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Facebook this week alerted users that it will soon assume more authority to remove content on its platform if doing so allows the company to avoid legal or regulatory blowback.
The notification, sent to users around the world, warned that Facebook will update its terms of service on Oct. 1 to include a section that states: "We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook."
The alert comes amid Facebook's escalating battle with the Australian government over impending legislation that it says could force it to block all news stories in Australia. The legislation, backed by Rupert Murdoch, would require Facebook and Google to pay media publishers for their content — an effort that the companies are fighting aggressively.
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
The future of the cell phone, according to the man who invented it
Martin Cooper comes on the Source Code Podcast.
Martin Cooper with his original DynaTAC cell phone.
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.
Martin Cooper helped invent one of the most consequential and successful products in history: the cell phone. And almost five decades after he made the first public cell phone call, on a 2-pound brick of a device called the DynaTAC, he's written a book about his career called "Cutting the Cord: The Cell Phone Has Transformed Humanity." In it he tells the story of the cell phone's invention, and looks at how it has changed the world and will continue to do so.
Cooper came on the Source Code Podcast to talk about his time at Motorola, the process of designing the first-ever cell phone, whether today's tech giants are monopolies and why he's bullish on the future of AI.
David Pierce ( @pierce) is Protocol's editor at large. Prior to joining Protocol, he was a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, a senior writer with Wired, and deputy editor at The Verge. He owns all the phones.