Date/Time: Wednesday, April 07, 2021 at 6:00 pm
Cancel Culture, Hurtful Speech and the First Amendment
The program will explore recent calls for regulation or censorship of speech on the internet, both in the United States and abroad. The program will begin with an overview of the various meanings of ‘cancel culture’ as it implicates First Amendment values, the actions being taken by the private sector (particularly Big Tech) in that regard, and the rationales being offered for regulation or censorship of speech on the internet. The second segment will look at proposed governmental responses by the UK, the EU and other non-US jurisdictions to the regulation or censorship of internet speech, while the third segment will look at proposed governmental responses in US jurisdictions. The final segment will take a more general look at policy-oriented commentary from both Democratic and Republican leaning commentators. As always with the First Amendment program, we encourage your active participation – however that can be managed in the Time of Covid.
Program Materials:
The Facebook white paper (Feb 2020): https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Charting-A-Way-Forward_Online-Content-Regulation-White-Paper-1.pdf
Interview with then-candidate and now President Biden with the NYT Editorial Board in January 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/17/opinion/joe-biden-nytimes-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Proposed bill in Wyoming: https://www.wyoleg.gov/Legislation/2021/SF0100
Proposed bill introduced in January 2020 in the US Senate by Sens. Hawley, Rubio, Cotton and others, titled “Limiting Section 230 to Good Samaritans Act”:
C:\Users\EHF\AppData\Local\Temp\EH8783~1.NEW (vox-cdn.com)
Competitive Enterprise Institute white paper -- Terrible Tech 2.0: . https://cei.org/studies/terrible-tech-2-0/
Brookings Institute paper: https://www.brookings.edu/research/a-focused-federal-agency-is-necessary-to-oversee-big-tech/
Digital Services Act: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=1608117147218&uri=COM%3A2020%3A825%3AFIN
Digital Markets Act: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?qid=1608116887159&uri=COM%3A2020%3A842%3AFIN
EU Convention on Human Rights: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf
Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf
Final report of the High Level Expert Group on Fake News and Online Disinformation: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/final-report-high-level-expert-group-fake-news-and-online-disinformation
Malwarebytes Inc. v. Enigma Software Group USA, LLC, 592 U.S. ____ (2020)
Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States, Et Al. v. Knight First Amendment Institute at
Columbia University, Et Al.