Introducing 'personhood credentials', Brazil goes after platforms and following Barclay

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.

I'm writing this week's newsletter from the Isle of Mull, where original descendants mix with incomers and people passing through with not-always-harmonious results. A bit like many online communities and spaces that are discussed in EiM, then. But with more sea otters.

I'm taking a week off from Ctrl-Alt-Speech hosting duties but Mike has lined up a fantastic guest host that I'm already excited to listen to on my journey back to London. Subscribe via the handy links on the Ctrl-Alt-Speech website (now with a shiny sponsorship page) to ensure you hear it too.

Here's what you need to know this week — BW

Policies

New and emerging internet policy and online speech regulation

The big regulatory news happened as we were recording last week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech podcast: a US appeals court upheld a previous ruling that stated that a key provision of the 2022 California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act likely violates the First Amendment. 

The court ruled that the “impact assessment” — whereby a platform would have to judge whether their product would harm children before launch — would mean that companies would have to “opine” on what content could be harmful. Which, as The Washington Post reported, got a lukewarm reception from California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

You can read the ruling here and then listen to my co-host Mike Masnick do his best ‘breaking news’ anchor impression.