Law Commons^™

Does A Non-Extreme Answer To Extremism Exist?, Jeffrey Levicki

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Foreword for the Journal of Law Reform symposium entitled Alt-Association: The Role of Law in Combatting Extremism.

Policing Hate Speech And Extremism: A Taxonomy Of Arguments In Opposition, Leonard M. Niehoff

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Hate speech and extremist association do real and substantial harm to individuals, groups, and our society as a whole. Our common sense, experience, and empathy for the targets of extremism tell us that our laws should do more to address this issue. Current reform efforts have therefore sought to revise our laws to do a better job at policing, prohibiting, and punishing hate speech and extremist association.

Efforts to do so, however, encounter numerous and substantial challenges. We can divide them into three general categories: definitional problems, operational problems, and conscientious problems. An informed understanding of these three categories of …

The Airwaves Meet The Highways, David Redl

Journal of Law and Mobility

I applaud and congratulate the University of Michigan for launching the Journal of Law and Mobility. The timing is perfect. The information superhighway is no longer just a clever metaphor. We are living in an era where internet connectivity is a critical part of making transportation safer and more convenient. Internet connectivity has powered the U.S. and global economies for years now. In the early stages, dial-up connections enabled users to access a vast store of digital information. As the internet and its usage grew, so did the demand for faster broadband speeds. Finally, wireless networks untethered the power of …

The Innocent Villain: Involuntary Manslaughter By Text, Charles Adside Iii

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Michelle Carter’s texts instructing her mentally ill online boyfriend to commit suicide offended the social moral code. But the law does not categorize all morally reprehensible behavior as criminal. Commonwealth v. Carter is unprecedented in manslaughter law because Carter was convicted on the theory that she was virtually present as opposed to physically present—at the crime scene. The court’s reasoning is expansive, as the framework it employs is excessively vague and does not provide fair notice to the public of which actions constitute involuntary manslaughter. Disturbingly, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the trial court’s logic. This Article concludes that …

Virtual Hatred: How Russia Tried To Start A Race War In The United States, William J. Aceves

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Russian government engaged in a sophisticated strategy to influence the U.S. political system and manipulate American democracy. While most news reports have focused on the cyber-attacks aimed at Democratic Party leaders and possible contacts between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign, a more pernicious intervention took place. Throughout the campaign, Russian operatives created hundreds of fake personas on social media platforms and then posted thousands of advertisements and messages that sought to promote racial divisions in the United States. This was a coordinated propaganda effort. Some Facebook and Twitter posts denounced the …

Catch And Kill: Does The First Amendment Protect Buying Speech To Bury It?, Leonard M. Niehoff

Articles

The news media usually chase stories in order to publish them—but sometimes not so much. In some instances, media entities vigorously pursue a story—and purchase the source’s right to tell it—for the specific purpose of ensuring that it does not see the light of day. This practice, commonly called “catch and kill,” has recently come under close scrutiny and raises a host of questions.

These include pragmatic questions: Does the practice work? Can the media entity (or a third-party beneficiary) really enforce the underlying contract? Doesn’t the source’s willingness to abide by the contract come down to a simple economic …