Law Commons^™

Beyond Section 230 Liability For Facebook, Nancy S. Kim

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In October 2021, a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, publicly revealed that the company's internal research documented harms that its products caused some of its users. The company’s response was sadly predictable. It questioned the reliability of Haugen’s testimony, asserted its commitment to doing the right thing, and then diverted the public’s attention by changing its name to Meta. The company’s deny-and-distract tactics were, by now, all too familiar and provided few answers.

More than any other platform company, Facebook has found itself at the center of controversy. Its advertisement-supported business model relies upon user engagement which means that …

Of Systems Thinking And Straw Men, Kate Klonick

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

In Content Moderation as Systems Thinking, Professor Evelyn Douek, as the title suggests, endorses an approach to the people, rules, and processes governing online speech as one not of anecdote and doctrine but of systems thinking. She constructs this concept as a novel and superior understanding of the problems of online-speech governance as compared to those existent in what she calls the “standard [scholarly] picture of content moderation.” This standard picture of content moderation — which is roughly five years old — is “outdated and incomplete,” she argues. It is preoccupied with anecdotal, high-profile adjudications in which platforms …

A Potential Status Update For The Visual Artists Rights Act: The Role Of Social Media Response In Judicial Analysis Of Recognized Stature, Olivia Calamia

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In 2020, visual artists used the power and reach of social media platforms to share works of art inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, which experienced renewed vigor following the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Many of these works have taken the form of murals painted on city streets, building faces, and other spaces that promote public viewing. Many artists hope that their works will endure long past this moment of social and political reckoning. Manhattan based artist Amir Diop expressed his wishes simply but eloquently: “My hope is that [my art] is a …

Big Tech Is Why I Have (Anti)Trust Issues, Sophie Copenhaver

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

“There is a cost to bigness, even if it’s not passed onto the consumer.” Antitrust laws were once an effective tool to break up companies that had grown too large. However, subsequent rulings have altered their original meaning, and they are no longer useful in regulating large technology companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google. This Note will argue that judicial interpretation of antitrust laws should no longer be governed by the consumer welfare standard. Rather, judges should apply a two-part test, focusing on the market power and any anticompetitive business practices of the defendant corporation.

Pandora’S Loot Box, Sheldon Evans

Faculty Publications

The emerging trend of loot boxes in video game platforms continues to expand the shifting boundaries between the real and virtual world and presents unique insights into the impact each world should have on the other. Borrowing their design from the gambling industry, loot boxes operate as a hybrid between slot machines and trading cards. A consumer pays real-world money to buy a virtual box without knowing its contents. Upon opening the box, the consumer receives a virtual good that may be of great value, but more commonly is of little or no value.

This Article contributes a novel theory …

Review Law: New York Defamation Applied To Online Consumer Reviews, Ian Lewis-Slammon

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In early July 2017, Michelle Levine booked her first and only appointment with gynecologist Dr. Joon Song for an annual exam. Ms. Levine had a dissatisfying experience with the office. She claims that Dr. Song’s office did not follow up with her for almost a month, and that when she called to ask about the results of a blood test, Dr. Song’s staff falsely informed her that she tested positive for herpes. To top it off, Ms. Levine alleges that the office overcharged her. Following this experience, Ms. Levine did what many others do when dissatisfied with a product …

Protecting Consumers In The Age Of The Internet Of Things, Nicole Smith

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

IoT devices are an ever-increasing force of nature in our daily lives. They provide a multitude of essential benefits that we as a society have come to rely on. Thus, IoT devices are likely to continue to become irreplaceable tools. With the many benefits that these devices bring, they also bring a vast array of privacy and security issues that our society has not had to face until recently. Because of the new and prevalent risks associated with the IoT and because of the increasing harms to consumers, it is time for Congress to enact an IoT-specific data privacy …

The (Possibly) Injured Consumer: Standing In Data Breach Litigation, Lauren M. Lozada

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note will address the question of what factors a prospective plaintiff must display to “push [a] threatened injury of future identity theft beyond the speculative to the sufficiently imminent.” Part I will delve into relevant statistics to identify the characteristics of a data breach that most often lead to eventual identity theft. Part II will explore recent data breach standing cases and analyze the factual differences and legal perspectives that have led to disparate results among the federal circuits. Lastly, Part III will recommend a method for evaluating future data breach standing issues.

The Facebook Oversight Board: Creating An Independent Institution To Adjudicate Online Free Expression, Kate Klonick

Faculty Publications

For a decade and a half, Facebook has dominated the landscape of digital social networks, becoming one of the most powerful arbiters of online speech. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, over two billion users leverage the platform to post, share, discuss, react to, and access content from all over the globe. Through a system of semipublic rules called “Community Standards,” Facebook has created a body of “laws” and a system of governance that dictate what users may say on the platform. In recent years, as this intricately built system to dispatch the company’s immense private power over …

Protecting Personal Data: A Model Data Security And Breach Notifications Statute, Michael Bloom

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that current law is inadequate to protect consumers in light of the prevalence and severity of data breaches in recent years, and that a unifying federal legislation combining portions of state law and the DSBNA should be enacted. Part I of this Note analyzes the DSBNA for notification requirements when data breaches occur, the requirements for the implementation of security policies, regulatory mechanisms for monitoring compliance with these requirements, and criminal penalties for failing to comply. Part II summarizes the various state laws that exist for notification of data breaches. Part III proposes a model federal …

Combating Fake News In Social Media: U.S. And German Legal Approaches, Ryan Kraski

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

When asking how fake news in social media can be combated under U.S. and German law, one must first take the systems’ most fundamental differences into consideration. U.S. law is characterized by its federal structure, the interaction of state laws often with the federal, U.S. Constitution, usage of pretrial discovery, as well as the role of juries in calculating damages. In contrast, Germany, as a civil law system, is characterized by its usage of separate legal actions to acquire information, lack of pretrial discovery, and broader array of available remedies, none of which allow for punitive damages. Through a …

The Save Act Of 2015: Congress' Attempt To Reprioritize Online Child Sex Trafficking, Ashley A. Cardenas

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note argues that the SAVE Act will not achieve Congress’ goal of prosecuting website operators and stopping the influx of online child sex trafficking advertisements. However, the potential pitfalls of this legislation does not mean the Act should be thrown out in its entirety. Instead, the Act should be rewritten to include well-crafted, yet informative definitions of online child sex trafficking, while also lowering the mens rea requirement and requiring website operators to engage in more due diligence.

Part I outlines the background of Internet sex trafficking in general. Section A discusses the parties involved in online child …

New Wine, Old Wineskins: Emerging Issues In Internet-Based Personal Jurisdiction, Jeffrey Hunter Moon, Esq.

The Catholic Lawyer

No abstract provided.

Too Much Information!: The Need For Stronger Privacy Protection For The Online Activities Of Employees And Applicants, Ralph Carter

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

Re-Shaming The Debate: Social Norms, Shame, And Regulation In An Internet Age, Kate Klonick

Faculty Publications

Advances in technological communication have dramatically changed the ways in which social norm enforcement is used to constrain behavior. Nowhere is this more powerfully demonstrated than through current events around online shaming and cyber harassment. Low cost, anonymous, instant, and ubiquitous access to the Internet has removed most—if not all—of the natural checks on shaming. The result is norm enforcement that is indeterminate, uncalibrated, and often tips into behavior punishable in its own right—thus generating a debate over whether the state should intervene to curb online shaming and cyber harassment.

A few years before this change in technology, a group …

Cutting Out The Middleman: Why "Look And Feel" Should Be Ignored In Trade Dress Law, Nicholas Dimarino

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Part I of this Note discusses the background and elements of general trade dress law. Part II discusses the narrower issue of "look and feel" in the context of websites and outlines how courts have currently addressed the "look and feel" issue. Part III proposes that courts ignore the artificial "look and feel" distinction and instead apply normal trade dress analyses and elements. This solution, which requires that courts adhere to a workable standard that serves the underlying purpose of trade dress law, allows recognition of the distinctive characteristics of website trade dress claims, while reducing the risk of …

A New Taxonomy For Online Harms, Kate Klonick

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Bullying is generally understood among academics and educators as having to meet three criteria: (1) it must be verbal or physical aggression; (2) it must be repeated over time; and (3) it must involve a power differential. When talking about cyber bullying, the aggression is mostly verbal, using “threats, blackmail. . . gossip and rumors” and online personas or messages can be more cruel, vindictive and mean. Though cyber bullying typically describes acts between children, the same acts by adults could also be considered cyber harassment. Unlike harassment, however, bullying does not have a history of criminal liability—though all …