Giving data workers a voice, DSA activity ramps up and key NetChoice takeaways
Hello and welcome to Everything in Moderation's Week in Review, your in-depth guide to the policies, products, platforms and people shaping the future of online speech and the internet. It's written by me, Ben Whitelaw and supported by members like you.
It’s been almost two weeks since the NetChoice cases were handed down in the US Supreme Court and, still, we continue to try and make sense of what they mean for online speech in the future. My read of the week — newly returned after a period of absence — has more as does the special episode of Ctrl-Alt-Speech.
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Here's all you need to know about internet speech from the past week — BW
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Policies
New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation
Adult website XNXX was this week formally designated as the latest Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the Digital Services Act. It becomes the forth porn site to be given the status since December 2023, when the DSA was passed, and the 25th VLOP overall.
Worth noting: It marks a latest in a flurry of DSA activity related to porn sites. Just a month ago, the other porn sites — Pornhub, Stripchat, XVideos — received a request from the EU Commission about age assurance mechanisms and efforts to protect against the “amplification of illegal content and gender-based violence”. XNXX has four months to comply with the new VLOP rules.
Talking of EU going after companies for information, Amazon has been asked to share data with the bloc about its recommender systems and what it calls “input factors, features, signals, information and metadata” that go into such algorthims. Chinese e-commerce giants Shein, which was made a VLOP in March (EiM #239), and Temu also received similar requests recently.
The NetChoice Supreme Court rulings dropped just as I went on holiday so these two pieces have been helpful at getting me back up to speed:
- What are the top takeaways from the NetChoice and Murthy cases (EiM #253)? This Lawfare piece breaks them down, with a couple of surprising inclusions.
- What do the NetChoice rulings mean for other legislation such as the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids Act? The Verge has a comprehensive piece on the implications and also looks at the possible downstream effect on the TikTok ban (EiM #239) (remember that?). My read of the week.