Google said the Supreme Court ruling could “upend the internet” in a new brief that lays out the tech giant’s arguments in a case scheduled for oral arguments next month.
Meanwhile, millions of customers who suffered losses from the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange can get their money back, the founder said Thursday.
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Google says high court could ‘upend the internet’
Google argued that if the Supreme Court rules to scale back liability protections for internet companies, the decision could lead to more online censorship and hate speech, according to a brief filed Thursday.
The document lays out Google’s arguments in a case facing the high court centered on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a controversial provision designed to protect companies from contentious content posted by third parties. and was prosecuted.
- “Repealing Section 230…would subvert the Internet and paradoxically encourage widespread suppression of speech and The proliferation of more offensive remarks,” the document said.
- Sites with the resources to remove objectionable content may be “overruled by the asker to remove any content anyone deems objectionable,” while others may take “the method of ignoring evil” and disable filtering to “avoid the first Any interference with the constructive knowledge of three parties”-party content,” the company argued.
The case builds on allegations against Google by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen who was killed in the 2015 Islamic State terrorist attack in France.
Gonzalez’s family alleges that Google-owned YouTube provides a platform for terrorist content and uses YouTube’s recommendation algorithm to recommend content that incites violence and recruits potential ISIS supporters.
Read more here.
Funds May Go to FTX Clients, Says Founder
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried said Thursday that the millions of customers who lost money when his cryptocurrency exchange collapsed can get their money back.
In a Substack post, Bankman-Fried said three factors conspired to cause FTX to “implode” — his hedge fund Alameda Research’s balance sheet growing to $100 billion in net asset value, $8 billion in net Borrowings and a $7 billion balance sheet. Liquidity on hand; Alameda’s failure to limit its market exposure; and an “extreme, rapid, targeted” crash by the head of another cryptocurrency exchange, Binance.
- Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last month and faces multiple charges including wire fraud and securities fraud. The controversy surrounding him and FTX arose after the exchange filed for bankruptcy in November, unable to accommodate billions of dollars in customer withdrawal requests.
- He was extradited from the Bahamas to Manhattan to stand trial and pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Read more here.
Impact of the APP Alliance on Trade Negotiations
The App Fairness Coalition, an advocacy group whose members include Spotify, Match Group and Epic Games, has written to government officials urging them to ensure digital competition is considered in upcoming Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) negotiations.
In a letter to USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, the group warned that mainstream tech platforms are using IPEF as a “backdoor mechanism, tying them up as the administration and Congress grapple with critical big tech regulation and legislation.” hands and feet” reform. “
The letter also urges officials to ensure that nondiscrimination rules “distinguish between an ostensibly neutral policy, which could have a greater impact on large corporations, and a nationally discriminatory policy that deliberately targets companies.”
- The App Fairness Coalition has been advocating for bills to amend antitrust law. In particular, last year the group supported the Open App Marketplace Act, which would add rules that prohibit dominant app stores such as Google and Apple from complying with some of the rules they already have, such as charging commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases .
- The bill made progress in the Judiciary Committees of the House and Senate, but failed to cross the finish line. Apple and Google have defended their app store rules against allegations of anticompetitive behavior.
spare parts
A column worth chewing on: Big Labor’s attack on the gig economy is anti-worker
Famous links from around the web:
The U.S. government is still trying to figure out how to regulate big tech companies. He has some ideas (CNN/Brian Fung)
Crashed aviation warning system is already a pain in the ass for pilots (NBC News/Kevin Collier)
🐬 Lighter Hits: Your Move, Hollywood
One more thing: FAA outage continues
There was a wave of flight delays and cancellations on Thursday after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system outage grounded flights and canceled flights across the United States on Wednesday.
Nearly 9,000 flights were delayed on Thursday, according to online flight tracker FlightAware. More than 1,200 flights were cancelled.
The FAA temporarily ordered the suspension of all flights Wednesday morning as it grapples with issues with its Notification of Air Tasks (NOTAM) system, which communicates real-time flight hazards to pilots. More than 6,500 flights were delayed on Wednesday. The FAA eventually lifted the suspension late Wednesday morning.
The FAA blamed the outage on a corrupted database file after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the federal government did not rule out malicious activity causing the outage.
Read more here.
That’s all for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. See you tomorrow.