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Subverting Democracy To Save Democracy: Canada’S Extra-Constitutional Approaches To Battling “Fake News”, Michael Karanicolas Dec 2019

Subverting Democracy To Save Democracy: Canada’S Extra-Constitutional Approaches To Battling “Fake News”, Michael Karanicolas

Canadian Journal of Law and Technology

Nearly a decade after the first Twitter and Facebook revolutions, the early narratives pointing to social media as a great agent of democratization1 have given way to a more nuanced understanding of the impact of the Internet on our political discourse. While there is no question that Internet access provides tremendous expressive benefits, scholars are increasingly questioning whether this information diet is ultimately healthy for society. An analogy to sugars, fats and salts has emerged, where just as an appetite for rich foods served our species well when resources were scarce, but have become a liability in an age of …


A Dangerous Concoction: Pharmaceutical Marketing, Cognitive Biases, And First Amendment Overprotection, Cynthia M. Ho Jul 2019

A Dangerous Concoction: Pharmaceutical Marketing, Cognitive Biases, And First Amendment Overprotection, Cynthia M. Ho

Indiana Law Journal

Is more information always better? First Amendment commercial speech jurisprudence takes this as a given. However, when information is only available from a self-interested and marketing-savvy pharmaceutical company, more information may simply lead to more misinformation. Notably, doctors are also misled. This can result in public health harms when companies are promoting unapproved uses of prescription drugs that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved for other purposes—commonly referred to as “off-label” uses. Contrary to judicial presumptions, as well as the presumptions of some doctors and scholars, doctors are not sophisticated enough to always discern what is true versus …


Information Mischief Under The Trump Administration, Nathan Cortez May 2019

Information Mischief Under The Trump Administration, Nathan Cortez

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The Trump administration has used government information in more cynical ways than its predecessors. For example, it has removed certain information from the public domain, scrubbed certain terminology from government web sites, censored scientists, manipulated public data, and used “transparency” initiatives as a pretext for anti-regulatory policies, particularly environmental policy. This article attempts to tease out an emerging “information policy” for the Trump administration, explain how it departs from the information policies of predecessors, and evaluate the extent to which both legal and non-legal mechanisms might constrain executive discretion.