Dr. Victoria Smith Ekstrand offers the seminar “The Power of Platforms” for students of media studies.
The Power of the Platforms: Comparative Legal Frameworks for Free Speech in the Digital Age
Online platforms are both the fuel and fire of today’s marketplace of ideas, challenging long-held libertarian values for free expression in the United States and igniting a flurry of new but untested regulations in the E.U. Such differing responses to the power that online platforms now wield has birthed a wave of scholarship re-examining the theoretical justifications underlying free expression, free press, and privacy law; questioning institutional and individual responsibility regarding speech boundaries; and highlighting the critical role of traditional journalism in the face of Silicon Valley ideology. Online platforms are significantly changing the landscape of speech environments everywhere, unleashing a torrent of new legal challenges, ranging from hateful speech to threats and harassment.
In this workshop, students will engage with scholarship and scholars examining the new legal, theoretical and practical questions posed by the power of the platforms, including:
- What principles and theories of free expression face challenge, and how do those challenges affect established speech doctrines in the law?
- What is the current comparative regulatory environment for online platforms in the U.S. v. the E.U.?
- What have been the responses by the platforms to increased calls for regulation?
- How effective has the GDPR been in asserting more state control and addressing harms?
- Will Sec. 230 of the U.S. Code change to create increased secondary liability for online platforms?
Students will prepare reading responses and help to lead discussions for the course, as well as interact with scholars studying in these areas through remote conference.
