Media, Technology, and the First Amendment

Catalog description

The right to free speech is meaningless without spaces to exercise it. Over the past decades, electronic media---broadcast radio and television, cable television, telephony, and the internet---have become critical spaces where Americans speak to and with each other. Today, being able to speak and be heard online is as important as being able to speak in parks, sidewalks, and public squares. As the Supreme Court has recognized, social media platforms "provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard," so that any citizen may "become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox." Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1737 (2017). But while the public squares of the colonies were public spaces, the social media platforms hosting much of Americans' online speech today are owned by private actors with their own First Amendment rights. And court decisions about electronic media differ significantly from the precedents governing leaflets, pickets, soapboxes, and flag burning that dominated the twentieth century. This class complements the law school's general First Amendment class by focusing on precedents governing speech on electronic media (broadcast, cable, telephony, and the internet) and what they mean for free speech in the digital age. The answer is hotly debated by policy makers, scholars, and courts. As Justice Alito noted in his recent dissent when the Supreme Court put Texas' social media law back on hold, "It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies." In this course, we will take on that thorny task. We will grapple with questions such as: Why can comedians swear on Netflix or cable TV, but not on broadcast TV? Can politicians or government officials block Americans…