I recently dipped a hesitant toe into the pool of online dating. While scary enough on its own, I was also mildly concerned by the parade of horror stories, bad dates, and just plain weird things I had heard about from friends and veteran dating app users looking for love in the digital age. Heedless of their advice, and with a level of ignorance that was almost courageous, I dove in anyway.
I should have known better.
Continue readingThis guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.
My fellow tech policy enthusiasts, our long national nightmare is over. Last week, the Sixth Circuit brought an end to the decade-long fight over net neutrality by prohibiting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from applying Title II common carrier regulation to broadband providers. The decision is a victory for tech policy, freeing Internet access from the shadow of overbearing regulation. It’s also a win for administrative law, as it aligns with the Supreme Court’s guidance that courts, not agencies, should resolve disputes over statutory interpretations. The ruling reaffirms the principle that important policy decisions should be made by Congress, not by agencies under the guise of interpreting ambiguous statutes.
Continue readingThis guest post by BC Law Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Daniel Lyons first appeared in the AEIdeas Blog.
Last week, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the TikTok divest-or-ban bill against a constitutional challenge. The result was unsurprising given how poorly TikTok fared at September’s oral argument. The decision itself contains many intriguing legal insights at the nexus of national security and free speech. This post examines the Court’s First Amendment analysis and explains why, despite the loss, the popular but problematic platform is unlikely to be shut down.
Continue readingThe feeling is unmistakable. An endless scroll through a LinkedIn carnival of contrived self-promotion and corporate-speak. Each post teeters on the brink of parody. “Thrilled to announce.” “Congrats mate!” “Excited for what’s coming!” You can picture the unseen scorecards flashing behind computer screens: applause, confetti, sympathy. And there you are, shrinking into the shadows, your own achievements contorted into trivialities.
For law students, this pressure is not just an unwelcome intrusion; it often feels imperative. If networking is our currency, LinkedIn is our trading floor. But is it a necessary evil, or just some Kantian illusion that we’ve convinced ourselves is indispensable to our profession?
Continue readingThis 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.
Continue readingToday’s post by BC Law professor and associate dean for academic affairs Daniel Lyons originally appeared on the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) AEIdeas blog. You can view the post here.
By Daniel Lyons
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew recently testified before Congress in a hearing ostensibly asking “How Congress Can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms.” In reality, the five-hour session more closely resembled Grandpa Simpson shaking his fist at clouds than a nuanced discussion of cybersecurity. There appears to be a growing, bipartisan consensus that Congress should do something about the popular social media platform. But before deciding what should be done, legislators must discern what precisely are the unique policy challenges that TikTok presents.
Continue readingEditor’s Note: BC Law is launching a TikTok channel! Follow us @bclawonline.
You can’t BeReal if you’re in law school.
Wipe your social media — make a pseudo Instagram handle, private your Twitter, and maybe even delete your Facebook if you’re feeling up to it. This is the advice commonly distributed to incoming law students and applicants alike across online law school forums.
This advice is understandable these days, since employers Google everything, and law students have character and fitness standards to follow in order to be eligible to graduate and take the bar. This privatization movement strikes at the heart of #LawTok, though.
#LawTok is a TikTok hashtag categorizing videos dedicated about — you guessed it — the legal field. #LawTok videos range from videos about navigating On Campus Interviews, networking tips, the latest Supreme Court case to hit the docket, and more. #LawTok boasts 1.7 billion views as of this article’s publication.
Continue readingRecently I was scrolling through Twitter (never a good idea) after a Patriots game to see what the beat reporters were saying about the game and look for any takeaways I had missed.
Interspersed amongst these tweets were those of other (non-sporty) accounts I follow. Like many people, I follow a range of media outlets, individuals, sports teams, brands, journalists and celebrities. In the couple of years I have had a Twitter account, I have deleted the app on several occasions and only recently found myself using it again when I learned there are some really interesting accounts that track what’s happening in my local Newton community.
I’m always interested in what’s happening locally. I followed some of these accounts, and the act of doing so in turn suggested similar accounts to follow, and before long I was seeing tweets about roadwork, Zoom city hall meetings, polemic diatribes on bike lanes, and voting locations.
I was genuinely stunned however (which is saying something in 2021) when I happened upon the tweets of a few city councilors posing for a selfie together inside of the newly opening Tatte Bakery & Cafe on Centre St. in Newton—an upscale eatery for the Greater Boston bon vivant that boasts only four locations in the state, in the enclaves of Newton, Brookline, Boston, and Cambridge, as well as a de rigeur location in Washington D.C.
I was confused about what I was looking at, and why. Sure, we’ve all seen politicians at ribbon cuttings for schools and hospitals and senior centers and the like.
But Tatte?
Continue readingWhat is cancel culture? Is it a side effect of the era of social media and the 24-hour news cycle? Is it the gap-filling mechanism for the space where the American justice system has failed and yet society demands a reckoning? Is it a manifestation of the United States punitive justice methodology? Is it merely the newest iteration of an otherwise ancient human custom?
These questions and more were posed and pondered in a recent conversation held by the Criminal Law Society and BC Law Professor Steven Koh. Students shared their views on how to define cancel culture, who is subject or not subject to it, its efficacy, and its justness. The discussion stirred many of my own thoughts on this phenomenon.
BC Law: Impact 