Welcome back for another week of What’s Next, where we report on the intersection of law and technology. We’ve got a Facebook-forward edition for you today as the company treads new legal, regulatory and technological ground. Following a video of a faux Mark Zuckerberg declaring his power over “billions of people’s stolen data,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s David Greene takes us on a deep dive into deepfakes. Also, lawyers foretell the regulatory drama ahead for Facebook’s new cryptocurrency Libra. Plus, the social media colossus cannot squash a data breach class action.
Zuckerberg’s Deepfake: The Blurred Line Between Art and Defamation
Did you catch the video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg proclaiming his control over our online secrets earlier this month? David Greene did, and his initial thought was “Ugh, another deepfake controversy.” For the last 22 years, Greene has specialized in First Amendment law on behalf of nonprofits and avant garde artists alike. As the senior staff attorney and civil liberties director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Greene’s role is to help advocate for free speech in the digital world. However, greater calls to regulate emerging technologies like deepfakes has Greene wanting everyone to slow down and take a breath, so that new guidelines don’t suppress online creative expression.
