Twitter and the Government of Canada are named in a lawsuit, filed in Ontario Superior Court by the documentary team behind The New Corporation in a case aimed at establishing the responsibilities of tech platforms. The case follows Twitter’s rejection of “boosted” posts featuring a trailer for the follow-up to 2004’s The Corporation. The sequel explores, in part, how big tech threatens democracy with the posts featuring clips and commentary from U.S. congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, among others. Joel Bakan, the film’s writer, co-director and executive producer (who is also a law professor at University of British Columbia) says Twitter claimed the posts were too “political,” “sensitive,” and “inappropriate” to be promoted on its platform. The suit argues that because of the social platform’s central role in Canadian democratic discourse, Twitter should be legally prohibited from restricting political and social speech that causes no harm. Read more here.
YouTube has expanded Shorts, its own short-form video experience, to over 100 countries. First launched in India in Sept. 2020 to capitalize on the country’s ban on TikTok, YouTube claims that Shorts has since surpassed 6.5 billion daily views globally.
