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First Amendment Protections For “Good Trouble”, Dawn C. Nunziato
First Amendment Protections For “Good Trouble”, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
In the classical era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, activists and protestors sought to march, demonstrate, stage sit-ins, speak up, and denounce the system of racial oppression in our country. This was met not just by counterspeech—the preferred response within our constitutional framework—but also by efforts by the dominant power structure to censor and shut down those forms of public rebuke of our nation’s racist practices. Fast forward seventy years, and the tactics of the dominant power structure have essentially remained the same in response to today’s civil rights activists who seek to protest …
The Varieties Of Counterspeech And Censorship On Social Media, Dawn C. Nunziato
The Varieties Of Counterspeech And Censorship On Social Media, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The year 2020 was without a doubt a remarkable and unprecedented one, on many accounts and for many reasons. Among other reasons, it was a year in which the major social media platforms extensively experimented with the adoption of a variety of new tools and practices to address grave problems resulting from harmful speech on their platforms — notably, the vast amounts of misinformation associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and with the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath. By and large — consistent with First Amendment values of combatting bad speech with good speech — the platforms sought to respond …
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
Net Neutrality, Free Speech, And Democracy In The Internet Age, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
Professor Nunziato's book explains why the growth of the Internet as the most open forum for free expression in history is now threatened by the privatization of the Internet, the gatekeeper control over expression exercised by a handful of corporate owners, and their power to censor what we say and read online. She sets forth how we got to this place and what must be done about it to guarantee meaningful free speech rights in the Internet age.
The Death Of The Public Forum In Cyberspace, Dawn C. Nunziato
The Death Of The Public Forum In Cyberspace, Dawn C. Nunziato
GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works
The Internet has been conceptualized as a forum for free expression with near limitless potential for individuals to express themselves and to access the expression of others. But that potential is in danger of being seriously hampered as a result of the privatization of Internet forums for expression. During the Clinton Administration, the government undertook measures to turn over many aspects of the Internet to private entities. The end result of this increased private control is that, in contrast to real space, speech in cyberspace occurs almost exclusively within privately-owned places. The public/private balance that characterizes real space and renders …