Online Platforms Under Pressure
Privacy Plus+
Privacy, Technology and Perspective
Online Platforms Under Pressure. This week, let’s look up from our laptops and take stock—Online platforms are under attack from every direction. While these attacks appear to be coming from very different places with no common source or purpose, the attacks seem to be directionally significant.
Look at the big picture:
It’s only been a few weeks since the heads of Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple all had to testify before the House Judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee. You can refresh your recollection about it by clicking on our post about the “Hipster Antitrust Hearing” at the following link:
https://www.hoschmorris.com/privacy-plus-news/the-hipster-antitrust-hearing
Meanwhile, Congress has been applying rare bipartisan pressure on large platforms so that they will take a more active role in product anti-counterfeiting. You can read about the proposed “Shop Safe Act’ by clicking on the following link:
https://judiciary.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=2838#
At the same time, a bill is advancing in California that proposes to make platforms contributorily liable for injuries caused by defective products sold through their marketplaces. You can read about A.B. 3262 (and the worry it is causing eBay and Etsy, among others) by clicking on the following link:
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2020/08/28/ab-3262-ebay-etsy.html
Of course, the threat of Russian election interference and other problems of disinformation are already compelling Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms to start at least offering bounties for help with corrective action, which you can read more about here:
Additionally, fierce debate is raging over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which is often raised by the platforms as providing them more immunity than it actually does. To learn more about the platform immunity debate, you can read our previous post, “Back to the Future—Revising Section 230,” at the following link:
https://www.hoschmorris.com/privacy-plus-news/revisiting-section-230
We should all especially consider this provocative article by Professor Michael Havi in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, titled, “DO PLATFORMS KILL?” (emphasis supplied):
https://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2020/03/Lavi-FINAL.pdf
The pressure on online platform has been building up for years, but these citations (and many of the events they describe) have all occurred within the past twelve months. And this is just a small list of the complaints being raised.
“Directionally,” we believe they amount to a vector, pointing in one direction:
Taken as a whole, there is a perception that the platforms have become too big, too central to modern life, too powerful, and too irresponsible to continue as they are.
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Hosch & Morris, PLLC is a Dallas-based boutique law firm dedicated to data protection, privacy, the Internet and technology. Open the Future℠.