Global Media Tech Regulation Tracker – March 2024
Welcome to the FIPP Global Media Tech Regulation Tracker! This live doc is updated monthly, bringing you the latest policy, regulatory, and legal updates from around the media tech world.
This month; how the Australian government might respond to Meta’s U-turn on publisher payments, the ongoing battles in US state legislatures over social media and the legal response to generative AI
INTERNATIONAL
Feb 9th: Law firm Freeths has a blog post that focuses on Generative AI and how intellectual property law is addressing challenges presented by its widespread use.
The article says that both the EU, with its proposed EU AI Act, and the UK are looking at regulation, but these are focused on protecting fundamental values around freedom, democracy, and privacy. Whether the final regulations will address intellectual property rights is yet to be seen.
The article cites the UK government’s initial move to loosen the legislative framework by permitting reproduction of text and data for training AI systems. Yet in response to lobbying from the creative sector the government abandoned those plans so that acts of copying text and data are only permitted for non-commercial research.
Feb 1st: Reuters has a look at the creation of deep fakes and the legal challenges they pose. It goes in depth on a number of issues including cyber crime, privacy laws, ethical concerns and the role of the media.
Jan 21st: Not surprisingly the key topic of conversation at Davos this year proved to be Generative AI.
Nikkei AI had a team of reporters at the event and they noted that Artificial intelligence, and how to regulate it, was overheard in more circles than ever before.
“We have to take the unintended consequences of any new technology along with all the benefits, and think about them simultaneously as opposed to waiting for the unintended consequences to show up and then address them,” Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella said during his appearance this week at the Davos meeting. “Being proactive about managing risk is the right thing to do.”
AMERICAS
March 1st: Laws that were set to be introduced in Florida to create strict social media prohibitions for minors may now not reach the statute book after the intervention of the state’s Gov. Ron DeSantis.
According to Politico the Governor has vetoed the legislation, a move which has triggered lawmakers to reconfigure the bill.
DeSantis has for weeks signalled that he wasn’t fully on board with the legislation and decided to block the proposal even as lawmakers made several changes with the hopes of quelling the Republican governor’s concerns.
The state’s senate then overwhelmingly passed the bill and now expects a legal challenge.
Feb 26th: Social media companies have been encouraged by the way that the US Supreme Court has taken a look at recently introduced laws curtailing their activities in Florida and Texas. The legislation, prompted by conservative complaints about censorship, limits the ability of large internet companies to curate what appears on their platforms.
The social media platforms argue that the legislation violates the First Amendment. As the New York Times reports the court’s decision could fundamentally alter the nature of speech on the internet. It is expected later in the spring.
Feb 26th: Marketplace has more on the background of the organisation that is working with the social media platforms as they seek to influence the Supreme Court on legislation in Texas and Florida.
The website reports that NetChoice has emerged as Big Tech’s top political lobbyist, and is also targeting social media crackdowns in other states too, like the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which required that platforms put in stronger default data privacy protections for younger users.
Isaiah Poritz of Bloomberg News explains “NetChoice is a small tech industry trade association. And their members include some of the largest social media companies in the world: Meta Platforms, X Corp., Google as well. So they are backing much of the biggest Silicon Valley players. And they’ve been around for quite a while now, since 2001. But it’s really in the past couple years that they’ve kind of become Silicon Valley’s attack dog when it comes to challenging state social media regulations in court. They’ve brought a number of these cases and have been quite successful in being able to prevent them from going into law.”
Jan 19th: Utah’s much-discussed social media regulations which are a landmark in the US as they are the first issued by a state to act to curtail the influence of platforms, are now set to become law on Oct 1st. KSL.com notes that the Social Media Regulation Act was scheduled to come into effect within two months of being passed on March 1, so the state has chosen to take more time to institute it.
The bill, which is being touted by lawmakers as necessary to counter the alleged harms social media platforms enact on teenagers, has drawn strong pushback from industry groups who have raised concerns about freedom of speech and privacy.
From here the bill is expected to be tweaked in the coming weeks, though Utah residents and a tech industry group have filed lawsuits asking that the bill be blocked before it goes into effect.
KSL notes “Future legislation may shift the effective date yet again, but pushing back the initial date gives lawmakers more time to revamp the regulations — which currently require that minors get parental consent before signing up for social media accounts, along with account curfews and other parental controls.”
“While pushing back the effective date gives us more time to incorporate more feedback into the law, we are as committed as ever to protecting our children from the harms of social media,” said the state Governor Spencer Cox.
Dec 19th: The BBC has the latest on the introduction of the Online News Act in Canada.
The legislation mandates that tech giants pay news outlets for their content. Some have hailed it as a game-changer that sets out a permanent framework that will see a steady drip of funds from wealthy tech companies to Canada’s media companies.
The BBC notes “It has also been met with resistance by Google and Meta – the only two companies big enough to be encompassed by the law.”
“In response, over the summer, Meta blocked access to news on Facebook and Instagram for Canadians. Google looked set to follow, but after months of talks, the federal government was able to negotiate a deal with the search giant as the company has agreed to pay Canadian news outlets C$100m ($75m; £59m) annually.”
Nov 9th: As many as 41 US states are suing Meta for getting teens hooked on social media. The Conversation has the background to the lawsuits and predicts how they will roll out.
It says “The most significant suit, filed in a federal court in California, involves 33 states. The claim is based on breaches of state consumer protection statutes and common law principles regarding deceptive, unfair or unconscionable conduct, and federal privacy statutory provisions and regulations (collectively “COPPA”) which specifically protect children.
Sept 29th: Reuters has the latest on the ongoing discussions between local and national legislatures in the US over how to manage social media content.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to decide the legality of Republican-backed state laws in Texas and Florida that constrain the ability of social media companies to curb content on their platforms that these businesses deem objectionable.
The justices took up two cases involving challenges by technology industry groups who argued that these 2021 laws restricting the content-moderation practices of large social media platforms violate the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protections for freedom of speech. Lower courts split on the issue, striking down key provisions of Florida’s law while upholding the Texas measure.
The industry challengers to the laws are NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), industry groups whose members include Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google which owns YouTube, as well as TikTok and X, formerly Twitter.
ASIA
Feb 20th: Indonesia has become the latest country to draw up plans to require digital platforms to fund the media. President Joko Widodo has ok-ed a regulation, not unlike those issued in Canada and Australia, that is apparently aimed at levelling the playing field between the media industry and big tech companies.
“The spirit of the regulation is… to ensure a fair cooperation between media and digital platforms, provide clearer cooperation framework between them,” he said.
Google said it will review the regulation and claims it has worked with news publishers and the government to build a sustainable news ecosystem in Indonesia. Facebook-owner Meta, which recently announced it will not continue its existing pledge to fund the media in Australia, hasn’t yet commented.
Feb 17th: Plans outlined by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to introduce security vetting requirements for online journalists, have been cancelled.
Rudaw reports that in May, the KRG Ministry of Culture passed media directive No. 1, 2023, that would have acted as a criterion, along with the Region’s journalism law, copyright law, and other general provisions to decide on journalism cases in the courts. It was quickly slammed by press freedom advocates for the ambiguity of its language and for limiting freedom of speech and journalism. The cancellation, announced by KRG Cabinet Secretary Amanj Rahim, has been welcomed by officials in the US and UK.
Jan 22nd: The Supreme Court of Pakistan has unveiled a new set of regulations for reporters, significantly curtailing their scope of operations within the court’s premises reports BNNBreaking News. This development comes as part of the court’s attempts to bolster security measures and maintain decorum within its jurisdiction.
Outlined in a letter by the court’s Public Relations Officer, Shahid Hussain Kamboyo, the new guidelines effectively ban media personnel from recording YouTube programs and conducting interviews within the Supreme Court building.
BNNBreaking News says “The revised rules also state that reporters can gain entry into the Supreme Court premises only after stringent security checks, which include thorough frisking and bag searches. Furthermore, the use of cell phones in the courtrooms has been categorically prohibited.”
“In high-profile cases, where limited space and increased security are factors, access will be granted to only one journalist from each media outlet. Other reporters can follow the proceedings from alternate courtrooms.”
AUSTRALIA
March 1st: Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has set itself on a collision course with Australia’s Albanese government after announcing it will stop paying publishers for news and will shut down its news tab in the country.
As The Guardian reports Facebook, along with Google, signed dozens of deals with publishers in 2021 worth an estimated $200m seeking to avoid being “designated” under the Australian government’s news media bargaining code.
The company now insists that as it has closed the news tabs it is not liable for any more cash. Needless to say the Australian government has other ideas.
“We’re not talking about some plucky little startup, we’re talking about one of the world’s largest and most profitable companies,” said Assistant Treasurer Jones. “It has a responsibility to ensure that it pays for the content that … has been used on its platform, and frankly, that it’s making millions and millions of dollars out of it and so the government is adamant it will be backing the code we’ll be taking all of the actions that are available to us under the code.”
March 1st: Responding to the news former ACCC (Australian Competition and Consumer Commission) chair and Superpower Institute Chair Professor Rod Sims says Meta not paying for news content from media outlets means people will start relying on sources which “aren’t credible”.
“They’ve invented a clever business model which takes the content of other people, and in this case we’re talking about news media, and gets people looking at their website or app, gets their attention and then they sell advertising against it.”
“What’s going on here is they don’t actually want to pay the people who create the content anything for that content.
“They want to keep all the profits for themselves.”
On the same topic MX3 looks at the implications for media on a global level. It says “As with the current legal challenges to ChatGPT headed by the New York Times, publishers need to work together and also seek support from governments.
This means putting pressure on Meta to agree to new contracts and if not resorting to legal challenges.”
Nov 15th: In a Comment is Free article for The Guardian, Alice Drury writes that the profit motives of the tech companies is wreaking havoc on democracies and calls for the Australian government to take action.
She argues; “Disinformation is extremely lucrative for digital platforms like Meta and X (formerly Twitter) and their multi billionaire owners. Disinformation captures our attention and guarantees our engagement online, which can be monetised to advertisers. The spread of disinformation isn’t accidental – it’s incentivised by the tech giants’ business models. And yet we have no laws to stop this – or even uncover it.”
Referencing new laws that have been issued in the EU and the UK she concludes “We need parliament to step in and pass laws that will protect our right to freedom of speech, while also shining a light on how disinformation is spread, and by whom. We then need social media companies to change the way they do business, so they’re no longer biased toward promoting hate speech and disinformation. We need users to have much more control over how their data is used and the ability to opt out of being profiled.”
EUROPEAN UNION
31st Jan: The European Broadcasting Union has published a guide that looks at how AI regulation might impact the continent’s public service media.
It reports how The European Union (EU) is finalising a proposal to establish common rules and obligations for providers and deployers of AI-based systems in the EU internal market. In parallel, the Council of Europe (CoE), is negotiating an international treaty – the so-called “Framework Convention” – on the development, design and application of AI systems based on the Council of Europe’s standards on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Framework Convention is expected to become the leading global normative instrument for AI, as states such as the United States, Canada, Israel and Japan have committed to ratifying it.
Among the issues the guide covers are potential remuneration for publishers, guidelines to deal with disinformation and the economic threat to the media ecosystems.
Jan 24th: Yahoo has a report on research that shows almost three-quarters of the Irish population want social media algorithms to be regulated more strictly. Moreover, the vast majority of those surveyed believe that the algorithms should stop profiling people based on their sexual desires, political and religious views, health conditions or ethnicity.
Commissioned by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) and Uplit, the new research was conducted by Ireland Thinks, who surveyed a representative sample of 1,270 people of different ages, incomes, educational backgrounds and regions across the country.
The findings come as Coimisiún na Meán, Ireland’s media regulator, published its draft Online Safety Code, proposing that social media platforms should turn off their “recommender systems” based on profiling by default.
Dec 18th: CBS News reports that the EU has concerns about whether Elon Musk’s online platform X breached tough new social media regulations.
It is the first investigation of its kind since the rules designed to make online content less toxic took effect.
“Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said Monday in a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“The Commission will now investigate X’s systems and policies related to certain suspected infringements,” spokesman Johannes Bahrke told a press briefing in Brussels. “It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation.”
The investigation will look into whether X failed to do enough to curb the spread of illegal content and whether measures to combat ” information manipulation,” especially through its crowd-sourced Community Notes fact-checking feature, were effective.
Dec 18th: After a slightly bumpy ride in which European journalists expressed dismay at the content of the bill, the EU finally managed to achieve political agreement between the Parliament and the Council on the European Media Freedom Act, which was initially proposed by the Commission in September 2022.
As reported in the European Sting, the EU says that “the new rules will better protect editorial independence, media pluralism, ensure transparency and fairness and bring better cooperation of media authorities through a new European media Board. It includes unprecedented safeguards for journalists to perform their job freely and safely. This novel set of rules will also ensure that media – public and private – can operate more easily across borders in the EU internal market, without undue pressure and taking into account the digital transformation of the media space.”
“The political agreement reached is now subject to formal approval by the European Parliament and the Council. Once officially adopted and published in the Official Journal of the European Union, the Regulation will be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States after 15 months.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Feb 28th: Leading national news publishers are calling on The Government to take immediate action to protect the industry from copyright infringement by AI companies. Press Gazette reports that business leaders urged the government to “make it impossible” to train a large language model without brokering content licensing agreements.
Speaking before the House of Lords’ Communications and Digital committee in late February, executives from The Guardian, News UK, Financial Times and DMG Media said action must be put at “the top of the agenda” for lawmakers.
Feb 2nd: The UK Government “cannot sit on its hands” for a decade waiting for sufficient copyright case law to emerge from legal fights between AI companies and news publishers.
That’s the view of the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee’s report on Large Language Models as reported in the Press Gazette.
The second house has urged the Government to share its view on whether copyright law provides “sufficient protections” for rightholders whose work is used to train large language models (LLMs) and, if necessary, set out options to future-proof the legislation.
The report said the potential benefits to society from LLMs do “not warrant the violation of copyright law or its underpinning principles”.
Nov 21st: The Media Bill continues its journey through the UK parliament and the Gov.uk website sets out the government’s position on the bill stating that it has three key aims
- To ensure a wide range of TV genres continue to be shown by the UK’s main broadcasters, and to protect free access to crown jewel sports events
- Help Britain’s public service broadcasters (PSBs) make more hit shows and ensure they are prominently shown on smart TVs and via streaming sticks
- A new Ofcom-regulated Video-on-demand Code for major streamers such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ will better protect children and most vulnerable
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said “We are in a golden age for the silver screen and our public service broadcasters are a major reason why. Whether it’s reality shows like the Great British Bake Off and I’m A Celebrity, or dramas like Time, Happy Valley or Broadchurch – our public service broadcasters have proven they can go toe-to-toe with the streaming giants.”
“But success today is never a guarantee of success tomorrow. The rise of streaming giants and on-demand content, YouTube and smartphones, tablets and Tik Tok have combined to reshape our whole broadcasting landscape.”
“It is our job to enact reforms that keep our broadcasters at the top of their game in the years ahead. This Bill will do that by levelling the playing field, removing threats to their sustainability and opening up new opportunities to maximise growth and unlock potential.”
Nov 17th: The Online Safety Act continues to ignite debate in the UK with social media platforms criticised for not taking child safety seriously enough. Speaking at Conscious Advertising Network’s (CAN) Conscious Thinking Live event and reported in the Media Leader Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE, argued that social media platforms talk a good talk on child safety yet at the same time they are not shy of fighting regulations in the courts.
A former film director, Kidron has become a global force over the past decade in pushing for social media regulation to protect children from harms on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. That includes the passing of the Online Safety Bill in the UK, which is now being implemented by broadcast and telecoms regulator Ofcom.
Africa
Feb 29th: Nigeria is another country looking to enact regulations that limit the use of social media. Yet Cable reports that Steve Ayorinde, former Lagos commissioner for tourism, says most people have nothing to fear from regulation. During a speech marking the 50th anniversary of Punch newspapers, Ayorinde said that those who are against the regulation of social media do not want to be held accountable for their actions online.
Nigerians must stop panicking about the regulation of social media. He added that “nothing wrong with regulation” if it “does not trample upon human rights and free speech”.
