Law Commons^™

Inside The Virtual Ambazonia: Separatism, Hate Speech , Disinformation And Diaspora In The Cameroonian Anglophone Crisis, Sombaye Eyango Jules Roger

Master's Theses

This study examines the dynamics of the anglophone separatist claims in Cameroon, the so-called “Anglophone Crisis”. I focus on explaining why the separatist claims reemerged in 2016 after being shut down for about 20 years. It explains how the Anglophone separatist revendications have sustained over time despite the extremely centralized power of the Paul Biya government.This paper first argues that the Anglophone Crisis is more than an identity struggle between Anglophone/Francophone Cameroonians, but rather a conflict about historical and institutional grievances, political competition, and regional politics involving the neighboring state of Nigeria.

Second, it verifies the hypothesis that the sustainability …

Youth Activism, Art And Transitional Artist: Emerging Spaces Of Memory After The Jasmin Revolution, Arnaud Kurze

Arnaud Kurze

This project explores the creation of alternative transitional justice spaces in post-conflict contexts, particularly concentrating on the role of art and the impact of social movements to address human rights abuses. Drawing from post-authoritarian Tunisia, it scrutinizes the work of contemporary youth activists and artists to deal with the past and foster sociopolitical change. Although these vanguard protesters provoked the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, the power vacuum was quickly filled by old elites. The exclusion of young revolutionaries from political decision-making led to unprecedented forms of mobilization to account for repression and injustice under …

Freebooting On Facebook -- Should The Social Media Giant Face Liability?, Nicholas J. Tait

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

No abstract provided.

The First Amendment In The Second Gilded Age, Jack M. Balkin

Buffalo Law Review

How do we pay for the digital public sphere? In the Second Gilded Age, the answer is primarily through digital surveillance and through finding ever new ways to make money out of personal data. Digital capitalism in the Second Gilded Age features an implicit bargain: a seemingly unlimited freedom to speak in exchange for the right to surveil and manipulate end users.To protect freedom of speech in the Second Gilded Age we must distinguish the values of free speech from the judicially created doctrines of the First Amendment. That is because the practical freedom to speak online depends on a …

Social Media Warriors: Leveraging A New Battlespace, Buddhika B. Jayamaha, Jahara Matisek

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

How Supreme A Court?, Thomas E. Kadri

Popular Media

Facebook is planning an independent appeals process for content moderation decisions. But how much power will it have?

How To Make Facebook's 'Supreme Court' Work, Kate Klonick, Thomas E. Kadri

Popular Media

The idea of a body that will decide what kind of content is allowed on the site is promising — but only if it’s done right.

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 Law Of Advertising Outrage, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

This article examines the stimulation of audience outrage, both as a marketing strategy and as a subject of legal regulation. A brief history of advertising in the United States reveals repeated yet relatively infrequent attempts to attract consumer attention through overt transgressions of social norms relating to sex, violence, race, and religion. Natural concerns over audience reaction limited use of this particular advertising tactic as businesses needed to be careful not to alienate prospective purchasers. But now companies can engage in “algorithmic outrage”—social media advertising meant to stimulate individual feelings of anger and upset—with less concern for a consumer backlash. …

Trafficking Technology: A Look At Different Approaches To Ending Technology-Facilitated Human Trafficking, David Barney

Pepperdine Law Review

In 2018, many believe that slavery is an antiquated concept. But as with anything else, if it has not become extinct, it has evolved with time. Human trafficking is no different. Each year, millions of men, women and children are trafficked in the United States, and internationally, and forced to work against their will. Through the rise of technology and an increasingly globalized world, traffickers have learned to use technology as a tool to help facilitate the trafficking of persons and to sell those victims to others they never could have reached before. But what are we doing about it? …

Let's Teach Our Students Legal Technology... But What Should We Include?, Randy J. Diamond, Darin Fox, Kenneth J. Hirsh, Heidi Frostestad Kuehl, Michael Robak

Faculty Publications

A "renaissance” is often described as a cultural rebirth, a movement ushering in a modern age and leaving behind the old ways of doing things. There is every indication that we are entering a technology-driven renaissance in the legal profession. Artificial intelligence (AI), “big data,” document automation, e-discovery tools, cloud-based case management systems, and communication and collaboration tools are just a few of the ways that technology is transforming the practice of law in the twenty-first century.

Tinkering With Success: College Athletes, Social Media And The First Amendment, Mary Margaret Meg Penrose

Meg Penrose

Good law does not always make good policy. This article seeks to provide a legal assessment, not a policy directive. The policy choices made by individual institutions and athletic departments should be guided by law, but absolutely left to institutional discretion. Many articles written on college student-athletes’ social media usage attempt to urge policy directives clothed in constitutional analysis.

In this author’s opinion, these articles have lost perspective – constitutional perspective. This article seeks primarily to provide a legal and constitutional assessment so that schools and their athletic departments will have ample information to then make their own policy choices.

How Can Teens Be Reasonable? Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy In The Digital Age, Lori A. Hoetger

Department of Psychology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Fourth Amendment only protects against government intrusions into spaces or information that receive a reasonable expectation of privacy—a subjective expectation of privacy that society is willing to recognize as reasonable (Katz v. United States, 1967). Judges are tasked with determining when a reasonable expectation of privacy exists. But as evidenced by justices’ confusion at oral arguments in recent Supreme Court cases, judges do not always fully grasp new technology. The current dissertation aims to guide courts attempting to navigate the new terrain of expectations of privacy in wired communications.

Scholars have expressed concern over the impact the ubiquity …

Suppression Of Free Tweets: How Packingham Impacts The New Era Of Government Social Media And The First Amendment, Elise Berry

ConLawNOW

As social media popularity grows, so too does the constitutional conflicts between the First Amendment’s public forum doctrine and a public official’s social media. More and more claims of viewpoint discrimination are arising from the district courts, stemming from a public official’s use of his or her social media to delete comments or ban users from their official social media pages. Similarly, President Donald Trump’s use of his Twitter has also instigated a law suit against him for viewpoint discrimination under the public forum doctrine. While the Supreme Court has been silent on the issue, its decision in Packingham v. …

A Status Update For Texas Voir Dire: Advocating For Pre-Trial Internet Investigation Of Prospective Jurors, Luke A. Harle

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Internet provides trial attorneys an additional tool to investigate the backgrounds of prospective jurors during voir dire. Online searches of a person’s name and social media accounts can reveal information that could be used as grounds for a challenge for cause or to facilitate intelligent use of peremptory strikes. Texas lawmakers have not yet provided any official guidance as to whether attorneys can investigate prospective jurors online or how they might do so, should it be allowed. Texas’s current voir dire structure, judicial opinions, and ethics opinions, together, support the notion that Texas trial attorneys should be given opportunities …

Hearsay In The Smiley Face: Analyzing The Use Of Emojis As Evidence, Erin Janssen

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Domestic Asset Tracing And Recovery Of Hidden Assets And The Spoils Of Financial Crime, Nathan Wadlinger, Carl Pacini, Nicole Stowell, William Hopwood, Debra Sinclair

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Towards A Series Of Academic Norms For #Lawprof Twitter, Carissa Byrne Hessick

Marquette Law Review

None

Watch Or Report? Livestream Or Help? Good Samaritan Laws Revisited: The Need To Create A Duty To Report, Patricia Grande Montana

Cleveland State Law Review

In July 2017, a group of five Florida teenagers taunted a drowning disabled man while filming his death on a cell phone. In the video, the teenagers laughed and shouted harsh statements like "ain’t nobody finna to help you, you dumb bitch." At the moment the man’s head sank under the water for the very last time, one of the teenagers remarked: "Oh, he just died" before laughter ensued. None of the teenagers helped the man, nor did any of them report the drowning or his death to the authorities.

Because the Good Samaritan law in Florida, like in most …

Speech V. Speakers, Thomas E. Kadri

Popular Media

Twitter's new rules about extremist speech blur the lines between people and words.

Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel: Why It Is No Surprise That Data Scrapers Can Have Access To Public Profiles On Linkedin, Marissa Boulanger

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Media And The Government: Why It May Be Unconstitutional For Government Officials To Moderate Their Social Media, Alex Hadjian

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

User-Generated Evidence, Rebecca Hamilton

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Around the world, people are using their smartphones to document atrocities. This Article is the first to address the implications of this important development for international criminal law. While acknowledging the potential benefits such user-generated evidence could have for international criminal investigations, the Article identifies three categories of concern related to its use: (i) user security; (ii) evidentiary bias; and (iii) fair trial rights. In the absence of safeguards, user-generated evidence may address current problems in international criminal justice at the cost of creating new ones and shifting existing problems from traditional actors, who have institutional backing, to individual users …

Set Your Settings On Private? Copyright In Era Of Social Media Usage, Maddie Wagner

Cybaris®

No abstract provided.

When Whispers Enter The Cloud, Heidi H. Liu

All Faculty Scholarship

With increased awareness of workplace harassment in recent years, the idea of enhanced reporting around sexual misconduct has gained traction. As a result, several technologies – from smartphone apps to well-publicized services – have been introduced with the goals of preventing, enabling reports of, and even predicting sexual misconduct at work, school and in public. But to what extent are these technologies secure and accessible to survivors? This Note documents the existing resources and proposes a framework focusing on privacy and participation for evaluating these tools intended to benefit survivors.

Regulation By Database, Nathan Cortez

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The federal government currently publishes 195,245 searchable databases online, a number of which include information about private parties that is negative or unflattering in some way. Federal agencies increasingly publish adverse data not just to inform the public or promote transparency, but to pursue regulatory ends ⎯ to change the underlying behavior being reported. Such "regulation by database" has become a preferred method of regulation in recent years, despite scant attention from policymakers, courts, or scholars on its appropriate uses and safeguards.

This Article, then, evaluates the aspirations and burdens of regulation by database. Based on case studies of six …

Student Protests And Academic Freedom In An Age Of #Blacklivesmatter, Philip Lee

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Student activism has been part of the fabric of American higher education since the eighteenth century. Indeed, some scholars have called it "as American as apple pie." From Harvard's "Great Butter Rebellion" in 1766 when students pushed for better food to the multicultural movement of today when students have demanded increased diversity in student, staff, faculty, and curriculum, students have long pressed to have their voices heard. Continuing in this tradition, we now live in an age of student activists who, by organizing through social media, are getting more people involved in political conversations and causes than would otherwise …

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 …

Is The First Amendment Obsolete?, Tim Wu

Michigan Law Review

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 the weaponization …