Essays and Scholarship
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Essays and Scholarship
Platform Accountability Through Digital “Poison Cabinets”
Preserving records of what user content is taken down—and why—could make platforms more accountable and transparent
By John Bowers , Elaine Sedenberg & Jonathan Zittrain -
Essays and Scholarship
How (Not) to Write a Privacy Law
Disrupting surveillance-based business models requires government innovation
By Julie E. Cohen -
Essays and Scholarship
Democracy's Data Infrastructure
The technopolitics of the U.S. census
By Dan Bouk & danah boyd -
Essays and Scholarship
Antitrust and Corruption: Overruling Noerr
The case for abolishing the strained Noerr doctrine
By Tim Wu -
Essays and Scholarship
Measuring and Protecting Media Plurality in the Digital Age: A Political Economy Approach
Developing a platform-neutral "attention share" plurality review for media mergers
By Andrea Prat -
Essays and Scholarship
Collaboration and Competition in Information and News During Antitrust’s Formative Era
Tracing the history of the interplay between competition, the free flow of information, and democratic values in Supreme Court opinions
By Daniel Crane -
Essays and Scholarship
Social Media Regulation in the Public Interest: Some Lessons from History
Examining past abuses of the ‘public interest’ standard to argue against expanding antitrust authority
By John Samples & Paul Matzko -
Essays and Scholarship
The Limits of Antimonopoly Law as a Solution to the Problems of the Platform Public Sphere
Arguing which antimonopoly tools do and don't matter
By Genevieve Lakier -
Essays and Scholarship
How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media
Creating incentives for social media companies to be responsible and trustworthy institutions
By Jack M. Balkin -
Essays and Scholarship
[The] Breakup Speech: Can Antitrust Fix the Relationship Between Platforms and Free Speech Values?
Avoiding antitrust when competition isn't the problem
By Neil Chilson & Casey Mattox -
Essays and Scholarship
Digital Information Fidelity and Friction
Crafting a systems-level approach to transparency
By Ellen P. Goodman -
Essays and Scholarship
The Rise of Content Cartels
Urging transparency and accountability in industry-wide content removal decisions
By evelyn douek -
Essays and Scholarship
From Private Bads to Public Goods: Adapting Public Utility Regulation for Informational Infrastructure
Dismantling surveillance-based business models
By K. Sabeel Rahman & Zephyr Teachout -
Essays and Scholarship
The National Security Case for Breaking Up Big Tech
Reframing the tech giants' role in an era of great power competition
By Ganesh Sitaraman -
Essays and Scholarship
The Case for Digital Public Infrastructure
Harnessing past successes in public broadcasting to build community-oriented digital tools
By Ethan Zuckerman -
Essays and Scholarship
Beyond First Amendment Lochnerism: A Political Process Approach
Exploring the First Amendment's evolving role in America's democratic political process and private commercial sphere
By Tim Wu -
Essays and Scholarship
Cavalier Bot Regulation and the First Amendment's Threat Model
Balancing artificial bot babble, real human exchange, and First Amendment obligations when regulating online spaces
By Jamie Lee Williams -
Essays and Scholarship
The Free Speech Black Hole: Can The Internet Escape the Gravitational Pull of the First Amendment?
Diving into the tension between free speech, regulation, and inequality
By Mary Anne Franks -
Essays and Scholarship
Introducing Free Speech Futures
The Knight Institute's second essay series asks leading scholars to think beyond existing First Amendment doctrine to imagine what freedom of speech could be in our current moment and our future.
By Jamal Greene -
Essays and Scholarship
Probably Speech, Maybe Free: Toward a Probabilistic Understanding of Online Expression and Platform Governance
Considering the cost of applying a probablistic statistical framework to First Amendment questions on digital platforms
By Mike Ananny -
Essays and Scholarship
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech
Altering the internet's economic and digital infrastructure to promote free speech
By Mike Masnick -
Essays and Scholarship
A Raucous First Amendment
Imagining a future of untamed, wild, boisterous, and raucous free speech
By Jeremy Waldron -
Essays and Scholarship
Keeping the New Governors Accountable: Expanding the First Amendment Right of Access to Silicon Valley
Recommending "technological transparency" for effective self-government in the U.S.
By Victoria Baranetsky -
Essays and Scholarship
First Things First: Online Advertising Practices and Their Effects on Platform Speech
Crafting policy to combat social media's harmful business practices that encourage destructive speech
By Jeff Gary & Ashkan Soltani -
Essays and Scholarship
Meet the New Governors, Same as the Old Governors
Response to Kate Klonick's "Facebook v. Sullivan"
By Enrique Armijo -
Essays and Scholarship
Newsworthiness and the Search for Norms
Response to Kate Klonick's "Facebook v. Sullivan"
By Amy Gajda -
Essays and Scholarship
Profits v. Principles
Response to Kate Klonick's "Facebook v. Sullivan"
By Sarah C. Haan -
Essays and Scholarship
Authoritarian Constitutionalism in Facebookland
Introduction to Kate Klonick's "Facebook v. Sullivan"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
Facebook v. Sullivan
Investigating Facebook’s use of the “public figure” and “newsworthiness” concepts in content moderation decisions.
By Kate Klonick -
Essays and Scholarship
Introducing the Emerging Threats Essays
The Knight Institute's inaugural essay series invites leading thinkers to identify and grapple with newly arising or intensifying structural threats to the system of free expression.
By Jameel Jaffer & David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
Crisis in the Archives
Introduction to Matthew Connelly's "State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It
The collapse of the U.S. government's system for organizing, conserving, and revealing its activities.
By Matthew Connelly -
Essays and Scholarship
A Response from the National Archives
Response to Matthew Connelly's "State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It"
By David S. Ferriero -
Essays and Scholarship
Rescuing History (and Accountability) from Secrecy
Response to Matthew Connelly's "State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It"
By Elizabeth Goitein -
Essays and Scholarship
Archiving as Politics in the National Security State
Response to Matthew Connelly's "State Secrecy, Archival Negligence, and the End of History as We Know It"
By Kirsten Weld -
Essays and Scholarship
The Failure of Internet Freedom
Probing the demise of a non-regulation, anti-censorship, global internet agenda.
By Jack Goldsmith -
Essays and Scholarship
The Limits of Supply-Side Internet Freedom
Response to Jack Goldsmith's essay "The Failure of Internet Freedom"
By David Kaye -
Essays and Scholarship
Internet Freedom Without Imperialism
Respone to Jack Goldsmith's "The Failure of Internet Freedom"
By Nani Jansen Reventlow & Jonathan McCully -
Essays and Scholarship
The De-Americanization of Internet Freedom
Introduction to Jack Goldsmith's "The Failure of Internet Freedom"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
Section 230’s Challenge to Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Response to Olivier Sylvain's essay "Discriminatory Designs on User Data"
By Danielle Keats Citron -
Essays and Scholarship
To Err Is Platform
Response to Olivier Sylvain's essay "Discriminatory Designs on User Data"
By James Grimmelman -
Essays and Scholarship
Toward a Clearer Conversation About Platform Liability
Response to Olivier Sylvain's essay "Discriminatory Designs on User Data"
By Daphne Keller -
Essays and Scholarship
Intermediary Immunity and Discriminatory Designs
Introduction to Olivier Sylvain's "Discriminatory Designs on User Data"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
Discriminatory Designs on User Data
Exploring how Section 230's immunity protections may enable or elicit disciminatory behaviors online
By Olivier Sylvain -
Essays and Scholarship
Search Engines, Social Media, and the Editorial Analogy
Deconstructing the “editorial analogy,” and analogical reasoning more generally, in First Amendment litigation involving powerful tech companies.
By Heather Whitney -
Essays and Scholarship
Straining (Analogies) to Make Sense of the First Amendment in Cyberspace
Introduction to Heather Whitney's "Search Engines, Social Media, and the Editorial Analogy"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
The Problem Isn't the Use of Analogies but the Analogies Courts Use
Response to Heather Whitney's essay "Search Engines, Social Media, and the Editorial Analogy"
By Genevieve Lakier -
Essays and Scholarship
Preventing a Posthuman Law of Freedom of Expression
Response to Heather Whitney's "Search Engines, Social Media, and the Editorial Analogy"
By Frank Pasquale -
Essays and Scholarship
Of Course the First Amendment Protects Google and Facebook (and It's Not a Close Question)
Response to Heather Whitney's "Search Engines, Social Media, and the Editorial Analogy"
By Eric Goldman -
Essays and Scholarship
Policing, Protesting, and the Insignificance of Hostile Audiences
Response to Frederick Schauer's "The Hostile Audience Revisited"
By Rachel A. Harmon -
Essays and Scholarship
The Hostile Audience Revisited
Incendiary speech in the wake of Charlottesville, Berkeley, Boston, and beyond.
By Frederick Schauer -
Essays and Scholarship
Unsafe Spaces
Response to Frederick Schauer's essay "The Hostile Audience Revisited"
By Jelani Cobb -
Essays and Scholarship
Heading Off the Hostile Audience
Response to Frederick Schauer's "The Hostile Audience Revisited"
By Mark Edmundson -
Essays and Scholarship
Costing Out Campus Speaker Restrictions
Response to Frederick Schauer's "The Hostile Audience Revisited"
By Suzanne Goldberg -
Essays and Scholarship
From the Heckler’s Veto to the Provocateur’s Privilege
Introduction to Frederick Schauer's "The Hostile Audience Revisited"
By David Pozen -
Essays and Scholarship
Not Waving but Drowning: Saving the Audience from the Floods
Response to Tim Wu's "Is the First Amendment Obsolete?"
By Rebecca Tushnet -
Essays and Scholarship
Reflections on Whether the First Amendment Is Obsolete
Response to Tim Wu's "Is the First Amendment Obsolete?"
By Geoffrey R. Stone -
Essays and Scholarship
Is the First Amendment Obsolete?
New free expression challenges from “troll armies,” “flooding,” and propaganda robots that aim to distort or drown out disfavored speech.
By Tim Wu