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Full-Text Articles in Law
Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Lidsky
Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Lidsky
Faculty Publications
Incidents illustrating the incendiary capacity of social media have rekindled concerns about the "mismatch" between existing doctrinal categories and new types of dangerous speech. This Essay examines two such incidents, one in which an offensive tweet and YouTube video led a hostile audience to riot and murder, and the other in which a blogger urged his nameless, faceless audience to murder federal judges. One incident resulted in liability for the speaker even though no violence occurred; the other did not lead to liability for the speaker even though at least thirty people died as a result of his words. An …
Authorship, Audiences, And Anonymous Speech, Thomas F. Cotter, Lyrissa Lidsky
Authorship, Audiences, And Anonymous Speech, Thomas F. Cotter, Lyrissa Lidsky
Faculty Publications
A series of United States Supreme Court decisions establishes that the First Amendment provides a qualified right to speak and publish anonymously, or under a pseudonym. But the Court has never clearly defined the scope of this right. As a result, lower courts have been left with little guidance when it comes to dealing both with the Internet-fueled growth of torts and crimes committed by anonymous speakers, and with the increasing number of lawsuits aimed at silencing legitimate anonymous speech. In this Article, we provide both positive and normative foundations for a comprehensive approach to anonymous speech. We first draw …
Silencing John Doe: Defamation And Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Lidsky
Silencing John Doe: Defamation And Discourse In Cyberspace, Lyrissa Lidsky
Faculty Publications
John Doe has become a popular defamation defendant as corporations and their officers bring defamation suits for statements made about them in Internet discussion fora. These new suits are not even arguably about recovering money damages but instead are brought for symbolic reasons — some worthy, some not so worthy. If the only consequence of these suits were that Internet users were held accountable for their speech, the suits would be an unalloyed good. However, these suits threaten to suppress legitimate criticism along with intentional and reckless falsehoods, and existing First Amendment law doctrines are not responsive to the threat …