Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) is a Washington, D.C.–based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organisation that advocates for digital rights and freedom of expression. CDT seeks to promote legislation that enables individuals to use the internet for purposes of well-intent, while at the same time reducing its potential for harm. It advocates for transparency, accountability, and limiting the collection of personal information.
In the United States, internet censorship is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship.
The Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA) is an international non-profit advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, United States which represents the information and communications technology industries. According to their site, CCIA "promotes open markets, open systems, open networks, and full, fair, and open competition." Established in 1972, CCIA was active in antitrust cases involving IBM, AT&T and Microsoft, and lobbied for net neutrality, copyright and patent reform and against internet censorship and policies, mergers or other situations that would reduce competition. CCIA released a study it commissioned by an MIT professor, which analyzed the cost of patent trolls to the economy., a study on the economic benefits of Fair Use and has testified before the Senate on limiting government surveillance and on internet censorship as a trade issue.
Section 230 is a section of Title 47 of the United States Code that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Backpage.com was a classified advertising website founded in 2004 by the alternative newspaper chain New Times Inc./New Times Media as a rival to Craigslist.
Gab is an American alt-tech microblogging and social networking service known for its far-right userbase. Widely described as a haven for neo-Nazis, racists, white supremacists, white nationalists, antisemites, the alt-right, supporters of Donald Trump, conservatives, right-libertarians, and believers in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, Gab has attracted users and groups who have been banned from other social media platforms and users seeking alternatives to mainstream social media platforms. Founded in 2016 and launched publicly in May 2017, Gab claims to promote free speech, individual liberty, the "free flow of information online", and Christian values. Researchers and journalists have characterized these assertions as an obfuscation of its extremist ecosystem. Antisemitism is prominent in the site's content and the company itself has engaged in antisemitic commentary. Gab CEO Andrew Torba has promoted the white genocide conspiracy theory. Gab is based in Pennsylvania.
Mastodon is free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to Twitter, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances or servers, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and content moderation policies.
Facebook has been involved in multiple controversies involving censorship of content, removing or omitting information from its services in order to comply with company policies, legal demands, and government censorship laws.
The Network Enforcement Act, also known colloquially as the Facebook Act, is a German law that was passed in the Bundestag that officially aims to combat fake news, hate speech and misinformation online.
FOSTA and SESTA are U.S. Senate and House bills which became law on April 11, 2018. They clarify the country's sex trafficking law to make it illegal to knowingly assist, facilitate, or support sex trafficking, and amend the Section 230 safe harbors of the Communications Decency Act to exclude enforcement of federal or state sex trafficking laws from its immunity. Senate sponsor Rob Portman had previously led an investigation into the online classifieds service Backpage, and argued that Section 230 was protecting its "unscrupulous business practices" and was not designed to provide immunity to websites that facilitate sex trafficking.
Deplatforming, also known as no-platforming, has been defined as an "attempt to boycott a group or individual through removing the platforms used to share information or ideas", or "the action or practice of preventing someone holding views regarded as unacceptable or offensive from contributing to a forum or debate, especially by blocking them on a particular website."
MeWe is a global social media and social networking service. As a company based in Los Angeles, California it is also known as Sgrouples, Inc., doing business as MeWe. The site has been described as a Facebook alternative due to its focus on data privacy.
The EARN IT Act is proposed legislation first introduced in 2020 in the United States Congress. It aims to amend Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, which allows operators of websites to remove user-posted content that they deem inappropriate, and provides them with immunity from civil lawsuits related to such posting. Section 230 is the only surviving portion of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996.
The Digital Services Act is a Regulation in EU law to update the Electronic Commerce Directive 2000 regarding illegal content, transparent advertising, and disinformation. It was submitted along with the Digital Markets Act (DMA) by the European Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on 15 December 2020. The DSA was prepared by the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for A Europe Fit for the Digital Age Margrethe Vestager and by the European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton, as members of the Von der Leyen Commission.
There is evidence that TikTok has down-weighted the posts of topics deemed sensitive by the Chinese government and Chinese Communist Party. Topics alleged to have been censored by the platform include the Uyghur genocide, the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests, the Sino-Indian border dispute, foreign political leaders, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and Black people. TikTok has also removed or omitted information from its services in order to comply with company policies, legal demands, and government censorship laws. TikTok's responses to claims of censorship have varied, responding that the platform was attempting to protect users from bullying, arguing that certain instances were the result of human error, and stating that such incidents were the result of algorithmic mistakes.
The Online Safety Bill is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to improve internet safety. It was published as a draft on 12 May 2021 and received its third reading on 19 September 2023. Following the earlier 2019 Online Harms White Paper, the bill gives the relevant Secretary of State the power, subject to parliamentary approval, to designate and address a wide range of potentially harmful content, which may include online trolling, illegal pornography and underage access to legal pornography, and some forms of internet fraud.
Moody v. NetChoice, LLC is a pending United States Supreme Court case related to protected speech under the First Amendment, content moderation by Internet service providers under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and two state laws passed in Florida and Texas that sought to limit this moderation. The case is a also closely related to NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton. Both cases are challenges to state laws restricting content moderation on social media websites. The case is expected to be heard during the Court's 2023–24 term.
Gonzalez v. Google LLC, 598 U.S. 617 (2023), was a case at the Supreme Court of the United States which dealt with the question of whether or not recommender systems are covered by liability exemptions under Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934—which was established by the Telecommunications Act of 1996—for Internet service providers, in dealing with terrorism-related content posted by users and hosted on their servers. The case was granted certiorari alongside another Section 230 and terrorism-related case, Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh.
Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh, 598 U.S. 471 (2023), was a case of the Supreme Court of the United States. The case considered whether Internet service providers are liable for "aiding and abetting" a designated foreign terrorist organization in an "act of international terrorism", on account of recommending such content posted by users, under Section 2333 of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. Along with Gonzalez v. Google LLC, Taamneh is one of two cases where social media companies are accused of aiding and abetting terrorism in violation of the law. The cases were decided together in a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that Taamneh's case could proceed. The cases challenge the broad liability immunity for hosting and recommending terrorist content that websites have enjoyed.
Moderator Mayhem is a casual web-based video game designed by Engine, Randy Lubin, and Mike Masnick of Techdirt targeted towards policymakers. The game is about the challenges of content moderation of user-generated content on social media.
