Freedom of Information Act

One Word

On Monday, April 22, the supreme court spent hours upon hours discussing the definition of one particular word, in reference to the Freedom of Information Act. That word is "confidential". The discussion is determining if that word refers to anything that is intended to be kept secret, or if it refers to only the information that is likely to cause harm if it were to be publicized. 

According to USA Today, the federal government and a retailers' trade group, the Food Marketing Institute, argued for a broad definition that would leave ample room to keep data from the public. Media organizations and public interest groups favored a more narrow definition requiring harm that would make confidentiality harder to come by.

Federal appeals courts nationwide have adopted the latter meaning by narrowly interpreting one of the law's FOIA exemptions. "Trade secrets and commercial or financial information" can be withheld from the press or public, they said, if that would result in competitive harm.

Despite a string of court decisions and congressional statutes relying on that narrow definition, however, the nine justices of the Supreme Court weren't so easily convinced, which could spell trouble for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, a Gannett newsroom (as is USA TODAY) that's spent a decade seeking "confidential" data on the federal food stamps program.

From the outset, the oral argument shaped up as a contest between the court's five conservative justices and its four liberals. To wrest the data it seeks from the government, the newspaper and its backers would need to win at least one conservative to its cause. That did not appear likely, particularly when Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch – like his predecessor Antonin Scalia, a stickler for words' definitions and statutes' texts – noted different sections of the FOIA law use "confidential" differently.

It wasn't clear that all the liberal justices supported the media outlet's FOIA arguments, either. According to USA Today, associate Justice Elena Kagan agreed not everything can be deemed confidential, but assurances of confidentiality the government has given private companies might carry more significance.


Associate Justice Stephen Breyer hypothesized that information could be held from the public if it's "confidential for a legitimate reason: Release would hurt the company, or release would hurt the government. We sort of naturally think that if people are going to keep something confidential, that there's a reason for it," she said. "You don't just say, 'I don't want to disclose because I don't feel like it.' " 

Global Media Law or Ethics

Europe's New Copyright Laws

Europe will be passing new laws in the near future that will impact the users of YouTube and Facebook. These new rules will help determine the use of content that is shared throughout the sites. Proposed over two years ago, the new laws had taken that long to be passed and were approved through English Parliament only a month ago. They require that host user-uploaded content to cut licensing deals with creators so they are paid when people share their content online. 

According to Recode, The law would apply to music and film producers, but also to newspapers and magazines, according to the European Commission’s FAQ page. The move is meant to hold tech platforms accountable for the content its users share, and to try to return some of the billions of dollars in revenue that Facebook and YouTube make each year to the people who actually create the content that appears on those sites. 

Some things are still unclear, however, such as how the law will be implemented and what the companies involved will need to do put these laws into action. YouTube, for example, already uses an  which attempts to avoid any copyrighted materials being stolen and used. Facebook offers something similar called Rights Manager.  

The EU wants to use a similar technology throughout various countries in an attempt to make sure copyrighted materials are not stolen throughout Europe. However, the European Commission FAQ page has stated that it will not be using any matching filters that are used in other algorithms in the new one created by the new laws.

Facebook and Google are not pleased with the proposed rules. For starters, each European Union member country will implement the rule in its own way, which could mean tech companies need to abide by a different set of guidelines in each country.

Then there is concern that while trying to comply, tech companies will take a heavy hand with moderating what is allowed and what isn’t. Google’s senior VP of global affairs Kent Walker wrote a blog post published last month titled EU Copyright Directive: one step forward, two steps back. 

In a statement from one of the association’s policy managers, the CCIA echoed Walker’s concerns. “Despite recent improvements, the EU Directive falls short of creating a balanced and modern framework for copyright,” the statement reads. “We fear it will harm online innovation and restrict online freedoms in Europe.”

While Monday’s approval by the European Commission has brought the copyright rules back to the surface, they may not affect consumers for a while. Each EU member country has 24 months to create laws that enforce the rules.

Misinformation and Fact-Checking

WhatsApp's New Fact-Checking Service

The country of India is adding a new addition to WhatsApp, a new fact-checking algorithm. According to Reuters, users of the popular messaging app can forward any messages to the new "Checkpoint Tipline," where a WhatsApp team, specifically designated for this, will assess each message and determine if they fit in any of these four categories: true, false, misleading, or disputed. The prupose of creating this new update was to determine any misinformation, particularly anything related to the elctions that are set to start the 11th in India. 

The messaging service has come under much scrutiny lately, particularly in India and Brazil. WhatsApp has received claims of spreading false and misleading info through India concerning politics, criminal activity, and possible illegal business transactions. The application was also accused of being used to spread false information regarding last year's Brazilian Election.

WhatsApp is partnering with Proto, a local Indian internet provider, to help create the new algorithm. The founders of Proto, Ritvvij Parrikh and Nasr ul Hadi, stated that the goal of the new additon to the application is to "“study the misinformation phenomenon at scale,” and that “As more data flows in, we will be able to identify the most susceptible or affected issues, locations, languages, regions, and more.” 

According to The Verge, "A total of five languages will be supported by Checkpoint Tipline — English, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam — and the service will support misinformation spread in the form of text, videos, and images. Separately, WhatsApp also recently tested adding the ability for users to reverse image search images in an apparent attempt to allow users to verify their authenticity."

The company is also working with two companies other than Proto to help battle misinformation, Dig Deep Media and Meedan. Meedan, in particular, is well-known for their check platform, which was used to combat the spread of false information in France and Mexico. 

According to The Verge, "The Checkpoint Tipline is just one of a range of changes WhatsApp has made to its service to combat the spread of misinformation. The service has also limited the number of times a message can be forwarded to five, and now also applies a label to any forward messages."

The encrypted nature of WhatsApp makes it a particularly difficult platform to regulate however, since not even the organization itself can view the messages that are being sent. Facebook recently announced that it has removed 549 Facebook accounts and 138 Pages for coordinated inauthentic behavior in India, but WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption means tracking down similar behavior on the messaging service is much harder.