Shadowbanned & Shutdown: Censorship in the Digital Public Square
Toward the end of 2024, amid scrutiny from the new administration and free speech concerns, social media platforms like Meta and X have significantly reduced efforts and adopted new standards for content moderation. Without governmental or self-regulation, social media became an even more conspicuous source of misinformation and a rabbit hole for anyone looking for hard news.
Algorithms are often designed to tailor newsfeeds and deliberately conceal information that interferes with a user’s political preferences and beliefs. This platform censorship and selective information gathering negatively affect democracy. Are First Amendment rights being trampled by compromised access to news and information? What duties do these platforms have to life in liberal democracies? Are digital ethics and best practices being ignored, and how can social media platforms be held accountable?
Join us for a Conversation with the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, Lee Rowland; Techdirt founder and editor and Bluesky board member, Mike Masnick; and Litigation Director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, Alex Abdo.
This program was co-produced with the National Coalition Against Censorship and 92NY.
Lee Rowland
Lee Rowland (@berkitron) is the Executive Director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, where she oversees NCAC’s direct program work, legal and government advocacy, and public education. She also runs the Free Expression Network, a collaboration that brings together dozens of free expression advocates and organizations for regular strategy and information-sharing. Lee has extensive experience as a litigator, professor, and public speaker. Before coming to NCAC, Lee was a First Amendment litigator for two decades, serving as a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center for Justice, and the New York Civil Liberties Union; she has also taught courses on free expression at NYU Law and CUNY’s Hunter College’s Human Rights Program. She has served as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, the First Amendment rights of community advocates, government regulation of digital speech, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process. As Policy Director of the NY ACLU for over five years, Lee is also a seasoned lobbyist and advocate for a range of civil liberties and free speech positions, and helped draft and pass NY’s recent Equal Rights Amendment. Lee lives in Brooklyn and is addicted to Tetris.
Mike Masnik
Mike Masnick is the founder & editor of the popular Techdirt blog, which explores the intersection of technology, innovation, policy, law, civil liberties, and economics. He is also the founder of the Silicon Valley think tank, the Copia Institute and a board member for Bluesky, the decentralized social media network.
Alex Abdo
Alex Abdo is the litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, where he litigates cases relating to free speech, new technology, and privacy. He’s been there for eight years, and before that, he worked for eight years at the ACLU, where he worked on cases relating to NSA surveillance and the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.