Communications Law Commons^™

The Rise Of 5g Technology: How Internet Privacy And Protection Of Personal Data Is A Must In An Evolving Digital Landscape, Justin Rabine

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

The Application Of The Right To Be Forgotten In The Machine Learning Context: From The Perspective Of European Laws, Zeyu Zhao

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The right to be forgotten has been evolving for decades along with the progress of different statutes and cases and, finally, independently enacted by the General Data Protection Regulation, making it widely applied across Europe. However, the related provisions in the regulation fail to enable machine learning systems to realistically forget the personal information which is stored and processed therein.

This failure is not only because existing European rules do not stipulate standard codes of conduct and corresponding responsibilities for the parties involved, but they also cannot accommodate themselves to the new environment of machine learning, where specific information can …

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

Passcodes, Protection, And Legal Practicality: The Necessity Of A Digital Fifth Amendment, Ethan Swierczewski

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Reframing Hate, Lu-In Wang

Articles

The concept and naming of “hate crime,” and the adoption of special laws to address it, provoked controversy and raised fundamental questions when they were introduced in the 1980s. In the decades since, neither hate crime itself nor those hotly debated questions have abated. To the contrary, hate crime has increased in recent years—although the prominent target groups have shifted over time—and the debate over hate crime laws has reignited as well. The still-open questions range from the philosophical to the doctrinal to the pragmatic: What justifies the enhanced punishment that hate crime laws impose based on the perpetrator’s motivation? …

A Proportionality-Based Framework For Government Regulation Of Digital Tracing Apps In Times Of Emergency, Sharon Bassan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Times of emergency present an inherent conflict between the public interest and the preservation of individual rights. Such times require granting emergency powers to the government on behalf of the public interest and relaxing safeguards against government actions that infringe rights. The lack of theoretical framework to assess governmental decisions in times of emergency leads to a polarized and politicized discourse about potential policies, and often, to public distrust and lack of compliance.

Such a discourse was evident regarding Digital Tracing Apps (“DTAs”), which are apps installed on cellular phones to alert users that they were exposed to people who …

Deepfakes, Shallowfakes, And The Need For A Private Right Of Action, Eric Kocsis

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

For nearly as long as there have been photographs and videos, people have been editing and manipulating them to make them appear to be something they are not. Usually edited or manipulated photographs are relatively easy to detect, but those days are numbered. Technology has no morality; as it advances, so do the ways it can be misused. The lack of morality is no clearer than with deepfake technology.

People create deepfakes by inputting data sets, most often pictures or videos into a computer. A series of neural networks attempt to mimic the original data set until they are nearly …

Masthead, Lead Article Editor

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Lead Article Editor

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Protecting Expert Advice For The Public: Promoting Safety And Improved Communications, Julia M. Wright, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Amanda Clarke, Matthew Herder, Howard Ramos

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The drivers of the harassment and intimidation of researchers are complex, widespread, and global in their reach and were being studied across many disciplines even before COVID-19. This policy briefing reviews some of the scholarship on this wide-ranging problem but focuses on what can be done to help ensure that Canadians fully benefit from the work of Canada’s researchers while also preserving the security and safety of those researchers. It identifies policies and actions that can be implemented in the near term to gather information on the problem, better frame public research communications, and ensure that mechanisms are readily available …

Responding To Mass, Computer-Generated, And Malattributed Comments, Steven J. Balla, Reeve Bull, Bridget C.E. Dooling, Emily Hammond, Michael A. Livermore, Michael Herz, Beth Simone Noveck

Articles

A number of technological and political forces have transformed the once staid and insider dominated notice-and-comment process into a forum for large scale, sometimes messy, participation in regulatory decisionmaking. It is not unheard of for agencies to receive millions of comments on rulemakings; often these comments are received as part of organized mass comment campaigns. In some rulemakings, questions have been raised about whether public comments were submitted under false names, or were automatically generated by computer “bot” programs. In this Article, we examine whether and to what extent such submissions are problematic and make recommendations for how rulemaking agencies …

Juridical Discourse For Platforms, Thomas E. Kadri

Scholarly Works

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has created a private “Supreme Court,” or so he says. Since 2021, his company’s Oversight Board has issued verdicts on a smattering of Facebook’s decisions about online speech. Cynics frame the Board as a Potemkin village, but defenders invoke analogies to separation of powers to claim that this new body empowers the public and restrains the company. Some are even calling for a single “platform supreme court” to rule over the entire industry.

Juridical discourse for platforms is powerful, but it can also be deceptive. This Response explores how juridical discourse has legitimized and empowered Facebook’s …

Accidental Wiretaps: The Implications Of False Positives By Always-Listening Devices For Privacy Law & Policy, Lindsey Barrett, Ilaria Liccardi

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Methodology For The Analysis Of Visuals In Legal Works, Michael D. Murray

FIU Law Review

The goal of this Article is to introduce a comprehensive methodology for the analysis of visuals used for communication in legal works, by which I mean transactional and litigation documents, legal instruments, primary and secondary sources of law, and legal informational materials. To date, the scholarship on visuals in legal communications has been heavily descriptive, with some forays into the ethical and practical considerations of the use of “visualized” legal works. No one has yet devised a comprehensive analytical methodology that draws upon the disciplines of visual literacy, visual cultural studies, visual rhetoric, and mise en scène analysis to evaluate …

Ships Passing In The Night: The Communications Act And The Convergence On Broadband, Stuart Minor Benjamin

Faculty Scholarship

The Communications Act of 1934 and its amendments (the “Act”), and the regulations implementing them, have been enormously important to traditional telephony, broadcasting, and multichannel video. Meanwhile, the internet is barely mentioned in the Act. It thus might seem reasonable to conclude that the Act stands as a colossus and that the argument for overhauling it has grown much stronger as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the “1996 Act”) becomes ever more outdated. In this Article I suggest otherwise. Specifically, I make three claims—one descriptive, one a bit speculative, and one normative. The descriptive claim is that significant portions of …

Racialized, Judaized, Feminized: Identity-Based Attacks On The Press, Lili Levi

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Everyday First Amendment, Leonard M. Niehoff, Thomas Sullivan

Articles

On June 26 and June 27, 2019, some twenty contenders for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States participated in two evenings of political debate. The outsized group included Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who was struggling to gain traction with voters. Shortly after the debate, while many viewers were conducting online searches to learn more about the candidates, Google temporarily suspended her campaign’s advertising account.

Google claimed that the interruption occurred because an automated system flagged unusual activity on the account. But Gabbard did not accept this explanation; she believed that Google deliberately had tried to undermine …

From The Golden Gate To London: Bridging The Gap Between Data Privacy And The Right Of Publicity, Kristin Kuraishi

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Currently, there is no global standard or recognition for the right of publicity. Even within the United States, the recognition, scope, and protections vary by state. As the world becomes increasingly reliant on social media for news, information, communication, and recommendations, micro-influencers and non-celebrities require a way to control their developed and curated name, image, and likeness from unauthorized commercial uses by others. Advertising is occurring more frequently online, and brands recognize the power that micro-influencers have on commerce. Some countries, like the United Kingdom, do not recognize the right of publicity, potentially leaving many individuals without recourse for the …

Media Consolidation & Political Polarization: Reviewing The National Television Ownership Rule, Mary R. Hornak

Fordham Law Review

Local television plays an important role in the democratic society. The medium is viewed as being trustworthy, and it is accessible and uniquely situated to report on matters of local interest. Among other roles, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates firms’ ownership interests in the media through regulations that permit a certain degree of consolidation at both the local and national levels. Since 1996, Congress has mandated that the FCC regularly review broadcast media ownership regulations. Originally, this requirement mandated biennial review. In 2004, however, Congress revised the mandate, requiring review on a quadrennial basis and excluding from such review …

Cacophony Or Concerto?: Analyzing The Applicability Of The Wiretap Act’S Party Exception For Duplicate Get Requests, David Koenig

Fordham Law Review

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“Wiretap Act”) prohibits the intentional interception of an electronic communication. However, “parties to a communication” can intercept a communication without Wiretap Act liability. Parties include the intended recipients of a communication. When internet users navigate the internet, they communicate with websites using GET requests. The users’ GET requests call out to websites and websites respond by providing the websites’ content to the users. During this process, websites receive user data. This data can include information about the website visited, the search terms used to locate the website, and referral data identifying the last web page …