Communication Technology and New Media Commons^™

Regulating New Tech: Problems, Pathways, And People, Cary Coglianese

All Faculty Scholarship

New technologies bring with them many promises, but also a series of new problems. Even though these problems are new, they are not unlike the types of problems that regulators have long addressed in other contexts. The lessons from regulation in the past can thus guide regulatory efforts today. Regulators must focus on understanding the problems they seek to address and the causal pathways that lead to these problems. Then they must undertake efforts to shape the behavior of those in industry so that private sector managers focus on their technologies’ problems and take actions to interrupt the causal pathways. …

FacebookʼS Latest Attempt To Address Vaccine Misinformation — And Why ItʼS Not Enough, Ana Santos Rutschman

All Faculty Scholarship

On October 13, 2020 Facebook announced the adoption of a series of measures to promote vaccine trust “while prohibiting ads with misinformation that could harm public health efforts.” In the post written by Kang-Xing Jin (head of health) and Rob Leathern (director of product management), the company explained that the new measures were designed with an emphasis on encouraging widespread use of this yearʼs flu vaccine, as well as in anticipation of potential COVID-19 vaccines becoming available in the near future.

The changes focus mainly on the establishment of a multiprong informational campaign about the seasonal flu vaccine, which includes …

Wireless Network Neutrality: Technological Challenges And Policy Implications, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

One key aspect of the debate over network neutrality has been whether and how network neutrality should apply to wireless networks. The existing commentary has focused on the economics of wireless network neutrality, but to date a detailed analysis of how the technical aspects of wireless networks affect the implementation of network neutrality has yet to appear in the literature. As an initial matter, bad handoffs, local congestion, and the physics of wave propagation make wireless broadband networks significantly less reliable than fixed broadband networks. These technical differences require the network to manage dropped packets and congestion in a way …

Toward A Closer Integration Of Law And Computer Science, Christopher S. Yoo

All Faculty Scholarship

Legal issues increasingly arise in increasingly complex technological contexts. Prominent recent examples include the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), network neutrality, the increasing availability of location information, and the NSA’s surveillance program. Other emerging issues include data privacy, online video distribution, patent policy, and spectrum policy. In short, the rapid rate of technological change has increasingly shown that law and engineering can no longer remain compartmentalized into separate spheres. The logical response would be to embed the interaction between law and policy deeper into the fabric of both fields. An essential step would …

Risks And Safety For Children On The Internet: The Ireland Report, Brian O'Neill, Simon Grehan, Kjartan ÓLafsson

Reports

This report presents initial findings for Ireland from the pan-European EU Kids Online survey – a large 25 country survey conducted by EU Kids Online and funded by the EC’s Safer Internet Programme. The questionnaire was designed by the EU Kids Online network, coordinated by the London School of Economics and Political Science. Fieldwork was conducted by Ipsos MORI.

In what follows, Irish findings are compared with those from other countries, as reported in Livingstone, S., Haddon, L., Görzig, A., and Ólafsson, K. (2010). Risks and safety on the internet: The perspective of European children. Initial findings. LSE, London: EU …

Report D7.1 Recommendations On Safety Initiatives, Brian O'Neill, Sharon Mclaughlin

Reports

A central objective of EU Kids Online is to strengthen the evidence base for policies regarding online safety in Europe. Its findings regarding children’s online experiences from across Europe offer an unrivalled opportunity to gain greater knowledge of European children’s and parents’ experiences and practices regarding risky and safer use of the internet and online technologies, thereby informing the promotion of a safer online environment for children. This chapter draws out in summary form the main implications for policy making and highlights significant issues arising from the findings of the survey, aligning them with existing initiatives where relevant in the …

Eu Kids Online: Risks And Safety On The Internet From The Perspective Of European Children, Brian O'Neill

Other resources

No abstract provided.

Children's Online Activities And Their Parents' Knowledge And Perception About Online Opportunities And Risks, Brian O'Neill

Other resources

No abstract provided.

Promoting Children’S Interests On The Internet: Regulation And The Emerging Evidence Base Of Risk And Harm, Brian O'Neill, Sonia Livingstone

Conference Papers

Advocacy for child protection online has tended to flow against the tide of a dominant liberal discourse concerning the internet which posits that either the internet should not be regulated or that it can’t actually be regulated at all. Regulatory trends in Great Britain, in Europe and in the wider international arena have promoted models of co- or self-regulation whereby industries themselves with varying degrees of partnership or oversight by relevant state agencies practice ‘light-touch’ regulation based on codes established within industry fora with minimalist prescriptions on content and with ultimate responsibility for risk exposure shifted to the end user. …

What Is Research Telling Us?, Brian O'Neill

Other resources

No abstract provided.

Findings Of The Eu Kids Online Project, Brian O'Neill

Other resources

No abstract provided.

What Blogging Might Teach About Cybernorms, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

Since the dawn of the information age, scholars have debated the viability of regulating cyberspace. Early on, Professor Lawrence Lessig suggested that “code is law” online. Lessig and others also examined the respective regulatory functions of laws, code, market forces, and social norms. In recent years, with the rise of Web 2.0 interactive technologies, norms have taken center-stage as a regulatory modality online. The advantages of norms are that they can develop quickly by the communities that seek to enforce them, and they are not bound by geography. However, to date there has been scant literature dealing in any detail …

Communication Rights, Digital Literacy And Ethical Individualism In The New Media Environment, Brian O'Neill

Conference Papers

Recent developments in European media policy have given priority to the notion that all citizens need to be digitally literate to fully participate in the emerging Information Society. Media literacy or digital literacy, it is argued, will be required to able to exercise informed choices, understand the nature of content and services and take advantage of the full range of opportunities offered by new communications technologies. Further, being media literate, citizens will be better able to protect themselves and their families from harmful or offensive material. The inclusion of media literacy within the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (Commission of the …

Does The Internet Fundamentally Change Anything?: European Research And The Cost A20 Action On The Impact Of The Internet On Mass Media (Television, Newspapers And Radio), Brian O'Neill

Conference Papers

The subject of this paper represents one attempt at a more balanced approach and consists of the research undertaken under the COST A20 action, ‘The Impact of the Internet on Mass Media’. The paper presents a brief overview of some of the principal themes under discussion in relation to radio, television and newspapers as well as offering some reflections on the emerging issues for communications research at a cross media level. The central theme is whether there the Internet (with a capital ‘I’) has had the transformative effect its proponents might once have claimed or whether there has been a …

The Threat Of Long-Arm Jurisdiction To Electronic Commerce, Robert J. Aalberts, Anthony M. Townsend, Michael E. Whitman

Faculty and Research Publications

Unfortunately for those whose businesses rely on the Internet, an increasing amount of legal conflict is also arising in reaction to this new business medium. As attorneys and the courts attempt to sort out the Internet’s legal status quo, both are considering such pressing substantive issues as electronic contracts, privacy, trademark, copyright, defamation, computer crimes, censorship, and taxation. It is imperative that information system professionals become aware of how evolving Internet law will affect the medium they are charged with administrating. An informed IS community is also much more capable of mounting legal and political challenges to law that might …