Showing archive for: “Platforms”
The European Commission’s ‘Six-Seven’ Theory of Interoperability
If you have been near anyone under the age of 15 in the past year, you may have heard the phrase “six seven” shouted with great conviction and no discernible content. It usually comes with a hand gesture. It means, as best anyone can tell, absolutely nothing. That is the joke: a number pair masquerading ... The European Commission’s ‘Six-Seven’ Theory of Interoperability
Addicted to Vagueness: Lawmakers Can’t Regulate Social Media by Vibes
A lawsuit over infinite scroll sounds, at first blush, like a fight over product design. Make the app less sticky. Stop nudging teens to keep scrolling. Turn down the algorithmic dopamine machine. But the harder constitutional question is whether courts can do all that through broad, after-the-fact liability standards without telling platforms what the law ... Addicted to Vagueness: Lawmakers Can’t Regulate Social Media by Vibes
The Hidden Premise: Smuggling Paternalism Through the Back Door
A familiar pattern has taken hold in platform regulation—and in the academic and policy commentary that surrounds it. Critics spot a real phenomenon, recast it as market failure, and then press for intervention that far outstrips what the evidence can support. The result: arguments that read as persuasive but collapse under scrutiny. They conflate distinct ... The Hidden Premise: Smuggling Paternalism Through the Back Door
A Cure Worse Than the Scroll
The App Store Accountability Act (ASAA) promises to protect children online—but it would do so by imposing sweeping mandates on everyone else. Panic over doomscrolling, brainrot, gambling, pornography, online predators, and minors’ interactions with AI chatbots has fueled a familiar policy response: calls to age-gate the internet, social media, and apps. The ASAA fits squarely ... A Cure Worse Than the Scroll
Decorative Safe Harbors: The Judicial Hollowing-Out of Intermediary Accountability
The U.S. Supreme Court just made it much harder to hold at least some internet intermediaries liable for what their users do. And in the process, it may have made key statutory safe harbors largely irrelevant. The Court’s unanimous reversal of the billion-dollar copyright verdict against Cox Communications has drawn predictable headlines. Some commentators cast ... Decorative Safe Harbors: The Judicial Hollowing-Out of Intermediary Accountability
Social Media Bans and the Problem of One-Size-Fits-All Policy
The push to restrict teens’ access to social media is accelerating worldwide, even as the underlying evidence remains uncertain. In recent years, policymakers across various jurisdictions have proposed restricting or banning minors’ access to social media platforms. Governments across a growing number of jurisdictions are considering age-based restrictions, mandatory parental-consent requirements, or outright bans for ... Social Media Bans and the Problem of One-Size-Fits-All Policy
The DMA’s Case Against Seamlessness
The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) does not just regulate competition—it redesigns how digital products work. The DMA is often framed as a pro-consumer reform—a necessary intervention to “rein in gatekeepers” and restore fairness and contestability in digital markets. That framing obscures a more ambitious—and more troubling—project. At its core, the DMA empowers EU ... The DMA’s Case Against Seamlessness
Opening the Walled Garden: Global Regulation and the Unbundling of Apple’s Ecosystem
Apple Inc. is being forced to open its ecosystem—just not everywhere, and not all at once. From Tokyo to Seoul to Brussels, regulators are rewriting the rules of platform governance, often with different assumptions, tools, and end goals. The result is not a single global standard, but a growing patchwork of experiments in how much ... Opening the Walled Garden: Global Regulation and the Unbundling of Apple’s Ecosystem
When a Blue Checkmark Becomes a €120 Million Problem
The European Commission’s first major enforcement action under the Digital Services Act (DSA) offers an early glimpse of how the European Union intends to regulate large digital platforms—and how far that approach may diverge from the U.S. model. The DSA is an EU regulation governing how online intermediary services operate, including social-media platforms, online marketplaces, ... When a Blue Checkmark Becomes a €120 Million Problem
COPPA, Age Verification, and the FTC’s Enforcement End Run
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a new plan to “protect children online.” It starts by relaxing enforcement of the very privacy law designed to protect them. In a new enforcement policy statement on the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), the FTC signals that it will decline to pursue enforcement actions against companies that ... COPPA, Age Verification, and the FTC’s Enforcement End Run
POPA and the Fight Over the Permission-Slip Internet
The fight over how to protect children online under the First Amendment has intensified in the opening weeks of the year. Two product-liability trials recently began asking whether social-media services such as Instagram and YouTube qualify as unsafe products for minors because of allegedly defective design features. At the same time, federal and state lawmakers ... POPA and the Fight Over the Permission-Slip Internet
From Cure to Care: The DMA’s Chronic Regulation Problem
The neo-Brandeisian movement—emphasizing market structure and fairness over consumer welfare—has struggled to gain traction in several jurisdictions. In Europe, by contrast, lawmakers have codified its core premises. The Digital Markets Act (DMA) operationalizes this approach by prioritizing ex ante structural interventions intended to reshape rivalry in digital markets. The regime’s most significant feature lies not ... From Cure to Care: The DMA’s Chronic Regulation Problem
