Quotes from yesterday's NetChoice opinion, organized by issue, and what I think they mean for the future of Internet regulation🧵 1. Social media platforms are entitled to First Amendment protections.

"To the extent that social media platforms create expressive products, they receive the First Amendment’s protection."

Today, the Supreme Court announced their opinion in Murthy v. Missouri.

This case illustrates the complexities of online content moderation and offers some interesting insight into how the Court might rule on the long-awaited NetChoice & CCIA cases. 🧵
supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf… The COVID-19 era was as confusing as it was terrifying. It was an era of extensive mask wearing, wiping down amazon packages, zoom funerals, online classrooms, and lots and lots of mis and disinformation about the disease.

Horse tranqs, bleach injections, you name it.

📢 Some personal news!

I’m excited (and sad) to share that I will be leaving @ProgressChamber. I’ve accepted joint research fellowship positions at @santaclaralaw and @AkronLaw, focused on producing AI scholarship.

In other words, I’m officially in my academic era! Last year, during my annual evaluation, I told @adamkovac that there was only one thing that could entice me to seriously consider leaving Chamber of Progress.

As many of you know, that one thing is an opportunity to achieve my lifelong dream of becoming a TT law professor.

I published an article on California SB 1047, a bill that would effectively prohibit new AI model developers from emerging.

The bill does not apply to existing (derivative) AI models or models built upon existing models. It's the worst I've seen yet. 🧵 medium.com/chamber-of-pro…

https://twitter.com/ProgressChamber/status/1788566949569466776

My post is written for a general audience, so I advise you start there if you're interested in learning as much as possible about the bill.

Other credible experts have chimed in on the bill as well like @psychosort

https://twitter.com/psychosort/status/1784663936513524074

If you're going to talk about me, why not @ me? Are you afraid of my response?

At no point did I say my tweets are representative of my employer. And you know that -- as you said, I'm tweeting on a Sunday afternoon, outside of working hours.

Let's look at the receipts 🧵

https://twitter.com/davidclowery/status/1779657238711263730

[the following is my own opinion, not my employer's].

Last night, @ CreatureDesigns (Mike Corriero) posted an image of @brianlfrye, a Jewish law professor, depicted as hitler + an image implying Brian's pending execution.

Pure violence and hatred.

That's one of the major issues with the current discourse around Gen AI and 230. We have to understand the Gen AI stack before we can even consider liability.

IMO 230 could apply to Gen AI for some use cases. techdirt.com/2023/03/17/yes…

https://twitter.com/WillOremus/status/1778502060494798869

In assessing liability we have the platforms that provide the Gen AI services, the developers who create and fine tune the models. We have the folks who create the datasets and the folks who implement the datasets to train their models. We have users who supply inputs.

Yeah so this bill is laughably bad.

The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024 requires anyone using a dataset to train AI to disclose any copyrighted works in the set to the U.S. Copyright Office to be displayed via a public database. 🧵 schiff.house.gov/imo/media/doc/…

https://twitter.com/ttoboyle/status/1777778939017969718

Copyright attaches automatically to any creative works fixed in a tangible medium of expression.

So, pretty much all works used to train an AI system will require disclosures, regardless of fair use considerations.

(btw you don't "train" a dataset but details).

Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit filed its order in Diep v. Apple. They had me in the first half...

Strong #Section230 ruling regarding Apple's content moderation efforts. Until the Court got to the UCL claims...creating yet another bizarre 230 loophole. sigh. 🧵 Hadona Diep is a cybersecurity professional.

She downloaded an app called "Toast Plus" from Apple's App store thinking it was the "Toast Wallet" for storing cryptocurrency.

It was not the Toast Wallet.

[Lack of] @CommonSense published an explainer on AB 3172 (which adds statutory damages for online harms to kids).

The explainer is laughable and deserves to be publicly mocked for championing the erosion of Californians' speech and privacy rights. 🧵

commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/… CSM argues that AB 3172 is "only" a statutory damages bill.

But they accidentally said the quiet part out loud: the goal is effectively a prior restraint, forcing online publishers to restrain their protected editorial decisions, if those decisions could "harm" a younger user.

Just finished listening to the Murthy oral arguments.

The Court appears poised to decide for the Biden Admin on standing grounds, based on lack of traceability and the absence of any threat of future imminent harm.

Transcript / Audio: supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments… Notably Justice Kagan's reference to platforms as "speech compilers" and recognition of Facebook's policy enforcement as reflective of its viewpoints perhaps foreshadows the Court's direction in the soon-to-decided NetChoice & CCIA cases...

Ventured into the lion's den to oppose the Senate ELVIS Act today, standing alone against RIAA and their cronies.

Despite the bill's passage, we secured a small win: the Senate stated for the record the law exempts AI services from liability for 3rd-party misuse.

Testimony 🧵

https://twitter.com/jess_miers/status/1762543986021974095

Good afternoon, esteemed chairs.

My name is Jess Miers and I serve as Senior Counsel for Chamber of Progress, where we champion technological innovation to benefit all Americans, including the vibrant community here in Nashville, the heart of our nation’s music industry.

Okay now that I've had some time to process, here is where I'm at after today's oral arguments...

I can see this being a 9-0 decision to affirm the preliminary injunctions. The line of questions and discussions from the Court were strikingly similar to Taamneh / Gonzalez. While the Justices wrestled with some of the particulars of the Texas and Florida laws as they apply to the different types of services offered by the major platforms, one theme emerged throughout:

We are now at the NetChoice v. Paxton oral arguments. I am starting a new thread for live tweeting here. NetChoice is up first arguing that Texas cannot just convert social media companies into common carriers just because they so.

Yesterday, the District Court of Ohio granted @NetChoice's request for a preliminary injunction, enjoining Ohio's parental consent law.

This is the 4th order in the NetChoice cases declaring social media parental consent laws likely unconstitutional. 🧵netchoice.org/wp-content/upl… Recall: NetChoice won a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the state last month due to the act's looming effective date. You can read my discussion of the TRO below.

Yesterday's order echoes the TRO, yet it also unveils some critical new findings. threadreaderapp.com/thread/1744844…

AG Bonta is currently appealing a challenge against the Age Appropriate Design Code after the District Court enjoined it, holding that @NetChoice is more than likely to show it's unconstitutional.

Now California is poised to do it all over again, all at our expense.

https://twitter.com/AGRobBonta/status/1752010013835776217

Worse, it appears in this new effort, the same folks behind the AADC are planning to launch a Utah-styled approach to regulating teen access to information.

Recall that the Utah laws, which are arguably even more obviously unconstitutional, are also facing legal challenges.

Interesting (& potentially problematic) development in Walters v. OpenAI. Court denies OpenAI's motion to dismiss:

Recall this is the pending defamation case against OpenAI. H/T @VolokhSpeechmedialaw.org/wp-content/upl… I unpacked the litigation leading up to this point in my recent paper on intermediary liability for providers of Generative AI technologies here.

I published the chat logs there too.

pymnts.com/wp-content/upl…

Florida's response in @NetChoice & @ccianet v. Moody was just filed. Here are the (low)lights...🧵

supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/2… The thrust of the State's argument is unpersuasive: it's not expression, it's conduct.

The premise is weak -- how do you think websites attract those billions of users in the first place? Do you really think it's an unfiltered stream of consciousness that makes them successful?

Just in: the TRO order in NetChoice v. Yost (the Ohio Parental Notification lawsuit).

This order should serve as another massive warning to policymakers aiming to enact similar legislation this year. We have standing and we will show up every time.
drive.google.com/file/d/1vMcQdQ… BTW NetChoice had to get a TRO before the preliminary injunction hearing because the Ohio law is set to go into effect next week.

@NetChoice I love y'all's explanation here in particular:

BREAKING: @NetChoice just filed suit in Ohio challenging the "Parental Notification by Social Media Operators Act."

drive.google.com/file/d/15DHiQe… Like many of the other mandatory age verification laws we've seen proposed throughout the U.S. last year, Ohio's would require websites to secure verifiable parental consent before allowing anyone under 16 to create accounts / access services.

Cal Superior Court just rejected #Section230 in Neville v. Snap Inc., a lawsuit involving users who overdosed on drugs allegedly purchased via Snap.

The Court attributed Snap's role in the deaths to chat app's design permitting ephemeral communications.
nbcnews.com/tech/social-me… I will share the opinion once I have it.

Keep in mind that this is a state court holding, similar to the order we saw in the California social media addiction lawsuits, so it has limited reach (for now).

California just filed their opening brief in NetChoice v. Bonta in the Ninth Circuit, appealing the preliminary injunction enjoining the California Age Appropriate Design Code. 🧵

acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc… We at @ProgressChamber along w/@ipjustice and @LGBTTech previously filed an amicus brief at the District Court highlighting the speech chilling aspects of the AADC.

ipjustice.org/wp-content/upl…