Technology, People and Policy.
It’s no surprise that Mark Zuckerberg has called for “updating the rules for the Internet” – he signaled as much last April in his testimony before the U.S. Senate, inclining his head towards the yoke of regulation. But things have changed significantly since then and Zuckerberg has missed his moment to lead on the design […]
This week ends the spring season, and just like the weather the tech policy world is starting to heat up. Be it Facebook’s new crypto currency Libra, Senator Josh Hawley’s new proposal to compel large tech companies to be politically neutral on content moderation, or the US government’s hearings on manipulated media, it’s a full […]
Every year, the United States government blocks about 40 proposed mergers due to competition concerns. The government does so after conducting a many-months investigation of the proposed deal, including reviewing hundreds of thousands of pages of internal company documents, interviewing key executives throughout the affected industry, and analyzing data about prices and competition. When that […]
Today, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will convene an open hearing on “ the national security challenges of artificial intelligence (AI), manipulated media, and ‘deepfake’ technology.” Specifically, the Committee is looking at “democratic governance, with individuals and voters no longer able to trust their own eyes or ears when assessing the authenticity of […]
It’s the middle of June, and while not quite summer, Congressional hearings are beginning to heat up. Be it hearings on antitrust or deepfakes, Russia’s data sharing, and facial recognition advances, there is a lot to cover in this week’s Protego Press Roundup. Russia and Tech Data: Russia continues to flex its power over foreign […]
In this week’s Protego weekly update, we focus on new pressures building for governmental intervention to address tech companies. It appears that the U.S. Government may be moving toward intervention to address tech companies and, in particular, the antitrust concerns that today’s behemoths raise. Regulators have begun dividing their focus among the companies, with the […]
In this week’s Protego weekly update, we focus in on a particular debate that roiled technology policy circles in recent days. Last week, a video posted to Facebook appeared to show Nancy Pelosi drunkenly slurring her words. It was subsequently posted to YouTube and Twitter, where it was even amplified by former New York mayor […]
A doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went viral last week, Facebook de-ranked it as false, but refused to remove it. Platform politics have rubbed raw the public’s nerves, so that each new incident like this – whether Facebook de-platforms a hateful speaker or refuses to – makes tech look bad and creates new […]
The FCC’s Personal Attack Rule- struck down in 2000- should be resurrected. By Justin Hendrix and Bryan Jones. Another day and yet another incident that illustrates the role of social media platforms in facilitating and accelerating toxicity into the public discourse. “Distorted videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), altered to make her sound as […]
The following was previously published on Defusing Disinfo here. Over the past few years, the age-old practice of propaganda has mixed with social media to create a formidable new problem: computational disinformation powerful enough to disrupt democracies. From 2014 through 2017, Russia’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) targeted the American people with tens of millions of […]
It’s the last week before Memorial Day, and while Game of Thrones fans are digesting the series finale, the tech policy world continues forward. Be it energy espionage, regulation of facial recognition, Huawei, disinformation and bias, catch up on all the latest news in this week’s Protego Press Round Up. In Case You Missed It: […]