First Amendment Commons^™

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 …

The Post-Truth First Amendment, Sarah Haan

Indiana Law Journal

Post-truthism is widely viewed as a political problem. This Article explores posttruthism as a constitutional law problem, and argues that, because post-truthism offers a normative framework for regulating information, we should take it seriously as a basis for law.

In its exploration of the influence of post-truth ideas on law, the Article focuses on the compelled speech doctrine. When the State mandates disclosure, it pits the interests of unwilling speakers against the interests of listeners. In the twenty-first century, speakers who are targeted by mandatory disclosure laws are often organizational actors with informational advantages, such as corporations. Listeners who stand …

Augmenting Our Reality: The (Un)Official Strategy Guide To Providing First Amendment Protection For Players And Designers Of Location-Based Augmented Reality Video Games, Colleen Signorelli

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Specifically, this Note will argue that the First Amendment applies to location-based augmented reality games in public forums, and, furthermore, the First Amendment protects designers and players of location-based augmented reality games in public forums. This Note will not discuss these location-based games within the context of privacy rights or trespassing, issues that have been written about elsewhere. Part I of this Note will explore the law regarding freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in public forums, and permissible regulations of speech and assembly, including time, place, and manner restrictions and prior restraints, such as permits. Part II …

“It Ain’T So Much The Things We Don’T Know That Get Us In Trouble. It’S The Things We Know That Ain’T So”: The Dubious Intellectual Foundations Of The Claim That “Hate Speech” Causes Political Violence, Gordon Danning

Pepperdine Law Review

The United States is an outlier in its legal protection for what is commonly termed “hate speech.” Proponents of bringing American jurisprudence closer to the international norm often argue that hate speech causes violence, particularly political violence. However, such claims largely rest on assumptions which are inconsistent with social scientists’ understanding of the causes of political violence, including that ethnic identity and ideological salience are more often the result of violence than a cause thereof; that violence during conflict is generally unrelated to the conflict’s ostensible central cleavage; and that violence is generally instrumental and elite-driven, rather than spontaneous and …

Free Speech, Public Safety, & Controversial Speakers: Balancing Universities' Dual Roles After Charlottesville, Elisabeth E. Constantino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note seeks to develop an approach to hateful and controversial speech that protects First Amendment values and students alike. Part I discusses the legal backdrop and First Amendment tradition that underlies a permissive view of hateful speech on university campuses. Part I also discusses the roots of time, place, and manner regulations and the public forum doctrine, both of which recent legislation invokes. Part II provides a timeline of events that have highlighted the tension between free speech and public safety on campuses. Part II also discusses the eruption of legislation that these events inspired. Finally, Part III …

Rwu First Amendement Blog: Jared Goldstein's Blog: The First Amendment And The Foxy Lady 01-08-2019, Jared A. Goldstein

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Global Platform Governance: Private Power In The Shadow Of The State, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

Online intermediaries—search engines, social media platforms, even e-commerce businesses—are increasingly required to make critical decisions about free expression, individual privacy, and property rights under domestic law. These requirements arise in contexts that include the right to be forgotten, hate speech, “terrorist” speech, and copyright and intellectual property. At the same time, these disputes about online speech are increasingly borderless. Many laws targeting online speech and privacy are explicitly extraterritorial in scope. Even when not, some courts have ruled that they have jurisdiction to enforce compliance on a global scale. And governments are also demanding that platforms remove content—on a global …

Justice Jackson In The Jehovah’S Witnesses’ Cases, John Q. Barrett

FIU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Facebook V. Sullivan: Public Figures And Newsworthiness In Online Speech, Thomas E. Kadri, Kate Klonick

Faculty Publications

In the United States, there are now two systems to adjudicate disputes about harmful speech. The first is older and more established: the legal system in which judges apply constitutional law to limit tort claims alleging injuries caused by speech. The second is newer and less familiar: the content-moderation system in which platforms like Facebook implement the rules that govern online speech. These platforms are not bound by the First Amendment. But, as it turns out, they rely on many of the tools used by courts to resolve tensions between regulating harmful speech and preserving free expression—particularly the entangled concepts …

Regulating Bot Speech, Madeline Lamo, Ryan Calo

Articles

We live in a world of artificial speakers with real impact. So-called “bots” foment political strife, skew online discourse, and manipulate the marketplace. Concerns over bot speech have led prominent figures in the world of technology to call for regulations in response to the unique threats bots pose. Recently, legislators have begun to heed these calls, drafting laws that would require online bots to clearly indicate that they are not human.

This work is the first to consider how efforts to regulate bots might run afoul of the First Amendment. At first blush, requiring a bot to self-disclose raises little …

Return Of The Campus Speech Wars, Thomas Healy

Michigan Law Review

Review of Erwin Chemerinsky and Howard Gillman's Free Speech on Campus.

Privacy, Property, And Publicity, Mark A. Lemley

Michigan Law Review

Review of Jennifer E. Rothman's The Right of Publicity: Privacy Reimagined for a Public World.