Law Commons^™

Regulating Social Media Through Family Law, Katharine B. Silbaugh, Adi Caplan-Bricker

Faculty Scholarship

Social media afflicts minors with depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, addiction, suicidality, and eating disorders. States are legislating at a breakneck pace to protect children. Courts strike down every attempt to intervene on First Amendment grounds. This Article clears a path through this stalemate by leveraging two underappreciated frameworks: the latent regulatory power of parental authority arising out of family law, and a hidden family law within First Amendment jurisprudence. These two projects yield novel insights. First, the recent cases offer a dangerous understanding of the First Amendment, one that should not survive the family law reasoning we provide. First Amendment jurisprudence …

The New Pornography Wars, Julie A. Dahlstrom

Faculty Scholarship

The world’s largest online pornography conglomerate, MindGeek, has come under fire for the publishing of “rape videos,” child pornography, and nonconsensual pornography on its website, Pornhub. As in the “pornography wars” of the 1970s and 1980s, lawyers and activists have now turned to civil remedies and filed creative anti-trafficking lawsuits against MindGeek and third parties, like payment processing company, Visa. These lawsuits seek not only to achieve legal accountability for online sex trafficking but also to reframe a broader array of online harms as sex trafficking.

This Article explores what these new trafficking lawsuits mean for the future regulation of …

January 6, Ambiguously Inciting Speech, And The Overt-Acts Rule, Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

A prosecution of Donald Trump for his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol would have to address whether the First Amendment protects the inflammatory remarks he made at the “Stop the Steal” rally. A prosecution based solely on the content of Trump’s speech—whether for incitement, insurrection, or obstruction—would face serious constitutional difficulties under Brandenburg v. Ohio’s dual requirements of intent and likely imminence. But a prosecution need not rely solely on the content of Trump’s speech. It can also look to Trump’s actions: his order to the remove the magnetometers from the entrances to the rally and …

Four Privacy Stories And Two Hard Cases, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

In the context of reviewing Scott Skinner's book "Privacy at the Margins" (Cambridge University Press, 2021), this article discusses four "privacy stories" (justifications for and explanation of the application of privacy law) that need substantiation and reinterpretation for the 21st century and for what I call "fourth generation" privacy law and scholarship. The article then considers these stories (and Skinner's analysis of them) in light of two "hard" cases, one he discusses in his book and one recently decided by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, both concerning privacy in taking and dissemination of photographs.

Obergefell, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Fulton, And Public-Private Partnerships: Unleashing V. Harnessing 'Armies Of Compassion' 2.0?, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia presented a by-now familiar constitutional claim: recognizing civil marriage equality—the right of persons to marry regardless of gender—inevitably and sharply conflicts with the religious liberty of persons and religious institutions who sincerely believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. While the Supreme Court’s 9-0 unanimous judgment in favor of Catholic Social Services (CSS) surprised Court-watchers, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion did not signal consensus on the Court over how best to resolve the evident conflicts raised by the contract between CSS and the City of Philadelphia. This article argues that it …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars In Support Of Equality In Support Of Respondents, Fulton V. City Of Philadelpha, Kyle Velte, David Cruz, Michael Higdon, Anthony Michael Kreis, Shirley Lin, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

This Brief of Amici Curiae Legal Scholars in Support of Equality in Support of Respondents filed in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia addresses the propriety of an analogy to race discrimination in public accommodation cases involving sexual orientation discrimination. The race analogy in sexual orientation cases proceeds as follows: Advocates and judges widely agree that courts should, and would, reject a religious exemption claim by a public accommodation—such a foster care agency—seeking to turn away an African-American or interracial couple based on the public accommodation’s religious beliefs that Blacks are inferior to whites or that the races should not mix. …

Deep Fakes: A Looming Challenge For Privacy, Democracy, And National Security, Danielle K. Citron, Robert Chesney

Faculty Scholarship

Harmful lies are nothing new. But the ability to distort reality has taken an exponential leap forward with “deep fake” technology. This capability makes it possible to create audio and video of real people saying and doing things they never said or did. Machine learning techniques are escalating the technology’s sophistication, making deep fakes ever more realistic and increasingly resistant to detection. Deep-fake technology has characteristics that enable rapid and widespread diffusion, putting it into the hands of both sophisticated and unsophisticated actors. While deep-fake technology will bring with it certain benefits, it also will introduce many harms. The marketplace …

Intermediaries And Private Speech Regulation: A Transatlantic Dialogue - Workshop Report, Tiffany Li

Faculty Scholarship

The Wikimedia/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information (WIII) at Yale Law School has released a comprehensive report synthesizing key insights from intermediary liability and online speech and expression experts in Europe and the United States.

The report focuses on the critical but complicated issue of private speech regulation on the internet and the connections between platform liability laws and fundamental rights, including free expression. The report reflects discussions held at “Intermediaries & Private Speech Regulation: A Transatlantic Dialogue,” an invitation-only workshop convened by WIII, featuring leading internet law experts from the United States and Europe.

This report highlights …

The Upside Of Deep Fakes, Jessica Silbey, Woodrow Hartzog

Faculty Scholarship

It’s bad. We know. The dawn of “deep fakes” — convincing videos and images of people doing things they never did or said — puts us all in jeopardy in several different ways. Professors Bobby Chesney and Danielle Citron have noted that now “false claims — even preposterous ones — can be peddled with unprecedented success today thanks to a combination of social media ubiquity and virality, cognitive biases, filter bubbles, and group polarization.” The scholars identify a host of harms from deep fakes, ranging from people being exploited, extorted, and sabotaged, to societal harms like the erosion of democratic …

Digitizing Brandenburg: Common Law Drift Toward A Causal Theory Of Imminence, J. Remy Green

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s Brandenburg v. Ohio test provides an exception to the First Amendment’s broad guarantee of freedom of speech. Where speech is (1) directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action, and (2) is likely to incite or produce such action, the First Amendment withdraws its promise of protection. Thus, where the “imminence” of lawless action cannot be shown, free speech cannot be restricted. Since Brandenburg, Courts have applied a test for imminence that turns on proximity in space and in time — that is, the test evaluates how spatiotemporally imminent lawless activity is. In this Article, I argue …

The Problem Isn't Just Backpage: Revising Section 230 Immunity, Danielle K. Citron, Benjamin Wittes

Faculty Scholarship

Backpage is a classifieds hub that hosts “80 percent of the online advertising for illegal commercial sex in the United States.” This is not by happenstance but rather by design. Evidence suggests that the advertising hub selectively removed postings discouraging sex trafficking. The site also tailored its rules to protect the practice from detection, including allowing anonymized email and photographs stripped of metadata. Under the prevailing interpretation of 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”) of the CDA, however, Backpage would be immune from liability connected to sex trafficking even though it proactively helped sex traffickers from getting caught. No matter …

Four Principles For Digital Expression (You Won't Believe #3!), Danielle K. Citron, Neil Richards

Faculty Scholarship

At the dawn of the Internet’s emergence, the Supreme Court rhapsodized about its potential as a tool for free expression and political liberation. In ACLU v. Reno (1997), the Supreme Court adopted a bold vision of Internet expression to strike down a federal law - the Communications Decency Act - that restricted digital expression to forms that were merely “decent.” Far more than the printing press, the Court explained, the mid-90s Internet enabled anyone to become a town crier. Communication no longer required the permission of powerful entities. With a network connection, the powerless had as much luck reaching a …

Extremist Speech, Compelled Conformity, And Censorship Creep, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

Silicon Valley has long been viewed as a full-throated champion of First Amendment values. The dominant online platforms, however, have recently adopted speech policies and processes that depart from the U.S. model. In an agreement with the European Commission, tech companies have pledged to respond to reports of hate speech within twenty-four hours, a hasty process that may trade valuable expression for speedy results. Plans have been announced for an industry database that will allow the same companies to share hashed images of banned extremist content for review and removal elsewhere.

These changes are less the result of voluntary market …

The Internet Will Not Break: Denying Bad Samaritans Section 230 Immunity, Danielle K. Citron, Benjamin Wittes

Faculty Scholarship

What do a revenge pornographer, gossip-site curator, and platform pairing predators with young people in one-on-one chats have in common? Blanket immunity from liability, thanks to lower courts’ interpretation of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) beyond what the text, context, and purpose support. The CDA was part of a campaign — rather ironically in retrospect — to restrict access to sexually explicit material online. Lawmakers thought they were devising a safe harbor for online providers engaged in self-regulation. The CDA’s origins in the censorship of “offensive” material are inconsistent with outlandishly broad interpretations that have served to …

Tip Of The Iceberg Ii: How The Intended-Uses Principle Produces Medical Knowledge And Protects Liberty, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, the Food and Drug Administration’s pre-market approval process has come under increasing scrutiny as an infringement on liberty and a regulation of speech. In the first part of this symposium contribution, we offer a case study of Seroquel XR, showing how the FDA’s premarket approval process – and the restrictions on “off-label” promotion in particular – caused the drug company to produce and disseminate knowledge about safety and efficacy for new uses. The law successfully resolved the collective action problem of producing knowledge, even while the law protected the liberty of individual doctors and patients to use …

The Tip Of The Iceberg: A First Amendment Right To Promote Drugs Off-Label, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars, advocates, and courts have begun to recognize a First Amendment right for the makers of drugs and medical devices to promote their products “off-label,” without proving safety and efficacy of new intended uses. Yet, so far, this debate has occurred in a vacuum of peculiar cases, where convoluted commercial speech doctrine underdetermines the outcome. Juxtaposing these cases against other routine prosecutions of those who peddle unapproved drugs reveals the common legal regime at issue. Review of the seven arguments deployed in the off-label domain finds that, if they were valid, they would undermine the FDA’s entire premarket approval regime. …

Defining Hate Speech, Andrew Sellars

Faculty Scholarship

There is no shortage of opinions about what should be done about hate speech, but if there is one point of agreement, it is that the topic is ripe for rigorous study. But just what is hate speech, and how will we know it when we see it online? For all of the extensive literature about the causes, harms, and responses to hate speech, few scholars have endeavored to systematically define the term. Where other areas of content analysis have developed rich methodologies to account for influences like context or bias, the present scholarship around hate speech rarely extends beyond …

Informed Consent And The First Amendment, Wendy K. Mariner, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

For more than two decades, states have been adding to the things that physicians must say and do to obtain “informed consent” — and thereby testing the constitutional limits of states' power to regulate medical practice. In 1992, the Supreme Court upheld states' authority to require physicians to provide truthful information that might encourage a woman to reconsider her decision to have an abortion, finding that such a requirement did not place an “undue burden” on the woman.

Addressing Cyber Harassment: An Overview Of Hate Crimes In Cyberspace, Danielle K. Citron

Faculty Scholarship

This short piece will take a step back and give an overhead view of the problem of cyber harassment and the destructive impact it can have on victims’ lives. Then, it will address about what the law can do to combat online harassment and how a legal agenda can be reconciled with the First Amendment. Finally, it will turn to recent changes in social media companies’ treatment of online abuse and what that might mean for our system of free expression.

The Semiotics Of Film In Us Supreme Court Cases, Jessica Silbey, Meghan Hayes Slack

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores the treatment of film as a cultural object among varied legal subject matter in US Supreme Court jurisprudence. Film is significant as an object or industry well beyond its incarnation as popular media. Its role in law – even the highest level of US appellate law – is similarly varied and goes well beyond the subject of a copyright case (as a moving picture) or as an evidentiary proffer (as a video of a criminal confession). This chapter traces the discussion of film in US Supreme Court cases in order to map the wide-ranging and diverse ­relations …

When Truth Cannot Be Presumed: The Regulation Of Drug Promotion Under An Expanding First Amendment, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) requires that, prior to marketing a drug, the manufacturer must prove that it is safe and effective for the manufacturer’s intended uses, as shown on the proposed label. Nonetheless, physicians may prescribe drugs for other “off-label” uses, and often do so. Still, manufacturers have not been allowed to promote the unproven uses in advertisements or sales pitches.

This regime is now precarious due to an onslaught of scholarly critiques, a series of Supreme Court decisions that enlarge the First Amendment, and a landmark court of appeals decision holding that the First Amendment precludes …

First Amendment Protection For Union Appeals To Consumers, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

This article explains why decisions of the National Labor Relations Board under President Obama holding non-picketing secondary appeals to consumers not to be illegal under the National Labor Relations Act were necessary under a 1988 decision of the Supreme Court, Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Florida Gulf Coast Building & Construction Trades Council. The article also explains why both the Supreme Court decision and the Board’s recent decisions were compelled by the first amendment and could not be based on the language of § 8(b)(4)(ii)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act as interpreted by the Court in other cases. The …

Religious And Political Virtues And Values In Congruence Or Conflict?: On Smith, Bob Jones University, And Christian Legal Society, Linda C. Mcclain

Faculty Scholarship

A basic tension in the U.S. constitutional and political order exists between two important ideas about the relationship between civil society and the state: (1) families, religious institutions, voluntary associations, and other groups are foundational sources, or “seedbeds,” of virtues and values that undergird constitutional democracy, and (2) these same institutions guard against governmental orthodoxy and overweening governmental power by generating their own distinctive virtues and values and by being independent locations of power and authority. The first idea envisions a comfortable congruence between civil society and government: the values and virtues - and habits and skills - cultivated in …

The Money Blind: How To Stop Industry Bias In Biomedical Science, Without Violating The First Amendment, Christopher Robertson

Faculty Scholarship

The pharmaceutical and medical device industries use billions of dollars to support the biomedical science that physicians, regulators, and patients use to make healthcare decisions—the decisions that drive an increasingly large portion of the American economy. Compelling evidence suggests that this industry money buys favorable results, biasing the outcomes of scientific research. Current efforts to manage the problem, including disclosure mandates and peer reviews, are ineffective. A blinding mechanism, operating through an intermediary such as the National Institutes of Health, could instead be developed to allow industry support of science without allowing undue influence. If the editors of biomedical journals …

Draft Of Beck Lecture - 2010, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

I am grateful to the wonderful BU community that has taught me so much, and to those who made this event possible. I thank Dean O'Rourke for hosting this wonderful event, Mary Gallagher, Cornell Stinson and Erin Elwood for organizing it, and I thank you all for coming. I am honored to follow Bill Ryckman in the Chair, a man I admire. Most especially I thank Phil Beck for his generosity to the Boston University School of Law in funding this Chair. It's flattering to me having been chosen its recipient, and flattering to the school that Phil chose us …

Government Speech 2.0, Danielle K. Citron, Helen Norton

Faculty Scholarship

New expressive technologies continue to transform the ways in which members of the public speak to one another. Not surprisingly, emerging technologies have changed the ways in which government speaks as well. Despite substantial shifts in how the government and other parties actually communicate, however, the Supreme Court to date has developed its government speech doctrine – which recognizes “government speech” as a defense to First Amendment challenges by plaintiffs who claim that the government has impermissibly excluded their expression based on viewpoint – only in the context of disputes involving fairly traditional forms of expression. In none of these …

From The Classroom To The Courtroom: Intelligent Design And The Constitution, Jay D. Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Although the Supreme Court of the United States has never developed a single clear test for determining what kinds of state action violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, schools that attempt to teach or introduce intelligent design as a purportedly scientific alternative to evolution likely fall afoul of the First Amendment's commands. Under the Court's most relevant precedent, Edwards v. Aguillard, teaching intelligent design violates the Establishment Clause because, among other things, there is an enormous disconnect between the purpose of teaching intelligent design and its effect. Moreover, public school teachers do not possess any First Amendment right …

Reconsidering Gobitis: An Exercise In Presidential Leadership, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

In June of 1940, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Minersville School District v. Gobitis that the First Amendment posed no barrier to the punishment of two school age Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to pay homage to the American flag. Three years later, the Justices reversed themselves in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. This sudden change has prompted a host of explanations. Some observers have stressed changes in judicial personnel in the intervening years; others have pointed to the wax and wane of general anxieties over the war; still others have emphasized the sympathy-inspiring acts of …

Second Draft Of The Public's Right To Fair Use - 2007, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Under provocative titles like "fared use" and "the end of friction," commentators argue about whether or not the doctrine of "fair use" should exist in a world of instantaneous transactions. As collecting societies like the Copyright Clearance Center become more powerful, and technologies like the internet have made it possible to purchase digital copies by clicking a mouse, the suggestion is sometimes made that fair use could or should disappear. Courts like the Second and Sixth Circuits have flirted with foreclosing fair use if a licensing market is present or possible. The presence of 'traditional, reasonable, or likely to be …

Draft Of The Public's Right To Fair Use - 2007, Wendy J. Gordon

Scholarship Chronologically

Under provocative titles like "fared use" and "the end of friction," commentators argue about whether or not the doctrine of "fair use" should exist in a world of instantaneous transactions. As collecting societies like the Copyright Clearance Center become more powerful, and technologies like the internet have made it possible to purchase digital copies by clicking a mouse, the suggestion is sometimes made that fair use could or should disappear. Courts like the Second and Sixth Circuits have flirted with foreclosing fair use if a licensing market is present or possible. The presence of 'traditional, reasonable, or likely to be …