No, the Government Can’t Police Speech
Plus the Google ad tech case, admin law, and more.
FTC: Day one of our policy summit examined potential actions the FTC and DOJ can—and can’t—take to address “censorship” and political “bias” in content moderation. Our panels of experts discussed how the First Amendment limits the application of consumer protection and competition laws to content moderation—and how the agency might, despite such limits, succeed in jawboning tech companies to host speech they don’t want to host. Our comments to the FTC further explore these concerns.
FCC: Day two of our summit explored the FCC's efforts to address political bias in broadcast news and reshape content moderation—including investigating 2024 election bias claims. The keynote with FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez was broadcast on C-SPAN and featured in Radio & Television Business Report (paywall).
Admin Law: At the Federalist Society Blog, Corbin criticized the Trump administration’s plan to repeal regulations without going through notice and comment—a process that is key to ensuring a rule (or the repeal of a rule!) is legitimate and durable. The essay was highlighted by the AFP Foundation.
EU Policy: At the Computers, Privacy, Data Protection conference (CPDP), Berin led a workshop on the Trump administration’s criticism of Europe for “censoring” free speech. The discussion covered the validity of these claims, European values, geopolitical influence, and the impact on internet users and European democracies.
Antitrust: We partnered with WLF for the latest installment of our ‘Tech in the Courts’ webinar series! Bial was joined by Giovanna Massarotto and Derek Moore for a discussion on the ruling in the DOJ’s ad-tech antitrust case, whether the decision is vulnerable on appeal, and what the remedy decision might look like.
