Data privacy resources based on Matt Laslo's tech coverage
Laslo's early, revealing and persistent privacy reporting for WIRED has served as a bridge between academia and Washington, as evidenced in it being cited in 20+ law reviews, books, syllabi, et.
While researching internet privacy laws, I stumbled on my name. As a lapsed narcissist, I Googled down the rabbit hole and stumbled on a trend.
Turns out my tech coverage for WIRED magazine is cited in 20+ law reviews, including Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Duke Law and Technology Review, University of Chicago Legal Forum, etc.
Guess, it’s also referenced in letters to the FCC, Congress, quoted in books and assigned at UNC, NYU, DePaul, etc.
Most scholars cite my coverage of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which remains a shield for tech firms. Here’s how I described it in WIRED:
Through inaction, our contemporary Congress has transformed our private data into the hottest commodity around. On Capitol Hill, many continue walling AI off from the internet as we fund it, with our personal data.
Being seen was one thing—one that sent shivers up many a mind. That’s yesterday. We’re about to be known—our era’s great unknown.
Below are
Me: I’m a Washington-based WIRED contributor, covering the intersection of technology and politics with an eye towards today’s AI revolution. I’m also an adjunct political comms. professor at Johns Hopkins (MA) where I lecture on new media’s—and medium’s—impact on politics.
Apologies: The works are academic and technical, though, hopefully, also illuminating, if deeply unsettling.
Law reviews that cite Laslo’s privacy reporting
1) University of Chicago Legal Forum — The Internet as a Speech Machine and Other Myths Confounding Section 230 Reform, by Danielle Keats Citron Mary Anne Franks
2) Cornell Law Review — COMPELLING CODE: A FIRST AMENDMENT ARGUMENT AGAINST REQUIRING POLITICAL NEUTRALITY IN ONLINE CONTENT MODERATION, by Lily A. Coad
3) Harvard Journal of Law & Technology — ENJOINING NON-LIABLE PLATFORMS, by Maayan Perel
4) Duke Law and Technology Review — ANY SAFE HARBOR IN A STORM: SESTAFOSTA AND THE FUTURE OF § 230 OF THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT, by Charles Matula
5) University of Illinois Chicago Law Review — Is Truth Hanging on by a Thread?, by Thomas Ryan
i. DEEP FAKE FUTURE NOW: “a fabricated quote from the Broward County
Sheriff…article was completely fake,” writes Thomas Ryan
6) Illinois Law Review — THE INTERNET OF CHILDREN: PROTECTING CHILDREN’S PRIVACY IN A HYPER-CONNECTED WORLD, by Eldar Haber
7) Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law (Caruso School of Law at Pepperdine Univ.) — Customer Transparency Can Dampen the Growing Human Trafficking Problem, by Colin Martell
8) Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal — Policing the Digital Public Square: The Duty of NonManipulation as an Alternative to Free Speech Restrictions on Social Media, by Ben Kabe
9) San Diego Law Review — Another Shot at Rectifying the District of Columbia v. Heller Ambiguities: The Constitutional Right to Arms, the Nonconstitutional Right to Arms, and the Commerce Clause, by NOAH GAARDER-FEINGOLD
10) Brooklyn Law School, BrooklynWorks — Mad about the First Amendment, Our Beacon for Liberty, Equality and Democracy, by Nicholas Allard
11) Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal — Combating Fake News with “Reasonable Standards, by Tawanna D. Lee
12) Cleveland State Law Review — Changing Counterspeech, by G.S. HAN (Vanderbilt Law)
13) Journal of Law and Technology at Texas — CONSTRAINING THE CYBERMOB: USING A DOXING NOTICE AND TAKEDOWN REGIME TO OPTIMIZE THE SOCIAL UTILITY OF ONLINE SHAMING, by Erik Money
14) JURIMETRICS (Arizona State Univ. Law) — SOFT LAW IN U.S. ICT SECTORS: FOUR CASE STUDIES, by Adam Thierer
15) Pace Law Review — SECTION 230: THE VALYRIAN STEEL FOR WEBSITE OPERATORS, AND WHY A TAX CREDIT IS THE BEST SOLUTION TO A SAFER INTERNET, by Noah Hale
16) Washington University Law Review — HOW CONTENT MODERATION MAY EXPOSE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES TO GREATER DEFAMATION LIABILITY, by Tanner Bone (Washington University School of Law)
17) Touro Law Review (Touro Law Center) — Deplatformed: Social Network Censorship, The First Amendment, and the Argument to Amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, by John A. LoNigro
18) GW University Law School — In Antitrust We Trust?: Big Tech Is Not the Problem—It’s Weak Data Privacy Protections, by Olivia T. Creser
19) INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION FOUNDATION — Overview of Section 230: What It Is, Why It Was Created, and What It Has Achieved, by ASHLEY JOHNSON AND DANIEL CASTRO
20) Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review (Digital Commons; Marymount University Law School) — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act: Why California Courts Interpreted It Correctly and What That Says About How We Should Change It, by E. Alex Murcia
21) SJ Quinney College of Law, University of Utah — Freedom of Thought in the United States: The First Amendment, Marketplaces of Ideas, and the Internet, by John G. Francis Leslie Francis
Required reading: Syllabi
1) NYU, Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service — The Politics of Public Policy
2) UNC (Chapel Hill), School of Media and Journalism — Introduction to Media Law
3) DePaul — The Internet, Technology, and Politics
4) Johns Hopkins, Advanced Academic Programs — Politics and Media
5) UT Austin School of Law — Tarlton Law Library Jamail Center for Legal Research
i. “This guide provides researchers with a curated selection of resources on Big
Tech and social media regulation.”
Book citations (partial)
1) Social Media, Freedom of Speech, and the Future of Our Democracy (Oxford Univ. Press, 2022); edited Lee C. Bollinger, Edward H. Levi, Geoffrey R. Stone
2) Corporate Citizen (Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)): edited Oonagh E. Fitzgerald
3) Deplatforming Misogyny: Report on Platform Liability for Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence; by Cynthia Khoo (Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF))
4) Internet Law — Grey House Publishing (2020) Auburn Hills Stacks
5) Decline of Free Speech on the Postmodern Campus: The Troubling Evolution of the Heckler’s Veto; by Kenneth Lasson (Univ. of Baltimore School of Law)
a. Quotes Laslo op-ed: Sinclair’s ‘Fake News’ Script Put Its Viewers’
Trust In Their Local News At Risk
6) What’s New in Publishing; by Damian Radcliffe
a. Quotes Laslo op-ed: Coronavirus revealing why local news is so
important. It’s also killing it
Laslo cited in policy making
1) Letter to Federal Communications Commission
a. Quoted: Access Now to FCC; by Eric Null, Isedua Oribhabor, &
Jennifer Brody
2) Letter to House Committee on Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce
a. Quoted: Computer & Communications Industry Association (2020)
3) Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
a. Could Trade Agreements Help Address the Wicked Problem of Cross-Border
Disinformation?, by Susan Ariel Aaronson (2021)
4) Benton Institute for Broadband & Society
a. Links: Section 230 article (2019)
5) Federal Communications Law Journal
a. In Antitrust We Trust?: Big Tech Is Not the Problem—It’s Weak Data Privacy
Protections (2021)
6) Ohio State Technology Law Journal
a. WEB OF LIES: HATE SPEECH, PSEUDONYMS, THE INTERNET, IMPERSONATOR
TROLLS, AND FAKE JEWS IN THE ERA OF FAKE NEWS (2021)
b. By YITZCHAK BESSER, “law clerk for Senior US District Judge Glen H.
Davidson of the Northern District of Mississippi”
Tech-focused media appearances (partial)
1) WritersandEditors.com
a. From Section 230 to The EARN IT Act and still controversial
2) TECH NEWS WEEKLY
a. Episode 96
3) KERA, Dallas NPR
a. With Roe overturned, are privacy rights over?
ii. Laslo’s: “The Shaky Future of a Post-Roe Federal Privacy Law”
4) !FEXE – Ideas for Execution
a. Link: WIRED Section 230 piece
Dissertations, thesis’ citations (partial)
1) University of California, Berkeley dissertation (philosophy)
a. The Mice that Roar: What Small Countries Can Teach Great Powers About
2) Cornell dissertation
a. file:///C:/Users/matt/AppData/Local/Temp/Abebe_cornellgrad_0058F_11821.pdf
3) Johns Hopkins thesis
a. Look inside How Internet Changed Middle East Policy
4) Walden University dissertation
a. Race, Class, and Socioeconomic and Sentencing Laws in Opioid Cases, by
Phaedra Denise Jackson
5) Brill (paywalled)
a. Freedom of Thought in the United States: The First Amendment, Marketplaces
of Ideas, and the Internet, by John Gregory Francis and Leslie Francis