The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
The revelation that Cambridge Analytica was involved in the extraction of data involving over 50 million Facebook users has raised more than a few questions about just what went wrong and who is to blame.
Next month, the Irish and British people should be celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. The agreement serves as the cornerstone of the power-sharing deal between Northern Ireland’s unionists and nationalists that helped bring an end to years of violence.
Amid the chaos of the last week, one of the most significant pieces of internet legislation of the last two decades went relatively unnoticed.
The term “hacking” has come to signify breaking into a computer system. A number of local, national, and international laws seek to hold hackers accountable for breaking into computer systems to steal information or disrupt their operation. Other laws and standards incentivize private firms to use best practices in securing computers against attack.
In a big win for free speech, the California Court of Appeal has rejected Olivia de Havilland’s right of publicity and false light claims against FX. The court’s ruling [PDF] explains that the First Amendment protects creative works about celebrities whether the work in question is fact, fiction, or a combination of both. While Hollywood will breathe a sigh of relief, the ruling should also protect other speech by ensuring that right of publicity claims are subject to meaningful First Amendment limits.
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This article is adapted from a forthcoming peer-reviewed essay in Volume 61 of the Communications of the ACM.
Self-driving cars are here. More are on their way. Major automakers and Silicon Valley giants are clamoring to develop and release fully autonomous cars to safely and efficiently chauffeur us. Some models won’t even include a steering wheel. Along with many challenges, technical and otherwise, there is one fundamental political question that is too easily brushed aside: Who decides on how transportation algorithms will make decisions about life, death and everything in between?
This is a guest post. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum or the IEEE.