Republican lawmakers move bill to ban TikTok; the White House releases a new blueprint to prevent online harassment and abuse – Tech law & Policy This Week
Release Date: 03/04/2023
Should police get Ring footage whenever they want?; Would a TikTok ban alienate Gen Z & suburban moms? – Tech Law & Policy this Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. Alfred Ng over at Politico reports that the police can obtain Ring camera footage without your permission. All they need is a warrant. But don’t worry – they will be nice. They will call you instead of knocking on your door. If you don’t give them the footage, Ring will also contact you. If you still don’t give them the footage, well, I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t want to find out what happens after that! And getting a warrant is the least...
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Sean Davis: The Rise of Online Scammers – How to Keep Your Money Safe
Tech Policy Leaders
The internet can be a minefield of financial scams, but you don't have to navigate it alone. Arm yourself with knowledge and stay protected from online fraud. Bio Sean Davis is a privacy lawyer based in Washington, D.C. and Senior Analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Previously, he was with Engine.org, the small business advocate, where he served as Policy Manager. Prior to that Sean was with Wikimedia Foundation and Public Knowledge. He earned his JD from George Washington University School of Law and his Bachelor’s in English from Mount...
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Republican lawmakers move bill to ban TikTok; the White House releases a new blueprint to prevent online harassment and abuse – Tech law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Characterizing the popular TikTok app as a modern-day “Trojan Horse” because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Michal McCaul, aa Texas Republican, introduced the “Deterring America's Foreign Adversaries Act, which would ban TikTok in the United States. Democrats oppose the bill, saying it would go too far in abridging the Freedom of Speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is also pushing back against the bill. Federal courts have previously held that blocking TikTok would violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,...
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Meredith Broussard: Is it Okay to be AI?
Tech Policy Leaders
In this episode of the Tech Policy Leaders podcast, discusses her new book ‘,’ which takes a critical look at algorithms and the people who create them. Bio Data journalist is an associate professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University, research director at the Alliance for Public Interest Technology, and the author of several books, including “Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World” and “More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech.” Her academic research focuses on artificial...
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Jan. 6th goon gets just 38 months for threatening AOC with assassination on Twitter, assaulting officers; US DoD exposed highly sensitive data for full 2 weeks -– Tech Law & Policy this Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. Somehow, a U.S. government server running on Microsoft’s Azure government cloud was unsecured, exposing U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) data, including sensitive personnel information. Security researcher Anurag Sen discovered the breach last week, and the Department of Defense patched it up after spilling data for 2 weeks. USSOCOM told TechCrunch that no data breach occurred. Thirty-eight months – that’s all Garret Miller got for assaulting officers and...
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ChatGPT: GPT-3, Law, & the Nature of Existence
Tech Policy Leaders
ChatGPT is an (AI) chatbot written in natural language processing (NLP) technology that can interact with its users on and respond in meaningful ways. AI-driven tools are emerging as powerful new tools in the legal industry, especially when it comes to streamlining mundane tasks, assisting with research and enhancing customer service functions. In this episode, I interviewed ChatGPT and input its responses into a text to speech generator. We took a dive into the , the limitations of its capabilities, and some of the philosophical questions about the nature of how it “thinks,”...
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The online child abuse epidemic; Chinese tech billionaire vanishes -- Tech Law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
Folks, kids are having a really hard time, and a lot of it has to do with what’s happening on the internet. Some lawmakers appear to be trying to do the right thing, but it seems like all they’re really capable of doing is introducing legislation – legislation that doesn’t get anywhere. The CDC released a report Monday finding teens, especially girls, are in a bad place right now with some 57% of the 17,000 high school girls surveyed persistently feeling bad or hopeless. Some twenty percent of these girls report experiencing sexual violence. And a third of boys also report...
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Ahmad Thomas: Defining Corporate Social Responsibility in a Turbulent Climate
Tech Policy Leaders
Ahmad Thomas: A Glimpse Into a Shifting World - Examining the Purpose of Corporate Social Responsibility in a Turbulent Environment (CSR) has become an increasingly important part of business practices. Companies are ostensibly thinking more proactively and creatively about how they can contribute to the world around them and make a positive impact on society. But what does this mean for in a tumultuous world? In this episode of , you’ll learn from Ahmad Thomas, CEO of the . After listening to this episode, you’ll understand more about: 1. The current state of corporate social...
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Report – Twitter makes millions from haters & incels; Women fend for themselves in hostile online environment – Tech Law & Policy This Week
Tech Policy Leaders
<p>Hey everybody, I’m Joe Miller and here’s what’s going on in the world of tech law & policy this week. </p> <p> </p> <p><br>So the White House confirmed earlier this afternoon that it had shot down another object floating 40,000 ft. above Alaska. No word yet on whether it’s part of China’s balloon festival, but this one was much smaller than the one they shot down last week. Feds are investigating.</p> <p> </p> <p>Americans want privacy legislation...
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[Encore Episode] Tiffany D. Cross: How to Stay True to Your Audience
Tech Policy Leaders
[Encore Episode -- originally recorded 1/17/2017] Bio Having spent significant time working in newsrooms, covering Capitol Hill, managing in-house corporate public affairs, working on campaigns, and navigating communities of color, she brings a unique set of skills that casts a wide net of influence. Understanding the intersection of press, partnerships, politics, and policy, Tiffany has a proven record of excellent relationships in the private and public sectors, media, the entertainment industry, and civic and social justice organizations. Most recently, Tiffany served as a Senior...
info_outlineCharacterizing the popular TikTok app as a modern-day “Trojan Horse” because its parent company, ByteDance, is based in China, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Michal McCaul, aa Texas Republican, introduced the “Deterring America's Foreign Adversaries Act, which would ban TikTok in the United States. Democrats oppose the bill, saying it would go too far in abridging the Freedom of Speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is also pushing back against the bill. Federal courts have previously held that blocking TikTok would violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which limits the president’s ability to block informational and personal communications.
In the coming weeks, TikTok is expected to release a new feature that notifies kids when they have been using the app over a specified period of time, after which kids can decide if they want to stay logged in. For kids under 13, they’ll need a password from mom and dad to keep using TikTok after the allotted time has passed. Critics of these measures say they are meaningless since kids can still claim to be adults when they set up TikTok accounts.
A new initiative from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children has a new app called ‘Take it Down’ that helps kids confidentially remove nude images of themselves that exist online, shared when they were minors. The app is available for download at https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/. It doesn’t work with TikTok yet. However, it does work with Facebook, Instagram, OnlyFans, and PornHub.
The White House last week released what it is calling a New Initial Blueprint to address online harassment and abuse. The Executive Summary, prepared by a Task Force the Biden Harris Administration established last year, includes provisions for preventing online harassment and abuse, supporting victims, conducting research, and holding platforms accountable.
And as prosecutors in states in which abortion has become illegal continue to push for more access to reproductive health data from women seeking abortions, some lawmakers are seeking privacy legislation more suited for our post-Roe v. Wade world. One bill, introduced by Democratic Representative Sara Jacobs from California – the SAFER Health Act – would require patients to provide consent to permit healthcare providers to share data about abortions or miscarriages, even if the data are being sought via court order.
And democratic senators Mazie Hirono, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren also introduced a bill – the Upholding Protections for Health and Online Location Data (UPHOLD) Privacy Act - that would also restrict access to patient location data. The new bill comes amid a decision by Walgreens –America’s second-largest pharmacy chain – to stop selling abortion prescriptions throughout the United States, even where abortion remains legal. The decision dealt a blow to abortion rights activists.
The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a $7.5 million settlement to mental health app BetterHealth for sharing patients’ data with marketers even after telling the patients Betterhealth would protect the data.
The FTC has also commenced looking into how landlords may use algorithms to screen tenants.
In other news …
The Inspector General’s Office of the Department of Homeland Security issued a report showing federal law enforcement officials with Immigrations & Customs Enforcement, as well as other federal agencies, didn’t follow established protocols for using cell-site simulators – or Stingrays – to pursue subjects.
Police in the Commonwealth of Virginia are back to using facial recognition software – but the data collection is limited to certain circumstances, which don’t include scanning faces in real-time.
Algorithms are starting to decide which employees to lay off.
And Google has released its civil rights review.
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