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OCTOBER NEWSLETTER  

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Responding to the Facebook Files

The Facebook Files have refocused public attention on how social media companies respond to abusive and other objectionable content on their platforms. CDT’s work examines many of these questions: from analyzing the role of algorithms in amplifying content ([link removed]); to exploring the use of machine learning in content analysis ([link removed]); to calling for increased focus on how race and gender shape experiences of online disinformation ([link removed]). 

One area CDT prioritizes is the need for meaningful transparency: how companies can better explain their content moderation policies and individual decisions to increase public accountability and empower users to control their online experiences. We’re also focused on establishing ways for researchers, journalists, and advocates to access data from social media companies so they can identify trends, engage in independent analysis, and inform advocacy and policymaking.

As policymakers grapple with questions raised by targeting and algorithmic amplification, CDT also reiterates our call for stronger consumer privacy protections. Users’ personal data fuels targeting on social media services, informing what content they see and how ads are targeted to them. Strong data privacy protections can help reduce the risk of echo chambers, microtargeting of disinformation, or exploitative advertising that targets specific individuals or groups based on profiling. In the suite of policy interventions lawmakers consider to address platform accountability, privacy legislation is one of the most important tools — and one that remains underutilized, especially in the United States.

The Facebook Files underscore an important truth: content moderation is hard, and enormously consequential. Platforms have to strike a balance between allowing users to express themselves, and meaningfully addressing abusive and unlawful speech — doing so at massive scale, in diverse languages and cultural settings. As content moderation practices evolve, we aim to provide policymakers, researchers, companies, and other civil society organizations with research and advocacy that can help shape next-generation moderation techniques and platform business practices for the better.

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In Case You Missed It

CDT recently released two ([link removed]) reports ([link removed]) on whether students who rely on school-issued devices are subject to more monitoring than their peers who have their own devices. The research contributes important findings ([link removed]) about why schools turn to monitoring software and how it impacts students, often in inequitable ways, and identifies important issues for policymakers and practitioners. One such finding is that school technology leaders have adopted monitoring software, at least in part, because they believe that it is required by the federal Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). To correct this perception, CDT has called on Congress ([link removed]) to clarify CIPA’s monitoring requirement or direct the FCC to do so.

A bill introduced in Congress — the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act ([link removed]) — would impose a moratorium on federal government use of facial recognition technology, until Congress can enact a comprehensive set of rules to mitigate the threats to human rights. CDT has long argued that this technology poses severe risks to civil liberties and civil rights, and called for congressional oversight and legislation. As CDT’s Sharon Bradford Franklin explains, this proposed legislation provides a very helpful framework ([link removed]) for addressing the risks from law enforcement and immigration enforcement use of facial recognition.

CDT recently joined amicus briefs in NetChoice v. Paxton ([link removed]) and Unicolor v. Hennes & Mauritz ([link removed]), and CDT’s Sharon Bradford Franklin and CDT alum Jim Dempsey filed a Supreme Court amicus brief ([link removed]) as former government officials in FBI v. Fazaga. In NetChoice v. Paxton, the brief argues that the Texas social media law HB 20, which prohibits certain social media platforms from moderating a user’s content based on “the viewpoint of the user or another person,” violates the First Amendment. Unicolors concerns a statutory provision under which a copyright registration is invalid if the applicant had “knowledge” that information contained in the application was “inaccurate”. In FBI v. Fazaga, in which Muslim Americans in California challenge FBI surveillance on the grounds that the FBI improperly targeted them on the basis of their religion, Franklin and Dempsey urge the Court to recognize the critical importance of oversight conducted by federal courts despite government assertion of the state secrets privilege.

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CDT in the Press

Elizabeth Laird, Director of CDT’s Equity in Civic Technology Project, spoke with Marketplace ([link removed]) about CDT’s recent research on equity and privacy concerns with tracking of student activity on school-owned devices.

Alexandra Reeve Givens, CDT President & CEO, spoke with NPR's Scott Simon ([link removed]) about employers monitoring their employees.

Caitlin Vogus, Deputy Director of CDT’s Free Expression Project, discussed the need for more visibility into the decisions social media companies are making with Protocol ([link removed]): "We need this transparency so lawmakers actually know what's going on."

CDT "in Person"

The day before the Patriot Act passed in October 2001, CDT founder Jerry Berman warned, “This bill has been called a compromise, but the only thing compromised is our civil liberties.” Earlier this month, CDT hosted a discussion ([link removed]) looking back at the enactment of the Patriot Act and the expansion of government surveillance after 9/11, evaluating how the landscape for government surveillance authorities and civil liberties has evolved in the 20 years since, and exploring how we should go forward in the present day.

Last month, Alexandra Givens, CDT President & CEO, was invited to speak before the 2021 U.S.-EU Trade & Technology Council (TTC) Stakeholder Roundtable. In her remarks ([link removed]), she addressed “how the TTC can advance EU and U.S. shared values and receive popular support from citizens and all stakeholders.” 

Have you listened to the latest episode of Tech Talk ([link removed])? Join host Jamal Magby in a conversation on the capabilities and limitations of automated content analysis with Jasmine McNealy, CDT Non-residential Fellow and associate professor in the Department of Telecommunications, College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida, and Dhanaraj Thakur, Research Director for CDT. 

Partner Spotlight

Thank you to everyone who attended Tech Prom: The Reunion ([link removed])! Our hybrid event welcomed over 500 guests in person and virtually, bringing together people from across civil society, industry, government, and academia. Click here to see remarks ([link removed]) from CDT President & CEO Alexandra Givens. Thank you to all of the sponsors who make this event possible, and to our tech policy community, who came together for such a fun evening.

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Staff Spotlight
Hannah Quay-de la Vallee, Senior Technologist
How long have you been working in digital rights? Well, I’ve been at CDT for a little over three years, but I started getting into privacy and user agency and power during my graduate work, so three years or seven-ish years, depending on how you count it!

What is your proudest moment while at CDT? Ooh, tough call! One of the things I love about working at CDT is getting to work on a diverse range of projects, so it’s hard to pick a single moment, but Apple pausing the rollout of some of its proposed messaging features to spend more time thinking about the impacts on vulnerable groups in response to civil society feedback is definitely up there!

What is the best book you've read recently? These questions are so hard! I'm just going to list a few: Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino; The Enchanged by Rene Denfeld; How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C. Pam Zhang. Maybe also Nothing Gold Can Stay by Ron Rash, but some of the stories there are just so heartbreaking that I am hesitant to recommend it to folks. 

What is your fandom? Does knitting count as a fandom? 

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