Why Section 230 Protects Algorithms—and Why the FTC Can’t Police AI Speech
Plus KOSA, FTC AI authority, and more…
FTC: Berin, Andy and Santana filed comments to the FTC explaining why both the First Amendment and long-standing FTC precedent bar the Commission from policing the bias, objectivity, accuracy or balance of AI-generated outputs by suing AI companies.
Bilal also filed comments urging the Commission to align its proposed AI statement with its existing deception framework. He noted that the FTC doesn’t need a new theory to protect consumers here; it needs to apply the one it already has—including their own 1983 deception framework.
Section 230: Andy filed an amicus brief urging the New York Court of Appeals to affirm a lower court’s ruling that online service providers do not lose Section 230 protection by using algorithms to implement editorial judgments at the scale of the Internet.
Kids Safety: Ari issued a statement on the Senate Commerce Committee’s markup of several online-safety proposals, including KOSA, which he warned would impose a de facto age-verification mandate and an unworkable duty of care that violate the First Amendment and undermine minors’ well-being.
Space: Jim filed comments on NASA’s Interim Final Rule implementing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), urging the agency to engage in full APA notice-and-comment rulemaking and to clarify that NEPA does not apply to NASA-supported activities conducted in outer space that do not directly impact the human biome.
Free Speech: Our joint opposition, alongside a bipartisan coalition of former high-ranking FCC officials, to petitions seeking denial of the renewal of ABC’s broadcast licenses was mentioned in several high-profile publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Politico, and several more.
