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.
Written by Woodrow Hartzog and Evan Selinger.
Big data generates big myths. To help society set realistic expectations, the right kind of skepticism is needed. Read more about What You Don't Say About Data Can Still Hurt You
Cross-posted from The Globe and Mail.
This is Bullying Awareness Week across the country, and many Canadians are calling for concrete solutions to address the most pernicious forms of bullying in the digital age. Read more about Canada needs a sweeping strategy to fight cyberbullying
Imagine that you are participating in a protest on a university campus. The campus police ask everyone to leave. Some protestors refuse to move, and suddenly they are doused with pepper spray by campus police. You pull out your cell phone and start recording, asking protestors to describe what happened. After some editing, you post the video to YouTube. But according to the two federal shield laws being considered by Congress, you likely would not qualify as a journalist—and consequently would not enjoy the right to protect your sources. Read more about Protecting Journalism in the Digital Era
Thursday felt like drone day. The Federal Aviation Administration released both its roadmap (PDF) to integrate private drones into domestic airspace and the privacy requirements (PDF) that that will apply to the half-dozen locations selected to be testing areas for this integration. Read more about The FAA's Drone Privacy Plan: Actually Pretty Sensible
In their essay “Fake It Till You Make It” (July/August 2013), Kal Raustiala and Christopher Sprigman urged the United States to “relax” when it comes to the flagrant disregard for intellectual property laws in China. The authors make two essential arguments: first, that the United States in its early days, like China today, was a “pirate nation,” and second, that copying drove the United States’ economic growth. Read more about How to Copy Right
During the course of a long-distance relationship, Holly Jacobs shared sexually explicit photos and videos with her ex-boyfriend. She trusted him to keep them private. After they broke up, Jacobs received an anonymous email with a link and a warning that “Someone is trying to make life very difficult for you.” When she clicked on the link, she discovered the nude images that she’d shared with her ex on a site hosting revenge porn—compromising photos, often put up by exes after a breakup, without the subject’s consent. Read more about How to Make Revenge Porn a Crime
Excited teenagers – in other words normal teenagers – have never been famous for consistently wise decisions, nor should they be. Trial and error is a critical part of growing up.
But the emergence and widespread uptake of social media has further complicated the ability of teenagers to put past issues behind them. What used to remain only in fading memories increasingly lingers in code on computer servers in the cloud. Read more about A Stronger ‘Online Eraser' Law Would be a Mistake
Cross-posted from Wired Opinion.
Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it. Read more about We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It
