Law Commons^™

Is The First Amendment Obsolete?, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

The First Amendment was brought to life in a period, the twentieth century, when the political speech environment was markedly different than today’s. With respect to any given issue, speech was scarce and limited to a few newspapers, pamphlets or magazines. The law was embedded, therefore, with the presumption that the greatest threat to free speech was direct punishment of speakers by government.

Today, in the internet and social media age, it is no longer speech that is scarce – rather, it is the attention of listeners. And those who seek to control speech use new methods that rely on …

Machine Speech, Tim Wu

Faculty Scholarship

Computers are making an increasing number of important decisions in our lives. They fly airplanes, navigate traffic, and even recommend books. In the process, computers reason through automated algorithms and constantly send and receive information, sometimes in ways that mimic human expression. When can such communications, called here “algorithmic outputs,” claim First Amendment protection?

First Amendment Protection For Commercial Advertising: The New Constitutional Doctrine, Thomas W. Merrill

Faculty Scholarship

Governmental regulation of commercial advertising has become a major focus of challenges to established first amendment doctrine. An increasing number of suits have raised constitutional objections to regulations of false or deceptive advertising, regulations of offensive advertising, prohibitions of commercial advertising in certain forums, prohibitions of price advertising for particular products or services, and prohibitions of all advertising for particular products or services.' Until recently, the majority of courts upheld such regulations under the Supreme Court's ruling in Valentine v. Chrestensen that "purely commercial advertising" is unprotected by the first amendment.

In the last two years the Court has subjected …