The Cult of the Internet

Dr. Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law & Dean’s Distinguished Scholar, University of Miami School of Law

When: 
Wednesday, March 18, 2020, 03:30 pm – 05:00 pm

Where:
Hariri Institute for Computing Seminar Room MCS 157
111 Cummington Mall

Abstract:
It is no coincidence that the Internet is effectively controlled by a handful of multi-billion-dollar corporations with no incentive to distinguish between productive and destructive uses of technology. Companies like Google and Facebook are essentially immunized from liability for the activity they facilitate even as they are allowed to reap enormous profits from it. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), passed by Congress in 1996, invoked free speech principles to shield Internet intermediaries from liability for the content they make available to the public.

This Cyber Alliance talk, featuring University of Miami Law Prof. Mary Anne Franks, will explain how the law dramatically curtailed the government’s power to regulate destructive online activity by characterizing Internet activity primarily as speech rather than conduct. Conservative and liberal legislators, judges, and advocates have formed a near-united front to maintain a framework that makes it virtually impossible to prevent the Internet from being used to engage in destructive harassment, disseminate harmful misinformation, and to radicalize and mobilize violent extremist movements.

For more details please contact – tgabs@bu.edu.

Bio: Dr. Mary Anne Franks is a Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at the University of Miami School of Law, where she teaches First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, criminal law and procedure, and law and technology. She serves as the President and Legislative and Tech Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. Franks is the author of The Cult of the Constitution: Our Deadly Devotion to Guns and Free Speech (2019); her scholarship has also appeared in publications such as the Harvard Law Review, California Law Review, and UCLA Law Review. Franks drafted the first model criminal statute on nonconsensual pornography (aka “revenge porn”) and regularly advises legislators and tech industry leaders on issues relating to online abuses. Franks earned her master’s and doctorate degrees in Modern Languages and Literature from Oxford University, where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a juris doctorate degree from Harvard University.