(23.September) Less than three months after announcing it was considering turning major social media platforms into unpaid government informants, the Senate Intelligence Committee is dropping its proposed requirement that Facebook, Twitter, etc. report „terrorist activity“ to designated agencies.

Well, „dropping“ is the polite phrasing. It‘s actually been forced to give up this demand (by one of the more rational members of the SIC, Ron Wyden) to ensure it gets its intelligence funding bill passed. As Wyden points out, social media entities should be in the business of social media, not acting as under-equipped stand-ins for law enforcement and intelligence agencies.