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Is More Tech Regulation Coming?

Most of the national media attention this past week centered on the protests and the questions asked during Senate confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who was nominated by President Trump to become a new Supreme Court Justice.

Meanwhile, however, other congressional hearings occurred with big technology companies on the hot seat for a variety of reasons —including social media actions and plans.

Why Hearings? What’s at Stake?

In this Washington Journal interview, Ashley Gold, a technology reporter for Politico, previews why social media companies are testifying and what is at stake. Gold discusses the challenges posed by ads being purchased by foreigners to influence U.S. elections. She also describes how Twitter and Facebook will testify, but Google would not participate.

Back in April, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg offered testimony to a mostly hostile Congress. 

I wrote this blog on the Facebook situation and related issues back in April of this year, with this conclusion:

“The current Facebook story is perhaps the tipping point for more global privacy protections at a time when the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) are also coming into effect in Europe. …

The tech industry is about to see an overhaul in expectations regarding what it means to “trust but verify” security and privacy protections of data collected.”

Big Tech Testimony Outcomes?

So what actually happened this past week? One result, as reported by C|Net, were these quotes coming from Sen. Mark Warner from Virginia.

“The era of the wild west in social media is coming to an end,” he said during testimony Wednesday. “Where we go from here is an open question” […]

“It wasn’t stupid questions, it wasn’t ‘Internet 101,’ so I think at least from the committee standpoint, I think we feel like we’re moving the ball,” (Read more...)