MC Weekly Update 3/27: Shou Chew's Show Hearing

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

• The TikTok Tick Tock
  • Of course, we had to lead with the TikTok hearing. CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee during a five-hour grilling last Thursday. There was bipartisan support for comprehensive data privacy and protection legislation, a TikTok ban or restrictions, and children’s online safety policy. - Ashley Gold/ Axios, Gopal Ratnam/ Roll Call, Cat Zakrzewski, Jeff Stein/ The Washington Post
  • Alex wrote for CNN that U.S. national security policy guarding against Chinese data collection and influence operations must include but look beyond TikTok. He calls for comprehensive privacy legislation and researcher access to social media data.
  • Over the weekend, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made the case that TikTok should not be banned in her first TikTok by focusing on the broader need for data privacy and protection rules.
  • The hearing was bad for TikTok and Chew did not demonstrate he could stand up to China. He conceded that Chinese employees can access U.S. user data but evaded most questions and refused to condemn Chinese persecution of the Uyghur population.
  • There are also likely First Amendment challenges to banning a single social media application without a clearly demonstrated national security threat. - Jameel Jaffer/ The New York Times, PEN America
• India continues to crack down on online speech, and platforms (cough, Twitter) continue to acquiesce. - Samriddhi Sakunia/ Rest of World 
• People were freaking out about generative AI images of Donald Trump being arrested, which seemed to convince more people that the AI apocalypse was finally here than convinced anyone that Trump had been arrested. - Manon Jacob/ AFP, Ashley Belanger/ Ars Technica
• In further proof that everything is a content moderation issue, Midjourney, the company that developed the software used to generate the images, banned journalist Elliot Higgins for creating the images. - Chris Stokel-Walker/ BuzzFeed
• The governor of Utah signed into law a crazy social media bill that gives parents and guardians complete access to their children’s accounts. Start the countdown until the legal challenge. - Sam Metz, Barbara Ortutay/ Associated Press
• Completely unrelated, the tech industry group NetChoice launched a litigation hub to track and respond to lawsuits on platform safety with amicus briefs. - Cat Zakrzewski/ The Washington Post
• Twitter Corner
  • Musk is still CEO.
  • No changes to the API. 
  • The algorithm is still not open source.
  • Twitter announced it will start deleting legacy verifications on, no joke, April Fools’ Day. - Alyssa Lukpat/ The Wall Street Journal, Jay Peters, Mitchell Clark/ The Verge, @verified
    • It will be good to have a signal of who not to pay attention to, although Twitter Blue subscribers might soon be able to hide their blue checkmarks. - Mitchell Clark/ The Verge

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.

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