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
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 In early March 2024, Republican Governor Spencer Cox effectively repealed and replaced the previously enacted...more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
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
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
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
In early March 2022, a coalition of state attorneys general launched an investigation of TikTok to determine whether the social media platform, which is popular among young Americans, causes long-term harm to them....more
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill continue to take aim at social media platforms that collect and use personal information that build algorithms to target individuals across a variety of dimensions when users engage with those...more
In late October, Facebook announced that it would change its name to Meta, signaling a shift of the social media giant’s focus toward the metaverse, a virtual space where social media, gaming, augmented reality, virtual...more
12/21/2021
/ Communications Decency Act ,
Facebook ,
Facial Recognition Technology ,
JAMA ,
LinkedIn ,
Pinterest ,
Rebranding ,
Social Media ,
Technology ,
Video Recordings ,
Websites
Over the past several years, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the federal law that provides social media platforms with immunity from liability for user content and was once hailed as “the law that gave us the...more
12/16/2021
/ Big Tech ,
Censorship ,
Civil Liability ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Disclosure ,
Discrimination ,
Email ,
First Amendment ,
Immunity ,
Online Platforms ,
Section 230 ,
Social Media
Social Links is our ongoing series here at Socially Aware that rounds up current developments at the intersection of social media, policy, research, and the law.
Embedding social media posts can be considered copyright...more
While Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act continues to face significant calls for reform or even elimination, the recent Coffee v. Google case illustrates that Section 230 continues to provide broad protection to...more
6/10/2021
/ Class Action ,
Communications Decency Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Google ,
Google Play Store ,
Illegal Gambling ,
Immunity ,
Interactive Gaming ,
Leave to Amend ,
Payment Systems ,
Safe Harbors ,
Section 230 ,
Slot Machines ,
Social Media ,
Software ,
Virtual Currency
In Ganske v. Mensch, a defamation suit stemming from a “battle by Tweet,” a federal district court in New York held that the allegedly defamatory statements in the defendant’s Tweet were nonactionable statements of opinion...more
In a move that might be part of a settlement that YouTube has entered into with the Federal Trade Commission, the video-sharing site said it will ban “targeted” advertisements on videos likely to be watched by children....more
The high-end skincare brand Sunday Riley has settled lawsuits filed by the Federal Trade Commission claiming that the brand’s founder encouraged employees of her eponymous company to set up accounts “under different...more
Singapore has enacted a law granting government ministers the power to require social media platforms to completely remove or place warnings alongside posts the authorities designate as false....more
It is likely no surprise to regular readers of Socially Aware that posting content to social media can, in some cases, generate significant income. But those who make their living on social media may find their livelihood...more