Author: BC Law Impact Guest Posts

Telegram CEO Arrest and Brazil’s X Ban Raise Free Speech and Privacy Concerns

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

Last week, global headlines spotlighted two separate flashpoints in the battle by governments to police social media networks. In Paris, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested for complicity in distribution of child sexual abuse imagery. And in Brazil, a judge banned X (formerly Twitter) nationwide after the company refused to block certain users on the eve of election season.  While both incidents can be couched as failures to comply with national law, the unusually harsh remedies raise important concerns about free speech and privacy online.

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Net Neutrality, and other FCC Initiatives Jeopardized Post-Chevron

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

It has been a big week for tech policy at the Supreme Court. As my AEI colleague Clay Calvert discussed, the NetChoice cases endorsed social media platforms’ First Amendment right of editorial control. But for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other agencies, Loper Bright, which overturned Chevron, looms largest. The FCC in particular has long benefited from Chevron’s command that agencies, not courts, are the primary arbiters of an ambiguous statute’s meaning. Overturning this regime, and restoring that authority to courts, is likely to pose additional challenges for net neutrality, digital discrimination, and other FCC initiatives that capitalized on ambiguous language to accomplish the agency’s policy objectives.

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Facing Cable Cord-Cutting, Cities Fight to Tax Broadband

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

Broadband has been a bright spot in America’s grim inflationary landscape. While consumer prices rose 4.9 percent last year, two recent reports show that consumer broadband prices fell, both in absolute terms and cost per gigabyte. But where many see a victory, some cities sense an opportunity. Stung by declining cable franchise fees, local governments are pushing to tax broadband. This effort faces severe regulatory headwinds, but if successful could erode consumer gains and drive broadband prices higher.

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It’s a Bad Idea, Right? F– It, It’s Fine.

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This guest post by BC Law Professor Brian Quinn first appeared in the M&A Law Prof Blog.

Hi. Back again. I’ve generally taken a hiatus from blogging, but felt it important to come back and put some things on the record, as it were. If this has not been on your radar, in the past two months or so, Delaware has been on a mad rush to make some significant amendments to its corporate law. This, after having previously signaled it wasn’t going to make any amendments this year. I’ll go into each of the proposed amendments in subsequent posts and the problems I see with the process, but in this post I want to focus on one of the potential reasons for moving so quickly to make changes to the law. 

The amendment themselves are what are being called market practice amendments. Earlier this year the Chancery Court asked itself: “What happens when the seemingly irresistible force of market practice meets the traditionally immovable object of statutory law? A court must uphold the law, so the statute prevails.” Moelis. In all three of these cases, the court effectively dealt a knuckle-wrapping to practitioners.

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New York Tests FCC’s “No Rate Regulation” Pledge

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

Reclassification opponents have long warned that net neutrality could be a Trojan horse for broadband rate regulation. Partly in response to this criticism, the Federal Communications Commission’s recent Title II reclassification order expressly reiterated its commitment to the agency’s long-standing, bipartisan commitment to keeping the Internet free from price controls. But even before the order had been finalized, New York’s Affordable Broadband Act began testing the strength of that commitment—and the agency’s initial response seems to be reinforcing its critics’ concerns.

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The House TikTok Ban is an Empty Threat

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in TIME, and was reposted in the AEIdeas Blog.

Last month, the House of Representatives proudly voted to ban TikTok unless its corporate parent sells the app within six months. But proponents eager to strike a blow against the Chinese government might not celebrate just yet. There are three main problems with the proposed TikTok ban: it’s probably unconstitutional, it’s practically unenforceable, and, even if it worked, it wouldn’t solve the problem of China gathering sensitive data about American users.

Other than that, it’s fine.

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Concern for Kids Prompts Problematic Internet Regulation, Take 27

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This guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.

“What about the kids?” plays an outsized role in the short history of Internet law. From the Communications Decency Act to the Child Online Protection Act, California’s violent video game law, and more, the contours of online regulation have been shaped well-meaning legislation that turned out to be unwise, unconstitutional, or both. 

Last month, the Senate Commerce Committee reported out a bill poised to become the next entry in this dubious canon. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) purports to protect minors from the very real risks posed by social media. But it does so by placing a vague duty of care on a wide range of Internet-based companies in a manner likely to chill significant amounts of online speech and do more harm than good to minors and society in general—in the unlikely event that it survives judicial review.

The crux of the act is Section 3, which requires “covered platforms” to take reasonable measures to prevent and mitigate specific harms to minors, including:

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Dispatches from Dubai Part Two: Attending COP28

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Note: this is the second in a two-part guest post series from BC Law 3L Edwin Ward. Read part one.

Day 5: 12/11/23

Welcome back to the second half of my experience as an observer with the Boston College delegation to the UN Climate Conference. If you haven’t read the first half, you can do so here.

Monday was a rest day for many on the BC delegation, including myself. Rest of course, is a misnomer, as it only means I had to briefly return to the reality of finals season at BC Law—performing a policy and plan analysis of car-centric infrastructure in Syracuse, NY, writing a paper on how US tax law can incentivize more lobbying by environmental organizations to fight back against fossil fuel lobbying, and studying for my international law final. Although it felt odd doing schoolwork in Dubai, it was such a privilege to be able to do it inside the awe-inspiring dome of Al Wasl Plaza.

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Dispatches from Dubai: Attending the COP28 UN Climate Conference

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Note: this is the first of a two-part guest post series from BC Law 3L Edwin Ward.

Day 0: 12/6/23

On December 6, after taking my criminal procedure final, I prepared to fly halfway across the world to the United Arab Emirates on a mission to save the planet. 

Maybe I should back up. I am one of the two BC Law students who were chosen to represent Boston College at the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)—more commonly known as the UN Climate Conference, or simply COP28. 

This annual conference is a meeting of all the nations of the world to reach consensus on the fight against climate change. The most famous of these conferences, COP21, delivered the groundbreaking Paris Agreement. This year’s COP is the first global stock take to assess our progress on meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. COP28 is also notable for being hosted by the United Arab Emirates, a fossil fuel state that has presented more roadblocks than solutions in the fight to phase out fossil fuels.

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Sticks and Stones: Handling Confrontation Like a Lawyer

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Today’s guest post is written by Glenn Cunha, a Boston College graduate, BC Law adjunct professor, a former managing attorney of the Criminal Bureau in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office and retired Massachusetts Inspector General. He is currently serving as a special prosecutor to the Suffolk County District Attorney.

Please note that today’s post contains language and situations that may be upsetting.

As lawyers, we sometimes take for granted the skills we hav‌e honed over the years during law school and in practice. I wanted to become a lawyer when I realized I could have a career based on talking, arguing and going after bullies. It’s just who I am.  Teachers, family members, coaches and friends would always tell me that I would make a good lawyer someday.

The legal skills we use — advocacy, quick thinking, level headedness — are skills I’ve had my whole life. I certainly refined them as a law student and throughout my career but because they are so natural to me, I tend to think everyone has them. After a situation this past summer, it became apparent to me that this isn’t necessarily true.

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