Selfie studios and common carriers
Plus, social media debates, antitrust scholarship, and thoughts on the BRIDGE Act.
In case you’ve ever felt a burning need to pose with a fake ice cream cone in front of a giant pair of dice, I know just the place for you. “Selfie WRLD,” a veritable matrix of selfie studios for aspiring Instagram influencers, opened earlier this month in Tysons Corner. If you’ve ever seen your favorite local Coachella-goer posting from inside a vintage diner and thought to yourself, “since when do they eat carbs?” you might have inadvertently seen the interior of one of Selfie WRLD’s highly curated rooms.
Personally, I prefer to take pictures inside an actual museum or garden. But that’s why I’m not an influencer (aside from the fact that I do eat carbs). For $20, their backdrops might be worth checking out if you’re in need of a fun new profile picture. And speaking of social media…
Social Media Regulation. Late last week, we at last got our chance to oppose Florida’s new social-media speech code in court. We filed an amicus brief, in a Florida federal trial court, in support of two trade associations’ lawsuit challenging the law. Among its many other crazy features, the law declares that large social-media websites “should be treated similarly to common carriers.” Our brief takes aim at this faulty “common carriage” theory. (Devoted readers will recall Berin’s and Corbin’s Lawfare essay on the misguided concurrence, by Justice Thomas, that may have inspired Florida’s legislators to insert the theory into their law.) Our brief received coverage in The Washington Examiner. For the tl;dr version, check out our press release and Twitter thread.
Berin also explained his opposition to the trend of support among Republicans for state restrictions on social media companies’ “censorship” to Politico. He pointed out that eliminating content moderation would compel such sites to host shocking and despicable material.
On a related note, Berin again debated Eugene Volokh, the leading First Amendment scholar who’s been arguing that social media could be regulated as common carriers. Check out their debate at UCLA Law, and their earlier FedSoc debate.
Antitrust & 230. Increasingly, Republicans insist that social media’s supposed political bias against them is somehow an antitrust problem. It isn’t, as Berin explains in his new essay, “Antitrust, Section 230 & the First Amendment,” published by Competition Policy International Chronicle last month. The article is now available online.
Bilal, our adjunct fellow and an FTC veteran, took to task one antitrust bill in particular — Senator Klobuchar’s Competition and Antitrust Law Enforcement Reform Act — at a Federal Communications Bar Association seminar covered by Broadband Breakfast. As Bilal explained, the bill targets the “big” in “Big Tech” by punishing companies for their size and success rather than analyzing their actions.
Broadband Deployment. Lots of taxpayer money is being spent on broadband these days, and the BRIDGE Act is the latest bipartisan bill aimed at spending $40 billion more. Our press release shows why the goal of closing the digital divide takes a back seat to bad policy. For example, the legislation fails to determine where the $20 billion already allocated is going to be spent and allows states to choose their own data and speed tests in deciding what project to fund. What’s more, it contains yet another attempt at rate regulation by requiring providers to offer cheap plans that might result in significant economic losses to them.