From Innovation To Abuse: Does The Internet Still Need Section 230 Immunity?, 2019 The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law
From Innovation To Abuse: Does The Internet Still Need Section 230 Immunity?, Benjamin Volpe
Catholic University Law Review
In 1996, Congress passed the Communications Decency Act to allow the screening of offensive material from the internet, while preserving the continued development of the internet economy without burdensome regulation. However, for years, online intermediaries have successfully used the Act as a shield from liability when third parties use their online services to commit tortious or criminal acts. This Comment argues that a wholly-unregulated internet is no longer necessary to preserve the once-fledgling internet economy. After evaluating various approaches to intermediary liability, this Comment also argues that Congress should take a more comprehensive look at consumer protection online and establish …
Virtual Hatred: How Russia Tried To Start A Race War In The United States, 2019 California Western School of Law
Virtual Hatred: How Russia Tried To Start A Race War In The United States, William J. Aceves
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
During the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Russian government engaged in a sophisticated strategy to influence the U.S. political system and manipulate American democracy. While most news reports have focused on the cyber-attacks aimed at Democratic Party leaders and possible contacts between Russian officials and the Trump presidential campaign, a more pernicious intervention took place. Throughout the campaign, Russian operatives created hundreds of fake personas on social media platforms and then posted thousands of advertisements and messages that sought to promote racial divisions in the United States. This was a coordinated propaganda effort. Some Facebook and Twitter posts denounced the …
Blind Spot: The Attention Economy And The Law, 2019 Columbia Law School
Blind Spot: The Attention Economy And The Law, Tim Wu
Faculty Scholarship
Human attention, valuable and limited in supply, is a resource. It has become commonplace, especially in the media and technology industries, to speak of an "attention economy" and of competition in "attention markets.” There is even an attentional currency, the "basic attention token," which purports to serve as a medium of exchange for user attention. Firms like Facebook and Google, which have emerged as two of the most important firms in the global economy, depend nearly exclusively on attention markets as a business model.
Yet despite the well-recognized commercial importance of attention markets, antitrust and consumer protection authorities have struggled …
Will Artificial Intelligence Eat The Law? The Rise Of Hybrid Social-Ordering Systems, 2019 Columbia Law School
Will Artificial Intelligence Eat The Law? The Rise Of Hybrid Social-Ordering Systems, Tim Wu
Faculty Scholarship
Software has partially or fully displaced many former human activities, such as catching speeders or flying airplanes, and proven itself able to surpass humans in certain contests, like Chess and Jeopardy. What are the prospects for the displacement of human courts as the centerpiece of legal decision-making? Based on the case study of hate speech control on major tech platforms, particularly on Twitter and Facebook, this Essay suggests displacement of human courts remains a distant prospect, but suggests that hybrid machine – human systems are the predictable future of legal adjudication, and that there lies some hope in that combination, …
Catch And Kill: Does The First Amendment Protect Buying Speech To Bury It?, 2019 University of Michigan Law School
Catch And Kill: Does The First Amendment Protect Buying Speech To Bury It?, Leonard M. Niehoff
Articles
The news media usually chase stories in order to publish them—but sometimes not so much. In some instances, media entities vigorously pursue a story—and purchase the source’s right to tell it—for the specific purpose of ensuring that it does not see the light of day. This practice, commonly called “catch and kill,” has recently come under close scrutiny and raises a host of questions.
These include pragmatic questions: Does the practice work? Can the media entity (or a third-party beneficiary) really enforce the underlying contract? Doesn’t the source’s willingness to abide by the contract come down to a simple economic …
The Separation Of Platforms And Commerce, 2019 Columbia Law School
The Separation Of Platforms And Commerce, Lina M. Khan
Faculty Scholarship
A handful of digital platforms mediate a growing share of online commerce and communications. By structuring access to markets, these firms function as gatekeepers for billions of dollars in economic activity. One feature dominant digital platforms share is that they have integrated across business lines such that they both operate a platform and market their own goods and services on it. This structure places dominant platforms in direct competition with some of the businesses that depend on them, creating a conflict of interest that platforms can exploit to further entrench their dominance, thwart competition, and stifle innovation.
This Article argues …
A Skeptical View Of Information Fiduciaries, 2019 Columbia Law School
A Skeptical View Of Information Fiduciaries, Lina M. Khan, David E. Pozen
Faculty Scholarship
The concept of “information fiduciaries” has surged to the forefront of debates on online-platform regulation. Developed by Professor Jack Balkin, the concept is meant to rebalance the relationship between ordinary individuals and the digital companies that accumulate, analyze, and sell their personal data for profit. Just as the law imposes special duties of care, confidentiality, and loyalty on doctors, lawyers, and accountants vis-à-vis their patients and clients, Balkin argues, so too should it impose special duties on corporations such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter vis-à-vis their end users. Over the past several years, this argument has garnered remarkably broad support …
Ancaman Pidana Bagi Intellectuel Dader Black Campaign: Studi Putusan Nomor 17/Pid.Sus/2014/Pn.Bul, 2018 Mahkamah Agung Republik Indonesia
Ancaman Pidana Bagi Intellectuel Dader Black Campaign: Studi Putusan Nomor 17/Pid.Sus/2014/Pn.Bul, Rafli Fadilah Achmad
Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan
Black Campaign is a prohibited campaign method conducted based on agitation, slander, pit fighting, lies or hoaxes. The vast growth of social media platform has emerged as a distinct challenge in Black Campaign eradication. The popular form of Black Campaign nowadays constitutes reality bending photo and video editing, candidate discussing a fake issue, whatsapp broadcasting, hoax news creation and distribution, and fake polls. As such, Black Campaign law enforcement in the end that focuses not only on the strafbaarfeit element but also narrowing to the intellectuele dader element. Black Campaign regulation has been administrated in several regulation concerning Election in …
The Future Of Freedom Of Expression Online, 2018 Duke Law
The Future Of Freedom Of Expression Online, Evelyn Mary Aswad
Duke Law & Technology Review
Should social media companies ban Holocaust denial from their platforms? What about conspiracy theorists that spew hate? Does good corporate citizenship mean platforms should remove offensive speech or tolerate it? The content moderation rules that companies develop to govern speech on their platforms will have significant implications for the future of freedom of expression. Given that the prospects for compelling platforms to respect users’ free speech rights are bleak within the U.S. system, what can be done to protect this important right? In June 2018, the United Nations’ top expert for freedom of expression called on companies to align their …
The Esquire Case: A Lost Free Speech Landmark, 2018 University at Buffalo School of Law
The Esquire Case: A Lost Free Speech Landmark, Samantha Barbas
Journal Articles
No abstract provided.
Dialing It Back: Why Courts Should Rethink Students’ Privacy And Speech Rights As Cell Phone Communications Erode The ‘Schoolhouse Gate’, Nicholas J. Mcguire
Duke Law & Technology Review
The ubiquity of cell phones in today’s society has forced courts to change or dismiss established, but inapplicable analytical frameworks. Two such frameworks in the school setting are regulations of student speech and of student searches. This Article traces the constitutional jurisprudence of both First Amendment off-campus speech protection and Fourth Amendment search standards as applied to the school setting. It then analyzes how the Supreme Court’s ruling in Riley v. California complicates both areas. Finally, it proposes a pragmatic solution: by recognizing a categorical First Amendment exception for “substantial threats” against the school community, courts could accommodate students’ constitutional …
Closed Meetings Under Foia Turn Fifty: The Old, The New, And What To Do, 2018 University of Richmond
Closed Meetings Under Foia Turn Fifty: The Old, The New, And What To Do, Tyler C. Southall
University of Richmond Law Review
No abstract provided.
Collective Shout's Victory Against Sexpo: A Win For Children's Rights, 2018 Collective Shout, Australia
Collective Shout's Victory Against Sexpo: A Win For Children's Rights, Caitlin Roper
Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence
This report is an account of the legal battle between Australian grassroots campaigning movement Collective Shout and Sexpo, the annual sex industry exhibition. Sexpo brought a lawsuit against Collective Shout after their campaign against Sexpo’s promotion of live-streamed porn shows on public buses servicing school routes. In April 2018, Sexpo’s application was dismissed, with Sexpo ordered to pay Collective Shout’s legal costs.
You Can’T Say That!: Public Forum Doctrine And Viewpoint Discrimination In The Social Media Era, 2018 University of Michigan Law School
You Can’T Say That!: Public Forum Doctrine And Viewpoint Discrimination In The Social Media Era, Micah Telegen
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The growing prevalence of privately-owned social media platforms is changing the way Americans and their governments communicate. This shift offers new opportunities, but also requires a reinterpretation of the First Amendment’s proscription of government limitations of speech. The public forum doctrine and its proscription of viewpoint discrimination seem particularly stretched by the digital revolution and the development of social media. In ongoing cases, litigants and courts have invoked the doctrine to limit the government’s ability to ‘block’ those who comment critically on government pages—much to the chagrin of those who note the private status of the companies hosting the pages …
The Legacy Of Slavery, Cognitive Shortcuts, And Biased News: The Mass Media’S Vilification Of Black Males And The Resulting “Reasonableness” Of Excessive Force By Law Enforcement, 2018 University of Miami Law School
The Legacy Of Slavery, Cognitive Shortcuts, And Biased News: The Mass Media’S Vilification Of Black Males And The Resulting “Reasonableness” Of Excessive Force By Law Enforcement, Janyl Relling Smith
University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review
No abstract provided.
"Distinctive Sounds": A Critique Of The Transformative Fair Use Test In Practice And The Need For A New Music Fair Use Exception, 2018 Seattle University School of Law
"Distinctive Sounds": A Critique Of The Transformative Fair Use Test In Practice And The Need For A New Music Fair Use Exception, Kristin Bateman
Seattle University Law Review
The Constitution gives Congress the power “[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” resulting in our modern regime of patent, trademark, and copyright law. Over time, however, this artistic tradition of copying has collided with more modern concepts of intellectual property rights, especially copyright protections. The advent of the internet as well as state-of-the-art recording and mixing software has vastly increased opportunities to copy, remix, sample, parody, and otherwise alter the work of other artists, particularly musicians. More than twenty years after Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, transformative fair use has become the predominant test courts have used to …
Call Me, Beep Me, If Ya Wanna Reach Me -- Unless I Might Be Driving: An Analysis Of Sender Liability And Why Pennsylvania Should Not Hold Citizens Responsible For Car Accidents Caused By The Drivers They Text, 2018 Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law
Call Me, Beep Me, If Ya Wanna Reach Me -- Unless I Might Be Driving: An Analysis Of Sender Liability And Why Pennsylvania Should Not Hold Citizens Responsible For Car Accidents Caused By The Drivers They Text, Michaela Cronin
Villanova Law Review
No abstract provided.
Who's Afraid Of Swiss Cheese? Resolving The Copyright Claims Of Non-Coauthors, 2018 Seattle University School of Law
Who's Afraid Of Swiss Cheese? Resolving The Copyright Claims Of Non-Coauthors, D. Sean West
Seattle University Law Review SUpra
No abstract provided.
Curtailing Online Service Provider Immunity From Liability: An Advocacy For The Entension Of Roommates.Com, 2018 Seattle University School of Law
Curtailing Online Service Provider Immunity From Liability: An Advocacy For The Entension Of Roommates.Com, Corey Patton
Seattle University Law Review
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) was enacted following the controversial decision in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Servs. Co., where an interactive computer service provider was held liable for a libelous message posted by a user on one of its financial message boards. The court determined that the service provider was a “publisher” of the libelous message for the purposes of state law because it had engaged in screening and moderating of other objectionable posts on its message boards but failed to remove the libelous message in question. Because the service provider voluntarily self-policed some of the …
Remnants Of Net Neutrality: Policing Unlawful Content Through Broadband Providers, 2018 Brooklyn Law School
Remnants Of Net Neutrality: Policing Unlawful Content Through Broadband Providers, Aaron Lerman
Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law
The 2015 Open Internet Order, released by The Federal Communication Commission (FCC), introduced sweeping, new rules that promised to preserve an equal and open Internet to consumers. These rules, otherwise known as “Net Neutrality,” prohibited broadband and internet service providers from impairing, blocking, or throttling access to “lawful content” online. But with a new administration and agenda, the FCC’s 2017 Restoring Internet Freedom Order repealed Net Neutrality. Since then, various states have pushed back against the repeal, with some adopting their own versions of the 2015 Open Internet Order’s Net Neutrality, keeping most of the rule language intact, including the …