Governing Digital Content

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor

Information communication technologies (ICTs) have facilitated an incredible expansion of the "velocity, virality, and volume" of communication. This is accelerating and expanding innovation, education, and opportunity, as well as consolidation, disinformation, and radicalization. This course will examine the impacts of ICTs, as well as what companies, governments, and civil society are doing to address the perceived harms of the digital age, while preserving its perceived benefits. It will begin with an overview of the technical infrastructure (equipment, protocols, standards) of ICTs, including the Internet, and surveying some of the communications-facilitating services that have evolved and are evolving on top of it. We will then look at a range of case studies that illustrate the variety of benefits and harms that have been tied to the expanded use of ICTs, before examining some of the company-led efforts, government regulations, and multilateral/multistakeholder collaborations that attempt to address them.