Internet Law Commons^™

How Jon Stewart And Lady Gaga Made Congress Less Lame: The Impact Of Social Media On The Passage Of Bills Through The "Lame Duck" Session Of The 111th Congress And Beyond, Onika K. Williams

Indiana Law Journal

The lame duck 111th Congress saw tremendous action in a relatively short period of time, and it was also witness to a phenomenon of social media. Users on websites such as Facebook and Twitter employed social media to send messages to their representatives and to actively participate in the lame duck session. Jon Stewart used television to advocate for Congress’s passing of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, and Lady Gaga employed Twitter to support the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Both bills subsequently passed Congress. The social media phenomenon did not end with the …

A ‘Pinteresting’ Question: Is Pinterest Here To Stay? A Study In How Ip Can Help Pinterest Lead A Revolution, Stephanie Chau

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

Bulletin boards and pushpins are archaic. Yet, each day represents a new paradigm for the technologically savvy. Innovators pair old concepts with new functionalities and technology, often achieving groundbreaking results. Digital counterparts for Post-It notes emerged for computers and other wireless devices. Other examples abound. Thus, it is no surprise that pins and boards also have new meaning in the digital age. Credit is due to the founders of Pinterest, a nascent social networking site with a devoted following, for modernizing the pin. As a newer social networking site, Pinterest has experienced unparalleled growth after its inception only a few …

Friends, Gangbangers, Custody Disputants, Lend Me Your Passwords, Aviva Orenstein

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Whenever parties seek to introduce out-of-court statements, evidentiary issues of hearsay and authentication will arise. As methods of communication expand, the Rules of Evidence must necessarily keep pace. The rules remain essentially the same, but their application vary with new modes of communication. Evidence law has been very adaptable in some ways, and notoriously conservative, even stodgy, in others. Although statements on Facebook and other social media raise some interesting questions concerning the hearsay rule and its exceptions, there has been little concern about applying the hearsay doctrine to such forms of communication. By contrast, such new media have triggered …

Decoding First Amendment Coverage Of Computer Source Code In The Age Of Youtube, Facebook And The Arab Spring, Jorge Roig

Scholarly Works

Computer source code is the lifeblood of the Internet. It is also the brick and mortar of cyberspace. As such, it has been argued that the degree of control that a government can wield over code can be a powerful tool for controlling new technologies. With the advent and proliferation in the Internet of social networking media and platforms for the publication and sharing of user-generated content, the ability of individuals across the world to communicate with each other has reached truly revolutionary dimensions. The influence of Facebook in the popular revolutions of the Arab Spring has been well documented. …

Public Forum 2.0, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Social media have the potential to revolutionize discourse between American citizens and their governments. At present, however, the U.S. Supreme Court's public forum jurisprudence frustrates rather than fosters that potential. This article navigates the notoriously complex body of public forum doctrine to provide guidance for those who must develop or administer government-sponsored social media or adjudicate First Amendment questions concerning them. Next, the article marks out a new path for public forum doctrine that will allow it to realize the potential of Web 2.0 technologies to enhance democratic discourse between the governors and the governed. Along the way, this article …

Incendiary Speech And Social Media, Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky

UF Law 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 …

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 …

Rethinking Reasonable Expectations Of Privacy In Online Social Networks, Bryce Clayton Newell

Richmond Journal of Law & Technology

In 1890, Warren and Brandeis “invented” the common law right to privacy in the United States. They declared the need for a right to privacy – “to be let alone” – because technological advancements (photography) and business methods (yellow journalism) enabled the media to bring previously private details to the attention of a much larger audience. Warren and Brandeis declared, “[i]nstantaneous photographs and newspaper enterprise have invaded the sacred precincts of private and domestic life; and numerous mechanical devices threaten to make good the prediction that ‘what is whispered in the closet shall be proclaimed from the house-tops.’” Because of …

Social Networking And Land Use Planning And Regulation: Practical Benefits, Pitfalls And Ethical Considerations, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

This article explores how social networking sites have been used or might be used in the land use context. Part I focuses on the use of social networking for land use planning and zoning. It includes a discussion of the pros and cons of the use of social networking sites to present public information and to gather public input and invite general participation in the process, as well as to provide notice to the public of forthcoming government decision-making. This section offers concrete examples of how this technology is currently being used in the land use context. Part II focuses …

Twittering Away The Right Of Publicity: Personality Rights And Celebrity Impersonation On Social Networking Websites, Andrew M. Jung

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Within the past couple of years, social networking websites have become an immensely popular destination for people from all walks of life. Websites like Facebook and Twitter now count tens of millions of worldwide users, including world leaders and a number of celebrities. Eventually, users realized that social networking websites lent themselves to the quick and easy impersonation of celebrities through the creation of fake social networking accounts, often as a form of parody. One subject of such impersonation was professional baseball manager Tony La Russa, who took the then-unprecedented step of suing his impersonators and Twitter over the incident. …

Privacy As Product Safety, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Online social media confound many of our familiar expectations about privacy. Contrary to popular myth, users of social software like Facebook do care about privacy, deserve it, and have trouble securing it for themselves. Moreover, traditional database-focused privacy regulations on the Fair Information Practices model, while often worthwhile, fail to engage with the distinctively social aspects of these online services.

Instead, online privacy law should take inspiration from a perhaps surprising quarter: product-safety law. A web site that directs users' personal information in ways they don't expect is a defectively designed product, and many concepts from products liability law could …

Facebook 2 Blackberry And Database Trading Systems: Morphing Social Networking To Business Growth In A Global Recession, Roger M. Groves

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Saving Facebook, James Grimmelmann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article provides the first comprehensive analysis of the law and policy of privacy on social network sites, using Facebook as its principal example. It explains how Facebook users socialize on the site, why they misunderstand the risks involved, and how their privacy suffers as a result. Facebook offers a socially compelling platform that also facilitates peer-to-peer privacy violations: users harming each others' privacy interests. These two facts are inextricably linked; people use Facebook with the goal of sharing some information about themselves. Policymakers cannot make Facebook completely safe, but they can help people use it safely.

The Article makes …

The Newest Way To Screen Job Applicants: A Social Networker's Nightmare, Carly Brandenburg

Federal Communications Law Journal

Social networking is an easy way to share information with friends, family, and the company that just offered you an interview. Employers are utilizing all of the tools available to them as they strive to hire the right people, and this means that social networkers may need to self censor in order to protect their information from falling into the wrong hands. This Note questions whether social networkers can legally expect or enjoy any right to privacy with respect to their online postings.