Lingo Telecom, a Georgia-based VoIP service operator, has agreed to pay a $1 million fine for using AI-generated deepfake technology to spoof President Joe Biden’s voice in a series of robocalls. A Louisiana political...more
9/5/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
California ,
Copyright Infringement ,
Deep Fake ,
Google ,
Machine Learning ,
Music Industry ,
Online Advertisements ,
Reddit ,
Robocalling ,
Telecommunications ,
VoIP
The Federal Trade Commission has finalized a new rule aimed at curtailing false, misleading, and otherwise fraudulent reviews on online retail sites. Fake reviews are a significant problem for the big e-commerce platforms,...more
8/28/2024
/ Cybersquatting ,
Defamation ,
Domain Names ,
E-Commerce ,
Endorsements ,
Fake Reviews ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Google ,
Instagram ,
Microsoft ,
Online Reviews ,
Reddit ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Social Media
Social media giant TikTok has been sued by the United States for allegedly collecting data on children under thirteen illegally. The suit claims the app, which is owned by China-based parent company ByteDance, allowed...more
8/19/2024
/ Big Tech ,
Boycotts ,
Data Collection ,
Deep Fake ,
DMCA ,
Electronic Frontier Foundation ,
Minors ,
Parental Consent ,
Section 230 ,
Securities Fraud ,
Social Media ,
TikTok ,
Twitter
In a rare example of bipartisan agreement, the dramatically named DEFIANCE (Disrupt Explicit Forged Images and Non-Consensual Edits) Act unanimously passed the Senate. The bill allows victims of AI-generated deepfake...more
8/6/2024
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Blackmail ,
Censorship ,
COPPA ,
Copyright Office ,
Deep Fake ,
Facebook ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Intent to Defraud ,
Metaverse ,
Nigeria ,
Pornography ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media
The digital age has ushered in innovative forms of entertainment and commerce, including through the development of in-game economies. In recent years, the digital landscape of gaming has expanded beyond mere entertainment,...more
7/10/2024
/ Anti-Money Laundering ,
App Developers ,
Bank Secrecy Act ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Contractual Safeguards ,
Convertible Virtual Currencies (CVCs) ,
Digital Media ,
EULA ,
FinCEN ,
In-Game Purchases ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Limitation of Liability Clause ,
Money Transmission Act ,
Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) ,
Online Gaming ,
Terms of Service ,
Virtual Currency ,
Virtual Goods
On May 9, 2024, in X Corp. v. Bright Data Ltd., the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed X’s claims alleging that Bright Data’s access to X’s systems, and scraping and selling of publicly...more
In our fourth installment of our six-part series examining Section 230—the segment of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from content created by third...more
As we reported in 2023, Utah was the first state in the nation to enact laws limiting minors’ use of social media. In early March 2024, Republican Governor Spencer Cox effectively repealed and replaced the previously enacted...more
4/4/2024
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Big Tech ,
Data Collection ,
Governor DeSantis ,
Immunity ,
Liability ,
Minors ,
OMB ,
Parental Consent ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media ,
Targeted Digital Advertising
Conversations around AI continue to dominate the headlines in early 2024 and show no signs of abating anytime soon. Here are few of the stories and trends we’ve been tracking at Socially Aware. A deepfake technology scam...more
In the prior two installments of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
A court in the Southern District of Ohio has issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Social Media Parental Notification Act, an Ohio law that would require social media platforms to obtain parental consent...more
In a significant move toward enhancing transparency and trust in digital content, Meta has announced plans to introduce labeling for AI-generated images across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Nick Clegg, President of Global...more
Recent Senate hearings on social media safety have spotlighted the urgent need to protect children online, a concern that’s increasingly challenging the legal frameworks governing online platforms. Against this backdrop, the...more
Here at Socially Aware, we have been discussing issues around ownership of social media accounts since the beginning of social media. Just last July, we reported on how a bankruptcy court in Florida forced the founder and...more
While generative AI seems to be getting all of the attention these days, the medical field is another area where AI is gaining traction. Axios reports about a partnership between Elsevier and OpenEvidence that’s helping...more
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
11/15/2023
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Defamation ,
Distributors ,
Immunity ,
Online Platforms ,
Publishers ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Third-Party ,
User-Generated Content ,
Website Owner Liability
In this second installment of our six-part series examining Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes online service providers from liability stemming from the publication and...more
The D.C. district court recently affirmed the U.S. Copyright Office’s position that a work generated entirely by artificial intelligence (AI) technology is not eligible for copyright protection. The case is Stephen Thaler v....more
8/30/2023
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Authorship ,
Copyright ,
Copyright Litigation ,
Copyright Office ,
Intellectual Property Protection ,
Inventors ,
Machine Learning ,
The Copyright Act ,
Work Made For Hire Doctrine
In Jaime Rogozinski v. Reddit Inc, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney for the Northern District of California dismissed WALLSTREETBETS Reddit community founder Jamie Rogozinski’s claims against Reddit for trademark...more
In this age of social media and texting, we use a plethora of shorthand visual and typographic icons to express a range of responses or reactions to posts or texts: a heart to indicate love, a laughing face or an “LOL” to...more
Here at Socially Aware we talk a lot about Section 230, the section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA) that immunizes social media platforms and other online service providers from liability stemming from content...more
Social media continues to dominate the headlines this spring, with several high-profile events capturing the media’s, regulators’, and lawmakers’ attention.
Jack Owoc, founder and former CEO of Bang Energy (“Bang,” a...more
In May 2023, Steven Schwartz of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman admitted that he used a generative AI (GAI) platform to produce six non-existent court decisions as citations during his representation in a personal injury case...more
Over the past year, we have seen a dramatic increase in the adoption of AI technologies across industries. Because transactions involving AI technologies can resemble those involving traditional software, like SaaS...more
Section 23o, the “26 words that changed the Internet,” is once again under scrutiny from lawmakers.
At the federal level, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Judiciary panel’s subcommittee on privacy, technology, and...more