Meta's Oversight Board Says Recommendations Helping, More Needed

More than two years after it formed, the Oversight Board says that its recommendations have helped make Meta’s rules more transparent to its users, though the company still needs to improve in some key areas. The board, which is made up of nearly two dozen experts in human rights and free speech, published its annual report covering its work and interactions with Meta over the last year.

Instagram Lifts Ban on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Sharing COVID Misinformation

Instagram lifted its suspension against the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an outspoken anti-vaccine activist and nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy, who is running for president as a long shot Democratic challenger to President Biden. The popular photo-sharing platform removed Kennedy’s account in 2021 for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines,” and later in 2022 took down the account of his nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, for spreading medical misinformation.

SEC Sues Binance, CEO for Allegedly Operating 'Web of Deception'

U.S. regulators sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao for allegedly operating a "web of deception," piling further pressure on the world's biggest cryptocurrency exchange and sending bitcoin to its lowest in almost three months. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., listed 13 charges against Binance, Zhao and the operator of its purportedly independent U.S. exchange.

Stanford Researchers Say Twitter Failed to Block Images of Child Sex Abuse

Twitter failed to prevent dozens of known images of child sexual abuse from being posted on its platform in recent months, according to Stanford University researchers who said the situation indicated a lapse in basic enforcement. The researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who were investigating child-safety issues across several platforms, said they told Twitter staff about their findings, and that the problem appeared to have been resolved in May.

Judge Dismisses District of Columbia's Privacy Lawsuit Against Meta

A Superior Court judge dismissed a privacy lawsuit against Meta by the District of Columbia, which had accused the company of deceiving consumers by improperly sharing their data with third parties, including the British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. The decision was a rare victory for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as it battles lawsuits filed by the federal government, states, foreign regulators and consumers in privacy, antitrust and consumer protection disputes.

Twitter’s Head of Trust and Safety Resigns After One Year at Company

Twitter’s top official for monitoring safety and content moderation said she resigned, the second time an executive with that role has departed since Elon Musk bought the social-media company in October. Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, declined to comment on the reason for her departure in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

FTC Says Former Amazon Employee Spied on Customers via Ring Doorbells

A former employee of Amazon.com's Ring doorbell camera unit spied for months on female customers in 2017 with cameras placed in bedrooms and bathrooms, the Federal Trade Commission said in a court filing when it announced a $5.8 million settlement with the company over privacy violations. The FTC said Ring gave employees unrestricted access to customers' sensitive video data: "As a result of this dangerously overbroad access and lax attitude toward privacy and security, employees and third-party contractors were able to view, download, and transfer customers' sensitive video data."

Meta Says It Could Block Users in California from Sharing News Articles

Meta is threatening to block users in California from sharing news articles on its social media networks to protest a state legislative proposal that would force tech companies to pay publishers for their content. The social media giant said that if the California Journalism Preservation Act passes, the company would “be forced” to pull news from Facebook and Instagram in the state rather than agree to pay news outlets the journalism usage fee that the bill would require.

Meta Asks Court to Block FTC's Proceeding to Revise 2020 Privacy Settlement

Meta Platforms Inc. is asking a federal court to bar the Federal Trade Commission from moving forward with an agency proceeding to revise its 2020 privacy settlement. The FTC’s 2020 settlement with Meta, then known as Facebook, was approved by Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington and only the court can add provisions such as banning facial recognition, Meta said in court paper.

Amazon Agrees to $25 Million Settlement for Collecting Info from Children

Amazon agreed to pay a civil penalty of $25 million to settle federal charges that it kept sensitive information collected from children for years, including their precise locations and voice recordings, in violation of a children’s online privacy law. It was the latest legal action in an intensifying regulatory effort to require some of the world’s largest tech platforms to better safeguard their younger users.

Lawyer Faces Sanctions for Using ChatGPT to Draft Brief Riddled with Errors

A lawyer threw himself on the mercy of a Manhattan court, saying in an affidavit that he had used the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to do his legal research — “a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.” The judge said in an order that he had been presented with “an unprecedented circumstance,” a legal submission replete with “bogus judicial decisions, with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations.”

Commerce Secretary Says U.S. 'Won't Tolerate' China's Ban on Micron Chips

The United States "won't tolerate" China's effective ban on purchases of Micron Technology memory chips and is working closely with allies to address such "economic coercion," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. Raimondo told a news conference after a meeting of trade ministers in the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework talks that the U.S. "firmly opposes" China's actions against Micron.

Android Screen Recording App Accused of Spying on Users

A cybersecurity firm says a popular Android screen recording app that racked up tens of thousands of downloads on Google’s app store subsequently began spying on its users, including by stealing microphone recordings and other documents from the user’s phone. Research by ESET found that the Android app, “iRecorder — Screen Recorder,” introduced the malicious code as an app update almost a year after it was first listed on Google Play.

Court Gives Final Approval to $50 Million Settlement Over Apple Keyboards

A U.S. federal court gave final approval to the $50 million class-action settlement Apple came to last July resolving claims the company knew about and concealed the unreliable nature of keyboards on MacBook, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers released between 2015 and 2019. Judge Edward Davila on Thursday called the settlement involving Apple’s infamous “butterfly” keyboards “fair, adequate and reasonable.”

China's Cyberspace Regulator Deletes 1.4 Million Social Media Posts

China's cyberspace regulator said 1.4 million social media posts have been deleted following a two-month probe into alleged misinformation, illegal profiteering, and impersonation of state officials, among other "pronounced problems". The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement it had closed 67,000 social media accounts and deleted hundreds of thousands of posts between March 10 and May 22 as part of a broader "rectification" campaign.

U.S. Urges Supreme Court to Decline Review of Song Lyric Case Against Google

The Biden administration's U.S. solicitor general said that the U.S. Supreme Court should not review a ruling won by Alphabet's Google LLC against song-lyric website Genius over Google's alleged copying of Genius' lyric transcriptions. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said in a court brief that the justices should let stand the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that Genius' case was preempted by federal copyright law.

Creators of ChatGPT Push for International Regulator of Artificial Intelligence

The leaders of OpenAI, the creator of viral chatbot ChatGPT, are calling for the regulation of “superintelligence” and artificial intelligence systems, suggesting an equivalent to the world’s nuclear watchdog would help reduce the “existential risk” posed by the technology. In a statement published on the company website this week, co-founders Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever, as well as CEO Sam Altman, argued that an international regulator would eventually become necessary to “inspect systems, require audits, test for compliance with safety standards, (and) place restrictions on degrees of deployment and levels of security.”

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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.