X is violating the Digital Services Act (DSA) in areas linked to dark patterns, advertising transparency and data access for researchers, the European Commission said Friday. These are the first preliminary findings issued under the DSA. They follow a separate pending investigation launched in December on different issues, EC officials said at a briefing. X didn't immediately comment. Officials voiced concerns about three aspects of X's setup. One is the interface for "verified" accounts with a "blue checkmark." The EC believes the checkmarks mislead users into thinking accounts and content they're seeing are trustworthy and reliable. But when EC researchers looked at reply feeds on particular posts, they found that X prioritizes content from blue checkmark accounts. This breaches DSA rules against dark patterns - defined as interfaces and user experiences on social media platforms that cause users to make unintended, unwilling and potentially harmful decisions about processing of their personal data -- because anyone can obtain such "verified" status simply by paying for it. That prevents users from making informed decisions about the authenticity of the accounts and content they're seeing. The EC's second "grievance" arises from X's failure to maintain a searchable, publicly available advertisement repository that would allow researchers to inspect and supervise tweets to track emerging risks from online ads, officials said. X formerly gave researchers such access, but Elon Musk rescinded it. The repository is a key obligation under the DSA because it allows anyone to search for an ad on the platform to find out who placed it and what its targeting criteria are, officials said. The third item concerns the lack of a process for giving researchers access to X's public data for scraping, and its procedure for allowing qualified researchers to access its application programming interfaces is too slow and complex, officials said. This falls well below DSA requirements that third parties be able to inspect what's happening on the platform, they said. If the findings are confirmed, X could be fined up to 6% of its total worldwide annual revenue and ordered to remedy the breaches, the EC added. The DSA designated X a very large online platform in April 2023 after it declared it reached more than 45 million monthly active users in the EU, the EC noted.
The U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door for lower courts to clarify when the government can regulate the tech industry’s content moderation practices, legal experts said Friday.
The Senate Commerce Committee plans to mark up privacy legislation when it returns from recess the week of July 23, Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told reporters Thursday.
Funding Wi-Fi on school buses through the E-rate program (see 2312200040) will advance students’ education, according to a Monday brief supporting an FCC declaratory ruling before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition filed the brief (docket 23-60641). Petitioners Maurine and Matthew Molak challenged expanding the program, contending it will increase the federal universal service charge they pay as a line-item on their monthly phone bill (see 2406040024). SBLB said when the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was enacted, teachers worked with chalkboards and handouts and students carried their textbooks home at night to do their homework. Today, “students are instructed to access reading assignments on web-based learning platforms, to watch online video presentations, and to complete and submit interactive homework assignments online,” SBLB said. The shift to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic “greatly accelerated the use of Internet-based education,” the group said: “School-bus Internet access serves an important educational purpose because Internet access is essential to modern learning.” The Molaks, whose son was a cyberbullied suicide victim, have also argued that the ruling will give children and teenagers unsupervised social media access.
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel showed no willingness Tuesday to abandon a March Further NPRM that would ban bulk billing arrangements between ISPs and multi-dwelling unit owners (see 2403050069) despite bipartisan criticism during a House Communications Subcommittee hearing. She was similarly unmoved by GOP skepticism about a proposal requiring disclosure of AI-generated content in political ads (see 2405220061). During the hearing, Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr called for the FCC to backtrack on both proposals because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s June Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision and other rulings (see 2407080039).
Mississippi will appeal a preliminary injunction of an age-verification law to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, state Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) said in a Wednesday notice at the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi. In addition, the state sought a stay pending appeal. The court put enforcement of the law on hold Monday (see 2407010062). Under the law, parental consent is needed for minors younger than 18 who access social media. The court said NetChoice showed a high likelihood of success in its complaint that raised constitutional concerns with the law. "On appeal, the Attorney General will show that this Court’s injunction cannot be squared with the Act’s targeted scope, with its focus on (and regulation of) non-expressive conduct of covered online platforms, or with precedent on facial challenges," the state said in an accompanying memo. "The Attorney General will also show that the harm to the State from enjoining the Act’s enforcement substantially outweighs any harm to NetChoice and its members from complying with the Act."
The DOJ should expedite its review of allegations that TikTok violated the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), a bipartisan and bicameral group of lawmakers wrote Tuesday (see 2406180070). Sens. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., along with Reps. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., and Kathy Castor, D-Fla., sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting the DOJ “expeditiously” review the FTC’s referral of a complaint against TikTok for potential COPPA violations. Five years after the company settled with the FTC over alleged COPPA violations, “TikTok is still failing to comply with COPPA,” the lawmakers wrote. “Given TikTok's previous violations of COPPA ... we urge the Department to expeditiously investigate these allegations and take all necessary action to protect children's online privacy." The lawmakers cited the surgeon general’s recent announcement linking social media use with a youth mental health crisis as one reason for an expedited review (see: 2406170059). Markey also urged passage of his and Cassidy’s Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA 2.0). Walberg and Castor introduced a House version of the measure in April.
Meta's "pay or consent" advertising model violates the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission said Monday in preliminary findings. The commission found that the binary choice forces Facebook and Instagram users to consent to having their personal data combined across Meta's social media and advertising services without giving them a less personalized but equivalent version of its social network. Meta introduced its pay or consent approach in November to comply with the DMA but the EC found that the model breaches the law's Article 5 (2). The DMA doesn't say that personal data accumulation is illegal but that consumers should have a real choice about what data is accumulated across gatekeepers' services, EC officials said. The law doesn't require that Meta offer an ad-free service, but there must be a middle ground between consenting to the combination of personal data accumulation and combination across services or paying a subscription for ad-free services, it said. Meta was designated as a gatekeeper in September. A company is a gatekeeper when it derives a specified annual revenue in the European Economic Area and offers a platform in at least three EU countries; offers a core platform for more than 45 million monthly active end users located in the EU, and more than 10,000 yearly active business users established in the EU; and if it met the second criterion for the past three years (see 2309060002). Asked whether other companies that use the pay or consent model should consider the preliminary findings a warning, officials stressed the DMA covers gatekeepers only and the commission's findings don't set out a general principle on pay or consent for those enterprises that aren't gatekeepers. "Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA," a Meta spokesperson emailed, adding the company will continue working with the EC to resolve the investigation. The enforcement action "comes on top of the complaints against Meta's model for breaches of consumer law and data protection law which consumer organizations have raised" recently, the European Consumer Organisation said: "We now urge Meta to comply with laws meant to protect consumers."
A Mississippi social media law requiring age verification may not be enforced while litigation continues, the U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi decided Monday. The state law requiring parental consent for minors younger than 18 (HB-1126) was to take effect that day. But the court said NetChoice showed a high likelihood of success in its complaint (see 2406070059) against Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R).
The First Amendment protects social media platforms’ ability to moderate content, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday, sending the tech industry’s lawsuits against Florida and Texas laws back to the lower courts (see 2402270072). All nine justices agreed on remanding, but Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch disagreed with First Amendment-related aspects of the majority opinion, which Justice Elena Kagan wrote (dockets 22-555 and 22-277).