sinclair named Nicklolas James VP, social media, a new position at the company.

James had been director of social for HBM Max.

He will report to Kevin Cotlove, chief digital officer at Sinclair, and will be responsible for Sinclair’s growth and engagement strategy for social media and digital content initiatives.

“Nick brings a wealth of experience creating audience passion around talent, brands and content,” said Cotlove. “We’re excited to have him help shape the future of our digital storytelling and engagement strategy.”

At HBO Max, James created campaigns for series including And Just Like That and Gossip Girl. He also managed the editorial channels MaxPop and Max Made.

James began his career as a development executive at E! and later joined Conde Nast Entertainment.

“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the team at Sinclair to redefine how we create an authentic connection with our audience in social media and evolve our storytelling to produce an array of digital content that celebrates the communities we serve.”

Social media, including short-form video site TikTok, continues to be in the hot seat in the new Congress, particularly as it relates to children's health.

Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah), who last Congress introduced the Stop Online Suicide Assistance Forums Act (it has Democratic support), which would make it a felony to use online forums to assist someone else's suicide attempt, is introducing a new bill that would ban children 15 and younger from social media entirely.

Speaking on CNN Tuesday (January 31), Stewart called sites like TikTok “emotional heroin“ with direct ties to youth anxiety and depression. Stewart says the key is effective age verification and penalties — legal class-action suits — for ineffective verification in the case of negative outcomes. 

He pointed out that those under 13 are currently not supposed to be on many sites, but that is not enforced.

Asked how he was getting ready for the expected pushback from Big Tech, Stewart said in a TV interview: “Put on your helmet and prepare to get beat over the head.”

The move comes as Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Gov. Spencer Cox, both Republicans, have signaled they will sue social media companies over their impact on kids.

Elsewhere this week, the House Energy & Commerce Committee under new chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) said that TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew has agreed to testify before her committee about the site's impact on children as well as its connections to the Chinese government.

Rodgers made it clear TikTok’s CEO will get some tough questioning. “Big Tech has increasingly become a destructive force in American society,” she said. “The Energy and Commerce Committee has been at the forefront of asking Big Tech CEOs — from Facebook to Twitter to Google — to answer for their companies’ actions.”

The hearing is scheduled for March 23. ▪️

The House Energy & Commerce Committee voted 28-23 along party lines not to recommend a Republican-backed resolution of inquiry to the full House. The resolution called out the Biden administration for alleged coordination with social media companies to censor speech and sought documents related to that alleged effort.

But while the resolution failed, it signaled what Republicans could be focusing on when they take over House chairmanships next month.

In what was likely the last committee gathering and action in this Congress, and before Republicans take over with pledges of vigorous oversight and investigation of the administration and Big Tech, committee chairman Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) called it an out-of-touch, frivolous and partisan inquiry that was in contrast to the committee’s productive work that preceded it.

The resolution was driven in part by new Twitter owner Elon Musk’s release of internal documents he claims support allegations of shadow-banning conservatives.

Committee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) countered that the inquiry was necessary and about “putting people before politics.” She said for years Big Tech had been flagging, suppressing and “outright banning conservatives on their platforms.”

She said Big Tech had denied accusations of such conduct, including before the committee. “Now, thanks to the recent Twitter files, we know that they were not being honest.” She said the documents showed that Twitter executives were shadow-banning conservatives despite then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s claims to the contrary.

Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) called the effort misguided and a poor use of the committee's time. ▪️

A bipartisan Senate duo looked this week to put a spotlight on legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), that would crack down on Big Tech. They are trying to get the bill passed in the waning, lame-duck days of the current session of Congress.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, met this week with young people and parents of young people they said had “died or were harmed” due to social media.

For example, one of the people they met with was the mother of a girl who died of fentanyl poisoning “from drugs she and a friend purchased from a dealer they used Facebook to find,” Blumenthal’s office said. He is co-sponsor of the bill.

Also: Kids Online Protection Bill Introduced

S. 3663, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed unanimously in the Senate Commerce Committee last July. It would attempt to protect children's online mental health, including addressing issues like body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

Blumenthal and Blackburn led hearings on issues surrounding social media and its impact on children.

The result was the bill, which:

1. “Requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.
2. “Gives parents new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform.
3. “Creates a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
4. “Requires social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.
5. “Provides academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors.”

Also: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering

“The [legislation] will hold social media companies accountable and establish a duty of care for protecting children online,” Parents Television & Media Council president Tim Winter said in July. ▪️

Invoking YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, Twitch and others, as well as fringe site 4chan, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James are calling for a government crackdown on online platforms, saying they contributed to the Buffalo mass shooting that left 10 dead and three injured.

Among the things they want to see are getting internet-service providers more involved in controlling edge provider content that leads to radicalization and violence, creating a version of “tape delay” for live streaming and the taking of “reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content” — the quid pro quo for Section 230 immunity from liability for third-party content.

The pair released a report on the role of online platforms in the shooting that concluded, among other things, that “a lack of oversight, transparency and accountability of these platforms allowed hateful and extremist views to proliferate online, leading to radicalization and violence.”

They say there need to be changes made to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity from civil liability for most third-party posts on social media platforms.

Among the changes they recommend are new state laws that would criminalize a perpetrator’s creation of graphic images of a homicide and would penalize with civil liability anyone or any platform that reshares or reposts such images or videos.

“The tragic shooting in Buffalo exposed the real dangers of unmoderated online platforms that have become breeding grounds for white supremacy,” said James, who shared the report's findings with victims’ families.

James was laying some of the blame for recent mass shootings on edge providers. “We saw this happen in Christchurch, Charlottesville, El Paso, and Buffalo, and we cannot wait for another tragedy before we take action,” she said. “Online platforms should be held accountable for allowing hateful and dangerous content to spread on their platforms.”

Following the shooting, Hochul, whose hometown is Buffalo, asked the attorney general’s office to produce the study. James’s office said it subpoenaed thousands of pages of documents obtained under subpoena from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Rumble.

The report concluded that:

• “Fringe Platforms Fuel Radicalization: By his own account, the Buffalo shooter was radicalized by virulent racist and antisemitic content on anonymous, virtually unmoderated websites and platforms that operate outside of the mainstream internet, most notably 4chan. In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, graphic video of the shooting recorded by a viewer of the shooter’s livestream proliferated on fringe sites. The anonymity offered by 4chan and platforms like it, and their refusal to moderate content in any meaningful way, ensures that these platforms continue to be breeding grounds for racist hate speech and radicalization.
• “Livestreaming Has Become a Tool for Mass Shooters: Livestreaming has become a tool of mass shooters to instantaneously publicize their crime, further terrorizing the community targeted by the shooter and serving as a mechanism to incite and solicit additional violent acts. The Buffalo shooter was galvanized by his belief that others would be watching him commit violence in real time. Although the platform he used to live-stream his atrocities disabled the live stream within two minutes of the onset of violence, two minutes is still too much.”
• “Mainstream Platforms’ Moderation Policies Are Inconsistent and Opaque: Many large, established platforms improved on their response time for identifying and removing problematic content related to the Buffalo shooting, including graphic video of the shooting and the shooter’s manifesto, as compared to past events. However, the platforms’ responses were uneven, with one platform unable to identify posts that linked to off-site copies of the shooting video even after those posts were flagged through user reports. Many platforms also do not fully disclose how they moderate hateful, extremist, or racist content.
• “Online Platforms Lack Accountability: Online platforms enjoy too much legal immunity. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act largely insulates platforms from liability for their content moderation decisions, even when a platform allows users to post and share unlawful content.”

Recommendations for Reform

Given those findings, Hochul and James said action was needed and recommended the following reforms:

• “Add Restrictions to Livestreaming: Livestreaming was used as a tool by the Buffalo shooter, like previous hate-fueled attacks, to instantaneously document and broadcast his violent acts to secure a measure of fame and radicalize others. Livestreaming on platforms should be subject to restrictions — including verification requirements and tape delays — tailored to identify first-person violence before it can be widely disseminated.
• “Reform Section 230: Currently, Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act protects online platforms from liability for third-party content that they host, regardless of those platforms’ moderation practices. Congress should rethink the ready availability of Section 230 as a complete defense for online platforms’ content moderation practices. Instead, the law should be reformed to require an online platform that wishes to retain Section 230’s protections to take reasonable steps to prevent unlawful violent criminal content from appearing on the platform. This proposal would change the default. Instead of simply being able to assert protection under Section 230, an online platform has the initial burden of establishing that its policies and practices were reasonably designed to address unlawful content.
• “Increase Transparency and Strengthen Moderation: Online platforms should provide better transparency into their content moderation policies and how those policies are applied in practice, including those that are aimed at addressing hateful, extremist, and racist content. They should also invest in improving industry-wide processes and procedures for reducing the prevalence of such content, including by expanding the types of content that can be analyzed for violations of their policies, improving detection technology, and providing even more efficient means to share information.
• “Call on Industry Service Providers to Do More: Online service providers, like domain registrars and hosting companies, stand in between fringe sites and users. These companies should take a closer look at the websites that repeatedly traffic in violent, hateful content, and refuse to service sites that perpetuate the cycle of white supremacist violence." ■

Technology think tank ITIF–The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation said the United States should lead an international forum of online stakeholders to come up with voluntary content-moderation guidelines, rather than push for new rules and regulations on targeted advertising or algorithms.

That point came in a new ITIF-penned report responding to what it calls a “crisis of legitimacy” in social-media content moderation.

ITIF issued its report as both Democrats and Republicans call for new regulations on edge providers due to a number of issues, including privacy protections, or the lack of them; targeted advertising; allegations from Republicans of anti-conservative bias; allegations from Democrats of insufficient policing of hate speech; allegations from both sides of insufficient protections of children online; and more.

The report, authored by ITIF senior policy analyst Ashley Johnson and ITIF VP and Center for Data Innovation director Daniel Castro, contends social media companies can’t solve all of these issues by themselves. But Congress is deadlocked, they argued, so solutions lie elsewhere than new rules and regulations on algorithms and targeted advertising.

On the issue of weeding out “harmful” state-sponsored content, ITIF says the U.S. should fund research grants and promote better information-sharing.

And although Congress is deadlocked, the report authors said, the legislature should unlock itself long enough to pass laws “establishing transparency requirements for content moderation decisions of social media platforms and requiring platforms to enforce their content moderation policies consistently.”

That essentially tracks with some of the proposed legislation, but without what tech companies see as a heavy-handed regulatory backstop, such as new Federal Trade Commission rules under its Section 5 authority over false and deceptive practices.

“[S]everal of the structural or technical changes that have been proposed for social media would likely make things worse for both content moderation and other issues impacting consumers,” the report said. ▪️

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which was favorably reported to the full Senate for a vote this week, isn’t the only online-targeted news content bill that computer companies are worried about.

According to the Computer & Communications Association (CCIA), the Canadian House of Commons’ Heritage Committee is meeting today (Sept. 23) to discuss a bill, the “Online News Act,” which would require search engines and social-media platforms to pay content providers if they want to index or link to their news content, or even quote from it.

According to CCIA, the bill would even require social-media sites to pay if a broadcaster set up their own page on the platform, like a Facebook page, to attract subs to their content.

Also: Senate Judiciary Approves Online News Antitrust Bill

CCIA, whose members include Facebook, Google and Twitter, said that like the JCPA, which creates an antitrust exemption for broadcasters, newspapers and other news content providers to jointly negotiate payment from Big Tech, the Canadian bill would “damage” the internet ecosystem and “exacerbate” news media concentration.

They also said the Canadian bill would likely land hardest on U.S. firms such as Twitter, Google and Facebook.

“Facilitating the discovery and sharing of information has always been at the heart of the Internet, a source of vast benefits to consumers around the globe,” CCIA VP for digital trade Jonathan McHale said. “The Online News Act threatens that core function, however, by creating a government-mandated paywall for the spreading of quotes, headlines, and even links.

“Internet platforms have a strong record of working with news outlets to develop innovative and mutually beneficial products to promote their digital offerings,” McHale added. “Targeting a select few U.S. firms, however, to force payments to Canadian news businesses, would not only constitute an unwarranted and discriminatory subsidy, but worsen competition in the media market by entrenching Canadian media conglomerates.” ■

Twitter’s board of directors is unanimous in its support for Elon Musk's bid to take over the company. Its members have unanimously voted to accept the deal and advise shareholders to do the same.

The move by Tesla and SpaceX owner Musk could mean a return of a Tweeting Donald Trump,  since Musk has said he would restore the former president's account. Trump, who has been signaling a likely run in 2024 via his own Twitterless social media work-around, was banned from the site in January 2021 — after Twitter concluded his tweets had incited violence at the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and could do so again.

Also: SpaceX, OneWeb Offer Up Satellite Broadband Coexistence Plan

The Twitter board's support of Musk’s offer to take the company private came in a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The board told stockholders that it had “unanimously: (1) determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders; and (2) adopted and approved the merger agreement, the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement.”

If the stockholders vote to accept the deal, they will get $54.20 per share, about a 38% premium on the closing price of the stock April 1, which was $39.31. As of midday Wednesday (June 22), the price was $38.56. ■

A majority of journalists polled by Pew Research Center (55%) say that not every side of a story deserves equal coverage in reporting the news and when it comes to achieving greater racial diversity in their newsrooms, a minority say it is a big priority where they work.

That 55% not favoring equal coverage is compared to the 76% of the U.S. public at large who say journalists should always try to provide such coverage.

And while a majority of journalists (67%) said their news organizations have achieved “sufficient” gender diversity, only 32% say that is the case for racial and ethnic diversity and less than half (42%) say that addressing diversity and inclusion issues is a “major priority” in their newsrooms.

Social media appears to be a double-edged sword in the hands of journalists and their audiences.

A strong majority (87%) of journalists surveyed said social media has either a “very positive” or “somewhat positive” impact on promoting their news stories, and 79% said it helps them connect with their audience and find sources. But almost one-third (67%) said that social media has either a very negative or somewhat negative impact on the state of journalism and only 18% said it has a positive impact on journalism.

In a related issue, 42% of journalists said they have been harassed or threatened in the past year, and of those, 78% said the harassment came through some type of social media.

The survey was conducted among 11,889 journalists Feb. 1-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point. The survey of the general public was among 10,441 U.S. adults March 7-13 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 percentage points. ▪️

Tubular Labs, which analyzes social media, said it is now able to connect online and in-store pickup orders at Walmart with social video exposure.

Tubular was already tracking social video viewership’s impact on shopping behavior on Amazon. 

The new Walmart data enables Tubular Labs to monitor new product categories including dairy, frozen foods and beer and alcohol.

“Our Consumer Insights product already provided expansive, first-of-its-kind insights into how social video informs the consumer purchase journey on a granular level,” said Josh Schmiesing, CMO at Tubular Labs. “With social commerce exploding, Tubular’s Consumer Insights really collapses the funnel for marketers and draws that direct line -- from reach and engagement through conversion.”

For publishers, the addition of Walmart shopping behavior data provides additional touchpoints to Tubular Consumer Insights and increases the pool of advertisers interested in social video buying. 

Tubular has found that 45% of L’Oréal product buyers watched beauty content on social media before making a purchase, that 19% of Chobani buyers watched CNN on social media beforehand; and that audiences who watched Martha Stewart’s channel were 60 times more likely to buy chocolate chips and cocoa products. 

For clients, Tubular delivers metrics on shopping affinity, audience share, market share and relevance score.  ■

The Supreme Court has blocked, for now, a Texas law that computer companies strongly oppose.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, saying they would have voted to allow the law to be enforced while the underlying challenge to the law is being adjudicated in a district court.

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature last year, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place.

NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) filed an emergency petition with the High Court to prevent the enforcement of the law, which they say prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion over content and irreversibly tarnishing their businesses.

That was after a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a split 2-1 decision, reversed a lower court opinion and lifted a preliminary injunction against the law.

Computer companies called it a victory for free speech, but pointed out there is more work to be done. "While today’s victory is welcome news, we’re only halfway there  — our case will soon return to the district court, where we’ll proceed to arguments on the merits," NetChoice said in a statement. “And as this case proceeds, we await a ruling from the 11th Circuit in our parallel case against the State of Florida.”

“Texas’s HB 20 is a constitutional trainwreck — or, as the district court put it, an example of ‘burning the house to roast the pig,’ ” said NetChoice counsel Chris Marchese. “We are relieved that the First Amendment, open internet, and the users who rely on it remain protected from Texas’s unconstitutional overreach. Despite Texas’s best efforts to run roughshod over the First Amendment, it came up short in the Supreme Court,” Marchese said. “HB 20 will once again be enjoined and the case will proceed in the lower courts.”

“We are encouraged that this attack on First Amendment rights has been halted until a court can fully evaluate the repercussions of Texas’s ill-conceived statute,” CCIA president Matt Schruers said. “This ruling means that private American companies will have an opportunity to be heard in court before they are forced to disseminate vile, abusive or extremist content under this Texas law. We appreciate the Supreme Court ensuring First Amendment protections, including the right not to be compelled to speak, will be upheld during the legal challenge to Texas’s social media law.” ■

A federal appeals court has agreed to block enforcement of the major provisions of a Florida law targeting social media content moderation. NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association had sought the preliminary injunction while their legal challenge of the law works its way through the courts.

In a unanimous decision penned by judge Levin Newsom, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit upheld a lower court's injunction against the enforcement of provisions in the law that restrict social media platforms' ability to moderate content and that they have to come up with a "thorough rationale" for all of their content moderation decisions.

The court said both are likely unconstitutional. It declined to block enforcement of the "far less burdensome" requirement of other disclosure provisions, saying the lower court got it wrong when it blocked those as well.

The law was the product of a Republican-controlled legislature. Republicans have argued that Silicon Valley giants have attempted to suppress conservative speech in the guise of moderating their platforms and under the protection of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts them with civil liability over most of that third-party content.

Asserting that “social media platforms have unfairly censored, shadow-banned, deplatformed and applied post-prioritization algorithms to Floridians,” the law removed civil liability protection for content on Big Tech platforms — like Facebook or Twitter — that violated the law, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 for non-statewide offices.

"The question at the core of this appeal is whether the Facebooks and Twitters of the world — indisputably 'private actors,' with First Amendment rights — are engaged in constitutionally protected expressive activity when they moderate and curate the content that they disseminate on their platforms. The State of Florida insists that they aren’t," Newsom wrote in the panel decision.

By contrast, Newsom said the panel was pretty sure those Big Tech companies were, indeed, private actors engaging in protected speech. ■

Internet advertisers and others have filed a friend of the court brief at the Supreme Court in support of NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association, which are challenging a Texas social media law they say will irreparably damage online platforms as advertising vehicles.

The brief paints a stark picture. It says the law (HB20) "will result in the wholesale lifting of content moderation. The resulting deluge of hate speech, graphic images and video, and vile content of all forms is not what users want," and will irredeemably harm those platforms' goodwill and reputations.

“Businesses large and small want to know that their advertising and marketing is reaching its intended audience without having their ads placed next to content they deem to be offensive or untrue," said Lartease Tiffith, IAB executive VP for public policy, in explaining why the group was weighing in.

CCIA and NetChoice filed an emergency petition at the Supreme Court to prevent the enforcement of a Texas law they say prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion over content and irreversibly tarnishes their businesses.

Also: New Bill Would Break Up Big Tech Ad Giants

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature last year, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place.

Among the groups joining IAB in the brief are the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council (MMTC), the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the NAACP, and the Anti-Defamation League. ■

Social media companies are asking the Supreme Court to prevent the enforcement of a Texas law they say prevents online platforms from exercising editorial discretion over content and irreversibly tarnishes their businesses.

The law, which passed a Republican-controlled legislature September 9, 2021, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, whose membership includes Amazon, Facebook, Google and Twitter, filed an emergency brief with the Supreme Court Friday (May 13) asking it to block the statute, calling it an "unprecedented assault on the editorial discretion of private websites, listing Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube among those under assault.

Earlier in the week, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in a split 2-1 decision reversed a lower court opinion and lifted a preliminary injunction against the Texas law. CCIA and NetChoice want the Supreme Court to overrule the 5th Circuit panel.

Also: Big Tech Fires Latest Legal Volley at Texas Social Media Law

The social media companies say that denying them the ability to engage in any viewpoint-based content moderation would "compel platforms to disseminate all sorts of objectionable viewpoints—such as Russia’s propaganda claiming that its invasion of Ukraine is justified, ISIS propaganda claiming that extremism is warranted, neo-Nazi or KKK screeds denying or supporting the Holocaust, and encouraging children to engage in risky or unhealthy behavior like eating disorders."

They said the sites can't comply with the law without "irreversibly transforming" their worldwide platforms, in the process tarnishing their reputations, causing users and advertisers to flee.

They said the court should maintain the status quo while the courts consider the merits of their underlying challenge to the law. ■

A former tech exec turned senator has officially cautioned edge providers against allowing their platforms to be used for Russian war propaganda, calling out YouTube in particular.

Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who co-founded Nextel, sent letters to Alphabet (Google, YouTube), Meta (Facebook), Reddit, Telegram, TikTok, and Twitter saying they need to make sure their companies are not used by Russia and Russia-linked entries, warning that influence operations are part of Russia's warfare playbook.

He cited what he said had been content on Russian-affiliated YouTube channels RT, Sputnik and Tass monetizing content about the Ukraine conflict, "including, somewhat perversely, an ad by a major U.S. government contractor. Meanwhile, Google’s wider ad network continues to support influence outlets such as Sputnik and Tass, directing advertising dollars from unwitting U.S. brands like Best Buy, Allbirds, and Progressive to entities whose ties to Russian influence activity has been well-documented for over five years."

Warner said social media should not abet Russia's efforts to "promote disinformation narratives that weaken the global response to these illegal acts."

He said while social media can be a valuable information tools and outlets for independent media, it can also be a "vector" for "misinformation and disinformation."

Warner asked the companies to, "at minimum":

• "Establish mechanisms by which Ukrainian public safety entities can disseminate emergency communications to your users in Ukraine; 
• "Furnish additional account monitoring and security resources to Ukrainian government, humanitarian, and public safety institutions to prevent account takeovers; 
• "Surge integrity teams, including those with language expertise in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Romanian, and German, to monitor your platform for malign influence activity related to the conflict; 
• "Devote additional resources towards the identification of inauthentic accounts, and the removal or labeling of inauthentic content, associated with Russian influence operations; and 
• "Establish dedicated reporting channels for qualified academic, public interest, and open source intelligence researchers to share credible information about inauthentic activity, disinformation, and other malign efforts utilizing your platforms." ■

In another shot across the bow at Big Tech, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) have teamed up on a new bill to protect children online, citing "Big Tech’s repeated failures to protect children & teens from serious dangers on their platforms."

The Kids Online Safety Act is billed as a comprehensive, bipartisan effort stemming from hearings into social media companies spearheaded by those legislators, who have signaled that Congress would step in to rein in the platforms where it came to protecting children over issues like body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide in particular and mental health in general.

They said the bill will make social media platforms put children's interests first "by default," requiring independent audits and public scrutiny by academics, as  well as allow for disabling "addictive features," and opting out of algorithmic recommendations.

It also creates an affirmative duty for social media platforms "to prevent and mitigate harms to minors."

At a press conference on the bill, Blumenthal painted an unflattering portrait of Big Tech: ""What we’ve heard in these months at our hearings and from direct talks with parents is harrowing, haunting stories of heartbreaking loss, destructive content driven to children, addictive dark places, emotional rabbit holes, all the result of Big Tech driving toxic content at kids using black box algorithms that are little understood by parents or children."

According to the senators, the bill:

1. "Requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.

2. "Gives parents new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform.
Also: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering

3. "Creates a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
 
4. "Requires social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.

5. "Provides academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors."

Blumenthal and Blackburn said the bill was been endorsed by Common Sense Media, the American Psychological Association, the 5Rights Foundation, American Compass, the Internet Accountability Project, American Principles Project, and the Digital Progress Institute. ■

Mediaocean said that it can help advertisers scale up creative production of paid social media campaigns and improve their performance.

The new capabilities are enabled by last year’s acquisition of Flashtalking, which brought with it tools that automate ad creation and campaign reporting.

The Mediaocean platform can now provide scaled creative production, ad personalization, cross-platform social media campaign management, centralized reporting and optimizations.

“Consumers today expect and are accustomed to receiving relevant and personalized experiences across channels, so brands must meet that expectation inside and outside walled gardens, nimbly and at scale,” said Mediaocean president John Nardone, the former CEO of Flashtalking. “Our platform unites several best of breed capabilities to uniquely deliver that value proposition for brands and their agency partners.”

Also: Mediaocean’s Flashtalking Launches Video Plus Converged Ad Server

Users can produce thousands of personalized social media ads in minutes. New dynamic templates automate in-market content and optimize a brand’s creative to each social media platform’s specifications and algorithms. 

“Automated creative personalization not only preserves key branding and campaign messaging across the ever-expanding network of social media platforms, but also frees up our team to focus on our key strengths – consumer insight and marketing strategy,” said Shamsul Chowdhury, VP paid social, at Jellyfish. “This constant tug-of-war around social media creative formatting and execution shouldn’t be where agencies spend their time, and automating this process allows us to deliver much stronger performance for our clients.” ■

A little more than three months after changing its name to Meta Platforms and a day after Wall Street returned the favor of a massive revenue guidance miss by cratering its market cap, analysts scrambled to make sense of it all. 

Facebook parent Meta lost about $232 billion in market capitalization Thursday (February 4) — the largest one-day drop by a single company in U.S. stock market history — after it said Q1 revenue would miss Wall Street forecasts by $2 billion, spurred by a combination of intense competition from TikTok, increasingly onerous privacy requirements from Apple Inc. and just plain bad luck. Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which creates the augmented reality and virtual reality products that are expected to be the building blocks of the metaverse, lost about $10.2 billion on revenue of $2.3 billion. 

While Q4 revenue at $33.7 billion was even with estimates, Meta said it lost about 1 million daily global users in the quarter, adding to concerns that its relevance is slipping with younger consumers. 

Meta’s dilemma is eerily similar to Netflix, which saw its stock fall 25% in January after it missed Q4 subscriber growth targets and said it would add just 2 million paying customers in Q1. Netflix has gained some of those losses back: It was trading at $405.18 on Friday afternoon, about even with the previous day.

Also: Netflix Isn’t Quite Dead Yet 

Meta shares fell more than 26% on Thursday, forcing analysts to rejigger their models for the stock and try to find some sense in such a dramatic miss. The stock fell another 2% on Friday, priced at $232.67 at 12:07 p.m. 

In report after report, analysts that follow the stock pointed to the surprising impact of short-form video juggernaut TikTok — even Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings conference call that TikTok was “growing at a much faster rate” than Facebook’s own Reels short-form video service. 

At the same time, Apple’s new privacy measures for its iOS products are having a huge impact on ad revenue. On the conference call, Meta chief financial officer David Wehner said those iOS privacy requirements will cost Meta about $10 billion in lost revenue in 2022, which he called “a pretty significant headwind for our business.”

Most analysts were pretty shocked by the revenue impact, but kept as much optimism as they could for the company, maintaining their ratings on the stock but slashing their 12-month price targets by nearly $100. For many, their advice to investors was to ride out the storm, buy the stock at its new low-point and reap the benefits later.

Also: Metaverse or Meh-taverse? 

MoffettNathanson media analyst Michael Nathanson, in a research report entitled “Facebook: The Beginning of the End?” maintained his “buy” rating on the stock but dropped his price target from $420 to $380 per share. Evercore ISI Group analyst Mark Mahaney kept his “outperform” rating but slashed his price target to $350 from $430 per share, while Bernstein tech analyst Mark Shmulik maintained his “outperform” rating on the stock but dropped his price target from $400 to $350 per share. 

“There are days in this job that suck. Today is one of those days,” Shmulik wrote in a note to clients after Meta released its results. Shmulik noted that most analysts severely underestimated the impact of Apple’s decision to let iPhone and iPad users opt in or out of the identifiers for advertisers (IDFA) that apps use to track movement through the web and target ads accordingly. When users opt out, it makes those ads a lot less valuable.

While Shmulik and other analysts believe Facebook will eventually figure out a workaround to the IDFA, management didn’t help things during the earnings conference call by “striking a negative tone around the duration and cost (~$10B on ’22 revenues) of any potential long term fixes,” the Bernstein analyst wrote.

Nathanson, who has been a big believer that Facebook would exceed ad forecasts in the past, reduced his Q1 revenue estimate by $2 billion and his full-year 2022 revenue predictions by $12 billion, or 8%. Although he said Meta’s Q4 results were in line with most estimates, its Q1 guidance was “incredibly weak” and was a “headline grabber and not in a good way.”

Still, other analysts were optimistic of Facebook’s resilience, and saw the low stock price as a Netflix-like inflection point, referring to the streaming giant’s recent stock drop. In his note, Evercore‘s Mahaney said that Meta “could well be dead money for several months,” but remained a buyer of the stock because it is trading close to its 2018 trough multiple of 17 times cash flow, which could limit downside and because he believes the company’s new Q1 revenue guidance suggests that revenue trends are stabilizing.

Mahaney also is confident that Facebook’s Reels — its short-form video answer to TikTok — will succeed, and that its macro challenges are temporary.

“TikTok is a real issue, but primarily for Instagram, and much less so for Blue, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, FB Marketplace, etc.,” Mahaney wrote, adding that he still believes Meta has a compelling long-term business model.

“Meta Platforms has a robust combination of revenue growth (17% CAGR ‘21E-‘24E) and profitability (~40% GAAP Operating margins and 50%+ EBITDA margins in ‘21),” Mahaney wrote. “Their core Family of Apps operating margins of near 50% in FY21, supports the significant investment in Reality Labs. The FCF generation has been equally impressive: $39B in FY21. And this has allowed them to execute sizeable share buybacks ($40B+ in ‘21) that we believe are sustainable going forwards.” ■   

The Senate Antitrust Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing next week titled “Breaking the News — Journalism, Competition and the Effects of Market Power on a Free Press.”

The February 2 hearing is likely to include some focus on a proposed Senate bill, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which would grant publishers immunity from federal and state antitrust laws for a 48-month period while they bargain collectively with digital platforms.

Media outlets argue that Big Tech has been using their content without sufficiently compensating them for their investment in original, independent journalism, and sought the antitrust carveout to be able to present a more united negotiating front.

Also: GOP Backs Big Tech-Targeted News Media Antitrust Exemption

Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — Klobuchar is chairwoman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and a lead sponsor of the bill — are political opposites in the chamber  They have said the JCPA would simply give “news content creators“ — print, broadcast or digital — an antitrust a safe harbor to negotiate collectively with digital platforms like Facebook and Google for carriage of their original content.

Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), the House antitrust subcommittee chairman who has backed a House version of the bill, has argued that if the balance of power remains as it is, Big Tech’s dominance of digital advertising could be an “extinction-level event” for local media.

Similar bills have tried, and failed, to provide a safe harbor, but the new pandemic-driven normal, with edge providers seen increasingly as gatekeepers rather than as tenders of the virtuous internet garden, could improve the bill’s prospects.

News content creators are defined as outlets with a dedicated professional editorial staff that create and distribute original news and related content concerning local, national or international matters of public interest on at least a weekly basis, and are marketed via subscriptions, advertising or sponsorship. They include operations that provide original news and related content, at least 25% of which is current news and related content, or broadcast original news and related content via an FCC license.

As introduced, the bill would apply to content distributors with at least 1 billion active users per month on all their websites worldwide, so the bill is clearly aimed at the biggest platforms. ■ 

Social media giants are the latest subpoena targets in the investigation of the House Select Committee on the January 6 attack, which the committee says social media “products” helped organize.

Getting the subpoenas were Alphabet (Google), Meta (Facebook), Reddit and Twitter.

Committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said that the move to force their cooperation came after what he called “inadequate responses to prior requests for information” issued in August.

The committee wants information on “the spread of misinformation, efforts to overturn the 2020 election, domestic violent extremism and foreign influence in the 2020 election.”

Thompson said the committee wants to know how the “spread of misinformation and violent extremism” helped fule the attack and what social media companies did, if anything, to try to prevent their platforms from being “breeding grounds” for radicalization.

Also: Sen. Ed Markey Ties Big Tech to January 6 Riots

The committee explained why it picked those four platforms, besides the obivious one about their size and power:

“Alphabet’s YouTube was a platform for significant communications by its users that were relevant to the planning and execution of the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol, including livestreams of the attack as it was taking place.

“Meta platforms were reportedly used to share messages of hatred, violence, and incitement; to spread misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories around the election; and to coordinate or attempt to coordinate the Stop the Steal movement. Public accounts about Facebook’s Civic Integrity Team indicate that Facebook has documents that are critical to the Select Committee’s investigation.

“Reddit was the platform for the ‘r/The_Donald’ ‘subreddit’ community that grew significantly on Reddit before migrating to the website TheDonald.win in 2020, which ultimately hosted significant discussion and planning related to the January 6th attack.

“Twitter subscribers reportedly used the platform for communications regarding the planning and execution of the assault on the United States Capitol, and Twitter was reportedly warned about potential violence being planned on the site in advance of January 6th. Twitter users also engaged in communications amplifying allegations of election fraud, including by [former President Donald Trump] himself.” ■

The FCC plans to vote this month to expand the online activities that define a candidate, and to square its political file rules with the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA).

According to a draft of the proposed report and order (R&O), it would revise the definition of "legally qualified candidate for public office" to include creating a campaign website and the use of social media to further that campaign.

That determination has to do with whether a write-in candidate has made a "substantial showing" of their bona fide candidacy. If a TV station provides airtime to a legally qualified candidate for public office, it must make a similar provision to all other bona fide candidates for that office.

The R&O also revised the political file rules to extend political recordkeeping rules to issue ads -- ads that communicate a message on any political subject of national importance -- as well as campaign ads.

Since FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has scheduled the item for a vote at a public meeting, it likely has the support of at least one of the Republican commissioners. ■

HBO Max has bought the most paid social media advertising over the holiday season so far (November 23-December 22), according to BrandTotal, a social media competitive intelligence platform.

The social media ad tracker looked at paid campaigns for Disney Plus, HBO Max, Netflix, Hulu, Apple TV Plus, Peacock and Paramount Plus on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In an analysis of the total 3,164 paid social ads, HBO Max had 38% of sponsored impressions (referred to as share-of-voice or SOV) to second-play Disney Plus‘s 26%, together accounting for almost two-thirds of al paid social media ads for streaming services.

Disney Plus had been the leader in such sponsored impressions over the summer, the company pointed out, but BrandTotal CEO Alon Leibovich said both are aggressively courting new subs and trying to retain current ones. “This is a two-horse race ahead of Christmas,” he said.

Twitter drew the most dollars with 49% of social ad budgets, followed by YouTube with 31%, Facebook with 11% and Instagram with 8%.

Gen Z (18-24) was the biggest target of streamers' social media ad spend with 53% of ad impressions targeting that demo. Hulu and Peacock were most likely to target Gen Z, with Netflix and Paramount least likely.

In a speech Tuesday (Dec. 21) carried on the Big Four major broadcast and cable news networks, President Joe Biden blamed vaccine resistance in part on dangerous misinformation on cable TV and social media.

While he said the vaccine decision is personal, he also said “purveyors of lies and misinformation“ about vaccines were “wrong and immoral” and called on them to “stop it, now.”

The Centers for Disease Control defines misinformation as “false information shared by people who do not intend to mislead others” and disinformation as that same false information “deliberately created and disseminated with malicious intent.”

The CDC has created a primer for stakeholders on how to monitor social media and traditional media for misinformation and disinformation.

The platforms it suggests monitoring are Twitter, Facebook/Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and Google Trends.

Dr. Jerome Adams, former surgeon general, said on CNN that the media could certainly be doing more to put out positive messages, asking where all the PSAs were about how vaccines don't cause infertility or how people should get vaccinated even if they have had COVID-19. He said pushing for accurate information would be better than simply pointing fingers.

Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of Medicine agreed. He said that the Biden administration was indeed pointing fingers at Facebook and conservative media, which was understandable, but that it did not have the appetite to actually go after the groups purveying that disinformation.

“The President’s remarks echo what our research has been exposing in this year of disinformation, with its devastating and deadly consequences," said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). "President Biden is right to call out the scions of Big Tech who profit from the spread of vaccine misinformation on their platforms."

The Surgeon General said that social media companies have a role to play in protecting the mental health of children since the misuse of its platforms appears to contribute to the problem.

That came in an advisory report about what Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy said was an alarming increase in certain mental health challenges for young people and what can be done to stem that troubling tide.

"[T]oo often, young people are bombarded with messages through the media and popular culture that erode their sense of self-worth—telling them they are not good looking enough, popular enough, smart enough, or rich enough," Murthy said in his introduction to the report. "That comes as progress on legitimate, and distressing, issues like climate change, income inequality, racial injustice, the opioid epidemic, and gun violence feels too slow."

He signaled that Big Tech platforms, when not "deployed" safely and responsibly, can contribute to the mental health problem by "pitting us against each other, reinforcing negative behaviors like bullying and exclusion, and undermining the safe and supportive environments young people need and deserve."

He suggested that the pandemic has put even greater urgency on the need for action.
 
Under the heading of "What Social Media, Video Gaming, and Other Technology Companies Can Do," the report echoed many of the issues being discussed Wednesday (Dec. 8) in a Senate subcommittee hearing with Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri.

In social media's "digital public spaces," said the report, "there can be tension between what’s best for the technology company and what’s best for the individual user or for society. Business models are often built around maximizing user engagement as opposed to safeguarding users’ health and ensuring that users engage with one another in safe and healthy ways. This translates to technology companies focusing on maximizing time spent, not time well spent."

It cites researchers asserting that Big Tech can expose kids to "bullying, contribute to obesity and eating disorders, trade off with sleep, encourage children to negatively compare themselves to others, and lead to depression, anxiety, and self-harm."

And while it concedes there are benefits to online activity like connecting with friends, learning new things or accessing healthcare, it said there is also a "clear need" to better understand how technology impacts users most at risk.

The report provided advice for how tech companies can help, including a call to "step up and take responsibility for creating a safe digital environment for children and youth," and at the least "much more transparency" about their products, including allowing outside researchers to access data, something legislators from both parties have asked Meta (formerly Facebook) to do following whistleblower Frances Haugen's public release of some internal research.

Among the other recommendations: 1) provide user-friendly tools for healthy online interactions, 2) limit exposure to harmful online content, 3) allow users to opt out of harmful content, and 4) actively promote content that supports mental health and wellbeing as well as equitable access to that content. ■

A U.S. District Court in Texas has blocked the Dec. 2 effective date of a state law that prevents “censorship“ by social media platforms based on viewpoint, according to the groups who sought that action.

The law will now not go into effect until the court has heard the underlying legal challenge to the law.

NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which took the state to court over the law, had sought the injunction, arguing that the law would effectively ban content moderation and thus would allow "pro-Nazi speech, medical misinformation, terrorist propaganda, and foreign government disinformation" to be posted on social media sites without recourse by the platforms without facing civil suits.

There is a pretty high bar for granting such injunctions, including the likelihood that NetChoice and CCIA will win the underlying case on the merits, and that allowing the law to go into effect would cause harms not easy to undo.

The law, which passed Sept. 9, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Google to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

The groups filed suit against a similar Florida law, which was ultimately ruled unconstitutional. 

Both the Texas and Florida legislatures are controlled by Republicans, many of whom have alleged that social media have been censoring conservative content and voices, pointing to bans on former President Donald Trump's accounts.

CCIA, whose members include from Amazon to Yahoo!, and NetChoice, whose members include, well, from Amazon to Yahoo!, said the Texas bill would “compel private companies to host everything from Nazi propaganda to anti-American extremism or risk being sued,” adding, ”The First Amendment protects citizens and private companies from being compelled to speak.“

"It exposes those platforms to the exact liability that Congress protected against in enacting Section 230. And it both regulates how the targeted websites disseminate speech to and from users around the globe—regardless of their connection to Texas—and specifically requires the websites to continue doing business in Texas," the groups had told the court back in September.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the federal law that generally provides immunity for third-party content posted to social media sites and other online platforms.

CCIA praised the court decision.

“This ruling upholds the First Amendment and protects internet users, said CCIA president Matt Schruers. "Without this temporary injunction, Texas’s social media law would make the internet a more dangerous place by tying the hands of companies protecting users from abuse, scams, or extremist propaganda. 

“Today’s outcome is not surprising. The First Amendment ensures that the Government can’t force a citizen or company to be associated with a viewpoint they disapprove of, and that applies with particular force when a State law would prevent companies from enforcing policies against Nazi propaganda, hate speech, and disinformation from foreign agents.” ■

Technology website Gizmodo.com said it will publish the Facebook internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former product manager for the company.

The site, which said it is the first news outlet to commit to publishing the internal research and other documents said it got them from a member of Congress — they were leaked to members of the Senate Commerce Committee.

It describes the documents as “stacks of documents containing thousands of confidential memos, chat logs and a veritable library of hidden research.”

Also: Sen. Markey: Facebook‘s Harmful Ad Practices Continue

“We believe there’s a strong public need in making as many of the documents public as possible, as quickly as possible,” Gizmodo said. “To that end, we’ve partnered with a small group of independent monitors, who are joining us to establish guidelines for an accountable review of the documents prior to publication.” 

Those monitors are from New York University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Columbia University, Marquette University and the American Civil Liberties Union, among other organizations.

Also: Haugen Hearing Branded Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment

The documents will be released in batches, with the first batch coming “as soon as possible,” Gizmodo said. The first tranche of documents will likely be primarily ones that require the least amount of vetting by its experts, given its goal of “minimiz[ing] any costs to individuals’ privacy or the furtherance of other harms while ensuring the responsible disclosure of the greatest amount of information in the public interest,” the site said.

The leak and Haugen’s testimony have led to more calls for regulating Big Tech and an investigation by state attorneys general. ■

NBCUniversal said it has formally asked top social media platforms for ways to increase interaction and engagement with the Olympics as the Beijing Winter Games approach.

Requests for proposals have been sent to social media platform asking for big, bold ideas for partnerships around the Olympics and the Paralympic Games.

Formal presentations will be conducted Thursday, with a decision expected to be made in the next few weeks.

NBCU said it has never conducted an RFP process on this scale with social platforms.

The company is studying how young fans interacted with the Tokyo Summer Games using Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok and Apple News.

The RFP process is part of NBCU’s approach to forming partnerships. 

“As consumer expectations and viewing patterns change, businesses are shifting to models built on partnership,” said Linda Yacccarino, chairman, global advertising and partnerships, at NBCU, said in a blog post.

“Audiences crave quality storytelling on every screen — making platform exclusivity impractical and even undesirable,“ Yaccarino said. ”It’s why tech giants are producing award-winning content, as content legends ramp up investments in data and rethink distribution relationships. Both sides know that to excel in one arena, you must invest in the other. So, to best serve audiences and advertisers, we need to also look outside our organizations.” 

NBCU on Thursday announced a partnership with Holler, a company that makes digital stickers that people can use when sending messages in apps like Venmo. 

The company also this year sent our requests for proposals to measurement companies, seeking updated ways to count and analyze audiences. NBCU got about 80 proposals that it is currently evaluating.

On Nov. 16, NBC will be holding It first Measurement Innovation Forum, which it said will bring together every media holding company, trade organizations and top advertisers.

NBCU also has partnerships involved in its commerce plans, most notably with PayPal.

“As we see it, a partnership company goes beyond the transactional to achieve the transformational. It has the courage to explore collaboration, even with the so-called ‘competition,’ ” Yaccarino said. ”And it can’t be an afterthought. To future-proof our companies, build trust, accelerate innovation and multiply impact, partnerships must be proactive. 

“For NBCU that’s creating engaging stories or experiences with partners like Apple News, Holler, Snap, Twitter, Twitch, and YouTube, reimagining CTV with partners like Freewheel, Mediaocean or the Trade Desk, and strengthening our global offerings with more groups. Plus, it’s working with the industry to develop new measurement tools to understand impact and viewership,” she said.

“Ultimately, the shift towards partnership is about more than new capabilities or relationships — it can help our industry thrive today and create more constructive relationships for tomorrow. That’s why partnership needs to be a meaningful part of our entire industry’s transformation playbook,” Yaccarino said.

Computer companies and edge providers are telling a U.S. Appeals Court that a lower-court judge was right when he blocked implementation of Florida’s content moderation law, concluding it was unconstitutional, and that it should come to the same conclusion.

Also read: Big Tech Sues Florida Over Sec. 230 Law

The Computer and Communications Industry Association and NetChoice teamed up on a brief this week to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is hearing Florida's challenge to the lower-court judge’s ruling.

They told the appeals court that the law would allow anyone “from a foreign government spreading propaganda to those spreading terrorist content” to sue a platform if it didn’t host their material.

“The District Court properly enjoined Florida’s unprecedented effort to strip online service providers of their constitutionally protected editorial judgment and replace it with the state’s own judgments and preferences,” the brief asserted. “Florida did not conceal the motivation for its novel law: to target certain large online service providers for exercising their editorial judgment in a manner that the state disfavors.”

The law was the product of a Republican-controlled legislature. Republicans have argued that Silicon Valley giants have attempted to suppress conservative speech in the guise of moderating their platforms and under the protection of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which exempts them with civil liability over most of that third-party content.

Asserting that “social media platforms have unfairly censored, shadow-banned, deplatformed and applied post-prioritization algorithms to Floridians,” the law presumes that doing so is not acting in bad faith, which means it is legally actionable. The law removes civil liability protection for content on Big Tech platforms — like Facebook or Twitter — that violates the law, including allowing for monetary damages up to $250,000 per day for deplatforming political candidates for statewide office, and $25,000 for non-statewide offices.

CCIA and NetChoice, whose membership also includes companies like Facebook, Google and Amazon, sued the state, saying that the law would open platforms to suits for content moderation policies designed to protect users’ safety. After the judge agreed to block the law as unconstitutional, Florida challenged that decision in the 11th Circuit.

“Digital services invest in protecting Internet users from dangerous and harmful content and behavior, whether it is extremists glorifying violence against Americans or trolls promoting self-harm, and a federal court has already agreed with us that Florida’s law would thwart those efforts,” CCIA said. “Policymakers shouldn’t guarantee safe spaces online for anti-American extremists, predators, or foreign agents spreading misinformation.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) issued a pointed reminder Monday (Nov. 8) to top social media platforms that he expects them to deliver on their promises to open the books, as it were, on their internal impact studies. 

Blumenthal, chair of the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, wrote to TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube as a follow-up to an Oct. 26 hearing in his subcommittee at which representatives of all three testified.

Also read: Blumenthal Says Facebook Chronically Ignores Alarms

“Your representative agreed to provide me with your internal research on the mental health effects and addiction-like use of your platform by children and teens,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Snap. Similar letters were sent to TikTok and YouTube. “Your representative also agreed to make your platform’s datasets and algorithms accessible for independent researchers to assess these risks. Thank you for your commitment, as this transparency and access is critical to identifying possible harms to young users and preventing their devastating consequences. As the subcommittee works to draft protections for kids online, this information is also vital to our legislative efforts.”

Various bills have been introduced that could reduce Big Tech's civil liability for third party content tied to how they do or don't protect users.

A Facebook whistleblower’s documents on that company’s internal research on the impact of Instagram on young people helped generate Congress’s interest in getting access to similar documents from other platforms.

Blumenthal was particularly focused on making sure independent researchers could study the “profound risks” of their platforms, suggesting he has already drawn some conclusions.

The senator also wanted to know if they planned to withhold any information and, if so, why.

He wants answers by Nov. 24.

More than two thirds (70%) people said social media companies do more harm than good, while only one in five said it is the other way around.

That is according to a new poll from Quinnipiac University.

Facebook in particular took it on the virtual chin. Almost eight out of 10 people said Facebook is doing either a poor job or doing a "not so good" job of handling online misinformation.

The poll found that 52% said Facebook was doing a poor job, while 27% said it was "not so good." Only 12% said it was doing a good job and only 1% said it was doing an excellent job. Facebook has been in Washington's sites for how it handles content on its site, including misinformation, hate speech, and content potentially harmful to teens.

The country appears to be about evenly split over whether the government needs to step in to regulate edge giants like Facebook and Twitter.

According to the poll, 47% of respondents said the government "needs to be involved" in the regulation of social media companies, while 45% said no.

Two yes votes for regulation have actually come from Twitter and Facebook. Neither want to see a harsh crackdown on their content moderation abilities or the worst-case scenario of an antitrust-driven break-up of the companies. But given the bipartisan support for some kind of regulation, they are looking to shape that regulatory future into one that does not wreak havoc with their business model.

If regulation is certain, they figure, regulatory certainty, and on terms they can deal with, is the way to go.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee, is trying to pressure Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify on Instagram's impact on youth before his panel, saying to date the executive has been evasive and his company dismissive of evidence it puts profits before the health of teen users.

Also Read: At Haugen Hearing, Blumenthal Calls It Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment

That pressure has been growing in the wake of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to Congress. Haugen, armed with internal research, told the Senate that the company prioritizes profit over the mental health of its users and knows it is doing so. Facebook says the research shows the company’s Instagram social-media platform is helpful, not harmful, to most teens, and that it used the research to help the minority who said Instagram reinforced their negative body images.

Haugen told Blumenthal and the subcommittee that Facebook was buying its profits with consumer safety and that it intentionally hides documents and repeatedly misleads the public. Until incentives change, she argued, the company won't.

Blumenthal wrote that “as recently as this weekend,” the company was continuing to downplay the reporting about the impact of the research as an “orchestrated ‘gotcha’ campaign.”

The senator said Zuckerberg needed to clear up some inconsistencies between Haugen's testimony and that of Antigone Davis, global head of safety for Facebook, in a separate hearing. There have been multiple hearings on Big Tech's impact on little users.

Blumenthal, in a letter to the CEO dated Wednesday, said Zuckerberg has “doubled down on evasive answers” and “kept hidden” reports on the health of its teenage users, only providing vague plans for action sometime in the future. "Rather than casting baseless aspirations on whistleblowers and journalists, Facebook should be vigorously acting to provide parents with firm commitments for dramatic reforms and direct answers. Sadly, it is not," he says.

Blumenthal wrote that it was “urgent and necessary” for Zuckerberg or Adam Mosseri, who heads up Instagram for Facebook, to testify.

While Facebook has been pushing back on characterizations related to its internal research, it has at the same time blanketed D.C. with ads talking about how it wanted the government to step in and set rules of the road for content moderation.

That effort is in part to head off tough legislation that could break up Big Tech companies or curtail or eliminate their immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from civil liability for most third-party content.

Reps. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and Mike Johnson (R-La.) have teamed up to call on Big Tech to create a rating board for apps and adopt ratings comparable to those for video games, movies and music.

While there have been ratings boards for movies, music and video games for a couple of decades, the relatively newer world of apps has no such body, with ratings often provided by the app creator.

That congressional call for action comes in a just-introduced “Fix Apps Ratings” House resolution. Such resolutions don't have the force of law, but signal the sense of Congress on an issue  — and the implied threat that if action doesn't happen voluntarily, some of those House members might legislate to make it so.

The idea of the industry-run ratings board is to streamline age-appropriate ratings, as well as parental controls that are easy to use, “digital wellness features” and other tools to help kids online.

The resolution comes in the wake of a Facebook whistleblower’s revelations about internal company research finding that some teen Instagram users said using the app made them feel worse about themselves and even prompted thoughts of suicide, though Facebook counters that the majority of teens polled found instagram was helpful, not harmful.

“For too long, apps have been allowed to serve as hubs for bullying, sexually explicit material and other forms of content that jeopardize children’s safety, self-image and overall well-being,” Johnson said.

Both legislators argue that app ratings are often inaccurate, inconsistent, or not specific enough,  while parental controls are too complex or depend on ratings “self assigned” by app developers.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) gave the effort a big thumbs up.

“The technology industry must take responsibility for ensuring apps are rated accurately,” center CEO Dawn Hawkins said. “Parents are left in the dark about the kind of content their children are accessing because app ratings are misleading or inaccurate. … For instance, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok are rated 12-plus, but these social media platforms and others have left children vulnerable to potential predators and harmful content. Tech platforms should focus on defaulting to safety, thereby putting the health and wellbeing of children above profit.”

In the wake of the revelations by a Facebook whistleblower and allegations about the company’s internal research about the impact of its platforms on young people, House Energy & Commerce Committee leaders have proposed a bill that targets “reckless” use of algorithms by limiting Section 230.

Former Facebook staffer Frances Haugen testified about the documents before the committee at a heated hearing that prompted legislators to suggest it was Big Tech‘s Big Tobacco moment.

Section 230 is the add-on to the 1996 Communications Decency Act that provides web platforms immunity from civil liability for what appears on their platforms.

Also Read: Rep. Eshoo Pushes for Subpoena of Facebook Documents

While there has been bipartisan criticism of Facebook, the legislators unveiling the bill are all Democrats: Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.), Communications Subcommittee chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee chair Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

The bill, the Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act, would remove absolute immunity for an edge provider that “knowingly or recklessly uses an algorithm or other technology to recommend content that materially contributes to physical or severe emotional injury.”

The bill does not apply to “small” online platforms, which are defined as fewer than five million unique monthly visitors, or to algorithms or search features that aren't based on personalization, or to infrastructure like Web hosting or data transfer or storage.

The big issue with Facebook‘s internal research was that it showed that some teens said Instagram made them feel worse about themselves and even contributed to thoughts of suicide. Facebook countered that the research found that a majority of kids did not feel that way, and that the info helped them take actions to help those who did.

But Congress has not been assuaged, arguing that Facebook has not done nearly enough, while keeping that research under wraps and downplaying the negative results.

“Social media platforms like Facebook continue to actively amplify content that endangers our families, promotes conspiracy theories, and incites extremism to generate more clicks and ad dollars,” Pallone said. “These platforms are not passive bystanders — they are knowingly choosing profits over people, and our country is paying the price. The time for self-regulation is over, and this bill holds them accountable. Designing personalized algorithms that promote extremism, disinformation, and harmful content is a conscious choice, and platforms should have to answer for it.”

Added Doyle: “We finally have proof that some social media platforms pursue profit at the expense of the public good, so it’s time to change their incentives, and that’s exactly what the Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act would do. Under this bill, Section 230 would no longer fully protect social media platforms from all responsibility for the harm they do to our society. It’s my hope that by making it possible to hold social media platforms accountable for the harm they cause, we can help optimize the internet’s impact on our society.”

Computer companies have fired another legal volley in their fight against state efforts to undercut their Sec. 230 immunity from civil liability for most third-party content on social media sites.

The latest volley was a motion for preliminary injunction filed Sep. 30 against Texas for a new law that allows Web users to sue edge providers over how they moderate content.

Trade group the Computer & Communications Industry Association joined with NetChoice to file suit against the law earlier this month, as they had against a similar Florida law.

But that was an underlying law suit. This week's move is to prevent the law--scheduled to go into effect Dec. 2--from being enforced while that underlying suit is being litigated.

There is a pretty high bar for granting a preliminary injunction, including likelihood of winning the case and irreparable harm if the law goes into effect.

Computer companies said the loss of their First Amendment freedom to moderate and curate content as they choose is clearly such an irreparable harm and that because such an abridgement is unconstitutional they are likely to win their case.

The law, which passed Sept. 9, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Google to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

CCIA, whose members include from Amazon to Yahoo!, and NetChoice, whose members include, well, from Amazon to Yahoo!, said the Texas bill would “compel private companies to host everything from Nazi propaganda to anti-American extremism or risk being sued,” adding, ”The First Amendment protects citizens and private companies from being compelled to speak.“

As part of the "social media as piñata" Big Tech bashing this week, which included Hill hearings on online privacy and Instagram's impact on children, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced a bill that would make social media companies liable "for bodily or mental harm their products cause to children."

The bill would remove websites' Sec. 230 immunity from civil liability, allowing parents to sue for damages from social media companies for "bodily injury or harm to mental health that is attributable, in whole or in part, to the individual’s use of a covered interactive computer service provided by the social media company."

That comes as Facebook was raked over the proverbial coals in a Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee hearing Thursday (Sept. 30) over internal documents that suggest it knew Instagram was harmful to young people, including to their mental health and wellbeing.

Hawley referenced the company in announcing his bill.

“Facebook has long had evidence of the harmful effects their products have on children but covered it up because it would hurt their profits," he said. "These Big Tech monopolies know exactly how addictive and manipulative their products are but they’re content to rake in billions by exploiting children. Parents need to be given the tools to take back control.”

The Hawley bill and the Hill hearing--at which both Democrats and Republicans read a company representative the riot act--were both prompted in part by reports from the Wall Street Journal on internal Facebook research. Those documents were separately supplied to the subcommittee by a whistleblower who has agreed to testify at an Oct. 5 hearing in the same subcommittee, and to talk about the documents on 60 Minutes this Sunday (Oct. 3), according to the network.

Hawley also confronted a Facebook VP about the documents in a Senate Judiciary hearing last week.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday (Sept. 30) that he and Consumer Protection Subcommittee chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) will reintroduce their KIDS Act, which would remake online content targeted to kids.

Markey also called for banning influencer marketing to kids online, as selling by hosts is banned in children’s TV programming.

That came at a subcommittee hearing with the global head of safety for Facebook, Antigone Davis, where her company was hammered for, among other things, planning an Instagram Kids version of that site for children 12 and younger.

The Markey-Blumenthal bill would, among other things, ban auto-play settings, push alerts and reward “badges” on websites and/or apps for kids and young teens.

Also Read: Big Tech Bashed in Senate Hearing On Protecting Kids Online

It would also prohibit websites from recommending content with host-selling and influencer marketing, including “unboxing videos” to kids and young teens or from “exposing children and young teens to marketing with embedded interactive elements.”

Also Read: Senators Push for Research into Tech Impact on Kids

In questioning Davis, Markey said online platforms should not allow influencers to push products on children because they lack the ability to distinguish between ad and non-ad content. He pointed out that such host selling is not allowed on TV — per his own children’s TV legislation — and that that regime should apply to influencers as well.

If Facebook has taught us anything, he said, it is that self-regulation is not an option.

Asked if she supported the bill, Davis said it was certainly time for updated regulations and she would be happy to work with him and would follow up. He pointed out that the company had had access to the legislation — which was launched in March 2020 — for months.

"[E]very single Senator who called out Facebook today should support Senator Markey and Senator Blumenthal's KIDS Act...," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay (Formerly Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood). "[W]e need legislation to address the damaging design and predatory data collection practices of platforms like Instagram."

Computer companies are suing Texas over a law that prevents social media censorship based on “viewpoint,” saying nothing is a clearer First Amendment violation than regulation based on viewpoint.

The bill, which passed Sept. 9, “prohibits an interactive computer service from censoring a user, a user’s expression, or a user's ability to receive the expression of another person based on … the viewpoint of the user or another person.” It also requires large social media platforms like Facebook and Google to disclose how they manage content, to publish an acceptable use policy that users can find telling them what content is acceptable, to publish quarterly transparency reports, and to have a complaint system in place for violations of its policies.

Trade group the Computer & Communications Industry Association joined with NetChoice to file suit, as CCIA did against a similar Florida law, the CCIA pointed out — that law was ruled unconstitutional, but that decision has been appealed by the state.

Also Read: Cruz Says Either Bias or Sec. 230 Protections Must Go

Both the Texas and Florida legislatures are controlled by Republicans, many of whom have alleged that social media have been censoring conservative content and voices, pointing to bans on former President Donald Trump's accounts.

CCIA, whose members include from Amazon to Yahoo!, and NetChoice, whose members include, well, from Amazon to Yahoo!, said the Texas bill would “compel private companies to host everything from Nazi propaganda to anti-American extremism or risk being sued,” adding, ”The First Amendment protects citizens and private companies from being compelled to speak.“

CCIA said the law would put Texans at greater risk of being subject to "disinformation, propaganda and extremism."

The computer companies pulled no punches, saying the law makes the internet safer for bad actors, "whether that be Taliban sympathizers or people encouraging kids to eat detergent pods." And while Texas Republicans are nothing if not self-described patriots, CCIA said that "[b]y constraining businesses free speech rights, the Texas law puts anti-American rhetoric [including from Nazis and white supremacists] on equal footing with God Bless America."

The suit was filed in the U.S. Court District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Despite growing concerns about the amount of misleading information on social media, almost one-third of Americans surveyed get news from Facebook and a sizable number from other sites.

That is according to a new Pew Research Center survey of users of 10 prominent social media sites.

Also Read: NAB Launches Trusted Local News Campaign

Next most newsy was YouTube, with 22% of respondents saying they get news there, followed by Twitter at 13%, Instagram at 11% and Reddit at 7%.

Rounding out the news usage of the other five sites survey respondents were asked about were TikTok, 6%; LinkedIn, 4%; Snapchat, 4%; WhatsApp, 3% and Twitch, 1%.

The survey found that “a sizable portion” of U.S. adults (48%) say they get news “sometimes” or “often” from social media sites.

Pew found some demographic differences in online news consumption. White adults make up the majority of regular news consumers of Facebook (60%) and Reddit (54%), while only 36% of Instagram news consumers were white. Facebook also skews female, with women comprising 64% of regular news consumers versus 33% for men.

There is a also a definite political skew for social media, with the majority of news consumers being Democrats and Democratic leaners. Pew said that may be because social-media news consumers are relatively young. None of the 10 sites surveyed has regular news consumers who are more likely to be Republican or lean Republican.

The study was based on a survey conducted from July 26 to Aug. 8, 2021, among 11,178 U.S. adults who are part of the center’s American Trends Panel. The report also explores how often Americans are turning to social media for news compared to 2020.

Between September 2012 and December 2020, Facebook's share of time spent by users of apps providing social networking averaged a whopping 92% per month, the Federal Trade Commission said.

That was among the new data in the regulator’s amended claim of anti-competitive conduct by Facebook to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia last week.

The FTC is claiming that Facebook has become so dominant by following CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to buy up to monopoly. It cited his 2008 statement that “it is better to buy than compete” — citing the acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram — as exhibits A and B. The FTC called Facebook’s actions an “anti-competitive acquisition strategy with anticompetitive conditional dealing policies, designed to erect or maintain entry barriers and to neutralize perceived competitive threats.”

By contrast, the combined shares of Snapchat, Google Plus, MySpace, Path, MeWe, Orkut and Friendster did not exceed 18% in any month over that time, the FTC said, citing Comscore data. Only Snapchat reached a 10% share, the FTC said.

“Facebook implemented an anti-competitive scheme that prevented differentiated and innovative firms from gaining scale, thus enabling Facebook to maintain its dominance,” the regulator claimed.

Only about a quarter of Americans have even some trust in the information they get from social media outlets, down from about a third who said so in 2016, and a mere 4% say they have a lot of trust in that information.

That is according to a just-released Pew Research analysis, based on a June 2021 survey of 10,606 adults.

Only 19% of Republicans say they have some trust, down from 32% in 2016. But Democrats aren't that much more trusting at only about a third (34%) having some trust, about even with five years ago.

In other results, over the past five years, which coincides with the drumbeat of attacks on the media by Donald Trump, the percentage of those Republicans who say they have at least some trust in national news outlets has been sliced in half since 2016, from 70% of Republicans and Republican "leaners" to only 35% in 2021.

Also Read: Pew: Social Media Still Draw Crowd Despite D.C.'s Concerns

By contrast, 78% of Democrats and leaners say they have "a lot" or "some" trust in national news organizations, down slightly from a previous 86%.

Looking at both Republicans and Democrats combined, six in 10 say they have at least some trust in national news organizations, but that is down from 65% in late 2019.

Republicans have much more trust in local news organizations at 66% with at least some trust (that percentage is 84% for Democrats). But that is down from 79%.

The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus 1.5 percentage points.

President Joe Biden said Friday (July 16) that Facebook was "killing people" by hosting vaccine misinformation on its social media platform.

Facebook called the comments unsupported accusations that are a distraction from its effort to save lives.

The White House this week has been pushing Big Tech to do more to weed out anti-vaccine posts and related conspiracy theories.

Asked by a reporter about what his message on misinformation was to platforms "like Facebook," the President responded: "They're killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they're killing people."

He walked away before reporters could follow up.

Also Read: Sen. Josh Hawley Slams White House Flagging of COVID-19 Online Misinformation

While the rhetoric was harsher, the message was the same that was being delivered by the Surgeon General and press secretary Jen Psaki this week.

At the Friday press conference, Psaki said that the President's concern was "the number of people who are dying around the country because they are getting misinformation ['traveling on social media platforms'] that is leading them not to get a vaccine."

“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts," said Facebook of the President's comments. "The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”  

The Federal Communications Commission has proposed to revise the definition of “legally qualified candidate for public office” to reflect the rise of the internet.

According to multiple sources, the FCC had been pondering whether to require broadcast stations to report network and syndicated political ad buys in their political files, something broadcasters were pushing back on, but that did not show up in the notice of proposed rulemaking released Thursday (July 15).

Acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel had signaled political file rule changes were coming.

The FCC, which released the NPRM on tweaks to its political rules, said it would add use of social media or the creation of a campaign website to the current list of activities that may be considered in determining if a write-in candidate has sufficiently established their candidacy.

That establishment determines whether broadcasters must provide the candidates with air time.

The commission is also proposing to adjust its rules to campaign finance reform legislation to reflect that stations, cable and satellite operators must report any purchase of ad time that “communicates a message relating to any political matter of national importance” and make clear what record on that message must be maintained in a station's political file.

“While the agency has strived to update its guidance to reflect changes in law and campaign practices, it has not undertaken a formal review to update the political programming and record-keeping rules since 1991,” the FCC said. “Given the substantial growth of political media messaging in recent years, the updates proposed in this item are intended to conform our rules with statutory amendments, reflect existing practices and guidance, and account for modern campaign practices.”

The FCC in 2019 resolved a dozen campaign ad-disclosure complaints against various broadcast stations but with only some admonishments — official reprimands — rather than fines against what the FCC said were, in some cases, willful violations of its political file disclosure rules.

The new item is said to be an effort to clean up the rules and close some loopholes after complaints that the rules were not sufficiently clear.

The FCC put out some guidance following the resolution of the disclosure complaints, but broadcasters were not pleased with the result.

A new bill from Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), the Don't Push My Buttons Act, would remove Sec. 230 liability for social media sites that uses an algorithm--technically any "automated function"--to deliver content based on information collected on a user's "habits, preferences of beliefs."

It would not apply if the user sought that targeted content or specifically authorized it. But otherwise a website would lose its immunity from civil liability for its moderation of that content.

The burden of proof is on the provider of the interactive computer service to demonstrate, "by clear and convincing evidence," that the user elected to receive that targeted content.

Also Read: Big Media Takes on Big Tech

The "button pushing" in the title refers to what Kennedy says is social media platforms' use of data collection to identify and "push" a user's hot buttons--the "divisive issues that create strong emotional responses or reactions"--by using algorithms to deliver content designed to play to those responses and "agitate them."

"Social media giants are using people’s data to manipulate them into spending more time on their sites, but the price is a more polarized America," said Kennedy. "It’s time to stop rewarding platforms that use their algorithms to target users with content that plays on individuals’ emotions without their consent. If these companies wield user data to foment division, they should not continue to enjoy such unfettered liability protections," said Kennedy.

Former President Donald Trump's "From the Desk of..." blog has disappeared from his website, but his twitter-like comments remain.

A Trump spokesperson told USA Today that the site was always planned to be temporary as they decide how to develop their own social media site.

Trump had been using the blog and the site's news section as an alternative to Twitter and Facebook social media platforms since he has been barred from those following his tweets of unfounded allegations of massive voter fraud and ones that were viewed as potentially inciting violence.

Also Read: Donald Trump Launches Website

Both the site and the blog were launched last month.

Trump's latest Tweet-like missive—a context-less observation apparently on a Memorial Day Trump boat parade—was on May 31 and was featured in the "news" section under the "Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America" heading: "Wow! I hear they have thousands and thousands of boats parading in Jupiter, despite the fact that they tried to cancel us. Everyone is having an incredible time. On this day, we especially appreciate everyone who served and fought for our great Country. I love you all!"

According to a poll from Pew Research, the country is deeply divided over whether Trump's social media accounts should be reinstated.

According to a poll conducted April 12-18, 49% of U.S. adults say he should be reinstated while 50% say he should not be. But while the aggregate split is even, the political one is where the depth of the divide shows up. Only 11% of Republicans and Republican leaders said the accounts should be permanently banned, while 81% of Democrats said they should.

President Joe Biden has rescinded former President Donald Trump’s May 2020 Section 230 executive order on online censorship (order 13925 on “Preventing Online Censorship,”) which was targeted at social media sites Trump had long argued were biased against conservatives and his Administration.

The current president has his own issues with Section 230 (candidate Biden told The New York Times it should be revoked. That section of the Communications Act provides websites with immunity from civil liability for their treatment of content posted on their sites by third parties, but the Trump effort was clearly not the way he wanted to approach the issue, which is still hot, though the effort to enlist the FCC as a regulator did not go anywhere.

Trump’s May 28 executive order enlisted the Federal Communications Commission in trying to weed out alleged censorship of conservative speech by labeling it deceptive and thus a violation of an online content provider's terms of service.

Current acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel at the time opposed the agency‘s participation in what appeared to be an exercise in discouraging content the president didn't like.

The order also directed the government not to spend ad dollars on sites determined to be violating those terms of service.  

As an independent agency, the FCC is not subject to executive orders, so the National Telecommunications & Information Administration was charged with asking the FCC to implement new rules allowing the FCC to judge under what conditions restricting access to content can be considered a violation of an online platform's terms of service. Currently the FCC does not regulate social media sites or ISPs beyond their terms of service.

The FCC ultimately took no action on the NTIA petition to regulate social media sites.

Biden revoked the order along with some others that tried to prevent the removal of "American Monuments, Memorials and Statues," and tied their attempted removal to "criminal violence."

Having the best programming in the world isn’t going to make much of a difference if no one knows you have it.

That’s a lesson the various Flixes are learning as the so-called “streaming wars” begin to heat up and everyone’s scrambling to add subscribers.

Marketing and creating buzz around original programs is going to play a big role in increasing subscriber counts. And for players like Netflix, who release their series in a single one-time drop, creating buzz in that narrow window is going to prove even more crucial.

While traditional marketing channels--on-air promos, billboards and the like—are still useful, social media is proving to be an excellent way to attract new fans.

A new study from Tubular Labs outlines just how excellent.

Tubular found that the services that made the most extensive use of social media—Netflix and Disney—were also the ones that experienced that greatest subscriber growth.

I’d put a giant asterisk there though, due to something I had identified around 15 years ago, in the early days of social media, called the “Prom King Brand” theory. this theory states that certain brands have a pre-existing level of cool, and viewers are more likely to follow them on social media, and then like and re-share whatever they post. 

Thus brands like Apple, Starbucks and Nike have had a much easier time launching successful social media campaigns than, say, Maxwell House coffee. (Not that millions of people don’t like Maxwell House, it just doesn’t have the same cache as Starbucks.)

Taking that to the world of TV, Netflix and Disney are both far more likely to be in the “prom king” category than Peacock or HBO Max, Netflix being the OG streaming service and Disney being, well, Disney, with 75 years of brand building behind it.

Which is not to say the prom kings just sat back on their laurels.

Netflix in particular, did more than just run trailers, relying more on what’s known as “shoulder content” — in addition to posting longer trailers and scenes from the show, Tubular found that shows like Bridgerton turned more to videos created by fans and influencers, interviews with the actors and behind-the-scenes footage.

Another Netflix hit, The Queen’s Gambit, made use of content created by the chess community (the show was about a female chess champion) in order to boost visibility and to give the show additional credibility. 

These are creative uses of social media by Netflix’s marketing team that take advantage of Netflix’s prom king status—they have 76 million followers on Facebook versus 159,000 for Peacock and 444,000 for HBO Max. That sort of advantage, which is mirrored on Twitter (11.3M vs 119K and 381K), YouTube (19.4M vs 216K and 668K) and Instagram (26.7M vs 274K and 1M)  makes it a lot easier for them to reach a wide audience on social media.

The International Angle

Disney Plus, which boasts 4.2 million followers on Facebook, 2.2 million on Twitter, 441,000 on YouTube and 4 million on Instagram, also used its stellar social media presence to boost its digital-first cinematic releases, Tubular reports. 

The carefully laid out plan started with programming announcements/teasers and trailers posted three to four weeks before the movie’s release, then pivoted to scenes from the movie, best/funniest moments, behind-the-scenes clips, and “meet the cast” videos, all of which ran for a few weeks after the movie’s release. 

Disney also used social video to expand the international appeal of its programming and movies. To promote the movie Soul, for instance, they created Spanish language content for Disney Plus Latinoamerica and French content for Disney Plus France. 

This focus on overseas audiences helped create buzz outside the U.S., and is likely to increase as the theater of battle for the streaming wars moves from the U.S. to international markets, where the various SVOD services are looking to create a presence and steal some market share from Netflix. It’s also a great way to pre-seed markets they have yet to launch in, as there is no geofencing on social sites, which means they don’t have to start from scratch when they do launch.

Social platforms will continue to play a major role as the various Flixes attempt to create buzz around their programming, said buzz hopefully translating into new subscribers. 

This will be a particularly useful ploy with younger viewers (ages 13-34), who, Tubular found, make up 67% of the SVOD services audiences on social media. Given that younger audiences are less likely to have firm allegiances to specific programmers, it would be foolish not to pursue them on social media. That means finding the sorts of shows that appeal to younger viewers while targeting them on platforms that they are more likely to frequent (e.g., not Facebook) while targeting their parents and grandparents on Facebook and other platforms that they can be found on

Despite "relatively negative sentiments" about some aspects of social media, seven in ten Americans said they use social media, with Facebook and YouTube dominating that answer, though in the younger demos, other platforms get heavy use as well. That's according to a new report from the Pew Research Center. Those sites are also the most-used by older adults.

Also Read: Justice Thomas: Facebook, Google May Need Common Carrier Regs

That comes as legislators talk about restricting such sites' liability immunity for third party content and hammer their executives over alleged censorship, privacy issues, hate speech, abetting domestic terrorism, algorithmic discrimination and more.

According to a phone survey of 1,502 adults, 72% use at least one social media site. Of those, 81% said they use YouTube and 69% said they use Facebook. That share has remained stable over the past half decade. Facebook users are very active on the platform, with 70% using it at least once a day and about half multiple times. Only about a quarter said they have used Twitter.

The survey found that Reddit and YouTube were the only platforms included in the study that saw significant growth over the past two years, with YouTube up from 73% in 2019 and Reddit up from 11% in 2019 to 18% in the recent survey.

About 40% of the respondents said they use Instagram, about 30% use Pinterest and about 25% said they have used Snapchat, Twitter or WhatsApp. Only 21% said they have used TikTok.

Also Read: Big Media Takes on Big Tech

But when it comes to younger demos, those platforms show up big. A majority of the 18-29 demo say they use Instagram (71%) or Snapchat (65%) and about half (48%) said they use TikTok.

Among the other takeaways:

Hispanics are twice as likely (46%) to use WhatsApp as Blacks (23%) and almost three times as likely as Whites (16%).

Pinterest over indexes for women, with 46% saying they use it while only 16% of men said they do.

The survey was conducted Jan. 25-Feb. 8, 2021, via cellphone and landline and was weighted to be representative of gender, race, ethnicity, education and more. The margin of error is 2.9 percentage points at a 95% confidence level.