Is it the End of the Golden Age of Tech Accountability?

Or is this a blip as we transition to a new chapter …

Today was one of those Mondays where I had difficulty getting going. I had a super chill weekend - minus one Dolly Parton-themed dance party Friday night at the 9:30 club - and my brain didn’t want to get back into the swing of things. Writing this newsletter and some walks outside helped.

Today is one for my paid subscribers. If you aren’t a subscriber, please consider it! For $50 a year or $5 a month, you’ll get exclusive content like the rest of this newsletter and full access to the archives. Please consider upgrading! Your support allows me to spend more time researching and writing.

Also, will you be at SXSW this weekend in Austin? So will I! Let me know if you’ll be there and want to meet up.

At least five hearings on tech topics are happening this week in Congress. The full list is at the bottom of the newsletter.

On with the show …

Last week I attended the All Tech is Human conference in New York City. One of the sessions was a fireside chat between Kate Klonick and Justin Hendrix of Tech Policy Press. During their conversation, they looked at all that’s happened in tech over the last six months, and Kate said something somewhat provocative - “Was 2021, in retrospect, a heyday for trust and safety online?” She turned it into an essay for her newsletter  -

The Klonickles

- which I highly recommend you subscribe to. Her piece brought up a lot of thoughts, retrospection, and emotions for me as someone who was at Meta - then Facebook - during the dawn of this current chapter of trust and safety. 

I thought it’d make a great newsletter, so with Kate’s blessing, here’s one story of many from an insider.