Free Speech

Social media platforms must work with both sides of the political spectrums if they wish to maintain neutrality. That was the message to top social media companies from a top Republican.  

Conservative legal blog Legal Insurrection had its Amazon Associates partnership terminated in April, according to founder Cornell Law professor William A. Jacobson.

At least half of the liberal organizations pushing the “Freedom From Facebook” movement have been funded by left-wing billionaire George Soros. One of the other organizations was also founded by controversial Women's March leader Linda Sarsour.

Following a 60 Minutes segment that portrayed Google as a monopolistic power, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said he hopes the U.S. Department of Justice “takes a serious look” at the power wielded by tech giants.  

Yelp and TripAdvisor have teamed up against Google to fight back against what Yelp calls an “unlawful advantage” given to Google+’s search results over its competitors when it comes to local reviews.  

YouTube has admitted it made a mistake when it briefly took down an advertisement by a Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate advertising his “Deportation Bus Tour.”  

Facebook revealed there was a 56 percent increase in the number of posts removed for violating the site’s “hate speech” rule. Facebook’s Community standards Enforcement Preliminary Report showed that between October and December 2017, it “took action” against 1.6 million pieces of content for violating the site’s Community Standards rule against hate speech.

Twitter announced on Tuesday it will institute a new policy to crackdown on how visible allegedly bad tweets are on the site. Users who are believed to be engaging in “troll-like” behavior will be corralled into a “[s]how more replies” section while users deemed to be contributing to “healthy” conversations will be unaffected.

A Twitter spokesperson defended Hamas’ ability to maintain a presence on the site, despite Twitter’s rule against supporting and perpetuating violence. According to the spokesperson, the group’s alleged commitment to peace and status as a democratically-elected organization exempts Hamas from the explicit rule banning terrorist organizations from the platform.

Apple CEO Tim Cook used his commencement address at Duke University Sunday to grandstand for an array of liberal causes, including climate change, gun control, immigration, and the #MeToo movement.

Google released a new plain language version of its Privacy Policy on Friday in order to comply with European privacy laws.  

Music streaming service Spotify has removed two artists from its official playlists and recommendations in light of the site’s new policy against “Hate Content & Hateful Conduct.”

Following Facebook’s lead, Google announced that it is banning all advertisements relating to the Ireland’s upcoming abortion referendum.  

Several digital rights organizations have banded together to urge social media sites to be more transparent. The Electronic Freedom Frontier (EFF), the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and other groups produced detailed guidelines for companies like Facebook and Twitter.