On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg took to Facebook to announce the end of Trump's reign — on the platform anyway. Yesterday's rally on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. turned into a storm of the Capitol itself by Trump supporters following a speech in which the president said "we will never concede." In his post this morning, Zuckerberg noted that Trump had used his platform on Facebook extensively for campaigning, often delving into disinformation and conspiracy theories, especially since the November election. Following yesterday's violence, Zuckerberg said that "the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite …

When the Securities and Exchange Commission gave its blessing to social media platform IMVU to launch VCOIN, it was a major leap forward for acceptable scope of crypto applications. The implications for what sorts of projects the SEC considers a security are, in and of themselves, huge. But part of the appeal of VCOIN to the SEC is that, with its stable price and clear use case, IMVU has managed to demonstrate to the commission that the token is a means of making the platform a more lifelike digital world that is more fun to hang out in. For those …

Just like you might think twice about eating chicken nuggets once you see how they are made, you’d likely hesitate about volunteering your personal information once you see how it is used and monetized. Freedom has become one of the world’s most commoditized assets — and over the years, the internet has eroded it. We live in a world where we’re confronted with 5,000 words of terms and conditions when buying sneakers. Crucial details about what companies do with our data is buried in masses of legalese — prompting most of us to click “I agree” without thinking of the …

The United States Federal Trade Commission is making the giants of social media account for their user data practices. On December 11, the FTC published orders for special reports from unnamed social media companies. The commission's stated aim for the reports is: "To compile data concerning the privacy policies, procedures, and practices of Social Media and Video Streaming Service providers, including the method and manner in which they collect, use, store, and disclose information about users and their devices." The initial orders, however, did not include the names of the companies involved. On Monday, the FTC publicized that the orders …

The Chinese government is not seeking to replace existing fiat currencies with its own digital currency, according to a former governor of the People’s Bank of China, or PBoC. Zhou Xiaochuan, the president of the Chinese Finance Association and former PBoC governor, claimed that China’s digital yuan is not intended to replace global fiat currencies like the United States dollar and the euro, the South China Morning Post reported on Dec. 14. Also known as a digital currency electronic payment, or DCEP, China’s digital yuan is purely designed to transform cross-border trade and investment, Zhou said. Zhou contrasted China’s digital …

The United States Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against Facebook Inc., where it alleges that the corporation has been engaging in anti-competitive practices ever since acquiring a dominant global position at the turn of the 2010s. According to public case files released on Wednesday, the regulator believes that Facebook has systematically purchased or reproduced the features of any social media competitor that could have posed a threat to the company’s dominance. The lawsuit cites the 2012 purchase of Instagram and 2014 acquisition of WhatsApp as the most egregious examples of anti-competitive practices. According to internal and public communications …

Global regulators should grant Facebook-backed cryptocurrency Diem “the benefit of the doubt” to greenlight its launch in 2021, a top executive at Facebook Financial said. David Marcus, the head of Facebook Financial, or F2, said that both cryptocurrency Diem and related crypto wallet Novi could be launched next year. Speaking at the Singapore Fintech Festival 2020 on Dec. 8, he stated that regulators should finally let Facebook move forward with its cryptocurrency: “I don’t think what we are asking for is just immediate trust. I think [...] what we’re asking for is at least to have the benefit of the …

Facebook has been hit with threats of legal action over its plan to rebrand the Libra stablecoin project to ‘Diem’ from a finance application of the same name. Facebook announced its plan to rebrand Libra on Dec. 1, with the firm claiming the new name would help the revamped project distance itself from the intense regulatory pushback faced by Libra when it was announced last year. Diem co-founder and prominent European fintech investor, Chris Adelsbach, told media outlet Sifted that while he was intimidated by the prospect of entering a legal battle with Facebook, he had received legal advice instructing …

Facebook’s Diem stablecoin, which recently changed its name from Libra, is still failing to impress German regulators. As reported by Reuters, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz voiced his criticism of the project on Monday after a conference between G-7 finance ministers and central bank directors. Scholz called Facebook’s project “a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” highlighting that changing its name would not change its fundamentals. According to him, Facebook and the Diem Association have failed to adequately address its regulatory risks. Until that is done, the German government “will not accept its entry into the market.” Before renaming itself, Libra had …

Facebook, it is reported, could launch its long-awaited digital currency as early as January 2021 in the form of a U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin. Central banks and regulators have been galvanized into action since Facebook first announced its intentions by publishing a white paper in 2019. They are right to be concerned, as stablecoins — particularly ones such as the rebranded Diem that have the potential for massive network effects — bring new risks to consumers and savers as well as to the global financial system. Related: What Is Libra? Breaking Down Facebook’s New Digital Currency But they also have the …

On Wednesday night, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib introduced a bill before the U.S. House of Representatives looking to make fiat-pegged stablecoin operators abide by the same rules and registration requirements expected of banks. The legislation, under the name “the Stablecoin Tethering and Bank Licensing Enforcement (STABLE) Act,” sets out a fresh and extremely expansive definition of stablecoin. It furthermore dictates a series of limitations that outlaw stablecoin issuance for any entity that is not “an insured depository institution that is a member of the Federal Reserve System,” More aggressively, one of the bill’s provisions would make it: “Unlawful for any person …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor's note For several weeks, rumors have circulated in the United States that the Treasury Department under Steven Mnuchin is planning some sort of rulemaking to ban or severely restrict self-hosted cryptocurrency wallets. The Treasury hasn’t made any public statements to support these rumors, but they are persistent and pervasive enough to be worth paying attention to. In the broader cycle of financial news, Secretary Mnuchin is currently under a lot more scrutiny for his plans to return nearly half a …