The Supreme Court's Decision to Ban Apps

Stanford’s Evelyn Douek and Alex Stamos weigh in on the latest online trust and safety news and developments:

• Pornhub and other pornography websites owned by MindGeek are blocking access for users in Utah with a video message protesting an age verification law that went into effect this past week. - Brian Fung/ CNN, Jonathan Edwards/ The Washington Post, Samantha Cole/ Vice News
  • In completely unrelated news, VPN downloads spiked dramatically in Utah. - Cristiano Lima/ The Washington Post
  • The adult entertainment industry followed up by filing a lawsuit against the state challenging the law on First Amendment grounds. - Ben Winslow/ Fox 13 News, Free Speech Coalition

Twitter Corner

• Graphic videos from a mass shooting at a mall in Allen, Texas went viral on Twitter without a warning screen or similar labeling. The glaring issue suggests Musk's staffing cuts have left the platform ill-equipped to deal with difficult, real-time content moderation problems that arise in these kinds of crises. - Benjamin Mullin/ The New York Times, Aimee Picchi/ CBS News
• Meanwhile, Musk is focusing on the real issues, like whether NPR is going to start tweeting again. - Bobby Allyn/ NPR
• But at least our benevolent leader will allow some verified public announcement and emergency services free API access. - Sareen Habeshian/ Axios, Jon Fingas/ Engadget, Ivan Mehta/ TechCrunch, @TwitterDev
• Meta released its quarterly adversarial threat report, highlighting the takedown of a pro-China influence campaign with a network of accounts posing as news organizations and a think tank. - Donie O'Sullivan, Sean Lyngaas/ CNN, Ben Nimmo, Nathaniel Gleicher/ Meta

Legal Corner

• The Ninth Circuit threw out a jawboning case brought by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others against Elizabeth Warren for a letter she sent Amazon criticizing the online marketplace for recommending their vaccine denial book. - Bob Egelko/ San Francisco Chronicle, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (.pdf)
• There is a big show-down going on in Brazil over a “fake news” bill that the government is trying to ram through, suggesting a worrying level of appetite on both sides of the aisle in Brazil to crack down on internet freedom. - Anthony Boadle/ Reuters
• Decentralized Twitter alternative Bluesky is not allowing heads of state at the moment… that’s one way to deal with a content moderation challenge! - Kylie Robison/ Fortune

Join the conversation and connect with Evelyn and Alex on Twitter at @evelyndouek and @alexstamos.

Moderated Content is produced in partnership by Stanford Law School and the Cyber Policy Center. Special thanks to John Perrino for research and editorial assistance.

Like what you heard? Don’t forget to subscribe and share the podcast with friends!