Foundations of Internet Speech Platform Regulation

Catalog description

Internet platforms like Google and TikTok play an enormous role in our online speech and information environment today. This class will review the laws that shape platforms' decisions about online content, with a focus on intermediary liability laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Communications Decency Act Section 230 (CDA 230), and the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), and will also consider constitutional and human rights issues. The majority of course material will be from the U.S., but some will explore international models and in particular laws in the European Union. Some classes will explore the impact of related areas of law, including privacy law, and some will go beyond current legal models to explore forward-looking legislative and policy proposals. Important themes of the class include constitutional and human rights constraints on intermediary liability laws; legal limits (or lack thereof) on platforms' enforcement of privatized speech rules under their Community Guidelines or Terms of Service; global enforcement of national laws requiring platforms to remove or carry content; and tensions between the goals of intermediary liability law and those of privacy, competition, and other legal frameworks. Students will be encouraged to think pragmatically about the legal, operational, and product design choices platforms may make in response to particular laws, drawing on the instructor's experience handling such questions as Associate General Counsel in charge of Google Web Search. Student responsibilities and elements used in grading: Students will be responsible for (1) posting a TBD number of reading response comments or questions to a class discussion board (the number will be set once class size is clear but will not exceed six posts, due twelve hours before class meets on the relevant day, they can be very brief and informal); (2)…