In February, legal scholar and journalist Kate Klonick wrote a detailed exposé for The New Yorker about Facebook’s Oversight Board, which some are calling the platform’s “Supreme Court.” In theory, the Board will have the authority, even over Mark Zuckerberg, to write a set of principles by which content is allowed (or not) to remain on the platform. As any ...
In January 2017, after far-right extremist Richard Spencer was attacked on Inauguration Day, a semi-rhetorical question began trending on social media. Is it okay to punch the Nazi? While I would tend to say that it is rarely ethical to throw the first punch at anyone, can we at least agree that it is not only fair, but morally imperative, ...
Social media platforms were practically designed to foster whataboutism. So, we should hardly be surprised that this lazy form of erroneous reasoning dominates so much of our contemporary politics. At least that was one thought that crossed my mind while reading the recent BuzzFeed article describing why so many Facebook employees are lately coming to grips with the kind of ...
In 2012, I wrote a post called In Defense of (a little) Elitism, which was naturally criticized by some in the tech-utopian world for being, y’know, elitist. The apparent good in this digital-age model — that it is populist — is also its own weakness when we look at results in various media. Most obviously, it doesn’t take more than ...
It is impossible to look at the landscape of America, at this burning city on a hill, and not weep. Or scream. Because this blog advocates the legal rights of creators (copyrights), and because those rights historically enjoy bipartisan support, I have tried to maintain a politically balanced tone when writing about most policy matters. That was a lot easier ...
