Programs
Webinar: Free Speech Online: How Is the Internet Ecosystem Shifting and Why Should We Care?
Event Details
There is growing debate around online content moderation and its impact on free speech, specifically Section 230, a landmark Internet law largely credited with shaping the Internet and online speech as we know it. Recent attacks on the law have left Internet companies struggling to balance promoting free expression with growing pressure to remove or label hateful and misleading content online.
These challenges regarding online content moderation could transform our Internet ecosystem. How will this shifting landscape impact the future of free expression online?
On Thursday, July 16th, Center Fellow and Director of Ranking Digital Rights at New America Rebecca MacKinnon, Research Associate for the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy Jess Miers, and Center Academic Advisory Board member and Professor of Electrical Engineering, Law & Public Policy at UCLA John Villasenor discussed these and other questions during the first webinar in our “#SummerConversations on Speech” series. Center Executive Director Michelle Deutchman moderated the discussion.
Resources:
On Section 230:
- Recapping Recent Section 230 Proposals
- A primer on Section 230 and Trump’s executive order
- The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet
- Three and a Half Ways Not To Fix the Internet
- The First Amendment, the Information Ecosystem, and Artificial Intelligence
- Eric Goldman and Jess Miers on Section 230 and Content Moderation
- Section 230: What You Don’t Know Might Destroy the Internet
- 2020 Vision for Section 230 Highlight Reel
On ways companies can be held accountable that don’t involve changing Section 230:
- Why Creating an Internet Fairness Doctrine Would Backfire
- Santa Clara Principles On Transparency and Accountability in Content Moderation
- Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
- OECD Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policymaking
- The Manila Principles on Intermediary Liability
- It’s the Business Model: How Big Tech’s Profit Machine is Distorting the Public Sphere and Threatening Democracy
- Why can’t Internet companies stop awful content?
- Trump, Twitter, Facebook, and the Future of Online Speech
On global free expression online:
Speakers
Director of Ranking Digital Rights, New America; 2019-2020 Fellow
Rebecca MacKinnon directs the Ranking Digital Rights (RDR) project at New America, working to set global standards for corporate respect for freedom of expression and privacy online. The RDR Corporate Accountability Index ranks the world’s most powerful internet, mobile, and telecommunications companies on relevant commitments and policies, based on international human rights standards. (See: https://rankingdigitalrights.org)
Author of Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (2012), MacKinnon co-founded of the citizen media network Global Voices, serves on the Board of Directors of the Committee to Protect Journalists and was a founding board member of the Global Network Initiative. Fluent in Mandarin Chinese, she was CNN’s Bureau Chief and correspondent in China and Japan between 1998-2004. She has also taught at the University of Hong Kong and the University of Pennsylvania, and held fellowships at Harvard, Princeton, and the Open Society Foundations.
Research Associate,
UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy
Jess Miers is a rising third year law student at Santa Clara University School of Law where she studies Internet law and policy. Jess is also currently a Summer Research Associate for the UCLA Institute for Technology Law and Policy, where she speaks and writes about intermediary liability law. Her primary scholarship covers Section 230 and content moderation. As of recent, Jess is also a full-time Policy Specialist at Google. All opinions shared are her own and do not represent her previous or current employers.
Professor of Electrical Engineering, Law, Public Policy & Management, UCLA; Center Academic Advisory Board Member
John Villasenor is on the faculty at UCLA, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, and management, and a visiting professor of law. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.
John’s work considers the broader impacts of key technology trends, including advances in digital communications, the increasing complexity of today’s networks and systems, and the growth of artificial intelligence. He writes frequently on these topics and on their implications with respect to cybersecurity, privacy, and law.
He has published in the Atlantic, Billboard, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Fast Company, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, the Washington Post, and in many academic journals. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia, an MS and PhD from Stanford University, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
