Scott Miller

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have taken the position that they are not publishers and should not be held responsible for user content and, maybe, ads.

But they have emerged as a highly influential source of news, views, and “facts.”

Should these platforms be more strictly regulated and, if so, how?
More broadly, what about other news sources such as cable news? With their melange of journalism and opinion, it can be very difficult for all but the experts to distinguish one from the other. Particularly when journalists participants join panels to say “what they think.”

I won’t be there today, but it should be a great discussion.

Tomorrow, we’ll discuss laws (and other efforts) to curb “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation” (SLAPP) actions. If you’re not familiar with the acronym (I was not), here’s a link to the Wikipedia description. And here’s a Washington Post article about a recent Supreme Court action (or…inaction) in the area.

• Does this legislation make sense?
• How can free speech rights be protected?
• What about other “rights of access” to the courts?
• How can the costs of large-scale litigation be avoided?
• How can deep-pocketed litigants be put on a more equitable footing with those with lesser resources?

By the second half of the 1990s, the expression “restorative justice” had become popular, evolving to universal usage by 2006. The restorative justice movement has attracted many segments of society, including “police officers, judges, schoolteachers, politicians, juvenile justice agencies, victim support groups, aboriginal elders, and mums and dads.”

“Restorative justice is a fast-growing state, national and international social movement that seeks to bring together people to address the harm caused by crime,” write Mark Umbreit and Marilyn Peterson Armour. “Restorative justice views violence, community decline, and fear-based responses as indicators of broken relationships. It offers a different response, namely the use of restorative solutions to repair the harm related to conflict, crime, and victimization.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zehr