The New York Times recently published an article entitled “Google Says Electronic Snooping by Government Should Be More Difficult.” According to the article, “If a government wants to peek into your Web-based e-mail account, it is surprisingly easy, most of the time not even requiring a judge’s approval.” Click here to read the article.
Category: Social Media Platforms
Till Death Do Us Part
Despite little regulation of social media and other online entities, Nebraska is contemplating what to do with your online presence once you’ve bit the dust! Interestingly, few states have passed statutes related to tortious and criminal conduct on the internet, but now Nebraska is contemplating how to send your online aura to the grave along with your cadaver. Nebraska is just one of the latest states to tackle the issue of how your executor should pull the plug on your digital personality when managing your estate.
Falling in Love with An Avatar
Here is the link to the article that the Professor referenced in class today about how people fall in love with an avatar.
Employer’s Attempts to Limit Employee Speech – and the NLRB’s Response
This semester, I’m writing about how social media has changed/is changing the face of employment discrimination law suits. In that vein, here’s an article from the NYTimes about how employers have attempted to limit employee speech online – regulations which have clashed with union advocates and federal regulations.
Do Facebook, Twitter and 24-hour news cycles impact change of venue?
Caryn Myers Morrison’s article, Jury 2.0, 62 Hastings L. Rev. 1579 made me wonder; does the nationalism of every news story render motions for change of venue irrelevant?
France to prohibit the use of #hashtags
It amazing to see just how far the French Government is willing to go to prevent Anglicization of its country. A French governmental commission, charged with assuring that Anglican words and traditions don’t infiltrate its boarders, has directed that all official French government legislation and correspondence use the word mot-diese, (meaning sharp word) in place of the familiar hashtag. A few years back the French government was successful in changing the word email to courriel, and so there is no reason to think that the new word for hashtag might just catch on beyond the governmental mandate. Interesting to see just how far a country can go in mandating language, without the cloak of the Constitution as a bar.
Want to see the UK Supreme Court’s newest decisions? Just check out YouTube
The UK Supreme Court now “publishes” its decisions on YouTube. Most recently, the Court, under the title UKSupremeCourt, broadcast its decisions from December 19, 2012. Shockingly, (or not) as of today, January 27, the video has only garnered 453 hits.
Check out the video here.
Help for Topics and Research
Hello all:
As I was figuring out what I wanted my own topic to be I came across these two websites that I wanted to share. First I would check out this website, it has helpful tabs, one of them being hot topics in social media if you are really coming up short on a topic idea. That site can be found here.
Then I would check out this website, It is a list of 320 cases from the first half of 2012 where social media evidence was used in a major way for the case (includes cases of de minimis reference to employee termination to child custody, to identifying assailants). Too bad it wasn’t updated to include all of 2012, but still, with over 300 cases to reference there should be some current cases on any topic you may choose.
Hope these are helpful for everyone in their journey to writing a pristine paper on social media!!!
Kids’ Facebook “depression”
I don’t know if I should laugh at this article as ridiculous or be shocked and paranoid for the future of America. The article discusses the responsibility of doctors to discuss the facebook effect with their patients. Has social media infiltrated society so much that a discussion regarding its influence will now be included along with an eye exam and height measurement? What does this say about us?
7th Circuit Strikes Down Sex Offender Ban on Social Media
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that an Indiana Law prohibiting a convicted sex offenders from using social media, violates the First Amendment Right to Free Speech. The ACLU brought the suit on behalf of John Doe, an anonymous registered sex offender who had been convicted of child exploitation. Doe challenged Indiana Code Sec 35-42-4-12, which disallows registered sex offenders from using websites, chat rooms and instant messaging services if such entities are known to be accessible to minors. In rendering the decision, Judge Joel Flaum, writing for the three member panel, found that the statute “broadly prohibits substantial protracted speech rather than specifically targeting the evil of improper commu I action to minors”. What do you think? Did the court get it right?