A quick hit on my thoughts about the Meta decision around US based content moderation -- each of which is basically getting fleshed out into longer op-eds and posts to come soon.

But to get you started on some takeaways from Zuck's announcement here's a 🧵

1/ 1) Maybe it seems small potatoes, but blaming politicized fact-checkers & ops for content moderation systems over-censoring is a total lie.

Don't blame poor trust & safety workers for implementing the convoluted politics and messy policies that come from the C-suite!

2/

Murthy out. No standing! Great outcome. Opinion by Barrett who calls out the 5th Circuit for affirming the DC's "sweeping" preliminary injunction and says it was "wrong to do so"

SO REFRESHING TO READ Barrett: Plaintiffs claims are "no more than conjecture" and "have not pointed to *any* past restrictions likely traceable to government defendants" -- and Fifth Circuit wrongly relied on District Court's "clearly erroneous" findings of fact.

As a general rule, judges' are given remarkable deference to keep order in their courtroom. . . .

Except that time in Niagara Falls when a judge was removed from the bench after putting *46 people* in his courtroom IN JAIL when no one claimed a ringing cell phone
1/
🧵 It's just a very crazy story.

In 2006, a judge in a Domestic Violence Part of Niagara Falls City Court had a cell phone go off in his courtroom. The rules of his court were clear: NO CELL PHONES.

But when the Judge asked whose phone it was, no one would own it.

2/

Lindke v. Freed opinion--SCOTUS 1983 liability/state action of public official on social media--just dropped.

TL;DR
I have no idea how this holding is administrable at scale, by the Court's own acknowledgment.

1/

Court says that the NATURE of how you can block a person on ANY PARTICULAR PLATFORM matters here

This is something that changes frequently between platforms! And not always with transparency! I don't even know how you'd preserve facts in how platforms do this!

2/

Sooooo what's up with KBJ's two graf concurrence in Taamneh?

🧵

1/ The last 2 lines are unequivocally about the Antiterrorism Act. But the main thrust of the concurrence -- the whole gist of it -- essentially boils down to this quote:

""Other cases presenting different allegations and different records may lead to different conclusions."

2/

Great news for the future of the internet: the Supreme Court gets about as hands off as it can possibly get on Section 230 in a 2.5 page per curium decision in Gonzalez v. Google.

Opinion here: supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf…

1/ Taamneh v. Twitter, Gonzalez's companion case, was NOT about Section 230, but was about social media companies aiding & abetting terrorist orgs under the Antiterrorism Act
Taamneh had a lengthier UNANIMOUS J. Thomas authored opinion where Twitter "wins"
supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf…
2/

SO YOU WANNA DO INTERNET LAW
🧵
This last year at @BKCHarvard I've talked to a lot of Harvard Law students who want to go into law and tech and want to know what classes they should take.

They're usually like "First Amendment?" or "Corporations"?

No.

1/ Those are both on my list, but they're not my top two.

If you want to go into law and tech you should take:

1) an intellectual property survey or copyright course
2) an advanced class on jurisdiction or conflict of laws

Why?

2/

🚨🚨🚨
I'm honored to be named a Fulbright Schuman Innovation Award Scholar for the 2023-2024 academic year!

I'll be researching the implementation of the DSA and DMA as a visiting professor in Paris at @sciencespo and @DsaObservatory at the University of Amsterdam!

1/3 In North American hockey terms: I'm moving to where the puck is going to be.

The EU is already, but certainly is going to be, defining global internet law for the foreseeable future. I can't imagine a better moment or opportunity to build out my foundation for that future.

2/3

Live Tweet 🧵 on Taamneh Oral Arguments

Just tuned in, been listening for 20 minutes, shocked at how off his game Seth Waxman is.

He's getting crushed here. And this man is a pro! He's a former SG! And he's misspeaking, unclear, seems frustrated by the Bench.

1/ He's really got some attitude today!

After being dismissive of SS, he's just being owned by EK. Does he even know the facts of this case or how Twitter operates?
He seems to keep retreating to repeating "aiding and abetting" without ADDING any meaning.

2/

The Top 8 Surprises From the Gonzalez v. Google Oral Argument

🧵

For full summary of live analysis of arguments see @BKCHarvard's expert panel archived here:
rebootingsocialmedia.org/events/gonzale…

1/ 8. THUMBNAILS. For reasons that are still unclear, Petitioner's atty mentioned "thumbnails" referring (maybe?) to the mini videos YouTube shows to make a recommendation.
For whatever reason, "thumbnails" became a reference point for the next 50 mins wasting everyone's time.

2/

🚨CALL FOR APPLICATIONS🚨

🔥GOVERNANCE IN ONLINE SPEECH LEADERSHIP SERIES JUNE 26-28, 2023 @YaleLawSch🔥

A small private 3 day educational & networking event for those in industry working in online speech governance in *any capacity*

rebootingsocialmedia.org/events/governa…
1/ In partnership with @BKCHarvard @yaleisp @StanfordCyber @BrookingsInst @tspainfo @TandSFoundation @Integrity_Inst

We welcome applications from individuals in industry in their personal capacity who are committed to working in trust & safety, integrity, and online governance

2/

It's almost like everything the online speech governance experts said about what would happen with Musk, Twitter, and the digital public sphere has come true. #1: There's no such thing as free speech absolutism, but even if there was it would be an especially bad ethos to employ and arguably untenable in an ad-based speech business.