JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Net neutrality suffered a significant blow on Tuesday as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the Trump administration's rollback of Obama-era consumer protections.
Because the court upheld the repeal, it remains legal for internet service providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to block or throttle any sites they want, and to charge more money for internet fast lanes.
Evan Greer, deputy director of the nonprofit Fight For The Future, said those companies spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions in their quest to dismantle basic protections.
"They want to be able to control what we see and what we do online so they can squeeze us all for more money," Greer said.
The big ISPs so far have refrained from anti-competitive practices since the repeal took effect in 2018. However, this ruling clears the path for them to favor websites that they own or that pay big bucks for faster upload times.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Agit Pai, a former attorney for Verizon, has said net neutrality discouraged telecom companies from investing in internet infrastructure.
The ruling did allow states to pass their own bills, but the Missouri Legislature has rejected net-neutrality protections. Greer said this state of affairs could stifle free expression going forward, especially if President Donald Trump wins another term.
"Over time, what you're going to see is the internet becoming more and more like cable TV," Greer said, "where the only opinions that you hear, the only content that you can see, is stuff that's backed by power and money."
Reps. Emanuel Cleaver and William Clay, both D-Mo., voted in favor of a "Save the Internet" bill to restore net neutrality, which passed the U.S. House in April but hasn't received a vote in the Senate. Sens. Roy Blunt and Josh Hawley, both R-Mo., have said they oppose the Senate version of the bill.
The ruling is online at cadc.uscourts.gov.
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Missouri lawmakers are concerned with protecting people from the potential risks of the increasing accessibility of AI-generated images and videos.
The Innovation and Technology Committee is planning to vote on the Taylor Swift Act, a bill aiming to make it illegal to publish or threaten to publish AI-generated sexually explicit images of people.
Rep. Adam Schwadron, R-St. Charles, authored the bill and said it is important to be proactive in protecting ordinary citizens.
"They were able to take it down for her," Schwadron acknowledged. "However, common Missourians would not have the same protections afforded to her. Not everyone is Taylor Swift."
The bill would allow victims of the fake image attacks to sue the creator in civil court and recover the offending images. Rep. Bridgette Walsh, D-St. Louis, also supports the bill and said it is necessary in this day and age, given how easy videos and images are to access and create.
Schwadron noted while they will need to learn how to track items originating from the dark web, he is optimistic the legislation will cover most common offenses.
"The cases that we are seeing across the country of classmates that are being attacked by other classmates of theirs that is creating these images and it's affecting young girls and even boys and those are a lot easier to track when they're being shared from phone to phone," Schwadron explained.
Schwadron added the name "Taylor Swift Act" was fitting due to her ties with the state of Missouri and her recent ordeal with explicit deepfakes.
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Experts are saying social media algorithms are radicalizing users and increasing extremism in Arizona and around the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Michael Chertoff, a member of the National Council on Election Integrity, said better protecting data privacy could make the algorithms less destructive, without infringing on free speech.
"I do think we could regulate access to data, uses of data and the application of algorithms to that data without offending the First Amendment," Chertoff contended.
Chertoff pointed out data is one of the most critical ingredients in building algorithms using artificial intelligence. He argued data collection by Big Tech companies should be better regulated, as it is used to send specifically targeted and polarizing messages to consumers. A large majority of Americans said they have little to no trust in companies to use AI responsibly, according to the Pew Research Center.
Farah Pandith, senior adviser for the Anti-Defamation League, noted extremism and radicalization are not decreasing. She suggested the first step to improve the situation is by having government and nongovernment stakeholders acknowledge the severity of the situation and to start having more conversations, which she contended is not happening at the scale it needs to be.
"You're not seeing the commitment as a priority area," Pandith stressed. "That shows up in the funding that is required for NGOs that are doing the first responses to all of this that come up with the creative ways. It doesn't show up in the way in which we can scale solutions that we know."
Pandith added solutions are available and called on social media platforms to assume more responsibility for the inciteful content they display.
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A contentious congressional hearing on Wednesday saw a unanimous push for regulations on social media specifically related to children.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley - R-MO - pushed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to apologize to families of child victims over social media that caused exploitation, harm and death.
The CEOs of Meta, X - formerly Twitter, TikTok, Discord and Snap testified at the hearing. Zuckerberg and Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel gave apologies for the first time, after Hawley put them on the spot.
"Would you like to do so now? Well, they're here, you're on national television," said Hawley. "Would you like now to apologize to the victims who have been harmed by your products? Show them the pictures. Would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people?"
Zuckerberg turned and stood and faced the audience and said "I'm sorry for everything you have all been through. No one should go through the things that your families have suffered and this is why we invest so much, and we are going to continue doing industrywide efforts to make sure no one has to go through the things your families have had to suffer."
Some victims' families have said although they were a surprise, they didn't think the apologies sounded sincere.
Members of Congress said they hoped to find common ground in an effort to create laws that would make the internet a safer place. Senators including Sen. Jon Ossoff - D-GA - repeatedly asked the social media tycoons to consider the victims and recognize the risks of being online.
"We want to work in a productive, open, honest and collaborative way to pass legislation that will protect American children above all," said Ossoff. "If we don't start with an open, honest, candid, realistic assessment of the issues, we can't do that if you're not willing to acknowledge the internet is a dangerous place for children."
Earlier this week, explicit deep-fake Artificial Intelligence images of pop icon Taylor Swift were also released on X.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced that legislation would be the obvious way to remedy this type of offense.
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