Rachel Martin ‘23
Columns Editor
The Law, Innovation, Security, and Technology (LIST) student group started October off strong with a list of technology-focused events, with more on the horizon. Read on for coverage of their “Intro to Tech Law” and “Privacy and Democracy in Technology” events, and mark your calendars for their upcoming event on global supply chain issues, “The Tab on FABs: Semiconductor Supply Chain Security,” taking place next Monday (October 25) at noon in the Purcell Reading Room.
Intro to Tech Law
LIST’s “Intro to Tech Law” event took place on October 5. As illustrated by the lineup of speakers, “tech law” encompasses a wide range of practice areas: Kirk Nahra, partner at WilmerHale, works primarily on privacy, security, and regulatory matters in the healthcare sector; Samantha Kosarzycki, associate at Troutman Pepper, does transactional work with technology and life sciences companies; Joseph Mutschelknaus, director in Sterne Kessler’s Electronics Practice group, does patent application, litigation, and licensing work; and Charlie Wood, associate at Cooley, works on cybersecurity litigation and white collar investigations. As such, whatever kind of work you’re interested in, chances are you can find a tech law angle to it.
Tech law encompasses a host of exciting, rapidly evolving areas to be working in, and with a few exceptions (such as patent prosecution), it usually does not require a STEM background. “Literally no one on the planet was a privacy lawyer in 1987 when I got out of law school,” Nahra noted, and with the constant development of new technologies like facial recognition, even a junior associate can very quickly become a leading expert on something. In fact, sometimes technical laypersons are better at the important task of translating technical terms into language other non-experts like regulators can understand. Wood qualified that a technical background can be useful for some positions, however, and one at the very least needs an interest in the relevant areas and a willingness to learn. How does one get up to speed in an unfamiliar area? “I buy a couple of graduate-level textbooks in the area and read them,” Mutschelknaus said.
There are many reasons to go into tech law. Mutschelknaus is passionate about working with startups, Nahra enjoys seeing his clients in the news and people’s daily lives, Kosarzycki enjoys the fast pace, and Wood enjoys diving deep into matters and building relationships with clients. Andrew Nell ’23, president of LIST, had this to add: “[Tech law] is a field in flux … [this] means you have a chance to shape the legal architecture that could govern our space for generations to come.” Nell also extended this invitation: “I had no idea tech law would become my passion when I came to UVA . . . . find something you love, find people who are doing it, and find out how you can become a part of that community ... I invite anyone in the law school who has any interest in this space to join us in the future.”
Privacy and Technology in Democracy
On October 14, LIST, the American Constitution Society (ACS), and the Law School’s new LawTech Center joined together to co-sponsor an event on privacy and democracy in the age of technology. The speakers were Professor Danielle Citron, director of the LawTech center; Megan Gray, principal at Gray Matters Law & Policy and former DuckDuckGo general counsel and FTC attorney; and Rachel Levinson-Waldman, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security Program and former trial attorney in the DOJ Civil Rights Division.
With the events of January 6 and the ongoing Facebook debacle, online moderation and privacy are major topics of conversation. Much of this discussion has focused on 47 U.S.C. § 230. Originally enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act, § 230 shields online platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit from liability for what users post to their sites and for any “good faith” content moderation they do undertake. This lack of liability is a double-edged sword: it enables Twitter to avoid cracking down on protesters in Cairo, but also allows things like revenge porn sites, which are pretty much all based in the United States, Professor Citron explained. Gray noted that it also incentivizes the amplification of viral content that increases user engagement, which includes not only toxic hate speech and harmful conspiracy theories like “Stop the Steal,” but also movements like “Me Too” that we may want to encourage.
Is there a way to reform § 230? Ultimately, it may be a matter of what tradeoffs one is willing to accept. Professor Citron advocated for conditioning platform immunity on the platforms engaging in responsible content moderation of clear instances of illegality causing serious harm, such as online stalking, child predation, and threats. She argued that, among other problems, failing to moderate such content actually reduces free speech by driving disadvantaged people offline. Gray, however, thought that more moderation would inevitably lead to companies being overcautious about filtering and “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” and she would rather “take the ‘Stop the Steals’ with the ‘Me Toos.’” She also expressed concern that the extra costs of moderation would shut smaller players out of the market, which would ultimately make things worse. Professor Citron did not share this concern, arguing that what is “reasonable” moderation could vary based on the size of the platform. She also took the position that this is just a cost of business that must be internalized, saying that she was not going to “cry a river [over] startups with poor business models,” noting that many startups actually have quite a bit of outside funding.
Rather than fighting about moderation, though, perhaps we should be more worried about other aspects of online speech. Levinson-Waldman spoke on privacy issues relating to police searches of social media, with more information than ever about our lives online. Professor Citron and Gray both expressed concern at the level of tracking private companies, which are not affected by the Fifth Amendment, employ as part of targeted advertising. Gray advocated for the banning of “surveillance advertising” and more enforcement of antitrust laws. She suggested that this would actually help ameliorate some of the concerns about moderation, noting that if people had more options, companies would be pressured to create more positive environments. “The theme in all this is ‘money is power’. . . money and power trump everything” Gray said, and until we can address how the big advertising companies make their money, we will not be able to get to the root of the problem.
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rdm9yn@virginia.edu