Social Media

Government speech coercion might be unconstitutional, but companies with business before the government aren't going to push back, panelists said Wednesday during a conference about online speech organized by the Center for Democracy & Technology and Stand Together. Free-speech advocates also criticized the FCC and FTC for increasingly weaponizing their regulatory powers.

Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Communications Subcommittee ranking member Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., separately told us that during Wednesday's hearing on social media censorship, they plan to again raise FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's actions that critics have said are targeting the media’s free speech rights. Commerce Democrats have been pushing Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, to bring in Carr for a hearing. Cruz seeks to have Carr testify as part of a regular FCC oversight hearing, rather than during a censorship-focused panel (see 2510030062). Several Democratic leaders made Carr’s actions the focus of an unofficial hearing in late September (see 2509290062).

Parties including author groups and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) are backing a set of music label plaintiffs as Cox Communications appeals its liability for contributory copyright infringement stemming from piracy by some of its internet subscribers (see 2408160034). Amicus briefs were posted Wednesday from the Motion Picture Association and recording artist and songwriter organizations (see 2510220022).

SpaceX "is pretty much Earth's space program," given how it will carry roughly 90% of the world's payload mass to space this year, CEO Elon Musk wrote Monday on social media. He also congratulated SpaceX on hitting the milestone of 10,000 Starlink satellites launched to date. SpaceX "now has several times more satellites in orbit than all others combined."

The Senate Commerce Committee postponed a planned markup session Wednesday (see 2510020046) that would have included a vote on the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act (S-2666), a panel spokesperson said. The committee plans “shortly” to reschedule the meeting, which would have immediately preceded a hearing on Biden administration interactions with social media companies. Democrats used that hearing as a forum to again criticize FCC Chairman Brendan Carr for his mid-September threats against ABC and parent Disney before the network temporarily pulled Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air (see 2510080049).

Lawsuits blaming social media platforms for injuries and deaths are part of a long tradition of faulting speech for human conduct and suffering, the American Enterprise Institute's Clay Calvert wrote Tuesday. Theories that the platforms create social media addiction make it easy to shift blame for injuries and actions "by clouding causal, human-agency questions," said Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies. Such cases ultimately try to put responsibility "on innovative technology companies whose lawful-speech services millions of adults and minors enjoy daily without sustaining or causing harm."

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA), represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, sued the Trump administration Wednesday for canceling the Digital Equity Act competitive grant program, which had been approved by Congress. NDIA said it asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the administration to restore the program and “allow NDIA to resume shovel-ready projects aimed at providing digital navigator services to 30,000 people in 11 states.”

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr didn’t testify during Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Biden administration social media censorship actions, but many Democrats continued to deride him throughout the meeting for his mid-September comments against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as influencing the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air (see 2509180055). Meanwhile, First Amendment attorneys and academics said during an American Enterprise Institute event Wednesday that Carr’s actions have been more blatant than past FCC regulations against broadcasters and other licensees.

The release of OpenAI's video app, Sora 2, has resulted in a proliferation of videos showing up on social media that infringe on Motion Picture Association members' content and characters, MPA CEO Charles Rivkin said Monday. He called on OpenAI to acknowledge that it's the generative AI platform's responsibility, not rightsholders', to prevent infringement on the Sora 2 service.

The Senate Commerce Committee isn’t looking to bring in FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as a potential additional witness at Wednesday's planned hearing to examine what Republicans call government agencies’ actions to pressure major social media platforms to engage in “jawboning” (see 2510020041), a spokesperson told us Thursday night. Panel Democrats had been pushing for the hearing to include Carr because they want him to answer questions about his mid-September comments against ABC and parent Disney, which were widely perceived as influencing the network’s since-reversed decision to pull Jimmy Kimmel Live! from the air (see 2509220059). A Senate Commerce aide confirmed that Carr “will be coming to testify,” but the panel hasn’t set a date yet, and it won’t happen “before November.”