LawandSocialMedia

The 2nd edition of Social Media Law in a Nutshell, which I wrote with Ryan Garcia at Meta, is now available.

Here is a brief write up

Social media has transformed how the world communicates. Its impact has been felt in every corner of our society including the law. Social Media Law in a Nutshell is a wide-ranging look of how the social media transformation has impacted various legal fields. From marketing to employment to torts to criminal law to copyright and beyond, virtually every legal field has been changed by social media. By looking at high level concerns and example cases, Social Media Law in a Nutshell attempts to give practitioners exposure to social media issues and concerns so they can better advise clients and approach the new social media world with their legal eyes opened to new and old risks alike. This book can also serve as a text for law professors looking to expose law students to the burgeoning area of Social Media Law. The second addition covers new cases, regulations, and guidance from government regulators in the social media space.

Following in the footsteps of Texas and Florida, Tennessee is in the process of passing legislation, HB 2369, to prevent social media providers from banning or shadow banning users because of their content. It is highly likely that this legislation if enacted will be found unconstitutional similar to the recently passed laws in Texas and Florida.

Murfreesboropost.com: Tennessee social media bill faces legal obstacles similar to Florida, Texas

The California legislature is considering a bill that would allow parents to sue social media companies for using features and apps that addict children. Assembly Bill 2408 or Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act was introduced this week and will likely be discussed at a hearing later in Spring. According to one of the bill’s authors, AB 2408 avoids Section 230 immunity because it focuses on whether apps are using an addictive algorithm, rather than on their specific content. At present, it is unclear whether the bill will move past the committee hearing stage.

Politico.com: Instagram, TikTok could get sued for addicting kids under California proposal

Some elected officials in Connecticut believe that the answer to that question is “yes,” which is why the state legislator is considering a bill to require parental consent for children under the age of 16 to engage in social media.

CTInsider.com: Connecticut lawmakers advance bill to require parental consent for teenage social media use

Stephen Macedo

Lost in the Marketplace of Ideas: Toward a New Constitution for Free Speech After Trump and Twitter?

Democracy is in crisis and one core feature is a communications crisis: a failure of institutions to reliably generate and curate the circulation of information and communications. Capitalism, the internet, and Covid have all been unkind to journalism: newspapers and their reporters have been decimated. Newer media – such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google — have amassed enormous power in a remarkably short time. They are the new gatekeepers of free expression, as witnessed by the Twitter ban of Donald Trump. Social media platforms are also the bullhorns of disinformation: they seem to exacerbate polarization, sow distrust, speed the spread of misinformation, and encourage conspiracist thinking. Can the media companies be trusted to self-regulate? What alternatives do we have? I argue in the end that the Facebook Oversight Board offers a hopeful model

Last year, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued rules on the use of social media by debt collectors. The article/video highlighted in this post discusses how this online contact can occur.

NBCDFW.com: Now That Debt Collectors Can Reach Out on Social Media, What Are the Rules?

Steve Black

Abstract

Data protection regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), all presume that the individual “owns” her or his individual personally identifiable information (PII). However, the law of data ownership is far from settled. Is it the individual subject, or the data collector who actually “owns” the data? Google, Amazon, facial recognition technologies such as FaceApp, Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), loyalty programs, social media platforms, ex-significant others, and governments all want to know where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with. These entities collect petabytes of data, mostly without consent or compensation to the subjects.

If a woman walks a dog in the park, and is photographed by a social media fan, her steps are counted by her fitness watch, and her general description is noted by a student doing a research project, including the brand of clothing she was wearing, does she own all that data? If not, who does? Does it matter if data is being collected for art, news, profit or revenge?

This article examines the nature of data, whether it is property (or property-like), and what it means to “own” data. The article will discuss whether all data about a subject should automatically be treated as owned by that subject, and what that means for the future of data regulation.

Other articles have examined data as speech and data collection as a privacy concern, while recent legislative developments around the world have assumed that PII should be owned by the data subject, and courts dealing with data breach lawsuits have struggled with the concept of data theft (property that can be stolen). This article considers the policy of treating data as property and how that will impact legislatures, courts, and society.

The Kids Online Safety Act of 2022 is bipartisan legislation introduced into the Senate by Senator Blumenthal and Blackburn. According to the bill’s authors, this legislation will help make social media sites safer for children. Here are the main provisions of the bill.

• Require that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.
• Give parents new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform. 
• Create a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
• Require social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms. 
• Provide academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors. 

To read more about this bill go here.

Berdien van der Donk

University of Copenhagen – Faculty of Law

Abstract

What exactly is a social media platform? Can it be compared to a public park, a stadium, an electricity company, or perhaps to something non-existing in the physical world around us? The question on who gets to decide what can be posted on social media platforms is closely intertwined with the question what social media platforms are and how these platforms and their content should be regulated. However, a consensus on the answer to these questions does not exist.

This article contributes to the discussion on the qualification and regulation of social media platforms. It starts by clarifying the terminological inconsistencies regarding public utilities, services of general interest, universal services, and essential facilities in European law. The author continues with a literature review to summarise the current debate on the offline equivalent of social media platforms. It will show that, overarchingly, two different debates exist: on the one hand, whether platforms can be regulated as public utilities, and on the other hand, whether platforms can be compared to either a private space, a public space, or a public sphere. Subsequently, an in-depth analysis is carried out.

The author concludes, firstly, that under European law, a social media platform cannot be an essential facility as these platforms simply do not fulfil the requirements. Secondly, social media platforms should not be regulated as a service of general interest, because of their worldwide application. They could, however, be regulated as universal services, but not without extensive justification. Thirdly, since they are privately owned, social media platforms are not public places. The author argues that a social media platform is more suited to be compared to a privately owned, freely accessible place (e.g., a stadium) than a public sphere, as social media platforms do not significantly differ from existing private undertakings open to the general public.

The state of New York has reached a settlement agreement to reduce social media restrictions for certain sex offenders. These restrictions have become increasingly suspect in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Packingham v. North Carolina.

To read more about this story go here.