The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, and his controversial statements and decisions as its owner, have fueled a new wave of calls for regulating social media companies. Elected officials and policy scholars have argued for years that companies like Twitter and Facebook – now Meta – have immense power over public discussions and can use that power to elevate some views and suppress others. Continue reading
One of Elon Musk’s stated reasons for purchasing Twitter was to use the social media platform to defend the right to free speech. The ability to defend that right, or to abuse it, lies in a specific piece of legislation passed in 1996, at the pre-dawn of the modern age of social media. Continue reading
This update covers media and freedom of speech cases before the United States Supreme Court, the Federal Appeals Courts and the Federal District Courts in 2022 and other media law news. Continue reading
Cold winds now blow in the US Supreme Court around the stability of a century’s worth of First Amendment doctrine; even New York Times Co v Sullivan 376 US 254 (1964), the most stable of that Court’s speech precedents, now seems in danger of being blown away in the storm, thanks to the recent decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen 597 US __ (2022) (Opinion pdf | Cornell | Justia | SCOTUSblog). Continue reading
If you’ve read, watched and enjoyed the work of America’s best-known satirical publication The Onion, you might be surprised by how serious it suddenly became earlier this month. So serious, in fact, that it might end up before the US Supreme Court. Continue reading
You may never have heard of Omegle–or perhaps you have. It is an online platform that allows people to meet and talk to total strangers online through video links. Participants are randomly paired but there is also a form of self-selection by indicating shared interests. Once people are paired, they can stay and chat or move to another partner. Continue reading
To the numerous challenges facing the U.S. media in recent years, add a libel case against The New York Times – lost by Sarah Palin, but now seemingly headed to appeal and perhaps on to the highest court in the land. Continue reading
Unless you have been living in a cave, you will be well aware of Facebook’s current travails, fed by whistle-blower Frances Haugen’s explosive testimony about how Facebook researched but ignored findings that suggested the company’s algorithms were harming individual users by promoting content that kept them engaged—but at a cost to their mental wellbeing. Continue reading
On 4 October 2021, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp suffered an outage for nearly six hours, stimulating debate over taking a break from the social networking sites. Continue reading
United States defamation law has made it famously difficult for claimants to win their cases. However, Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas filed dissents in the case of Berisha v Lawson in July suggesting that a core precedent behind this difficulty is ripe for reconsideration. Continue reading
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