Law Commons^™

Digital Terror Crimes, Cody Corliss

Law Faculty Scholarship

Terror actors operating within armed conflict have weaponized social media by using these platforms to threaten and spread images of brutality in order to taunt, terrify, and intimidate civilians. These acts or threats of violence are terror, a prohibited war crime in which acts or threats of violence are made with the primary purpose of spreading terror among the civilian population. The weaponization of terror content through social media is a digital terror crime.

This article is the first to argue that the war crime of terror applies to digital terror crimes perpetrated through social media platforms. It situates digital …

All The News That’S Fit To Be Identified: Facilitating Access To High-Quality News Through Internet Platforms, Sonja R. West, Jonathan Peters, Lefteris Jason Anastasopolous

Scholarly Works

Roughly half of Americans get some of their news from social media, and nearly two-thirds get some of their news from search engines. As our modern information gatekeepers, these internet companies bear a special responsibility to consider the impact of their platform and site policies on users’ access to high-quality news sources. They should adopt policies that clear the digital pathway between the public and press by facilitating such access. To that end, the companies must first, address the threshold issue of how best to identify high-quality news sources. This article examines factors that would be useful, drawing from legal …

Platform Accountability: Gonzalez And Reform, Eric Schnapper

Presentations

Section 230(c)(1) was adopted for the purpose of distinguishing between conduct of third parties and conduct of internet companies themselves. Its familiar language provides that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The last four words are central to the limitation on the defense created by the statute; it is only regarding information created by “another” that the defense may be available. Section 230(e)(3) makes clear that even a partial role played by an internet company in the creation of harmful …

Defamation 2.0, Cortelyou C. Kenney

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

There is a literal prohibition in the media bar that media lawyers cannot represent plaintiffs in suits for defamation. The stated principle behind this rule—a rule that can result in excommunication from the premier media law organization if it is violated—is that playing both sides of the defamation game is disloyal to traditional media actors because any chance of victory could inadvertently distort the law of defamation to increase the risk of frivolous suits against media outlets or other innocent third parties. But has the maxim finally gone too far?

Fueled by a new model where media profits are driven …

"You Always Have To Be Careful About Censorship", Gabrielle Nadler, Margaret Hu

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Brief For Respondents, Twitter, Inc. V. Taamneh, 143 S.Ct. 1206 (2023) (No. 21.1496), Eric Schnapper, Keith L. Altman, Robert J. Tolchin

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Brief In Opposition, Twitter, Inc. V. Taamneh, 143 S.Ct. 1206 (2023) (No. 21.1496), Eric Schnapper, Keith L. Altman, Daniel W. Weininger

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

Free Speech On Social Media: Unrestricted Or Regulated?, Alessandra Garcia Guevara

Student Writing

Social media has evolved into an essential mode of communication in recent years, allowing people to express their thoughts with the audience of their choice by sending private messages, posting their thoughts, or sharing their opinions. Such audiences can come from all over the world because this online technology breaks down geographic, linguistic, and cultural barriers. As a result, social media has evolved into a powerful tool for self-expression, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to participate in global debates. However, its misuse has had disastrous consequences in the real world, such as the attack on the Capitol that occurred …

The Political Dynamics Of Legislative Reform: Potential Drivers Of The Next Communications Statute, Christopher S. Yoo, Tiffany Keung

All Faculty Scholarship

Although most studies of major communications reform legislation focus on the merits of their substantive provisions, analyzing the political dynamics that led to the enactment of such legislation can yield important insights. An examination of the tradeoffs that led the major industry segments to support the Telecommunications Act of 1996 provides a useful illustration of the political bargain that it embodies. Application of a similar analysis to the current context identifies seven components that could form the basis for the next communications statute: universal service, pole attachments, privacy, intermediary immunity, net neutrality, spectrum policy, and antitrust reform. Determining how these …

Regulating The Digital Resonance, Hassan Salman

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

Athens News Matters: Cyber Abuse And Intimate Partner Violence, Thomas E. Kadri

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Unspoken Criticism: Audiovisual Forms Of Critique As Fair Use, Alec Fisher

Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts

This Note argues that the traditional legal framework for analyzing a work of alleged criticism as fair use is particularly constraining for YouTube reaction videos and other audiovisual forms of criticism that largely critique or comment on an original work in a non-spoken, visual manner. It discusses the emphasis that the current fair use jurisprudence places on spoken and written critical elements when undertaking a fair use analysis of a work of criticism, then advocates for a new conception of fair use criticism that incorporates film-specific analytical techniques and concepts when analyzing the critical elements of online audiovisual works. Part …

Bad Actors: Authenticity, Inauthenticity, Speech, And Capitalism, Sarah C. Haan

Scholarly Articles

“Authenticity” has evolved into an important value that guides social media companies’ regulation of online speech. It is enforced through rules and practices that include real-name policies, Terms of Service requiring users to present only accurate information about themselves, community guidelines that prohibit “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” verification practices, product features, and more.

This Article critically examines authenticity regulation by the social media industry, including companies’ claims that authenticity is a moral virtue, an expressive value, and a pragmatic necessity for online communication. It explains how authenticity regulation provides economic value to companies engaged in “information capitalism,” “data capitalism,” and “surveillance …

Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge For Privacy, Democracy, And National Security, Danielle K. Citron, Robert Chesney

Faculty Scholarship

Harmful lies are nothing new. But the ability to distort reality has taken an exponential leap forward with “deep fake” technology. This capability makes it possible to create audio and video of real people saying and doing things they never said or did. Machine learning techniques are escalating the technology’s sophistication, making deep fakes ever more realistic and increasingly resistant to detection. Deep-fake technology has characteristics that enable rapid and widespread diffusion, putting it into the hands of both sophisticated and unsophisticated actors. While deep-fake technology will bring with it certain benefits, it also will introduce many harms. The marketplace …

Atrocity Prevention In The New Media Landscape, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Journalists have traditionally played a crucial role in building public pressure on government officials to uphold their legal obligations under the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. But over the past twenty years there has been radical change in the media landscape: foreign bureaus have been shuttered, young freelance journalists have taken over some of the work traditionally done by experienced foreign correspondents, and, more recently, the advent of social media has enabled people in conflict-affected areas to tell their own stories to the world. This essay assesses the impact of these changes on atrocity prevention …

The Ironic Privacy Act, Margaret Hu

Faculty Publications

This Article contends that the Privacy Act of 1974, a law intended to engender trust in government records, can be implemented in a way that inverts its intent. Specifically, pursuant to the Privacy Act's reporting requirements, in September 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notified the public that record systems would be modified to encompass the collection of social media data. The notification justified the collection of social media data as a part of national security screening and immigration vetting procedures. However, the collection will encompass social media data on both citizens and noncitizens, and was not explicitly …

User-Generated Evidence, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Around the world, people are using their smartphones to document atrocities. This Article is the first to address the implications of this important development for international criminal law. While acknowledging the potential benefits such user-generated evidence could have for international criminal investigations, the Article identifies three categories of concern related to its use: (i) user security; (ii) evidentiary bias; and (iii) fair trial rights. In the absence of safeguards, user-generated evidence may address current problems in international criminal justice at the cost of creating new ones and shifting existing problems from traditional actors, who have institutional backing, to individual users …

Extremist Speech, Compelled Conformity, And Censorship Creep, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Silicon Valley has long been viewed as a full-throated champion of First Amendment values. The dominant online platforms, however, have recently adopted speech policies and processes that depart from the U.S. model. In an agreement with the European Commission, tech companies have pledged to respond to reports of hate speech within twenty-four hours, a hasty process that may trade valuable expression for speedy results. Plans have been announced for an industry database that will allow the same companies to share hashed images of banned extremist content for review and removal elsewhere.

These changes are less the result of voluntary market …

Rules For Digital Radicals, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Sharenting: Children's Privacy In The Age Of Social Media, Stacey B. Steinberg

UF Law Faculty Publications

Through sharenting, or online sharing about parenting, parents now shape their children’s digital identity long before these young people open their first email. The disclosures parents make online are sure to follow their children into adulthood. Indeed, social media and blogging have dramatically changed the landscape facing today’s children as they come of age.

Children have an interest in privacy. Yet a parent’s right to control the upbringing of his or her children and a parent’s right to free speech may trump this interest. When parents share information about their children online, they do so without their children’s consent. These …

Just Cause Discipline For Social Networking In The New Guilded Age: Will The Law Look The Other Way?, William A. Herbert, Alicia Mcnally

Publications and Research

We live and work in an era with the moniker of the New Gilded Age to describe the growth in societal income inequality. The designation is not limited to evidence of the growing gap in wealth distribution, but also the sharp rise in employment without security, including contingent and part-time work. This article examines the state of workplace procedural protections against discipline as they relate to employee use of social media in the New Gilded Age. In our times, reactions to the rapid distribution of troublesome electronic communications through social networking tend to eclipse patience for enforceable workplace procedures. The …

Law And Ethics Of Experiments On Social Media Users, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

If you were on Facebook in January 2012, there is a chance that it tried to make you sad. If you were on OkCupid, there is a chance that it tried to match you up with someone incompatible. These were social psychology experiments: Facebook and OkCupid systematically manipulated people's environments to test their reactions. Academics doing similar experiments in a university setting would typically need to obtain informed consent from participants and approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB). But Facebook and OkCupid, and the academics working with Facebook, had neither. This, I believe, is a problem.

These experiments offer …

Agency Publicity In The Internet Era, Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

This Report, prepared for the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS), details how federal agencies use modern forms of publicity - including press releases, agency web sites, searchable online databases, and social media - to achieve regulatory ends. It evaluates the benefits and burdens of modern agency publicity practices, using three agencies as case studies: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Part V recommends a series of largely procedural reforms that balance the need for public disclosure with the need to protect those potentially injured by adverse …

Systematic Ict Surveillance By Employers: Are Your Personal Activities Private?, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

This paper reviews the various methods of information and communications technology (ICT) that is used by employers to peer into the work lives and, in some cases, private lives of employees. Some of the most common methods – such as computer and Internet monitoring, video surveillance, and global positioning systems (GPS) – have resulted in employee disciplines that have been challenged in courts. This paper provides background information on United States (U.S.) laws and court cases which, in this age of easily accessible information, mostly support the employer. Assessments regarding regulations and policies, which will need to be continually updated …

Friends Of Justice: Does Social Media Impact The Public Perception Of The Justice System?, Nicola A. Boothe-Perry

Journal Publications

Lawyers have long been recognized as being necessary in the effective functioning of an ordered society in roles as both officers of the court and, more broadly, as officers of the system of justice. In 2014, the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education report noted that "[s]ociety has a deep interest in the competence of lawyers, in their availability to serve society and clients, in the broad public role they can play, and in their professional values." Values such as those noted in the Model Rules of Professional Conduct (advisor, counselor, and advocate) are instrumental in the …

The “Friend”Ly Lawyer: Professionalism And Ethical Considerations Of The Use Of Social Networking During Litigation, Nicola A. Boothe-Perry

Journal Publications

Social media use has exploded around the world. The top social networking site (SNS), Facebook, reports that it has more than a billion members with approximately two million friend requests every twenty minutes. Coupled with the other top 15 social networking sites, including Linkedln, Google+, Twitter, and MySpace, the number of social networking users is estimated to exceed 2 billion. With billions of people producing and consuming media content through SNS, there has been a growing trend of law firms' use of SNS as a marketing tool and litigators' inclusion of discovery from SNS as a part of their discovery …

Public Forum 2.1: Public Higher Education Institutions And Social Media, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Like most of us, public colleges and universities increasingly are communicating via Facebook, Second Life, YouTube, Twitter and other social media. Unlike most of us, public colleges and universities are government actors, and their social media communications present complex administrative and First Amendment challenges. The authors of this article — one the dean of a major public university law school responsible for directing its social media strategies, the other a scholar of social media and the First Amendment — have combined their expertise to help public university officials address these challenges. To that end, this article first examines current and …

When Antitrust Met Facebook, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Social networks are among the hottest phenomena on the Internet. Facebook eclipsed Google as the most visited website in both 2010 and 2011. Moreover, according to Nielsen estimates, as of the end of 2011 the average American spent nearly seven hours per month on Facebook, which is more time than they spent on Google, Yahoo!, YouTube, Microsoft, and Wikipedia combined. LinkedIn’s May 19, 2011 initial public offering (“IPO”) surpassed expectations, placing the value of the company at nearly $9 billion, and approximately a year later, its stock price had risen another 20 percent. Facebook followed suit a year later with …

Beyond The Water Cooler: Speech And The Workplace In An Era Of Social Media, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Respectful And Responsible Relationships: There’S No App For That (The Report Of The Nova Scotia Task Force On Bullying And Cyberbullying), A. Wayne Mackay

Reports & Public Policy Documents

Chairing this Task Force and producing this report has been both the most engaging and exhausting project that I have ever undertaken. Since my appointment in late May 2011, I have lived and breathed in the world of bullying and cyberbullying. I am sure my fellow Task Force members and members of the Working Group did the same. Born in the wake of tragic teen suicides it was easy for the members of the Task Force to be motivated. Indeed, few ventures have stirred my passions as much as this exercise has.

Bullying is a major social issue throughout the …