Social media companies should continue addressing violent online extremism and helping at-risk individuals without compromising free speech, a White House spokesperson said Friday. The comments came after a White House staff-led meeting between senior administration officials and company representatives (see 1908080051). The conversation focused on “how technology can be leveraged to identify potential threats, to provide help to individuals exhibiting potentially violent behavior, and to combat domestic terror,” the official said. “We urge internet and social media companies to continue their efforts in addressing violent extremism and helping individuals at risk, and to do so without compromising free speech.” Meanwhile, industry advocates blasted a summary of a draft executive order reported by CNN that apparently envisions directing the FCC and the FTC to address political censorship on social media. President Donald Trump in July directed his administration to explore all regulatory and legislative methods “to protect free speech” and constitutional rights (see 1907110066). The White House in May solicited evidence of anti-conservative bias by tech platforms (see 1905200036). The contemplated executive order “would transform the FCC and FTC from consumer protection agencies into regulators of online speech,” said TechFreedom President Berin Szoka. “Ironically, the same people screaming about ‘censorship’ by private companies would empower regulators to decide what kinds of online speech should and shouldn’t be taken down.” The White House shouldn’t hamstring efforts to curb online extremism “with politically motivated and likely unconstitutional executive orders about viewpoint neutrality,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association CEO Ed Black. The reported draft order is troubling on several levels, said Public Knowledge CEO Chris Lewis. He cited First Amendment violations, a disregard for the independence of federal agencies and an apparent attempt to unilaterally limit Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. “In the past we have had a bipartisan consensus from FTC and FCC commissioners that they are not interested in regulating speech or content on the internet,” he said. The president can’t unilaterally change Section 230, Center for Democracy & Technology Free Expression Project Director Emma Llanso said: “There is no legal requirement that social media companies apply any sort of ‘neutrality’ when they decide to remove content.”

Salesforce is acquiring ClickSoftware for $1.35 billion, said the buyer Wednesday. The deal is expected to close by Oct. 31, it said. “Our acquisition of ClickSoftware will not only accelerate the growth of Service Cloud, but drive further innovation with Field Service Lightning to better meet the needs of our customers,” said Bill Patterson, executive vice president-Salesforce Service Cloud.

An email management company falsely told consumers it wouldn’t “touch” their personal messages but shared email receipts with its parent company, the FTC said Thursday, announcing a nonmonetary settlement. Unroll.me is required to delete the personal data it collected from consumers and faces penalties up to $42,530 for future violations. Enhancing consumer privacy can come at the price of limiting consumer choice and competition, Commissioner Noah Phillips said in a statement on the 5-0 decision, citing separate action from Google. Unroll.me will update its policies and continue allowing consumers the option to grant access to their data, he said. But Google in response to privacy concerns in 2018 decided to limit third-party apps from using Gmail data for marketing and ad purposes, Phillips said. The decision enhances consumer privacy but limits choice and competition by imperiling the business models of third-party email extensions, he said.

Facebook users can sue the platform over alleged facial recognition technology abuses, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday in case 3:15-cv-03747-JD. Facebook users in Illinois claim the platform’s use of face-scanning technology to identify users through their uploaded images without consent violated the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act. “We plan to seek further review of the decision,” a company spokesperson said. “We have always disclosed our use of face recognition technology” that users can turn on and off. “Both corporations and the government are now on notice that this technology poses unique risks to people's privacy and safety,” said American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney Nathan Freed Wessler. Meanwhile, reports suggest Hyp3r, a Facebook third-party marketing partner, collected public user data from Instagram users for a year without consent, despite its being meant to expire in 24 hours. Data included geolocation, bios, followers, metadata and photos. “So long as any company can operate in the U.S. as it does now, free of any strong consumer privacy and security laws to hold it accountable, companies will continue to turn a blind eye to user privacy and security violations,” said Public Knowledge Policy Fellow Dylan Gilbert.

The National Association of Attorneys General urged streaming services to protect young viewers from tobacco imagery in video content. In a letter released Wednesday, 43 state and territory AGs said the companies should eliminate or exclude tobacco imagery in future original streamed content for young viewers; designate as such tobacco-free content for all ages; allow controls to restrict access to content with tobacco imagery, regardless of rating; and stream “strong anti-smoking and/or anti-vaping Public Service Announcements, as appropriate, before all content with tobacco imagery.” The letters were sent to 13 companies, including Amazon.com, Comcast, Discovery, Google and Viacom, NAAG said. The companies didn't comment.

Twitter should ban white supremacists from its platform, Change the Terms said Wednesday, days before the two-year anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Joining the petition is Susan Bro, whose daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed during the rally. “Social-media companies must enforce their terms of service against hate in ways that safeguard public safety and our right to free speech,” said Bro. A Twitter spokesperson cited vigorous enforcement of key policy tenets regarding extremism and hateful conduct. In its most recent reporting period, the platform suspended 166,513 unique accounts for violations related to promotion of terrorism.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia should deny the Electronic Privacy Information Center’s motion to intervene in U.S. v. Facebook because it doesn’t satisfy the requirements for intervention, the U.S. government filed (in Pacer) Monday (see 1907260024). DOJ filed the document with the FTC, which settled with the company for $5 billion over alleged data privacy violations. Facebook joined in opposition, saying EPIC doesn’t have a legally protected interest in a case that concerns only the government and the company. EPIC has no Article III standing, can’t satisfy the Rule 24(a) factors and hasn’t identified any injury, the government argued. Even if injury were identified, EPIC can’t show that the court would deliver a better deal for consumers, DOJ said. The settlement "is not adequate, reasonable, or appropriate,” said EPIC.

The FTC should investigate itself for potential false and deceptive advertising about the Equifax settlement, the Demand Progress Education Fund wrote the agency Monday. The FTC led consumers to believe they could collect $125 as part of the settlement, but in reality the deal didn’t include enough money for all consumers to collect, wrote Executive Director David Segal: “The FTC should fine itself enough to ensure that all those impacted by the breach, and the false advertising related to the attendant settlement, receive the full $125 for which the FTC made them believe they were eligible.” The agency declined comment.

Federal privacy legislation with key provisions from laws in Europe and California “could cost the U.S. economy about $122 billion per year,” the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation reported Monday. That amount was calculated based on expenses for data protection officers, privacy audits, data infrastructure and other expected line items, ITIF said.

Facebook failed to detail exact plans for protecting data privacy for Libra users (see 1907180055), FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and six privacy regulators wrote Monday. Joining Chopra were EU Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli, U.K. Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham, Privacy Commissioner of Canada Daniel Therrien, Australian Information and Privacy Commissioner Angelene Falk, Albanian Information and Data Protection Commissioner Besnik Dervishi and Burkina Faso Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties President Marguerite Ouedraogo Bonane. The group asked how the Libra Association plans to apply consistent privacy standards across its network, and specifics about data collection and sharing.