Legislators can help protect kids on social media, but a cultural shift on the issue of child safety also will require collaboration from Big Tech, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) said Tuesday.
Social Media
Social media platforms are facing intense scrutiny over how they collect, share and monetize user data. As new state and federal laws focus on age verification, parental controls and transparency requirements, social media companies face legal risks around algorithmic targeting, third-party tracking and children's safety. This page follows key legislation, investigations and lawsuits shaping privacy practices for major social platforms.
A Florida law that would ban kids from social media doesn't violate the First Amendment, said Attorney General James Uthmeier (R) in a brief filed Friday that asks a federal court to reverse a preliminary injunction on the law.
The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court not to block Mississippi’s social-media law from taking effect (see 2508140048) means that a similar Tennessee law should not be blocked, either, argued Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) on Friday.
The Ohio Social Media Parental Notification Act violates the First Amendment, and NetChoice “indisputably has standing” to bring a case, the trade association argued Friday at the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
A Georgia law that would require age verification and parental consent for minors to create social media accounts is not content-based nor does it violate the First Amendment, said a bipartisan coalition of 31 states in an amicus brief Wednesday at the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
LinkedIn sued web-scraping company ProAPIs and its principal, Rehmat Alam, on Thursday for its alleged unauthorized scraping of member profiles, some of which was done by fake accounts.
Social media companies have a Jan. 1 deadline for reporting their content moderation policies to the New York Attorney General's Office, it said Thursday as it announced that the online portal for submitting those reports is open. The Stop Hiding Hate Act, signed into law in December, requires social media companies to submit terms of service reports to the AG's office, and report on the steps taken and on flagged or actioned items of content. “With violence and polarization on the rise, social media companies must ensure that their platforms don’t fuel hateful rhetoric and disinformation,” said AG Letitia James (D).
Social media platform Imgur's move that restricts access to U.K. users was "ia commercial decision taken by the company," the ICO said in a statement Tuesday.
NetChoice urged California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) to veto several bills as the tech trade group hopes it can convince state legislators to “relent in their seemingly inexhaustible desire to police speech and regulate sources of expression.”
Lithuanian-based digital identity research tool Whitebridge.ai is selling "reputation reports" compiled from large amounts of scraped personal information about unsuspecting people to "anyone willing to pay" for them, privacy advocate Noyb alleged Monday. It slammed the company's "shady business model."