Regulation and Policy
This collection takes a two-pronged approach to regulation, including the tech platforms’ own policies and practices. First, it discusses the business practices and regulatory environments that contributed to the current online misinformation environment. It then turns to assessments of recent policy changes at the social media platforms, the role(s) of traditional media, and governmental responses.
Live Research Review
Latest Expert Reflections
Teaching & Learning
Explore course modules, handouts, teaching tools and syllabi about dis- and misinformation.
Latest News on Regulation and Policy
Concerned about growing momentum behind efforts to regulate the commercial use of personal data, Big Tech has begun seeding watered-down “privacy” legislation in states with the goal of preempting greater protections, experts say. The swift passage in March of a consumer data privacy law in Virginia, which Protocol reported was originally authored by Amazon with […]
By Todd Feathers
Any day now the Facebook Oversight Board, the social media company’s review mechanism for decisions on deletion of content and users, will tell the world whether Donald Trump should remain banned from Facebook indefinitely. Before that, Facebook also announced the expansion of the Oversight Board’s remit: initially users could only appeal to have content restored […]
By Emily Bell
The conference of Politics and Computational Social Science (PaCSS) will take place virtually during the week of August 19-13, 2021. Panels will take place between 11 am-3 pm ET. We invite submissions from all fields and industries. Please email politics.css@gmail.com with any questions. **Submissions are due by Friday, May 21** For the full call, see: […]
By Politics and Computational Social Science (PaCSS)
As denazification and reconstruction efforts ramped up across Germany in the wake of World War II, Germans and occupying Allied forces found themselves struggling with difficult questions around censorship and preservation, among them what to do with decades worth of Nazi writings. While books including Mein Kampf were banned for a period of years after […]
By John Bowers, Elaine Sedenberg, and Jonathan Zittrain
Shortly before Sophie Zhang lost access to Facebook’s systems, she published one final message on the company’s internal forum, a farewell tradition at Facebook known as a “badge post”. “Officially, I’m a low-level [data scientist] who’s being fired today for poor performance,” the post began. “In practice, in the 2.5 years I’ve spent at Facebook, […]
By Julia Carrie Wong
Concerned about growing momentum behind efforts to regulate the commercial use of personal data, Big Tech has begun seeding watered-down “privacy” legislation in states with the goal of preempting greater protections, experts say. The swift passage in March of a consumer data privacy law in Virginia, which Protocol reported was originally authored by Amazon with […]
By Todd FeathersAny day now the Facebook Oversight Board, the social media company’s review mechanism for decisions on deletion of content and users, will tell the world whether Donald Trump should remain banned from Facebook indefinitely. Before that, Facebook also announced the expansion of the Oversight Board’s remit: initially users could only appeal to have content restored […]
By Emily BellThe conference of Politics and Computational Social Science (PaCSS) will take place virtually during the week of August 19-13, 2021. Panels will take place between 11 am-3 pm ET. We invite submissions from all fields and industries. Please email politics.css@gmail.com with any questions. **Submissions are due by Friday, May 21** For the full call, see: […]
By Politics and Computational Social Science (PaCSS)As denazification and reconstruction efforts ramped up across Germany in the wake of World War II, Germans and occupying Allied forces found themselves struggling with difficult questions around censorship and preservation, among them what to do with decades worth of Nazi writings. While books including Mein Kampf were banned for a period of years after […]
By John Bowers, Elaine Sedenberg, and Jonathan ZittrainShortly before Sophie Zhang lost access to Facebook’s systems, she published one final message on the company’s internal forum, a farewell tradition at Facebook known as a “badge post”. “Officially, I’m a low-level [data scientist] who’s being fired today for poor performance,” the post began. “In practice, in the 2.5 years I’ve spent at Facebook, […]
By Julia Carrie Wong
April 21, 2021