Communications Law Commons^™

#I🔫U: Considering The Context Of Online Threats, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky, Linda Riedemann Norbutt

UF Law Faculty Publications

The United States Supreme Court has failed to grapple with the unique interpretive difficulties presented by social media threats cases. Social media make hateful and threatening speech more common but also magnify the potential for a speaker's innocent words to be misunderstood People speak differently on different social media platforms, and architectural features of platforms, such as character limits, affect the meaning of speech. The same is true of other contextual clues unique to social media, such as gifs, hashtags, and emojis. Only by understanding social media contexts can legal decision-makers avoid overcriminalization of speech protected by the First Amendment. …

Symposium: Truth, Trust And The First Amendment In The Digital Age: Foreword: Whither The Fourth Estate?, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

As a professor of Media Law, I have devoted my career over the past quarter of a century to the idea that the press plays a special role in our democracy. That role is largely encapsulated by the concept of the press as Fourth Estate – an unofficial branch of government in our scheme of separation of powers that checks the power of the three official branches. In our constitutional scheme, the press is the watchdog that informs us what the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government are up to and continually replenishes the stock of news – real …

Intentional Infliction Of Emotional Distress & The Hulk Hogan Sex Tape: Examining A Forgotten Cause Of Action In Bollea V. Gawker Media, The Gap It Reveals In Iied’S Constitutionalization, And A Path Forward For Revenge Porn Victims, Clay Calvert

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines Hulk Hogan's successful, yet largely overlooked, cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) before a Florida jury in 2016 in Bollea v. Gawker Media, LLC. In doing so, the Article explores critical factual differences between Bollea and the U.S. Supreme Court's two decisions constitutionalizing the IIED tort, Hustler Magazine v. Falwell and Snyder v. Phelps. Despite such distinctions, the Article discusses the trial court's instruction to the jury to consider a First Amendment-­based, public-concern defense - one closely akin to that in Snyder - on Hulk Hogan's IIED claim. The Article also …

Indecency Four Years After Fox Television Stations: From Big Papi To A Porn Star, An Egregious Mess At The Fcc Continues, Clay Calvert, Minch Minchin, Keran Billaud, Kevin Bruckenstein, Tershone Phillips

UF Law Faculty Publications

Using the WDBJ case as an analytical springboard, this article examines the tumultuous state of the FCC's indecency enforcement regime more than three years after the Supreme Court's June 2012 opinion in Fox Television Stations. Part I of this article briefly explores the missed First Amendment opportunities in Fox Television Stations, as well as some possible reasons why the Supreme Court chose to avoid the free-speech questions in that case." Part II addresses the FCC's decision in September 2012 to target only egregious instances of broadcast indecency and, in the process, to jettison hundreds of thousands of complaints that had …

Deconstructing And Reconstructing Hot News: Toward A Functional Approach, Jeffrey L. Harrison, Robyn Shelton

UF Law Faculty Publications

Hot news is factual, time-sensitive information ranging from baseball scores to the outbreak of war. In recent years, hot news has found its own niche among legal scholars and courts. When deconstructed, though, hot news is simply information and, like most information, it has a public good character. The problem ultimately is that news is non-excludable and non-rivalrous – discoverers or creators of hot news cannot exclude others from using the news and hot news is not destroyed when used. This means it may be produced at levels that are less than optimal.

The critical element in hot news is …

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 …

Not A Free Press Court?, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

The last decade has been tumultuous for print and broadcast media. Daily newspaper circulation continues to fall precipitously, magazines struggle to survive, and network television audiences keep shrinking. In the meanwhile, cable news is prospering, mobile devices are contributing to increased news consumption, and many new media outlets appear to be thriving. Despite the dynamism in the media industry, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has taken up relatively few First Amendment cases directly involving the media. The Court has addressed a number of important free speech cases since 2005, but thus far the only Roberts Court decisions …

Intrusion And The Investigative Reporter, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

In an award-winning series of Houston Chronicle articles, reporter Nancy Stancill uncovered shocking conditions in Texas nursing homes. 7 However, reforms were not implemented until 20/20, following Stancill's lead, conducted a three-month, undercover investigation of the treatment of elderly residents at Texas state and private nursing home facilities.

By employing subterfuge to gather news, the 20/20 reporters enhanced the immediacy and credibility of the resulting story. As one journalist argued, "[Jiust describing the conditions wouldn't have cut it. They had to be seen."

Using the 20/20 case as a paradigm, this Note argues that, in order to distinguish protected newsgathering …