Archive | Internet

Addressing the Decline of Local News, Rise of Platforms, and Spread of Mis- and Disinformation Online: A Summary of Current Research and Policy Proposals

By on January 15, 2021 in Center for Media Law and Policy, Internet, Journalism

I’m thrilled to announce that the Center for Media Law and Policy recently published a research paper titled “Addressing the Decline of Local News, Rise of Platforms, and Spread of Mis- and Disinformation Online: A Summary of Current Research and Policy Proposals.”

The whitepaper grew out of a workshop the Center hosted in November 2019 in conjunction with the UNC Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media and UNC Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP), which brought together experts on the decline of local news, the rise of online platforms, and the spread of mis- and disinformation. The workshop was part of a two-day, interdisciplinary conference titled “Fostering an Informed Society: The Role of the First Amendment in Strengthening Local News and Democracy.” The conference began with a symposium at the UNC School of Law hosted by the First Amendment Law Review that examined the role of the First Amendment in creating an informed society and explored whether the Constitution places affirmative obligations on the government to ensure that citizens are informed.

The workshop, which is the subject of this whitepaper, took place on the second day at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media and was co-led by Philip Napoli, James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. A full list of workshop attendees is included in Appendix A.

The whitepaper is organized in the same way we structured the workshop, starting with an overview of the decline of local news followed by a discussion of the rise of platforms and the spread of mis- and disinformation online. We then examine a number of regulatory and policy responses to the problems identified in the earlier sections and conclude by offering some suggestions for next steps. In Appendix B we provide a list of recent research and resources available for those who wish to engage in more study of these important issues.

Here is the abstract:

Technological and economic assaults have destroyed the for-profit business model that sustained local journalism in this country for two centuries. While the advertising-based model for local news has been under threat for many years, the COVID-19 pandemic and recession have created what some describe as an “extinction level” threat for local newspapers and other struggling news outlets. More than one-fourth of the country’s newspapers have disappeared, leaving residents in thousands of communities living in vast news deserts.

As local news sources decline, a growing proportion of Americans are getting their news and other information from social media. This raises serious concerns, including the spread of misinformation and the use of platform infrastructure to engage in disinformation campaigns. Platforms wield significant advantages over local news sources in the current information environment: the dominant platforms possess proprietary, detailed caches of user data, which the platforms use to force advertisers, users, and news outlets into asymmetrical relationships. In the vacuum left by the disappearance of local news sources, users are increasingly reliant on information sources that are incomplete, and may be misleading or deceptive.

This whitepaper examines current research related to the decline of local news, the rise of platforms, and the spread of mis- and disinformation and explores potential regulatory and policy responses to these issues. Some proposals focus on increasing the supply of – and demand for – local news, including increased public education and expanded support for journalists and local news organizations. Other proposals focus on market-based reforms that address the growing power disparities between news producers and platform operators as well as between platforms and their users.

Solutions to the difficult problems we face will require a multifaceted, multi-disciplinary approach. No one lever within the market, law, or society will deliver a magic bullet. Instead, experts and policymakers will need to pull at multiple levers using a new vocabulary to talk across the different disciplines – a set of new propositions that recognize the legal, social, journalistic, and economic principles at stake, particularly the harm done to democracy if the status quo continues.

You can download the full paper here or from SSRN.

The Hearst Foundations provided funding for the workshop, and funding for the preparation of the whitepaper was provided by the Hearst Foundations and John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

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Faculty and Student Opportunities at UNC’s Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP)

By on May 15, 2020 in Center for Media Law and Policy, Internet

UNC’s recently launched Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) is looking for faculty and students to join its growing community, including faculty research fellows, faculty affiliates, and graduate student affiliates.

CITAP is a bold initiative at UNC dedicated to researching, understanding, and responding to the growing impact of the internet, social media, and other forms of digital information sharing. CITAP’s goals include tackling broad research questions with real-world implications for information gathering, social media regulation, democratic governance, journalism, and civic understanding. Researchers and affiliates will work to develop a comprehensive understanding of information environments that will serve as a baseline for emergent research focused on the interaction of information and technology, particularly in the context of misinformation, partisanship, polarization, propaganda, and political institutions.

UNC CITAP Faculty Research Fellow

CITAP is seeking a Faculty Research Fellow to start in August 2020 and serve for one academic year. The position is restricted to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty. The Faculty Research Fellow will receive $15,000 in research funds, and will be expected to attend CITAP events and give a public presentation of their work at the end of the fellowship.

The successful applicant will join a vibrant research community anchored by CITAP’s four principal researchers—Deen Freelon (Hussman School of Journalism and Media), Daniel Kreiss (Hussman), Alice Marwick (Dept. of Communication), and Zeynep Tufekci (School of Information and Library Sciences)—the affiliated UNC Center for Media Law and Policy (David Ardia and Tori Ekstrand), and two Senior Faculty Researchers, Tressie McMillan Cottom (SILS) and Shannon McGregor (Hussman).

CITAP affiliates will meet regularly for research updates and internal presentations.

To apply, please email a one-page proposed research project that complements the aims of the center and the work of its scholars along with a CV to CITAP Principal Alice Marwick at amarwick@unc.edu.  The deadline to apply is Sept. 1, 2020.

UNC CITAP Faculty Affiliates

Faculty Affiliates can come from a broad range of academic and research institutions, especially in North Carolina. We invite applications from people working on issues related to CITAP, broadly focused on the intersection of technology and media, platforms, misinformation, partisanship, polarization, propaganda, political institutions, and journalism. Affiliates may collaborate with CITAP researchers on topics of relevance to its mission and participate in CITAP events, and will be listed in the “Faculty Affiliates” section of the CITAP website.

We invite those with CITAP faculty affiliations to attend CITAP events, collaborate with our researchers and graduate students, and join our extended community in resource and information sharing.

To apply, please email a bio, CV, and list of relevant publications to CITAP Principal Researcher Daniel Kreiss at dkreiss@email.unc.edu.

UNC CITAP Graduate Student Affiliates

Graduate Student Affiliates can come from a broad range of academic and research institutions, especially in North Carolina. We invite applications from people working on issues related to CITAP, broadly focused on the intersection of technology and media, platforms, misinformation, partisanship, polarization, propaganda, political institutions, and journalism. Affiliates may collaborate with CITAP researchers on topics of relevance to its mission and participate in CITAP events, and will be listed in the “Faculty Affiliates” section of the CITAP website.

We invite those with CITAP graduate student  affiliations to attend CITAP events, collaborate with our researchers and graduate students, and join our extended community in resource and information sharing.

To apply, please send a short cover letter explaining how your research interests relate to the work of CITAP, bio, CV, and list of relevant publications to CITAP Principal Researcher Daniel Kreiss at dkreiss@email.unc.edu.

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Immerse Yourself in IP and Media Law at the UNC Festival of Legal Learning

By on February 6, 2019 in Copyright, Defamation, FCC, First Amendment, Internet, Privacy

One of the biggest annual events at the UNC School of Law is the Festival of Legal Learning. This two-day convocation of legal geekery comprises 113 different continuing legal education (CLE) sessions and 152 speakers. For the past few years, the Center for Media Law and Policy has helped with the selection and coordination of sessions that cover Media Law and Intellectual Property subjects.

This year’s festival, which takes place on Feb. 8-9, will mark the 29th year of the program, and I feel confident in saying that we have more Media Law and IP sessions than we’ve ever had in the past. By my count, there are 16 sessions this year that touch on these topics, ranging from cybersecurity to recent developments at the Federal Communications Commission. And the list of speakers is a who’s who of the top media, entertainment, and IP lawyers in the state. You can see a list of these folks and descriptions of their sessions on our festival event page.

Here are just a few of the sessions available at the festival this year:

Friday, Feb. 8

  • 8:00 AM  –  9:00 AM + Hot Topics in Intellectual Property: Lessons Learned and Cases to Watch 
  • 8:00 AM  –  9:00 AM + The GDPR: The Impact of EU Privacy Law on US Organizations
  • 9:10 AM  –  10:10 AM + Navigating a Watershed Privacy Law: California Consumer Privacy Act Forecast for 2019
  • 9:10 AM  –  10:10 AM + Revenge Porn – NC’s New Law and Resources to Assist Survivors
  • 10:20 AM  –  11:20 AM + Federal Privacy Legislation: Do We Need It? If So, What Should It Look Like?
  • 10:20 AM  –  11:20 AM + Municipal Broadband and the First Amendment
  • 11:30 AM  –  12:30 PM + Defining Privacy Harm for Standing in Federal Courts 
  • 2:40 PM  –  3:40 PM + New Era in Music Licensing: The Music Modernization Act
  • 3:50 PM  –  4:50 PM + Cutting-Edge Topics in Cybersecurity Law 
  • 3:50 PM  –  4:50 PM + Entertainment Law Hot Topics and Litigation Round-Up 
  • 5:00 PM  –  6:00 PM + Open Source 101
  • 5:00 PM  –  6:00 PM + What Every Lawyer Should Know About eSports

Saturday, Feb. 9

  • 8:00 AM  –  9:00 AM + Peek into North Carolina Public Records
  • 8:00 AM  –  9:00 AM + When #Metoo Meets Defamation Law
  • 10:20 AM  –  11:20 AM + Recent Developments at the Federal Communications Commission

As an added bonus, if you stick around until the last session on Saturday (11:30 AM  –  12:30 PM) you will get to see Mary-Rose Papandrea and me do a session on “The First Amendment and Social Media: What (If Any) Rules Apply?” We will be taking on some important questions, including: What role does big tech have in regulating our national conversation? What is the impact of digital censorship? And, in all of this, does the First Amendment have any bearing on social media platforms? This session will explore the intersection of free speech values, the First Amendment, and our growing reliance on major social media companies that wield an increasing amount of censorial power.

The Festival will take place at the William & Ida Friday Continuing Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill from 8:00 a.m.—6:00 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8, and 8:00 a.m.—12:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 9. You can find a full list of available sessions in the program guide.

To register for the Festival, please visit their registration page.

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Center’s Research Fellow Co-Authors Article on OnionDNS in Information Security Journal

By on November 9, 2017 in Center for Media Law and Policy, Internet

Rachael Jones, the Center for Media Law and Policy’s new Research Fellow, is the co-author of an article published this month in the International Journal of Information Security. Congratulations, Rachael!

The article is titled “OnionDNS: a seizure resistant top-level domain.” It addresses the growing issue of Internet domain name seizures, noting the significant due process concerns that flow from this government practice. The authors propose a type of domain system, OnionDNS, that would provide a method of curtailing improper seizures by implementing safeguards in the design of the domain name system. First, the OnionDNS root services exists as a hidden service on the Tor network. Second, the proposed system is designed to protect its users by housing operations entirely outside of the United States, requiring any government seizure to pass through several hurdles—including foreign government cooperation. Thus, OnionDNS would not only curtail improper domain seizures as a tool of censorship, but also impose due process safeguards for domain name registrants.

From the abstract:

The Domain Name System (DNS) provides the critical service of mapping canonical names to IP addresses. Recognizing this, a number of parties have increasingly attempted to perform “domain seizures” on targets by having them delisted from DNS. Such operations often occur without providing due process to the owners of these domains, a practice made potentially worse by recent legislative proposals. We address this problem by creating OnionDNS, an anonymous top-level domain and resolution service for the Internet. Our solution relies on the establishment of a hidden service running DNS within Tor and uses a variety of mechanisms to ensure a high-performance architecture with strong integrity guarantees for resolved records. We then present our anonymous domain registrar and detail the protocol for securely transferring the service to another party. Finally, we also conduct both performance and legal analyses to further demonstrate the robustness of this approach. In so doing, we show that the delisting of domains from DNS can be mitigated in an efficient and secure manner.

The citation for the online version of the article is Scaife, N., Carter, H., Lidsky, L. et al. Int. J. Inf. Secur. (2017), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10207-017-0391-z.

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UNC Media Law Doctoral Student Wins Top Paper Award for NCA 2017

By on September 14, 2017 in Defamation, Internet, Journalism

We are pleased to announce that UNC  doctoral student Shao Chengyuan has won the top student paper award from the Communication and Law Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) this year. Chengyuan will present her paper at the NCA’s annual conference in Dallas, Texas in November. Congratulations, Shao!

Chengyuan studies media law in the UNC School of Media and Journalism. She joined the program in 2015 after earning a master’s in communication from Beijing Foreign Studies University and a bachelor’s in English from China Agricultural University in Beijing. She has now studies media law issues in China, specifically new media-related legislation and the legal boundaries of online free speech.

Chengyuan’s paper, which was blind-reviewed in the NCA’s paper competition,  is titled “Internet Defamation in China: Criminal Cases Since the 2013 Supreme People’s Court Judicial Interpretation.” Here is the abstract.

“This paper examines the recent development in Chinese defamation law, specifically the establishment of a 2013 judicial interpretation by the Supreme People’s Court that criminalized Internet defamation. This paper uses the language of Chinese law and analyzes eight Internet defamation cases decided after the 2013 judicial interpretation on Internet defamation. The criminal cases analyzed in this paper showed how Chinese public prosecutors have employed the new legal rules in cases deemed as threats to public order and state interests, as well as how Chinese individuals, acting as private prosecutors, have pursued criminal defamation prosecutions against online speakers. This paper takes into consideration the cultural and historical background of Chinese criminal defamation law and argues that, in addressing the lack of free speech protection under the current criminal defamation law, Chinese legislators need to consider raising the standard of fault for public officials and eventually abolishing the “state interest clause” of the criminal defamation statute.”

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