Factbox-How Trump’s new FTC chair views AI, Massive Tech

By Jody Godoy

(Reuters) – Andrew Ferguson, President-elect Donald Trump’s choose to chair the U.S. Federal Commerce Fee, has expressed the will to go after Massive Tech corporations whereas taking a hands-off strategy to regulating synthetic intelligence.

Ferguson’s views on social media, knowledge privateness, AI and the necessity to enhance American competitiveness are prone to have an effect on the regulator’s strategy to corporations together with Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)’s Google.

Listed below are among the views Ferguson has expressed in statements throughout his time period as an FTC commissioner which started in April and ends in 2030.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The “pro-regulation aspect of the AI debate” is “the unsuitable one,” Ferguson mentioned.

“A knee-jerk regulatory response will solely squelch innovation, additional entrench Massive Tech incumbents, and make sure that AI innovators transfer to jurisdictions friendlier to them — however maybe hostile to america,” he mentioned in a September assertion on the FTC’s report on social media.

The report known as for complete laws to guard customers’ knowledge and forestall AI from perpetuating discrimination.

ONLINE PRIVACY

Ferguson has described the huge assortment, aggregation and indefinite storage of knowledge on social media and web customers within the U.S. as an “on-line privateness disaster” that regulators ought to deal with. Nonetheless, he has warned towards regulating how such data is used to focus on promoting. 

“If regulators and lawmakers try and ban or significantly curtail focused promoting, they are going to be undoing the steadiness of the web economic system,” he mentioned.

CONTENT MODERATION POLICIES

Ferguson has criticized social media platforms for instituting “Orwellian insurance policies banning nebulous classes of content material like ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘hate speech.'”

The FTC might take motion towards social media platforms if their phrases of service misled customers about content material moderation insurance policies. With extra clear insurance policies, customers might resolve in the event that they wish to keep on the platforms, Ferguson mentioned in December.

“However the alternative can be actual provided that there are appropriate free-speech-respecting substitutes to the censorious platforms,” Ferguson mentioned, praising Elon Musk’s “unusually agency dedication to free and open debate” after the billionaire took over social media platform X.

PLATFORM COLLABORATION ON CONTENT

Ferguson has expressed concern that social media platforms could have coordinated in banning Trump in 2021, taking down posts they deemed dangerous through the COVID-19 pandemic, and limiting dissemination of tales about Hunter Biden’s laptop computer pc.

“If the platforms colluded amongst one another to set shared censorship insurance policies, such an settlement can be tantamount to an settlement to not compete on contract phrases or product high quality,” which might violate antitrust legal guidelines, Ferguson mentioned.

ADVERTISER COORDINATION

Coordination between advertisers to tug cash from platforms resembling X over content material issues might violate antitrust legal guidelines, Ferguson mentioned.

The World Federation of Advertisers’ International Alliance for Accountable Media, which was shaped to assist advertisers keep away from their advertisements being positioned subsequent to dangerous content material on social media, shut down after X sued,  accusing it of facilitating group boycotts.

Ferguson has mentioned the FTC might examine related efforts.

KIDS AND TEENS ONLINE

Congress ought to go a regulation that may require on-line service suppliers to provide mother and father extra management over youngsters’s on-line privateness, Ferguson mentioned.

“Congress ought to empower mother and father to impose no matter stage of supervision and management over web messaging they really feel is correct for his or her household and their youngsters,” he mentioned.