Detroit-area juror removed over Facebook post

A judge removed a juror from a trial in suburban Detroit after the young woman wrote on Facebook that the defendant was guilty. The problem? The trial wasn’t over.

September 1, 2010
By The Associated Press

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. — Hadley Jons could be found in contempt when [...]

California: Lawsuit against Facebook alleges violation of law forbidding use of minor’s names and faces

A 1971 California law forbids publication of minors’ names and photos in ads without consent of parents, bringing into question Facebook’s use of the “like” button that turns minors into endorsers of brands or ads. -db
Onlne Media Daily
August 30, 2010
By Wendy Davis
A new lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly violating a California law banning the use [...]

Instruction in social media essential in journalism education

According to an online news pioneer, modern journalism students do not naturally see the social media as an important aspect of their professional repertoire. -db
MediaShift
August 30, 2010
By Alfred Hermida
Social media is such a new phenomenon that it is easy for someone to claim to be an expert in the subject. A search on Twitter [...]

Facebook Fights Privacy Concerns

The launch of Facebook Inc.’s Places location service this week sparked new privacy concerns about the popular social network. But the company’s efforts to mollify critics before the launch stemmed some of the blowback.
August 25, 2010
The Wall Street Journal
By Geoffrey A. Fowler
Places is a feature that lets users share their physical locations with Facebook [...]

Google ignites debate about privacy

Internet giant Google has sparked a fiery privacy debate this week by claiming future teenagers will need to change their names when they reach adulthood to escape embarrassing online pasts.
The Courier Mail
August 20, 2010
By Jennifer Dudley-Nicholson
In a warning experts have labelled hypocritical, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company [...]

Facebook brings privacy settings to mobile web

Facebook, which has taken a public relations beating in the past over privacy issues, has enhanced the mobile version of its site to include access to privacy settings.
ZDNet News/Internet
August 4, 2010
By Sam Diaz
This move follows an overhaul to the settings that the company rolled out in May, largely in response to criticisms [...]

Cyberbullying case gets no traction in New York state

A New York state judge has ruled that cyberbullying does not constitute defamation and dismissed her suit against her high school classmates who wrote scurrilous statements about her on FaceBook. -db
Cyberbullying case gets no traction in New York state
Online Media Daily
July 26, 2010
By Wendy Davis
Writing that a classmate contracted a sexually transmitted disease and morphed [...]

How is Social Media Impacting Free Speech Rights?

While social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter increase their user base,  and search engines like Google continue to grow, many wonder if they will become the gatekeepers of information of the future. – SMD
Social Media and First Amendment
Commentary
July 6, 2010
By  Eric Kuhn, CNN Audience Interaction Producer
Aspen, Colorado (CNN) – The future of free speech [...]

Middle Eastern countries censoring Internet

Last week Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey acted to block more content from the Internet. Afghanistan is installing filters on the categories of alcohol, dating and social networking, gambling and pornography. -db

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Opinion
June 26, 2010
By Shari Steele
Yet another country has decided to shut down key parts the Internet. Kathleen Reen at Internews reports that, as [...]

Fired for Facebook protest, worker sues for sexual harassment

A medical technician is seeking damages for civil rights violations, sexual harassment, and assault and battery after her supervisor allegedly harassed and assaulted her. She was fired shortly after a Facebook posting saying her boss need to “keep his creepy hands off” her. -db

Courthouse News Service
June 1, 2010
By Joe Harris

TOPEKA, Kan. (CN) – A medical [...]

National anti-SLAPP law under consideration in Congress

Congress is considering a national law to protect citizens against baseless defamation suits filed by business or governments to prevent criticism. The stakes are higher in the Internet era when a critical comment about an individual or business posted online can garner widespread attention. -db

The New York Times
May 31, 2010
By Dan Frosch
After a towing [...]

Robust journalism emerging amid reports of failed newspapers

Even though newspapers are filing for bankruptcy and laying off reporters, new technology is delivering on its promise to provide the public with more news and in greater detail than ever. -db

First Amendment Center
Commentary
April 18, 2010
By Gene Policinski

Headlines — ironically, given this subject — have proclaimed for some time that newspapers in the United States [...]

Free speech: Marine’s Facebook page protesting Obama health care reform runs afoul of military code

A Marine Corps sergeant has been called to task by his superiors for posting a Facebook page for “Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots” to protest President Barack Obama’s health care reform efforts. -db

San Diego Union-Tribune
April 13, 2010
By Jeanette Steele
A Camp Pendleton Marine is running smack up against the limits of what uniform-wearing Americans are [...]

University of Chicago censors student facebook post

Continuing a practice of monitoring and censoring student posts on social media, the University of Chicago forced a student to delete comments about a professor from his private Facebook page. -db
FIRE
Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
Commentary
March 24, 2010
CHICAGO — For the second time in two years, the University of Chicago has censored a student’s post [...]

Student First Amendment rights get lost in school’s policing of off-campus postings on social media

A blogger from the Citizen Media Law Project argues that school authorities are over reaching in many instances in punishing students for off-campus speech. In many instances the speech has no disruptive effect on the school or falls short of creating a hostile school environment. -db

Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
March 17, 2010
By Justin Silverman

A freshman at Oak [...]

Courtroom bans on social media spreading across United States

The U.S. court system is rapidly adopting rules against the use of social media in the courtroom. Jurors are increasingly instructed to stay off Facebook and Twitter and refrain from using the Internet to research cases. -db
Online Media Daily
March 10, 2010
By Laurie Sullivan
No tweeting or status updates in court or deliberation rooms. Judges have been [...]

Facebook threatens to sue British newspaper over false claim about sex and teen-age girls

Facebook is concerned that its reputation was permanently damaged by a claim in the Daily Mail that seconds after 14-year-old girls posted a profile on Facebook that older men could approach them who “wanted to perform a sex act” in front of them. Daily Mail apologized for the error. -db
Guardian
March 11, 2010
By Charles Arthur
Facebook has [...]

International internet freedom gets boost in latest regulations proposed by Obama administration

The U.S. Treasury Department announced changes in its sanctions against Cuba, Iran and the Sudan which allows internet service to these countries even when they are under U.S. sanctions. -db
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Commentary
March 10, 2010
By Danny O’Brien
The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced on Monday key amendments to the regulation of United States sanctions [...]

Bandwidth problems threaten to curtail military’s social networking

The Pentagon is allowing the troops to use such sites as Facebook and Twitter, but it may be difficult for them to actually sign on since, especially in places like Afghanistan, bandwidth is limited. -db
The Hill
March 1, 2010
By Tony Romm
Trouble with the Pentagon’s strapped Web network could threaten its new decision to permit service [...]

Italian court deals setback to Google and internet freedom

Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italy’s privacy laws and responsible for posts by third parties, a blow to world internet freedom and particularly destructive to Italy’s participation in e-commerce. -db
The New York Times
February 25, 2010
By Rachel Donadio
ROME — Three Google executives were convicted of violating Italian privacy laws on Wednesday, the first [...]

Judge allows suit to go forward on student Facebook posting

A Florida student is suing her principal for suspending her after she posted a Facebook page calling her Advanced Placement teacher “the worst teacher I’ve ever met.” -db

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
February 17, 2010
By Amanda Becker
A federal magistrate said this week that a former Florida high school student who was suspended for [...]

Olympic athletes in winter games confused by rules restricting social media

Olympic social media rules bar athletes from acting as reporters since they lack accreditation, but they can twitter in the first person and send reports from the sidelines. -db

Wired
February 5, 2010
By Mark McClusky

American skier Lindsey Vonn, one of the potential stars of the 2010 Winter Olympics, told her nearly 35,000 Twitter followers that she would [...]

Florida high school student booted from honor society for Facebook page criticizing school

First Amendment experts say a high school student may have been wrongly kicked out of the honor society since his comments on Facebook criticizing the school would normally be considered protected speech. -db
The Tampa Tribune
February 3, 2010
By Ronnie Blair

WESLEY CHAPEL, Flor. – Two Florida experts in First Amendment law say a Wesley Chapel High student’s [...]

Growing numbers scale China’s digital wall

Chinese citizens are finding ways to get around China’s firewalls after the government shut down pornography sites, blogs, online video sites, Facebook, and Twitter during the Beijing Olympics. -DB

The New York Times
January 16, 2010
By Brad Stone and David Barboza

The Great Firewall of China is hardly impregnable.
Just as Mongol invaders could not be stopped by the [...]

Bloggers replace mainstream media in covering local government

Bloggers using Twitter and Facebook are filling the void to cover local government meetings, taking the place of mainstream media suffering losses of revenue as the internet takes its share of ads. -DB
MediaShift
January 14, 201
By Steven Davy

Traditionally, newspaper reporters were dispatched to cover the mundane proceedings of a local government in action: the city council meeting. [...]

Written word alive and well

A study done by the University of San Diego and other universities revealed that Americans are reading far more words as the new technologies take hold. With the advent of TV, reading was in decline but has rebounded, tripling from 1980 to 2008. -DB

Wired
Commentary
December 29, 2009
By Eliot Van Buskirk

Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable [...]

Film star brings suit on information on Wikipedia suggesting the actor is gay

Ron Livingston is suing an anonymous person who he says put up information on Wikipedia that claims Livingston has been dating a man. -DB

NBC Chicago
December 7, 2009

Actor Ron Livingston is suing an alleged Wikipedia hacker who reportedly posted information suggesting the actor was gay on his online bio page, according to TMZ.
Livingston, whose most notable [...]

EFF sues to force government to provide records of spying on social networks

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, working with the UC Berkeley law school, has filed suit against a number of federal agencies who have not responded to Freedom of Information Act requests for information about their surveillance of social networking sites. -DB

Electronic Frontier Foundation
Press Release
December 1, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), working with the [...]

First Amendment panel finds promise, pitfalls in social media

By Donal Brown
The panel on journalists and social media at the First Amendment Coatition Assembly offered wise advice and a few emphatic warnings, chief among them: everything a journalist puts up on Twitter or Facebook or other social media is public.
Speaking at the assembly October 24 in Los Angeles on the panel entitled “Twitter with [...]

State supreme court rejects ‘ownership’ argument in dismissing defamation claim against Facebook

The New York Supreme Court ruled for Facebook in a suit brought by a student against former high school classmates and their parents after the classmates  had posted on Facebook alleged false and defamatory statements about her. The court held that Facebook was protected under the Communications Decency Act, did not own the defamatory content [...]

FBI investigated programmer after he helped obtain federal court records

A 22-year-old programmer found out this week from a Freedom of Information Act request that the FBI investigated him for helping put public documents online. -DB
Privacy Digest
October 6, 2009
By Mac Ronin
When Aaron Swartz, a 22 year-old programmer, decided last fall to help an open government activist amass a public and free copy of millions of [...]

As newspapers decline, politicians use social media to connect with voters

In some communities, social media is the only way politicians can reach voters, at times receiving immediate responses that speed the political process. -DB

MediaShift
September 29, 2009
By Steven Davy

When television cameras panned across the room full of senators and representatives during the recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress, the audience at home [...]

New Defense Department policy may allow troops to tweet and blog

In the face of a raft of military prohibitions against social networks. a new draft policy recognizes the power of the networks and seeks to balance the risks with the gains. -DB
Wired
Commentary
September 29, 2009
By Noah Shachtman
The Defense Department may allow troops and military employees to freely access social networks — if a draft policy circulating around [...]

Social networking ban on convicted sex offenders deemed unconstitutional

A blogger for the Citizen Media Law Project says that the new Illinois law making it illegal for convicted six offenders to use social networking websites is probably unconstitutional and certainly unenforceable. -DB
Citizen Media Law Project
Commentary
August 20, 2009
By Andrew Moshirnia
The memory of pain can be one of the best painkillers. Anyone who has had the misfortune [...]

Security concerns may shut down military social networks for military personnel

Just as the U.S. military is beginning to embrace Twitter and Facebook, it may have to close these sites down to keep out hackers and cybercrooks. -DB
Wired
July 30, 2009
By Noah Shachtman
The U.S. military is strongly considering a near-total ban on Twitter, Facebook, and all other social networking sites throughout the Department of Defense, multiple sources within [...]