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Closing the window on public media funding
A door has closed, but windows remain open. Recently, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced that it would discontinue operations in light of…
Blog
Time’s up for the equal time rule
Merriam Webster’s dictionary defines “anachronism” as a person or thing that is chronologically out of place, “especially: one from a former age that is…
Blog
Otherwise Objectionable episode 6: ‘The Rest of the World’
The sixth episode of Otherwise Objectionable, the narrative-driven podcast that tells the true story of Section 230 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, focuses on…
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Blog
Markets Aren’t Perfect; Regulation Is Often Far Worse
A rhetorical tactic commonly employed by both my technocratic and progressive friends is a straw man argument. “If market processes are so great,” they charge,…
Blog
Let the Market Make Corrections and Leave the Red Tape out of It
YouTube banned anti-vaccine content on its platform, Instagram is accused of being “toxic” for its teen users, and Facebook’s Oversight Board is routinely…
Blog
Texas May Still Be the Wild West, But Its Social Media Shouldn’t Be
The Texas legislature passed and Governor Greg Abbott recently signed into law H.B. 20, which he described as “safeguarding the freedom of speech by…
Blog
Web 3.0 Requires New Regulatory Thinking
“[A] digital economy isn’t simply an industrial economy on the internet.” The Blockchain Innovation Hub at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia…
Blog
Not A Policy Paper, Just A Thought
Years ago, pastor Lon Solomon of the D.C.-based McLean Bible Church popularized a series of radio ads entitled, “Not a Sermon, Just a Thought,”…
KRWG
Donald Trump Sues Facebook, YouTube And Twitter For Alleged Censorship
KRWG cites Director for the Center for Technology and Innovation Jessica Melugin on Trump’s legal actions targeting social media platforms: “These social…
The Foundation for Economic Education
Breaking Down the Latest Bipartisan Assault on Big Tech—And How It Could Blow Up in Consumers’ Faces
The Foundation for Economic Education cites Vice President for Strategy Iain Murray on a series of proposed antitrust bills targeting “Big Tech”:…
Blog
PRO-SPEECH Act Seeks to Reintroduce Problem Solved 25 Years Ago
For those generally skeptical of Congress’ ability to make good policy, the existence of Section 230 in the 1996 Communications Decency Act evokes a…
News Release
Facebook’s Content Moderation Decisions Preferable to One-Size-Fits-All Government Regulation
Facebook announced today it suspended former President Donald Trump from the platform for two years retroactive to January 7, 2021. Responding to a ruling against…
Blog
Overboard over the Oversight Board
Yesterday’s decision by Facebook’s Oversight Board that the company was correct in restricting then-President Trump’s ability to post on January 7, 2021 and that…
Blog
Decentralization Offers a Way out of the Social Media Content Wars
Thursday brought another politically charged installment of “a tale of two hearings” about online content moderation in the House of Representatives. Republicans scolded big…
Fortune
Don’t Put Big Tech or Big Government in Charge of the Truth
The divide among Americans on a wide range of issues is being amplified by social media. Charges of misinformation and censorship online are raising the…
National Review
The Answer to Our Big Tech Problem Is Decentralization
Before the “great de-platforming” following the events at the Capitol on January 6, defenders of a laissez-faire approach to social media were able to tell those…
Blog
Why Repealing Section 230 Will Hurt Startups and Medium-Sized Online Businesses
As Democrats and Republicans seek to rein in Big Tech, Congress is reviewing legislation to repeal Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA),…
Blog
The Danger in Blurring the Private and Public Boundaries with Government Regulation
The recent decisions of many technology companies to remove users and customers from their platforms have deeply divided Americans. Many Americans feel censored and discriminated…
Blog
On Online Speech, Sasse Stands Alone
There was an almost total lack of skepticism of expanding government regulation of online content moderation at yesterday’s Senate hearing with the CEOs of…
Blog
Biden Tech Policy Preview
Joe Biden has been declared the president-elect (I’m pretty sure). Here’s what a Biden administration and a (presumably) divided Congress might mean for tech issues.
Blog
Don’t Panic Over Ad Tech
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an antitrust hearing on September 15 to examine Google’s 90 percent market share in online advertising. Senators who would…
National Review
Why Are We Even Contemplating Canceling Aristotle?
There is a good piece hidden in philosopher Agnes Callard’s recent article for the New York Times about cancel culture. Unfortunately, that piece is lost in the framing device.
National Review
House Antitrust Hearing Discusses Everything but Antitrust Law
In Wednesday’s antitrust hearing with the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, questions from liberal members of Congress laid the groundwork for expanding the…
Forbes
Regulating Social Media Content Moderation Will Backfire And Make Big Tech More Powerful
As repeatedly noted by defenders of free speech, expressing popular opinions never needs protection. Rather, it is the commitment to protecting dissident expression that is…
Blog
The Flawed EARN IT Act: Rights and Common Sense Should Not Have to Be Earned
The EARN IT Act is set for a markup in the Senate Judiciary Committee as early as this Thursday. Essentially the bill conditions intermediary liability…
Blog
House Judiciary Setting up Political Theater Disguised as Tech Antitrust Hearing
Sometime next month, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to hold a hearing on competition and antitrust featuring the CEOs of Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple,…
Blog
Calls to “Reform” Section 230 of Communications Decency Act Are Misguided—and Thankfully Unlikely to Succeed
This week, four U.S. Senators asked the FCC to “take a fresh look at Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act .” Real changes…
Blog
Executive Order on Social Media Threatens Property Rights and Free Speech
Today’s Executive Order on Section 230 liability protections for online platforms violates the First Amendment and property rights of social media companies, contradicts the most…
National Review
Here Is A Catalog Of Trump’s Threats To Regulate Social Media
The major print and cable television news media outlets are abuzz with stories of Twitter fact-checking President Donald Trump’s tweets. Alleged…
Blog
Presidential Panel on Social Media Bias Misfires
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration is considering forming a panel to investigate charges of discrimination against right-leaning users and…
Blog
Glaring Problems with Latest Right-Wing Attack on Section 230
A recent opinion editorial in Newsweek is the latest salvo from the political right against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Couched in criticisms…
Washington Examiner
Why is there bipartisan support for limiting online liberty?
Facebook recently announced the first 20 members of its independent Oversight Board on content moderation. Many criticized the political bent of the majority of the…
Blog
Let Local News Outlets Bail Each Other Out
Allowing common ownership of newspapers and broadcast stations would allow them to achieve economies of scale in their sales departments and other keys aspects of…
Blog
CEI Submits Comments to FCC Reinforcing Public Safety Benefits of Internet Freedom
Last year, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld virtually all of the FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom Order. This order, issued in 2017, rolled back…
Blog
Regulatory Restraint, Full Throttle
Members of Congress pursuing compromise or bipartisan net neutrality legislation should think twice about regulating away certain practices as a priori harmful. Among the greatest…
Blog
CEI Scholars Warn EARN IT Act Will Weaken Online Protections
Today, a bipartisan group of senators introduced the EARN IT Act, a bill that ties critical intermediary liability protections for online platforms, known as Section…
Blog
Federal Court Rightly Affirms Online Platforms’ First Amendment Rights
This week the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that, “despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a publicfacing platform, it remains a private forum,…
Blog
Net Reality: Five Years Since the Open Internet Order
If you’re reading this, the Internet is alive and well. If you’re wondering how the Internet is doing, just picture a rocket—symbolizing both the incredible…
Blog
So-Called Conservative Tech Proposal Is an Affront to the First Amendment
Several conservative groups have signaled their support for what some are calling a “small-government solution” to perceived anti-conservative bias by tech platforms. The solution that…
Blog
USMCA Won’t Protect Tech from Trudeau
A point of contention in the debate over the new U.S., Mexico, Canada (USMCA) trade agreement has been whether or not the final deal will…
Blog
Government of Singapore Demonstrates Real Online Censorship
Singapore’s recent policing of online content provides an instructive example of the difference between private curating of material by platform owners and dangerous curtailing of…
The Chicago Tribune
PRO: Critics can’t decide if Facebook does too much or too little
During his recent appearance at Georgetown University, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg summed up the company's predicament: "Right now, we're doing a very good job at…
Blog
Twitter’s Ban on Political Ads Has No First Amendment Implications
Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey announced that the social media platform will ban all political advertising. This comes on the heels of Facebook’s recent announcement…
Blog
Cautiously Optimistic about Facebook’s New Approach to Speech
It seems increasingly the case that there is a lot more to like about what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to say than not. His…
Blog
Facebook’s $5 Billion Privacy Fine Almost Certainly Too High
Facebook has faced intense criticism from lawmakers and regulators since last spring, when The Observer and The New York Times reported that data from over…
Blog
Where Facebook Interim Report on Bias Falls Short
Today former U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), in fulfillment of an arrangement with Facebook, released an independent Interim Report (and accompanying op-ed) cataloging the primary concerns of…
Blog
Leaked White House Executive Order on ‘Censorship’ Violates Two Basic Constitutional Tenets
Earlier this week it was reported that the Trump administration was drafting an executive order to combat perceived “censorship” of conservatives on online platforms such…
News Release
Draft White House Executive Order Aimed at Social Media Companies Would Violate First Amendment
Following yesterday’s Politico report about a draft executive order aimed at social media companies’ policies, CNN obtained a copy of the proposed order on Friday.
Blog
Nipping at Big Tech’s Heels: Competition in Social Media
There has much bemoaning and hand-wringing by members of Congress on the alleged dangers of social media.
Blog
Response to State Lawsuit against T-Mobile/Sprint: Mergers Signal Dynamic Markets
The end of the first blog post in this series warned that the real result of a successful lawsuit to block the merger of Sprint…
Broadcasting Cable
Trump’s Social Media Summit Billed as ‘Bias’ Bashing Exercise
Broadcasting Cable cites Research Fellow Patrick Hedger on social media censorship. The fiscally conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute weighed in with a warning before…
News Release
Empowering Government to Regulate Speech Would Harm Americans’ First Amendment Rights
This afternoon, the White House is convening a group of elected officials, public policy organizations, and private citizens for a “Social Media Summit.” …
Reason
Because Politicians Are for Sale, They Think Everyone Else Is Too
Reason cites CEI’s position on government control of the Internet. The senator thus compounds his disdain for free speech with accusations that his…