Computer Law Commons^™

Regulating Manipulative Design Is Not Preempted By Cda 230 Or The First Amendment, Brett Frischmann, Peter Ormerod

Faculty Publications

For over two decades, there has been a heated debate among legal scholars, activists, judges, and others about the scope of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. A persistent theme in those debates has been hyperbolic claims about the necessity of immunity from state laws for digital tech platforms and fearmongering that anything less than maximum immunity will destroy the Internet.

This Article argues that states retain considerable discretion to regulate digital platforms’ design and engineering decisions. We argue that manipulation, engineered behavior, and even habituation and normalization of engineered behavior by digital platforms are content-agnostic harms attributable to …

Courts, Science, And The Problem Of Accountable Knowledge: A Review Of Judicial Policy Making, Empirical Data And Scientific Evidence: Can Courts Manage The Twenty-First Century?, Rishabh Kachroo

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

This review reads Rob van Gestel, Jurgen de Poorter, and Edward L. Rubin’s edited volume titled Judicial Policy Making, Empirical Data and Scientific Evidence: Can Courts Manage the Twenty-First Century? as a timely intervention into the evidentiary and institutional demands placed on contemporary courts. It argues that the volume’s key contribution lies in treating courts as knowledge institutions and its strongest suit lies in showing the limits of judicial intuition, anecdote, and inherited legal categories in dealing with such disputes. While the volume is left wanting in its account of knowledge accountability, it would nonetheless be important for scholars of …

Learning From Lochner: When Children Are Harmed By Technological Revolutions, Brooke Hodson Davies

Utah Law Review

Drawing on parallels from child labor reform in the Second Industrial Revolution, this Note argues that stopping Big Tech’s harm to children in the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires Congressional legislation and judicial avoidance of Lochnerian approaches to the Constitution. Like its Big Business predecessors, today Big Tech maximizes profits by harming kids, necessitating government intervention of this market failure. Despite noble attempts, state-based efforts have been rendered relatively ineffective due to legislative non-uniformity, interstate competition, and enforcement limitations. Likewise, federal regulations currently in place fall short and even shield Big Tech from liability. Consequently, Congressional action is urgently needed. Critically, …

Aligning Artificial Intelligence To The Law, Jack Boeglin

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Nanosecond Policies: Comparing Us And Chinese Approaches To High-Frequency Trading Regulation, Bilal Laghari

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

High frequency trading has transformed global financial markets, introducing both efficiency gains and significant regulatory concerns. This Note analyzes the divergent approaches of the United States and China in regulating high frequency trading, focusing on how each system addresses issues of market manipulation, information asymmetry, and systemic risk. It contends that the United States’ reliance on outdated and indirect regulatory mechanisms, such as Regulation NMS, has failed to keep pace with technological advancements. In contrast, China’s more recent and targeted regulatory framework provides clearer guidance and stronger oversight of high frequency trading practices. This Note concludes that a hybrid approach, …

Can Technology Augment Order Writing Capacity At Regulators?, Natasha Aggarwal, Amrutha Desikan, Bhavin Patel, Satyavrat Bondre, Dipyaman Sanyal

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

This article critically examines the opportunities and challenges of using technology, in particular Large Language Models (‘LLMs’), to assist regulatory order writing in quasi-judicial settings in India. It proposes augmenting rather than replacing human decision-makers, aiming to improve regulatory order writing practice through responsible use of LLMs. This article identifies the core principles of administrative law that must be upheld in these settings and analyses how inherent limitations of LLMs may undermine these principles. The article reviews international frameworks and case studies from various jurisdictions, highlighting common design principles. It proposes a comprehensive Problem-Solution-Evaluation ('PSE') framework for responsibly integrating LLMs …

Table Of Contents

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Volume 49 Masthead

Seattle University Law Review

Volume 49 Masthead

Reimagining Legal Education: The Transformative Power Of Small-Group Instruction, Michael I. Meyerson

Seattle University Law Review

Legal education is failing its students. Those entering their first year of law school have greater anxiety and less developed reading and writing skills than ever before. The traditional large Socratic class, which was never the most effective teaching method, has become increasingly counterproductive.

This Article contends that small-group instruction provides the opportunity for superior teaching, especially for first-year law students. Recent scholarship in active learning, educational psychology, and students’ mental health demonstrates the limitations of the traditional large Socratic class experience. Building on that theoretical foundation and informed by sustained classroom experience, this Article argues that small-group pedagogy more …

Land Without Legacy: The Case For Market-Based Appraisals On Hawaiian Home Lands, Alexis C. Owens

Seattle University Law Review

The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 (HHCA) was enacted to restore Native Hawaiians to ancestral lands and promote long term economic self-sufficiency. More than a century later, that promise remains unfulfilled. This Note argues that a central but overlooked barrier lies in the HHCA’s mandated use of the replacement cost appraisal method, which systematically undervalues homestead properties by excluding market forces. In one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States, this approach suppresses home equity, the primary means of intergenerational wealth building, and restricts beneficiaries’ access to credit and financial stability. By severing the connection between …

International Law’S Forgotten Refugees—Palestinian Refugees In Egypt

Seattle University Law Review

This Article examines the legal and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian refugees who have fled to Egypt amidst the ongoing violence in Gaza. While escaping active conflict, these refugees face systemic barriers to employment and education, rendering their living conditions precarious and unsustainable. The unique legal status of Palestinian refugees stems from the fact that they have been excluded from the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, leaving them without any meaningful international protection. This exclusion is rooted in the political complexities of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and reflects a fragmented legal framework that prioritizes limited humanitarian aid over …

Veiled Justice: Secularism And The Hijab Across Democracies, Mohamed ‘Arafa

Seattle University Law Review

For much of 2022, Iran was gripped by widespread protests led by women who openly challenged the regime’s authority, particularly its compulsory veiling laws, following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Women around the globe came around and showed solidarity with the women in Iran. However, in non-Islamic countries and societies, one can still make out many prejudices and stereotyping connected to the question of whether and to what extent veiling is mandatory for women according to Shārīe’ā law. Is wearing the hijab a choice, or rather, an essential religious practice that religious Muslim women need to obey? …

Rewriting The Playbook: The X’S And O’S Of The House Settlement And The Future Of Student-Athletes’ Voice In Their Compensation, Matthew K.V. Glazer

Seattle University Law Review

Since the formation of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the 1900s, collegiate athletes (student-athletes) have been prohibited from using their own name, image and likeness (NIL) for profit. But on July 1, 2021, the NCAA changed course and began allowing student-athletes to profit from their own NIL. In the past few years, U.S. college athletics have undergone significant changes, most notably introducing monetary compensation for student-athletes’ NIL. While these changes were long overdue and ultimately beneficial, they have significantly disrupted the landscape of college sports, giving rise to numerous challenges that some experts have compared to the “Wild …

Mr. Trump Goes To Washington Part Ii: A Review Of Richard Delgado's 2025, Kevin Johnson

Seattle University Law Review

Richard Delgado’s The Rodrigo Chronicles have captivated a generation of law students and legal scholars.  Mapping the terrain of race, racism, and Critical Race Theory (CRT), the skillful, and long-running narrative series stands as a testament to Delgado’s dedication to justice for all.

The Rodrigo Chronicles are simply one of Delgado’s many intellectual contributions and part of an unparalleled scholarly legacy.  As one of the founders of CRT, he produced a landmark body of scholarship –authoring the field's primary text,  making the argument for the regulation of hate speech,  forcefully challenging the Black/white binary of civil rights that long dominated …

Ai Suppression: E-Discovery Software And Brady, Jason Hartline, Liren Shan, Alec Sun, Rebecca Wexler

Faculty Scholarship

Prosecutors regularly rely on AI e-discovery software, known as technology assisted review (TAR) tools, to sort and prioritize digital evidence. These tools implicate constitutional concerns: they can either risk suppressing or help to surface exculpatory and impeachment evidence that prosecutors must disclose under the Brady due process rule. Yet doctrine, agency guidance, and scholarship offer virtually no direction on their use.

This Article examines how TAR affects Brady compliance. Using computer science simulations on synthetic data sets, we show that TAR can either hide or help to expose Brady evidence, depending on how it is configured and the configurations of …

Controlling The Narrative:Copyright’S Derivative Rights Doctrine & Semiotic Disobedience In The Age Of Ai, John Tehranian

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This Article argues that copyright’s derivative rights doctrine—long treated as a technical mechanism of market control—has operated as a powerful but underexamined tool of epistemic governance. As the doctrine’s scope has expanded, it has increasingly privileged dominant narratives while recasting resistive ones as acts of infringement. Drawing on historical and contemporary case studies—from the largely forgotten copyright disputes over the English translations of Mein Kampf and Bambi on the eve of World War II to the infamous stand-off between Wall Street’s Charging Bull and Fearless Girl statues—the Article demonstrates how derivative rights have been deployed to suppress what Sonya Katyal …

Who's Afraid Of Copyright And Ai?, Deborah R. Gerhardt

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Copyright and AI need not be a copyright no man’s land. Recent decisions by the Copyright Office have gotten so much media attention that many creators are unsure if they can secure copyright protection if they use AI as a creative tool. The proposed creative control paradigm can help us all tackle the challenge of determining when works created with the assistance of AI are copyrightable. Instead of relying on long-established nuanced precedent for protecting works generated with new technology, the Copyright Office asserts that any content generated with assistance from AI tools is unprotectable. This position is radically inconsistent …

Artificial Personhood: The Implications Of Recognizing The Legal Personhood Of Artificialintelligence, Daniel C. Borges

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Artificial intelligence (AI) is here in a big way. As society grapples with the implications of this profound new technology, the question of whether AI entities should be granted independent legal recognition, akin to human personhood, has emerged as a pivotal topic in jurisprudence. This Article explores the foundations, evolution, and implications of AI personhood, addressing philosophical perspectives, the development of personhood as a legal fiction (with specific emphasis on corporate personhood), and the need for AI personhood to counter the risks posed by rapidly developing AI technology. It defines the "AI person" as one whose legal recognition furthers a …

The Martha Wright-Reed Act: How The Fcc Took One Step Forward For Communication Equality For Deaf Individuals In Correctional Facilities And How It Could Be Expanded, Ashley Seebold

Seattle University Law Review

For decades, phone companies preyed on incarcerated individuals and their loved ones due to the lack of regulation of jail phone calls.2 In 2021, the average cost of a fifteen-minute jail phone call was about $3.3 In 2022, the average cost rose to $5.74, while some individuals faced an extreme charge of $24.82 for the same amount of time.4 In the early 2000s, consumer advocate and concerned grandmother Martha Wright-Reed called upon the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to fix the imbalance so she could speak to her incarcerated grandson.5 Eventually, in 2023, the FCC answered her call to action and …

How The Dod Discourages Military Families From Seeking Mental Health Counseling, Christina Welch

Seattle University Law Review

The Department of Defense’s (DoD) administration of the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) presents significant barriers to mental health care access for military spouses and children. This paper explores how the EFMP, though designed to support military families with special needs, inadvertently creates barriers to mental health treatment. Military family members often do not seek mental health treatment to avoid the program's mandatory enrollment requirements. Military family members often view enrollment in the program undesirable because enrollment can restrict the pool of potential future duty assignment locations that are available to service members.

The lack of comprehensive data collection by …