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Full-Text Articles in Law

Disrupting The Narrative: Diving Deeper Into Section 230 Political Discourse, Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi, Elizabeth Banker, Ife Ogunleye Jul 2023

Disrupting The Narrative: Diving Deeper Into Section 230 Political Discourse, Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi, Elizabeth Banker, Ife Ogunleye

Pepperdine Law Review

Online spaces have undoubtedly played a significant role in facilitating discourse and the exchange of information. With this increased discourse, however, digital platforms have also seen a rise in harmful or problematic content shared online––including health misinformation, hate speech, and child sex abuse material, among others. Many commentators have put the blame for this trend on Section 230, arguing that Section 230 has enabled the spread of harmful content and suggesting that Section 230 ought to be amended or replaced. This Essay, by contrast, argues that the current narrative about Section 230 gets it wrong. In reality, Section 230 has …


Lemmon Leads The Way To Algorithm Liability: Navigating The Internet Immunity Labyrinth, Tyler Lisea Apr 2023

Lemmon Leads The Way To Algorithm Liability: Navigating The Internet Immunity Labyrinth, Tyler Lisea

Pepperdine Law Review

Congress passed Section 230 at the dawn of the internet era to protect innovators from traditional publisher tort liability. At the time, the internet consisted primarily of basic message boards and informational pages. Courts have interpreted Section 230 to provide internet platforms with sweeping immunity from liability for third-party content. The statute has aged poorly and is now ill-suited for today’s internet tools. Modern social media platforms are more than message board intermediaries because they actively shape and select the information pushed to users via engineered, engagement-enhancing algorithms. Engagement algorithms are not merely neutral tools; web developers intentionally design them …


A 180 On Section 230: State Efforts To Erode Social Media Immunity, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer, Hayley Margulis Feb 2023

A 180 On Section 230: State Efforts To Erode Social Media Immunity, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer, Hayley Margulis

Pepperdine Law Review

The turmoil of the 2020 presidential election renewed controversy surrounding 47 U.S.C § 230. The law, adopted as part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act (CDA), shields Interactive Computer Services (ICS) from civil liability for third-party material posted on their Platforms—no matter how heinous and regardless of whether the material enjoys constitutional protection. Consequently, any ICS, which is broadly defined to include Internet service providers (ISPs) and social media platforms (Platforms), can police its own postings but remains free from government intervention or retribution. In 2022, members of the Texas and Florida legislatures passed laws aiming to limit the scope …


The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Online Platforms And Consumer Equality, Anne-Marie Hakstian, Jerome D. Williams, Sam Taddeo Feb 2021

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same: Online Platforms And Consumer Equality, Anne-Marie Hakstian, Jerome D. Williams, Sam Taddeo

Pepperdine Law Review

Title II of the Civil Rights Act, along with its counterpart state laws, have protected the rights of racial minorities in the United States for decades. Section 1981 has guaranteed contract rights for all people, regardless of race, since 1868. But times are changing. Racial discrimination claims against 21st century technology companies face challenges when brought under existing laws. Even the relatively current Communications Decency Act (CDA) is unhelpful to consumers attempting to seek redress from online platforms. In this article, we analyze the only cases of consumer discrimination brought against providers of the sharing economy and highlight some of …


The First Amendment And Data Privacy: Securing Data Privacy Laws That Withstand Constitutional Muster, Kathryn Peyton Jul 2020

The First Amendment And Data Privacy: Securing Data Privacy Laws That Withstand Constitutional Muster, Kathryn Peyton

Pepperdine Law Review

Given the growing ubiquity of digital technology’s presence in people’s lives today, it is becoming increasingly more necessary to secure data privacy protections. People interact with technology constantly, ranging from when engaging in business activates, such as corresponding through emails or doing research online, to more innocuous activities like driving, shopping, or talking with friends and family. The advances in technology have made possible the creation of digital trails whenever someone interacts with such technology. Companies aggregate data from data trails and use predictive analytics to create detailed profiles about citizen-consumers. This information is typically used for profit generating purposes. …


Trafficking Technology: A Look At Different Approaches To Ending Technology-Facilitated Human Trafficking, David Barney Sep 2018

Trafficking Technology: A Look At Different Approaches To Ending Technology-Facilitated Human Trafficking, David Barney

Pepperdine Law Review

In 2018, many believe that slavery is an antiquated concept. But as with anything else, if it has not become extinct, it has evolved with time. Human trafficking is no different. Each year, millions of men, women and children are trafficked in the United States, and internationally, and forced to work against their will. Through the rise of technology and an increasingly globalized world, traffickers have learned to use technology as a tool to help facilitate the trafficking of persons and to sell those victims to others they never could have reached before. But what are we doing about it? …


Territorialization Of The Internet Domain Name System, Marketa Trimble Sep 2018

Territorialization Of The Internet Domain Name System, Marketa Trimble

Pepperdine Law Review

Territorialization of the internet—the linking of the internet to physical geography—is a growing trend. Internet users have become accustomed to the conveniences of localized advertising, have enjoyed location-based services, and have witnessed an increasing use of geolocation and geoblocking tools by service and content providers who—for various reasons— either allow or block access to internet content based on users’ physical locations. This article analyzes whether, and if so how, the trend toward territorialization has affected the internet Domain Name System (DNS). As a hallmark of cyberspace governance that aimed to be detached from the territorially-partitioned governance of the physical world, …


Pii In Context: Video Privacy And A Factor-Based Test For Assessing Personal Information, Daniel L. Macioce Jr. Mar 2018

Pii In Context: Video Privacy And A Factor-Based Test For Assessing Personal Information, Daniel L. Macioce Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

As a central concept in American information privacy law, personally identifiable information (PII) plays a critical role in determining whether a privacy violation has occurred. Under the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (VPPA), PII “includes information which identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services.” Despite the clarity that these words may have when the Statute was enacted, the line separating PII from non-PII in the context of streaming video is not easily drawn, in part due to the prevalence of behavior tracking technologies and the emergence of “big data” analytics. The First Circuit, …


Online And “As Is”, Colin P. Marks Jan 2018

Online And “As Is”, Colin P. Marks

Pepperdine Law Review

Online retail is a multi-billion-dollar industry in the United States. Consumers enjoy the ease with which they can browse, click, and order goods from the comfort of their own homes. Though it may come as no surprise to most lawyers, retailers are taking advantage of online transactions by attaching additional terms and conditions that one would not normally find in-store. Some of these conditions are logical limitations on the use of the retailers’ websites, but others go much further, limiting consumers’ rights in ways that would surprise many shoppers. In particular, many online retailers use these terms to limit implied …


Trending Now: The Role Of Defamation Law In Remedying Harm From Social Media Backlash, Cory Batza Apr 2017

Trending Now: The Role Of Defamation Law In Remedying Harm From Social Media Backlash, Cory Batza

Pepperdine Law Review

Defamatory comments on social media have become commonplace. When the online community is outraged by some event, social media users often flood the Internet with hateful and false comments about the alleged perpetrator, feeling empowered by their numbers and anonymity. This wave of false and harmful information about an individual’s reputation has caused many individuals to lose their jobs and suffer severe emotional trauma. This Comment explores whether the target of social media backlash can bring a successful defamation claim against the users who have destroyed their reputations on and offline. Notably, one of the biggest hurdles these plaintiffs will …


Small Data Surveillance V. Big Data Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu Jul 2015

Small Data Surveillance V. Big Data Cybersurveillance, Margaret Hu

Pepperdine Law Review

This Article highlights some of the critical distinctions between small data surveillance and big data cybersurveillance as methods of intelligence gathering. Specifically, in the intelligence context, it appears that “collect-it-all” tools in a big data world can now potentially facilitate the construction, by the intelligence community, of other individuals' digital avatars. The digital avatar can be understood as a virtual representation of our digital selves and may serve as a potential proxy for an actual person. This construction may be enabled through processes such as the data fusion of biometric and biographic data, or the digital data fusion of the …


Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights In Computers And Computer Programs: Recent Developments , Alan C. Rose Feb 2013

Protection Of Intellectual Property Rights In Computers And Computer Programs: Recent Developments , Alan C. Rose

Pepperdine Law Review

The following article examines the protection offered to computers and computer programs, under the various applicable patent, copyright and trade secret laws. Concerning patent protection; the author discusses the history and current status of the patent laws, and analyzes in detail the landmark case of Diamond v. Diehr. Discussed also is an analysis of copyright protection for computer programs, offered by the 1980 amendments to section 117 of the 1976 Copyright Act; which paved the way for the increased protection.


The Discovery And Use Of Computerized Information: An Examination Of Current Approaches, Richard M. Long Jan 2013

The Discovery And Use Of Computerized Information: An Examination Of Current Approaches, Richard M. Long

Pepperdine Law Review

In recent years, the legal profession has run head on into the increasing use of computers and computerized information. Discovery and evidentiary rules developed to deal with written documentation may not be flexible enough to adequately cover this relatively new method of storing information. This comment examines various methods by which courts have attempted to deal with discovery and evidentiary problems involving computerized information, and suggests certain areas that should be explored in supporting or attacking the credibility of such information.


What Happens To Our Facebook Accounts When We Die?: Probate Versus Policy And The Fate Of Social-Media Assets Postmortem, Kristina Sherry Jan 2013

What Happens To Our Facebook Accounts When We Die?: Probate Versus Policy And The Fate Of Social-Media Assets Postmortem, Kristina Sherry

Pepperdine Law Review

More than 580,000 Facebook users in the U.S. will die this year, raising numerous legal questions as to the disposition of their Facebook pages and similar “digital assets” left in a state of legal limbo. While access to and ownership of decedents’ email accounts has been philosophized for nearly a decade, this Comment focuses on the additional legal uncertainties posed by “digital death” in the more amorphous realm of “social media.” Part II explores the implications of digital death by conceptualizing digital assets and surveying the underlying legal principles of contractual policies, probate, property, and privacy concerns. Part III surveys …


Smoking Out Big Tobacco: Some Lessons About Academic Freedom, The World Wide Web, Media Conglomeration, And Public Service Pedagogy From The Battle Over The Brown & Williamson Documents, Clay Calvert Oct 2012

Smoking Out Big Tobacco: Some Lessons About Academic Freedom, The World Wide Web, Media Conglomeration, And Public Service Pedagogy From The Battle Over The Brown & Williamson Documents, Clay Calvert

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Beware Of The Highwayman On The Information Superhighway: A Balanced Proposal To Protect Copyrights Within The National Information Infrastructure, Chandra Gehri Spencer Oct 2012

Beware Of The Highwayman On The Information Superhighway: A Balanced Proposal To Protect Copyrights Within The National Information Infrastructure, Chandra Gehri Spencer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


An Innovative Link Between The Internet, The Capital Markets, And The Sec: How The Internet Direct Public Offering Helps Small Companies Looking To Raise Capital, Daniel Everett Giddings Oct 2012

An Innovative Link Between The Internet, The Capital Markets, And The Sec: How The Internet Direct Public Offering Helps Small Companies Looking To Raise Capital, Daniel Everett Giddings

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Legal World Wide Web: Electronic Personal Jurisdiction In Commercial Litigation, Or How To Expose Yourself To Liability Anywhere In The World With The Press Of A Button, Robert M. Harkins Jr. Oct 2012

The Legal World Wide Web: Electronic Personal Jurisdiction In Commercial Litigation, Or How To Expose Yourself To Liability Anywhere In The World With The Press Of A Button, Robert M. Harkins Jr.

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Internet-Based Fans: Why The Entertainment Industries Cannot Depend On Traditional Copyright Protections , Thomas C. Inkel Oct 2012

Internet-Based Fans: Why The Entertainment Industries Cannot Depend On Traditional Copyright Protections , Thomas C. Inkel

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Liable For Your Lies: Misrepresentation Law As A Mechanism For Regulating Behavior On Social Networking Sites, Geelan Fahimy Sep 2012

Liable For Your Lies: Misrepresentation Law As A Mechanism For Regulating Behavior On Social Networking Sites, Geelan Fahimy

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Corporate Criticism On The Internet: The Fine Line Between Anonymous Speech And Cybersmear, Scot Wilson May 2012

Corporate Criticism On The Internet: The Fine Line Between Anonymous Speech And Cybersmear, Scot Wilson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


International Dispute Settlement At The Trademark-Domain Name Interface, Laurence R. Helfer May 2012

International Dispute Settlement At The Trademark-Domain Name Interface, Laurence R. Helfer

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


Double-Clicking On Fourth Amendment Protection: Encryption Creates A Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy, Sean J. Edgett Apr 2012

Double-Clicking On Fourth Amendment Protection: Encryption Creates A Reasonable Expectation Of Privacy, Sean J. Edgett

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.


The Future Of Free Expression In A Digital Age, Jack M. Balkin Feb 2012

The Future Of Free Expression In A Digital Age, Jack M. Balkin

Pepperdine Law Review

In the twenty-first century, at the very moment that our economic and social lives are increasingly dominated by information technology and information flows, the judge-made doctrines of the First Amendment seem increasingly irrelevant to the key free speech battles of the future. The most important decisions affecting the future of freedom of speech will not occur in constitutional law; they will be decisions about technological design, legislative and administrative regulations, the formation of new business models, and the collective activities of end-users. Moreover, the values of freedom of expression will become subsumed within a larger set of concerns that I …