Brian Fung Profile picture
28 Oct, 14 tweets, 3 min read
A few quick impressions from today’s #Section230 hearing.

The exchange between Dorsey and Gardner really illustrates how confusing social media policies (and their enforcement) are to most people.
Per Dorsey, Twitter has no general misinformation policy, but it does have specific misinfo policies on Covid and elections. They apply to world leaders, but also don’t, in that a world leaders policy protects them. Except when tweets to a domestic audience could cause harm.
Is it any wonder that normal people find this completely mind-boggling?
The fact that Ds and Rs can’t agree on what the problem is lets people like Zuckerberg get away with both-sidesing a negative externality with answers like these:
The closest we got to actual policy was when Sen. Capito asked what the effect would be of amending the part of §230 that says platforms can moderate content they deem objectionable.
Facebook warned that the result would be increased bullying and harassment. Should we believe them? Who knows! We didn’t get that far.
Twitter’s policy proposals were kind of a jab at Facebook in that they were explicitly framed as things society could do to keep large firms from entrenching their dominance.
Republicans asked the CEOs how many of their employees are conservative; the execs said they don’t ask, which seems like a normal response any company would give to *preclude* allegations of political discrimination but here is framed as some kind of damning, evasive response.
About 95% of the hearing was theater. Lawmakers are dug in, the companies have their talking points, and the public enjoys seeing CEOs squirm under the spotlight.

That’s pretty much it. Congress has always been theater, so we’re in pretty much the same place we were a year ago.
I keep thinking about Zuckerberg’s responses here, which are an echo of what he’s consistently said. What I find interesting about them is it reflects a fundamentally 20th-century model for thinking about media and information.

Zuck’s frame is that every debate has two sides, and thus the truth must be in the middle.

It’s a model that shares roots with notions of swing voters and independents, a belief that compromise involves each side making equal concessions.
Thing is, in both politics and journalism, this model is now years out of date.

For the past decade, political scientists have written loads of research on how swing voters are mostly a myth.

politico.com/news/magazine/…

washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-ca…
In media, the climate crisis has forced a crisis where the choice is between both-sidesing a phenomenon 99% of scientists believe is happening, or presenting the 99% view as the settled consensus.

With some exceptions, truth-telling over both-sidesing has largely won out.
Yet Zuck continues to cling to the notion that Facebook is simply an innocent bystander in a laissez-faire marketplace of Good Ideas and the platform is simply where Good Ideas go to rise to the top.

It’s a simplistic model that’s years behind the curve in media and academia.

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More from @b_fung

28 Sep
Thanks to the incredible @leah_nylen the press is able to view the remote proceedings now underway in Epic Games v. Apple. Updates to follow.
The debate right now is over how to define the market that Apple is allegedly monopolizing.

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is pushing Epic on its claim that the relevant market is iOS app distribution, asking why it isn’t “video games” writ large.
Epic’s lawyer argues that many Fortnite players “don’t have multiple devices” to play Fortnite on.

Apple’s lawyer argues there are “many channels” for Epic to distribute Fortnite on besides iOS.
Read 40 tweets
21 Sep
I’ve spent my morning trying to understand better who will own what under the TikTok deal, and it is just an utter mess trying to get to any clarity. If you know more, please get in touch.

We start with two seemingly conflicting statements from ByteDance and Oracle…
ByteDance claimed that the new TikTok ("TikTok Global”) will be a “100% owned subsidiary of ByteDance.”

Oracle said after it and Walmart make their investment, "Americans will be the majority and ByteDance will have no ownership in TikTok Global."
Here’s what I’ve been able to gather so far, from a person familiar with the deal.

TikTok Global has to be created. Once it’s established, its ownership structure will simply reflect ByteDance’s ownership structure, but this is not the same as saying ByteDance is the owner.
Read 9 tweets
19 Sep
Trump says he’s approved the ByteDance-Oracle deal — story to come soon.
“I have given the deal my blessing,” Trump said. He also claimed the deal will include a $5 billion fund for US education, and that TikTok would be “totally controlled” by Walmart and Oracle (which seems to conflict with what we all were reporting earlier this week).
Read 5 tweets
18 Sep
Seeing lots of tweets that simply assume if Trump blesses the Oracle-ByteDance deal in the next couple days, the skies clear and the TikTok ban magically goes away. It may not be that easy.
First, as I wrote here, the timing is real tight on the US side (it was when this piece first published and is increasingly so).

cnn.com/2020/09/14/tec…
Second, any deal must still be approved by the Chinese government, so that’s an additional layer of complexity.
Read 8 tweets
18 Sep
Commerce Dept. outlines forthcoming restrictions on TikTok and WeChat, saying as of Sunday, neither app can be distributed or maintained on mobile app stores: commerce.gov/news/press-rel…
More on the latest here: cnn.com/2020/09/18/tec…
On Fox Business, Wilbur Ross says the TikTok restrictions will simply prevent users from downloading updates, implying they’ll still be able to use the app. cnn.com/2020/09/18/tec…
Read 9 tweets
17 Sep
A person familiar with the TikTok deal tells me the government sent a new term sheet to ByteDance & Oracle last night.

The revised deal still has ByteDance as majority shareholder, with Oracle hosting TikTok data and reviewing its code for security. cnn.com/2020/09/17/tec…
Walmart could still have a role to play but no final decisions have been made.

Cabinet officials including Mnuchin, Ross and Barr are said to be supportive of the deal; Pompeo was undecided until today and told Trump he’s comfortable with it. cnn.com/2020/09/17/tec…
The US government would play a role in approving members of TikTok’s board; one of the board members is to be a security expert with a top-secret clearance.
cnn.com/2020/09/17/tec…
Read 4 tweets

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