Legislation: In the last few weeks, we’ve written three coalition letters explaining the harmful consequences for free speech, content moderation, and kids online that would flow from poorly crafted provisions of tech bills with bipartisan support: the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), Open App Markets Act (OAMA), and Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). This kind of in-depth analysis is what we do best. We were very proud to have leading scholars and civil society groups join us.
And our concerns were heard! These bills were left out of end-of-year, must-pass packages, so there will be time to get the details right in the next Congress.
COPPA: Also omitted from the Omnibus was the Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). No hearings were ever held on this legislation. When a revised version of this bill was introduced for inclusion in the Omnibus, Berin and Ari quickly responded with a letter explaining why it’s not so easy to expand the existing 1998 COPPA statute to cover teens, why the bill would effectively force age verification of all Internet users, and how to fix the bill to avoid infringing on the First Amendment rights of adults to communicate anonymously or pseudonymously.
Internet Culture: On the latest Tech Policy Podcast—episode #334!—Corbin closes the year strong with Malcom Kyeyune, the Swedish author of “The New Gnostics,” an intriguing article in the autumn issue of City Journal’s print magazine. They examine the weird new counterculture—heard of Liver King?—taking shape on the Internet.
Antitrust: Much of the push for updating the antitrust laws comes from a perception that they fail to address harms to potential competition. Bilal takes on that claim in a draft paper summarizing how the FTC addressed potential and emerging competition in merger enforcement over the last three decades. At 109 pages, this paper will be the authoritative treatment of the question—a key issue as FTC and DOJ redraft the merger guidelines and as the next Congress takes up legislation.
Earlier this month, Bilal was also a panelist at the 7th Global Antitrust Economics Conference, in New York City, to discuss the implications of the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) and the Open App Markets Act (OAMA).
First Amendment: In an interview with Newsweek, Ari sets the record straight on Elon Musk’s controversial decision to ban the @ElonJet account. Musk has a First Amendment right to moderate content as he chooses, but he can’t take legal action against the account owner for sharing publicly available information about his jet’s location, and his recent choices aren’t necessarily consistent with his professed desire for more free speech on Twitter.
KOSA: Our work raising concerns about the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) continued making the rounds. Our coalition letter and Ari’s thread explaining why changes to the bill’s text did not address the serious issues we raised were highlighted in a Techdirt article.
Child Protection: Last week, Corbin was quoted in Communications Litigation Today (paywall) to discuss the many moving parts of California’s disastrous new Age Appropriate Design Code—including provisions that could chill Internet content creation.
Broadband: Berin live-tweeted the FCC’s open meeting on the rule implementing a provision of the 2021 infrastructure bill that ordered the FCC to write rules on “Prevention and Elimination of Digital Discrimination.” In March, we filed comments on how the FCC should proceed—and we’ll also file comments early next year.
Image via Wikimedia Commons