Ars Technica: “On Monday, Florida became the first state to ban kids under 14 from social media without parental permission. It appears likely that the law—considered one of the most restrictive in the US—will face significant legal challenges, however, before taking effect on January 1. Under HB 3, apps like Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok would… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Legislation
TikTokSpreads Misinformation 20 Percent of the Time and Is Banned in China
NewsGuard Reality Check: “The debate in Washington about what to do about TikTok is not about hypothetical harms. NewsGuard research over the years has shone a harsh light on TikTok as a misinformation superspreader. In one report, NewsGuard analysts mimicked how TikTok users interact with the video platform by analyzing 540 TikTok results based on… Continue Reading
Rethinking Privacy in the AI Era: Policy Provocations for a Data-Centric World
Rethinking Privacy in the AI Era: Policy Provocations for a Data-Centric World – Jennifer King, Caroline Meinhardt. “This White Paper. explores the current and future impact of privacy and data protection legislation on AI development and provides recommendations for mitigating privacy harms in an AI era. In this paper, we present a series of arguments… Continue Reading
IP – Stronger Fraud Risk Management Could Improve the Integrity of Trademark System
Intellectual Property: Stronger Fraud Risk Management Could Improve the Integrity of the Trademark System. Published: Mar 14, 2024. Publicly Released: Mar 14, 2024. “…The Trademark Modernization Act of 2020 (TMA) established two new procedures—expungement and reexamination—that allow individuals and businesses to challenge a registered trademark on the basis that it was not used in commerce,… Continue Reading
House Committee Approves Bill Restricting Sales of Sensitive Data to Foreign Adversaries
EPIC: “March 7, 2024 the House Energy & Commerce Committee approved H.R. 7520, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act of 2024, sponsored by Representative Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The bill prohibits data brokers from selling, transferring, or providing access to Americans’ sensitive data to certain foreign adversaries… Continue Reading
Privacy First and Competition
EFF- Cory Doctorow: “Privacy First” is a simple, powerful idea: seeing as so many of today’s technological problems are also privacy problems, why don’t we fix privacy first? Whether you’re worried about kids’ mental health, or tech’s relationship to journalism, or spying by foreign adversaries, or reproductive rights, or AI deepfakes, or nonconsensual pornography, you’re… Continue Reading
Everything you need to know to prepare for the EU’s AI Act
sifted: “EU lawmakers finally came to an agreement on the AI Act at the end of 2023 — a piece of legislation that had been in the works for years to regulate artificial intelligence and prevent misuses of the technology. Now the text is going through a series of votes before it becomes EU law… Continue Reading
Wyden’s Gets FTC To Protect Data Of 1.6 B People Tracked By Now-Bankrupt Data Broker
TechDirt: “There are two major reasons that the U.S. doesn’t pass an internet-era privacy law or regulate data brokers despite a parade of dangerous scandals. One, lobbied by a vast web of interconnected industries with unlimited budgets, Congress is too corrupt to do its job. Two, the U.S. government is disincentivized to do anything because it exploits… Continue Reading
State of the Union
USA Facts: In Numbers – A nonpartisan, data-driven snapshot of the state of our union. “Article II of the US Constitution mandates that the president periodically inform Congress about the “state of the union,” including budget reports and legislative proposals. It is also a chance for the president to review their achievements, with not just… Continue Reading
CivicSearch
“CivicSearch is a search and discovery tool for everything that is said in local government meetings, texts, and laws. It covers 545 cities and towns in the US and Canada. Included is recent content from LocalView, a data set of transcripts from city councils and other local government bodies around the US. The data is… Continue Reading
Their States Banned Abortion
ProPublica – Doctors Now Say They Can’t Give Women Potential Lifesaving Care. “…Most medical exceptions in abortion bans only allow the procedure to “save the life of the mother.” But there is a wide spectrum of health risks patients can face during pregnancy, and even those that are potentially fatal could fall outside of the… Continue Reading
The impact of generative AI in a global election year
Brookings – Valerie Wirtschafter: “The influence of the online ecosystem in shaping democratic discourse is well-documented, with the expanded reach of generative artificial intelligence (AI) representing a novel challenge in a historic election year. Generative AI enables the creation of realistic images, videos, audio, or text based on user-provided prompts. Given the potential exploitation of… Continue Reading
