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Lauren Feiner

Lauren Feiner

Senior Policy Reporter

Lauren Feiner is the senior policy reporter at The Verge, where she covers the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill from Washington, D.C. Prior to that, she spent five years at CNBC, where she covered the Google search antitrust trial, industry lobbying, tech Supreme Court cases, and many efforts to enact new privacy, antitrust, and content moderation laws.

When she's not writing about Congress, she's probably catching up on her many podcasts on 2x speed.

Signal: laurenfeiner.64

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Meta is changing its policy on when it removes “shaheed.”

The board previously said the policy “disproportionately restricts free expression” because while the term is “sometimes used by extremists to praise or glorify people who have died while committing violent terrorist acts,” there are also alternate meanings.

In a test, Meta said, removing the term when “paired with otherwise violating content” captured “the most potentially harmful content without disproportionality impacting voice.”

Correction: Meta said it’s implementing the Board’s recommendations, not seeking further guidance.


Supreme Court protects the future of content moderation

The NetChoice decision means curating, compiling, and moderating a feed is a First Amendment-protected activity.

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Civil rights groups don’t like the latest version of the American Privacy Rights Act.

APRA seemed like the most promising privacy bill in a while when it debuted in April. But the latest version, which a House committee will reportedly consider on Thursday, is getting panned.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law says:

“By removing previously agreed upon bipartisan language that would address data-driven discrimination and require AI impact assessments, the new draft of APRA fails to address the core purpose of privacy: to ensure that who we are cannot be used against us unfairly.”