Elections and Media

US District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida blocked a Florida law that would penalize social media companies for blocking a politician’s posts, a blow to conservatives’ efforts to respond to Facebook and other websites’ suspension of former president Donald Trump. The law was due to go into effect July 1, but in issuing a preliminary injunction, the judge suggested that the law would be found unconstitutional. “The plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that these statutes violate the First Amendment,” Judge Hinkle wrote.

The national map of broadband need published by the White House offers an extra layer of information beyond its detailed look at internet access in the United States.

Florida became the first state to regulate how companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter moderate speech online, by imposing fines on social media companies that permanently bar political candidates for statewide office. The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), is a direct response to Facebook’s and Twitter’s bans of former President Donald Trump in January.

Facebook told lawmakers it blocked or removed 265,000 posts for violating the social network’s policies against voter interference and rejected 3.3 million ad submissions as part of its effort to protect the recent US elections against misinformation and foreign influence. The action was cited in a 22-page report summarizing the company’s election work that was distributed Dec 18 to a wide array of members of Congress as well as officials in the outgoing Trump administration and incoming team of President-elect Joe Biden.

Despite having many fewer followers and much less engagement on social media than President Donald Trump, Joe Biden's campaign raised record amounts of money and ultimately neutralized Trump’s vaunted “Death Star” — the name his erstwhile campaign manager, Brad Parscale, gave to the campaign’s digital operation. Figuring out whether any particular online strategy decisively moved the needle for President-elect Biden is probably impossible. Offline factors, such as Trump’s mishandling of the pandemic and the economic devastation it has caused, undoubtedly played a major role.

Lapses in tech companies’ policies to address Spanish content led to a proliferation of misinformation targeting Latino voters around Election Day, according to several advocacy groups. Spanish misinformation campaigns largely mimicked those in English that cast doubt on the security of mail-in ballots, later calling into question the election results.

The CEOs of Twitter and Facebook defended their efforts to reduce the spread of online disinformation about the presidential election and the integrity of the US voting system as they faced an onslaught of criticism from Senate Republicans who accused the tech giants of censoring conservative views and favoring Democrats.

The runoff for Georgia’s two Senate seats will have implications for a dizzying number of policy issues for President-elect Joe Biden’s administration—including the future of net neutrality. The two Senate seats in Georgia will determine the balance of power in Congress’ upper chamber. Controlling both chambers of Congress and the presidency would give Democrats wide latitude in shaping policy. “Winning both changes the calculus.

A Q&A with former President Barack Obama. 

House Commerce Committee leaders wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons demanding that the two commissions stop work on all partisan or controversial items currently under consideration in light of the results of the presidential election. “We note that you have previously welcomed calls from congressional leaders for the FCC to ‘halt further action on controversial items during the transition period.’ We hope you will respect this time-honored tradition now.”