The Offensive Internet

Author: Saul Levmore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674064313
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
The Internet has been romanticized as a zone of freedom. The alluring combination of sophisticated technology with low barriers to entry and instantaneous outreach to millions of users has mesmerized libertarians and communitarians alike. Lawmakers have joined the celebration, passing the Communications Decency Act, which enables Internet Service Providers to allow unregulated discourse without danger of liability, all in the name of enhancing freedom of speech. But an unregulated Internet is a breeding ground for offensive conduct. At last we have a book that begins to focus on abuses made possible by anonymity, freedom from liability, and lack of oversight. The distinguished scholars assembled in this volume, drawn from law and philosophy, connect the absence of legal oversight with harassment and discrimination. Questioning the simplistic notion that abusive speech and mobocracy are the inevitable outcomes of new technology, they argue that current misuse is the outgrowth of social, technological, and legal choices. Seeing this clearly will help us to be better informed about our options. In a field still dominated by a frontier perspective, this book has the potential to be a real game changer. Armed with example after example of harassment in Internet chat rooms and forums, the authors detail some of the vile and hateful speech that the current combination of law and technology has bred. The facts are then treated to analysis and policy prescriptions. Read this book and you will never again see the Internet through rose-colored glasses.

The Offensive Internet

Author: Saul Levmore
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674058763
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America

Author: James Poniewozik
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631494430
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Book Description
New York Times Book Review • Notable Book of the Year Washington Post • 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2019 NPR.org • NPR 2019 Concierge Slate • 10 Best Books of the Year Chicago Tribune • Best Books of the Year Publishers Weekly • 10 Best Books of the Year Audience of One reframes America’s identity through the rattled mind of an insomniac, cable-news-junkie president.New York Times chief television critic James Poniewozik offers a “darkly entertaining” (Carlos Lozada, Washington Post) history of mass media from the early 1980s to today, demonstrating how a volcanic, camera-hogging antihero merged with America’s most powerful medium to become our forty-fifth president. In charting the seismic evolution of television from a monolithic mass medium into today’s fractious confederation of spite-and-insult media subcultures, Poniewozik reveals how Donald Trump took advantage of these historic changes by constantly reinventing himself: from a boastful cartoon zillionaire; to 1990s self-parodic sitcom fixture; to The Apprentice reality-TV star; and finally to Twitter-mad, culture-warring demagogue. Already lauded as a “brilliant and daring” (Annalisa Quinn, NPR) work that defines a generation, Audience of One emerges as a classic in cultural criticism.

Viral Hate

Author: Abraham H. Foxman
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1137356227
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Emboldened by anonymity, individuals and organizations from both left and right are freely spewing hateful vitriol on the Internet without worrying about repercussions.Lies, bullying, conspiracy theories, bigoted and racist rants, and calls for violence targeting the most vulnerable circulate openly on the web.And thanks to the guarantees of the First Amendment and the borderless nature of the Internet,governing bodies are largely helpless to control this massive assault on human dignity and safety. Abe Foxman and Christopher Wolf expose the threat that this unregulated flow of bigotry poses to the world.They explore how social media companies like Facebook and YouTube, as well as search engine giant Google, are struggling to reconcile the demands of business with freedom of speech and the disturbing threat posed by today's purveyors of hate. And they explain the best tools available to citizens, parents, educators, law enforcement officers, and policy makers toprotect thetwin values of transparency and responsibility. As Foxman and Wolf show, only an aroused and engaged citizenry can stop the hate contagion before it spirals out of control - with potentially disastrous results.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

Author: Whitney Phillips
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262028948
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy over a fake teen drug crisis; they post offensive messages on Facebook memorial pages, traumatizing grief-stricken friends and family; they use unabashedly racist language and images. They take pleasure in ruining a complete stranger's day and find amusement in their victim's anguish. In short, trolling is the obstacle to a kinder, gentler Internet. To quote a famous Internet meme, trolling is why we can't have nice things online. Or at least that's what we have been led to believe. In this provocative book, Whitney Phillips argues that trolling, widely condemned as obscene and deviant, actually fits comfortably within the contemporary media landscape. Trolling may be obscene, but, Phillips argues, it isn't all that deviant. Trolls' actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses -- which are just as damaging as the trolls' most disruptive behaviors. Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media -- pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it's a business strategy. She shows how trolls, "the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world," align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. We don't just have a trolling problem, Phillips argues; we have a culture problem. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things isn't only about trolls; it's about a culture in which trolls thrive.

United States Code

Author: United States
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 1146

Book Description
"The United States Code is the official codification of the general and permanent laws of the United States of America. The Code was first published in 1926, and a new edition of the code has been published every six years since 1934. The 2012 edition of the Code incorporates laws enacted through the One Hundred Twelfth Congress, Second Session, the last of which was signed by the President on January 15, 2013. It does not include laws of the One Hundred Thirteenth Congress, First Session, enacted between January 2, 2013, the date it convened, and January 15, 2013. By statutory authority this edition may be cited "U.S.C. 2012 ed." As adopted in 1926, the Code established prima facie the general and permanent laws of the United States. The underlying statutes reprinted in the Code remained in effect and controlled over the Code in case of any discrepancy. In 1947, Congress began enacting individual titles of the Code into positive law. When a title is enacted into positive law, the underlying statutes are repealed and the title then becomes legal evidence of the law. Currently, 26 of the 51 titles in the Code have been so enacted. These are identified in the table of titles near the beginning of each volume. The Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives continues to prepare legislation pursuant to 2 U.S.C. 285b to enact the remainder of the Code, on a title-by-title basis, into positive law. The 2012 edition of the Code was prepared and published under the supervision of Ralph V. Seep, Law Revision Counsel. Grateful acknowledgment is made of the contributions by all who helped in this work, particularly the staffs of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel and the Government Printing Office"--Preface.

Custodians of the Internet

Author: Tarleton Gillespie
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 030023502X
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Book Description
A revealing and gripping investigation into how social media platforms police what we post online—and the large societal impact of these decisions Most users want their Twitter feed, Facebook page, and YouTube comments to be free of harassment and porn. Whether faced with “fake news” or livestreamed violence, “content moderators”—who censor or promote user†‘posted content—have never been more important. This is especially true when the tools that social media platforms use to curb trolling, ban hate speech, and censor pornography can also silence the speech you need to hear. In this revealing and nuanced exploration, award†‘winning sociologist and cultural observer Tarleton Gillespie provides an overview of current social media practices and explains the underlying rationales for how, when, and why these policies are enforced. In doing so, Gillespie highlights that content moderation receives too little public scrutiny even as it is shapes social norms and creates consequences for public discourse, cultural production, and the fabric of society. Based on interviews with content moderators, creators, and consumers, this accessible, timely book is a must†‘read for anyone who’s ever clicked “like” or “retweet.”

Hate Crimes in Cyberspace

Author: Danielle Keats Citron
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674368290
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
The author examines the controversies surrounding cyber-harassment, arguing that it should be considered a matter for civil rights law and that social norms of decency and civility must be leveraged to stop it. --Publisher information.

Who Rules the Net?

Author: Adam D. Thierer
Publisher: Cato Institute
ISBN: 9781930865433
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
The rise of the World Wide Web is challenging traditional concepts of jurisdiction, governance, and sovereignty. Many observers have praised the Internet for its ubiquitous and "borderless" nature and argued that this global medium is revolutionizing the nature of modern communications. Indeed, in the universe of cyberspace there are no passports and geography is often treated as a meaningless concept. But does that mean traditional concepts of jurisdiction and governance are obsolete? When legal disputes arise in cyberspace, or when governments attempt to apply their legal standards or cultural norms to the Internet, how are such matters to be adjudicated? Cultural norms and regulatory approaches vary from country to country, as reflected in such policies as free speech and libel standards, privacy policies, intellectual property, antitrust law, domain name dispute resolution, and tax policy. In each of those areas, policymakers have for years enacted myriad laws and regulations for "realspace" that are now being directly challenged by the rise of the parallel electronic universe known as cyberspace. Who is responsible for setting the standards in cyberspace? Is a "U.N. for the Internet" or a multinational treaty appropriate? If not, whose standards should govern cross-border cyber disputes? Are different standards appropriate for cyberspace and "real" space? Those questions are being posed with increasing frequency in the emerging field of cyber-law and constitute the guiding theme of this book's collection of essays. Book jacket.

Lawless

Author: Nicolas P. Suzor
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108612741
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 221

Book Description
Rampant abuse, hate speech, censorship, bias, and disinformation - our Internet has problems. It is governed by technology companies - search engines, social media platforms, and infrastructure providers - whose hidden rules influence what we are allowed to see and say. In Lawless, Nicolas P. Suzor presents gripping examples of exactly how tech companies govern our digital environment and how they bend to pressure from governments and other powerful actors to censor and control the flow of information online. We are at a constitutional moment - an opportunity to rethink the basic rules of how the Internet is governed. Suzor offers a vision of a vibrant, diverse, and flourishing internet that can protect our fundamental rights from the lawless rule of tech. The culmination of more than ten years of original research, this groundbreaking work should be read by anyone who cares about the internet and the future of our shared social spaces.