MC Weekly Update 5/8: Solving the Head of State Problem

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.

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