Month: November 2020

Internet Governance Austrian Supreme Court Orders Facebook To Remove A Post Globally: After losing its appeal of a 2016 case in which Eva Glawischnig-Pieszek, then-chair of Austria’s Green Party, successfully sued Facebook Ireland for the removal of defamatory comments, the Austrian Court ordered the social media giant to remove such postings and similar references on a global scale. Recent Hearing Reveals Important Differences Between Dorsey And Zuckerberg Reflected In Their Respective Companies: In response to questions concerning the addictiveness of social media platforms and the algorithms that determine what users see, Twitter’s CEO admitted the platforms might be addictive and expressed a willingness to allow greater transparency and user choice over algorithms, whereas Facebook’s CEO was more circumspect and avoided exploring the concept of algorithmic transparency and control; both responses reflected the way in which each platform currently operates, such as Twitter’s open implementation of experimental changes and Facebook’s zealous concealment of its algorithms.

Privacy That New Friend Request Could Be A Debt Collector: Couched in the language of an update to consumer financial protections, and with the details concealed within a 132-page document, a new rule issued by the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will allow debt collectors to approach debtors via email, text, and social media; under the rule, debt collectors are restricted from posting publicly and must comply with debtor requests to desist in contacting them through social media.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Head Of National Cybersecurity Ousted For Not Toeing Administration Line: In a firing-by-tweet, President Trump removed Christopher Krebs from his Senate-confirmed position as the inaugural director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in retaliation against Krebs’s public assurances about the integrity of the results of the elections systems and the agency’s systematic debunking of specific election fraud claims, which undercut the President’s campaign to undermine the election results; during his tenure, Krebs built up the agency he is leaving, and through his conduct, earned bipartisan respect, both for himself and the agency.

Intellectual Property GitHub Reinstates Popular Code That Allows Users To Download Copies Of Copyrighted Material: After receiving a DMCA takedown notice from the Recording Industry Association of America in October, GitHub removed “youtube-dl,” a command-line program that could potentially be used to download copyrighted videos; however, Github has since reversed its decision, explaining that while the program listens to a few seconds of a song in order to confirm it is working properly, it does not actually download the material for distribution, and that the code has numerous “legitimate uses.”

Free Expression and Censorship Trump’s Accusations Of Voter Fraud Continue: Since election night, President Trump has posted over 300 tweets in which he amplifies election misinformation; at a congressional hearing this week, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed that Trump’s account will lose its “world leader” status, which ensures that tweets that might otherwise violate Twitter’s rules stay visible due to their public interest, once Trump is no longer President.

Practice Note Requirements Forcing Production Of Code May Violate Constitutional Prohibitions Against Compelled Speech: Two providers of automobile dealer management systems have successfully claimed in Arizona federal court that part of the state’s 2019 Dealer Data Security Law requiring compatibility and integration with third-party systems violates First Amendment protections by forcing the production of code to meet the law’s standards; the court disagreed that Constitutionality is avoided because the law does not dictate content, stating that the plaintiffs’ allegations reach beyond regulation of conduct.

On the Lighter Side Zoom Lifts 40-Minute Limit For Thanksgiving Meetings: As a goodwill gesture, Zoom is lifting the 40-minute limit on free video chats so families can talk for as long as they wish on Thanksgiving Day.

Joel R. Reidenberg Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP Erica Chan Daniel Gerken Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance European Commission Initiates Competition Law Enforcement Action Against Amazon: Armed with the authority to fine Amazon 10% of its global turnover, the Commission has charged the retail giant with using information about third-party seller activity on its online marketplace to gain a competitive advantage as a retailer itself; Amazon counters that its global market share is less than 1%, it faces large retailers in every country, and it has provided unrivaled support to small businesses, with over 150,000 European enterprises participating in its marketplace. TikTok Seeks Clarity As Divestiture Deadline Looms, Administration Silent: Despite efforts at actively engaging the administration and working to resolve the issues that prompted President Trump to ban the app, TikTok has received neither substantive feedback on proposed privacy and security improvements nor a response to its subsequent application for a 30-day extension to the November 12th deadline; as a result, the service has filed a petition in a United States Court of Appeals for a review of actions by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which issued the order requiring TikTok parent company ByteDance to sell its United States assets.

Privacy European Data Protection Board Publishes Guidance On Standard Contractual Clauses Following Schrems II: Following the July ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union that invalidated the Privacy Shield framework that many businesses relied on to transfer the personal data of European citizens from the European Union to the United States, the European Data Protection Board released a 38-page guidance on the use of Standard Contractual Clauses, one of the few remaining methods of engaging in EU-compliant data transfers to the United States.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Zoom Agrees To Upgrade Security Program In Tentative Settlement With FTC: The company has agreed to settle allegations that it has not provided end-to-end encryption for Zoom meetings outside of its “Connecter” product despite claims to the contrary; while Zoom will implement security measures to protect its user base as part of the settlement, it is not required to compensate affected users.  Digital Rights Activist Accesses Moscow’s Facial Recognition System For Just $200: After transferring the equivalent of approximately $200 to a service advertised on Telegram that offered access to the Moscow Police’s facial recognition system, a digital rights group volunteer received a detailed report of her movements over the previous month that was based where her image had been captured by police cameras.

Intellectual Property Twitch Apologizes For Last Month’s Vague DMCA Takedown Notices: In a blog post explaining its copyright crackdown last month, Twitch apologized for its inadequate warning emails and recommended that users use recorded music on their streams only if they own the copyrights and that they delete old videos that have copyrighted music in them.

Free Expression & Censorship Facebook Groups In Violation Of Community Standards Policies Now Risk Forced Moderation, Subsequent Removal: In a heating up of Facebook’s efforts to curtail the spread of misinformation on its platform, the social media giant will start placing groups in frequent violation of its community standards policies on non-appealable, 60-day probationary periods, during which posts to the group must be manually approved by the group’s administrators or moderators; while Facebook deems the strategy a temporary protection “during this unprecedented time,” it warns that a group that persists in violations during its probation will be banned.

On the Lighter Side Japanese City Responds To Bear Attacks With Robowolves: In response to a rise in black bear attacks as a result of an acorn shortage in the Japanese wilderness, the city of Takikawa, Japan, installed robotic wolves to deter bear attacks.

Joel R. Reidenberg Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP Erica Chan Daniel Gerken Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP

Internet Governance California Voters Pass Proposition 22 To Keep Rideshare Drivers As Independent Contractors: After the most expensive campaign in state history, Californians voted to create an app-based-delivery-company exception to a labor law passed last year that otherwise would have required companies such as Uber and Lyft to classify their California drivers as employees instead of independent contractors. European Union Regulatory Proposals Would Require Internet Platforms To Open Up Their Algorithms To Oversight: Concerned about discrimination, the amplification of bias, and abusive targeting of vulnerable individuals and groups as a result of algorithmic decisionmaking, the proposals ask for more accountability and transparency around algorithms, particularly those from the most powerful internet platforms; lawmakers also seek increased user control, increased regulator access to data, and more information for users regarding ad targeting and greater reporting requirements for content moderation.

Privacy Portland, Maine Passes Facial Recognition Ban: The new measure strengthens Portland’s existing ban on the use of facial recognition technology by law enforcement agencies and public officials by, among other things, allowing Portland citizens to sue the city for illegal surveillance and to receive $100 per violation or $1,000, depending on which amount is higher. California Passes CPRA, Shores Up CCPA: The California Privacy Rights Act, which takes effect in January 2023, makes several substantive updates to the existing California Consumer Privacy Act, including clarifying what constitutes a “sale” of information, requiring disclosure of automated decisionmaking and data subject profiling, supplementing the list of protected data and creating a category of sensitive personal data, and providing for the formation of a data privacy authority to replace the state attorney general as the act’s enforcer, among other things.

Information Security and Cyberthreats Ransomware Attacks On United States Hospitals Stem From Google Drive Documents: After several hospitals were struck by Ryuk ransomware, analysis from security firm Sophos reported that many of the attacks were delivered by a campaign of phishing emails that contain links to Google Drive documents, which, when opened, would deliver malware content onto victims’ computers.

Intellectual Property Massachusetts Voters Overwhelmingly Support Ballot Measure Allowing Sharing Of Vehicle Telematics: Massachusetts residents voted to expand the state’s wide-reaching right-to-repair law to require carmakers to provide owners with a platform capable of accessing their vehicle’s mechanical telematic data and sharing that data with third-party repair shops and auto-part stores; the Coalition for Safe and Secure Data, which opposed the ballot measure, contends that the expansion does not significantly add to the existing law and that real-time, two-way access to vehicle data increases risk without justifiable benefit.

Free Expression & Censorship Twitter’s Pledge To Label Misleading Tweets Could Effectively Slow Down Their Spread: After labeling one of President Trump’s tweets as constituting misleading content about the election only thirty-six minutes after it was posted, Twitter was able to quickly slow down the tweet’s overall spread as people could not easily reshare the post; according to analysis by the Election Integrity Partnership, the labeling of the tweet reduced the rate of retweets from 827 times per minute to 151 times per minute. YouTube Took Down Multiple Livestreams Broadcasting Fake Election Results: Before polls closed anywhere in the country on Election Day, YouTube removed livestreams that broadcasted fake election results videos; similarly, TikTok deleted videos from two popular pro-Trump accounts that promoted election misinformation, including allegations that Democrats have plotted to steal the election.

Practice Note Plaintiff’s Win Preliminary Injunction Against TikTok Ban Set To Go Into Effect November 12th: Three TikTok creators who had previously failed to sustain an argument that their livelihoods would be irreparably harmed by the Trump administration’s decision to ban the social media app successfully obtained the preliminary injunction from a Pennsylvania federal judge, who agreed with the plaintiffs that their content constitutes “informational materials,” a protected category under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the statutory authority under which the ban was invoked.

On the Lighter Side Ball-Tracking, AI-Powered Camera Mistakenly Tracks Soccer Referee’s Bald Head Instead Of The Actual Soccer Ball: As part of the Scottish Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC soccer club’s initiative to increase social distancing by live-streaming its home games, the club replaced human camera operators with an AI camera system to better track the action on the field; however, instead of tracking the soccer ball, the AI system focused on the referee’s bald head for most of the game.

Joel R. Reidenberg Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair and Professor of Law Founding Academic Director, Fordham CLIP Tom Norton Executive Director, Fordham CLIP Erica Chan Daniel Gerken Editorial Fellows, Fordham CLIP