CPSC 183: Law, Technology, & Culture
Brad Rosen (brad.rosen{at}yale.edu)
Fall 2025: M W, 4:00-5:15, LC 102
TAs: santiago.tobar-potes, bessie.bauman, nick.jones, negar.saatchi, eniola.ajao
CPSC 183 is a class that is open to non-majors. You do not need a background in tech or computer science to enjoy the class. The class offers some project options for CS majors as well.
As a general rule, we will adapt the syllabus to take into account current events. We may need to add supplemental readings if breaking news changes the topics being discussed. Feel free to review the syllabi from previous years, “like such as” this absurdly, ridiculously, stupidly exhaustive list of previous syllabi: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. These should give you a flavor of what the class will ultimately look like.
If you have questions during add/drop period, please email me directly. (Strongly encouraged)
NOTE: Attendance in this class is not optional; participation is synchronous. This class is not a gut. The reviews lie. The cake is a lie. There is no spoon. Tceles B Hsup. Do not taunt happy fun ball. You have to burn the rope. I made you look.
1) Attention Span Wars — You or a Goldfish? 8/27
- You Now Have A Shorter Attention Span Than A Goldfish
- OR DO YOU?
- The scarcest resource you don’t even know you’re spending (read)
- In the future, our attention will be sold. (read)
- Lost In the Scroll
- Forget the Click, Online Time May Be More Valuable (skim)
- What you think you know about the web is wrong (read)
- What Is Our Attention Really Worth?
- Yes, the internet is destroying our collective attention span
- How digital media turned us all into dopamine addicts
- The Darkly Soothing Compulsion of Doomscrolling
- (someone is trying to make Hopescrolling happen)
- The Great Fracturing Of American Attention
- Welcome to the Age of Foomscrolling
- Notification Overload
- Gen Z/Flip Phones ( 2024 trend still going)
- Flip Phone Summer ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (2025)
2) The Past And the Future of Cyberlaw — 8/29
- John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace
- Lawrence Lessig, Code 2.0 (Preface to the First Edition, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Preface to the Second Edition – read preface to the second edition last – p. xii-23, ix-xi)
- Frank Easterbrook, Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse, 1996 U. Chi. Legal F. 207
- Mike Madison, Is Cyberlaw Making Us Stupid? (also read the comments)
- Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Digital Borders, Legal Affairs, Jan/Feb 2006
- David R. Johnson and David G. Post, Law and Borders–The Rise of Law in Cyberspace, 45 Stan. L. Rev. 1367 (1996) [excerpt]
- Lawrence Lessig, The Law of the Horse: What Cyberlaw Might Teach, 113 Harv. L. Rev. 501 (1999) [excerpt]
3) The Past and Future of Cyberspace – 9/3
- Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It (Chapters 1, 2 – p. 11-35)
- U.S. v. Morris (Concentrate mainly on the “Facts” section, don’t worry if you don’t understand some of the more complicated issues in the “Discussion” section)
- U.S. v. Nosal (2012 en banc) (read Kozinski’s majority opinion, Skim dissent)
- U.S. v. Nosal (2016 panel) (skim majority, read dissent)
- EFF/ACLU Ask Ninth Circuit to Rehear CFAA cases
- Optional: 9th Circuit denial of rehearing (Reinhardt’s dissent worth reading)
- CFAA Circuit Split Writeup (skim)
- Tennessee District Court Deepens The ‘Without Authorization’ Divide
- Violating an Employer’s Computer Use Restriction Is Not a Federal Crime (skim)
- Linkedin data-scraping case highlights calls for SCOTUS review of computer fraud law
- EFF Asks Supreme Court To Review Dangerous Interpretation of Computer Crime Statute (read
- NACDL – CFAA Primer (Note Criminal Sentence Lengths)
- Van Buren vs. United States (2021) (skim)
- Supreme Court Reins in the CFAA (READ – if all the CFAA stuff is confusing, READ THIS TWICE)
- Jack L. Goldsmith, Against Cyberanarchy, 65 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1199 (1998) [excerpt]
4) What is law? (Dudley don’t hurt me…) – 9/8
- Lon Fuller, The Case of The Speluncean Explorers
- Regina v. Dudley and Stephens (Wikipedia)
- Just For Fun —
5) 15 Minutes of Fame … and exploitation thereof – 9/10
- More Like 15 Seconds of Nanofame
- Jessica Slaughter
- Why My Daughter Will Never Have a Webcam: The Jessi Slaughter Story [VIDEO] [the original has been removed and the link now points to the archive.org version]
- Know Your Meme: About Jessica Slaughter [VIDEO]
- Nick Noonan and Amy Heidemann
- Ghyslain Raza
- Star Wars Kid [VIDEO]
- About Star Wars Kid
- Story Continues (2022)
- Antoine Dodson
- Laina Morris
- Kelly Martin Broderick
- Matthew Cordle
- Julia Fierro
- George Lindell
- George Lindell Witnesses an Accident [VIDEO]
- Reality Hits You Hard, Bro [VIDEO]
- The Troubling Viral Trend of the “Hilarious” Black Neighbor
- What We Can Learn From the Viral Spotlight on Charles Ramsay
- The Creator’s of Kimmy Schmidt’s Theme On Sending Up The “Hilarious Black Neighbor” Meme
- Viral Video News Memes Bring Fame — But Still Feel Almost Racist
- The Moral Compass of Social Media Is Broken
- The Dark Side of Going Viral
- On Turning Racist White People Into Memes To Cope With Collective Trauma
- How Far Can You Go To Resist Being the Subject of a Viral Video
- It’s Corn
- TikTok/Child Stars: One, Two
- 6-7 Is Evolving
- I want to be a child star
6) Introduction to Digital Copyright – 9/22
- Constitution Art 1 Sec. 8 clause 8 (Only read the first part and the clause starting with “To promote the progress..”)
- 17 USC §102
- 17 USC §103
- 17 USC §105
- 17 USC §106
- Feist v. Rural Telephone
- Lawrence Lessig, Free Culture (Ch 6-7, 85-99)
- Christina Mulligan, Copyright and Glee
- Andrew Leonard, The Copyright Wars Come to”Glee”
- Scales of Justice
- Mechanical Licenses
- The Weird Legal Reason Many of Your Favorite Shows Aren’t On DVD (….or streaming,)
- Copyright and the Music Marketplace (skim 16-34 and 55-58; read as much as you’re interested in)
7) Fair Use and the DMCA – 9/24
- 17 USC §107
- Pierre Leval, Toward a Fair Use Standard [DO THIS READING TWICE. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT. IT NECESSITATES CAPS. YES I AM YELLING.]
- Swatch Group v. Bloomberg (skip p9-11, 44-47)
- Seltzer v. Green Day
- Warner Bros. v. RDR Books (Skim “Conclusions of Law” and “I. Copyright Infringement,” but pay special attention to “II. Fair Use”)
- DC Comics v. Towle (Holy Copyright, Batman!)
- Lenz v. Universal (dct)
- Lenz v. Universal (9th Cir 2015) (skim)
- Eldred v. Ashcroft [SKIM: Ginsburg opinion; Breyer Dissent, Stevens dissent]
- PLEASE WATCH BEFORE CLASS:
- Bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsUXAEzaC3
- Achy Breaky Heart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byQIPdHMpjc
- Superman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRz4FY0ZcwI
8) Fair Use: Remix, Reimagine, Reuse – 9/29
- Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music
- Author’s Guild v. Google (skim portions that don’t deal directly with copyright)
- Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. [summary]
- Cariou v. Prince One and Two
- Schwartzwald v. Oath (S.D.N.Y. 9-10-2020) (Jon Hamm’s Privates)
- Bridgeport v. Dimension Films (6th Cir 2005)
- VMG Salsoul v. Ciccone, 824 F3d 871 (9th Cir 2016)
- Dr. Seuss v. Comicmix (read 1-13, focus 11-13)
- Hosseinzadeh v. Klein (skim; read if you are interested. Background here
- Skim: Brownmark Films LLC v. Comedy Partners (7th Cir)
- Skim: Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
- Madonna ended up ‘begging’ ABBA to use a sample
- CoPilot – Github’s automatic coding tool rests on untested legal ground
- MAI vs. Peak (Warning to Comp Sci Majors: This is infuriatingly if you know how computers work)
- Oracle v. Google (EFF Summary) — if you are interested, skim Decision
- Warhol v Goldsmith (pay attention to citations to Leval, and read Kagan’s dissent)
- Internet Archive Is Not Fair use (read article, skim decision– skip the parts about Sony and TvEyes and re-read them after we read those decisions in the future….)
- Optional: Williams v Gaye (this is the “Blurred Lines” case that in the opinion of many is wrongly decided – the dissent specifically cites the Axis of Awesome 4 Chord video we watched in class)
- VIDEOS TO WATCH:
- Little Town (Belle): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovhdfa1sUoM
- Born This Way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw
- Express Yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsVcUzP_O_8
- Super Mario World: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJ1w-venSAE
- Don’t Stop Me Now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM
- Bad Romance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I [please watch this very carefully]
9) Fair Use: Remix and Participatory Culture – 10/1
- Francesca Coppa, A Fannish Taxonomy of Hotness
- Francesca Coppa, Women, Star Trek, and the early development of fannish vidding
- Mary Sue
- Are Fanfiction and Fanart legal?
- For Class: SS+S, P+P+Z
- Lip Dub
- A Feud In Wolf-Kink Erotica Raises a Deep Legal Question
- Watch CAREFULLY: Fair Use & Remix Culture: Transforming Consumers into Makers of Culture
- Watch:
- Dirrty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rg3sAb8Id8
- Gravity (Annie/Jeff Ship): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsBvqDwVqwc
- Too Many Dicks On The Dance Floor (Flight of the Conchords): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1kwfK848Y
- Follow the Yellow Brick Road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cwCIkKFFR4
10) Copyright and Disruptive Technology – 10/6
- Sony v. Universal [Majority Opinion]
- Rewinding to Betamax: The path to consumers’ “right to record”
- American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. v. Aereo, Inc. (skim majority opinion; read Scalia dissent)
- Capitol Records v. ReDigi (2d Cir 2018) [R E A D ]
- Federal Court Shuts Down Aereo’s Attempt At A Comeback (skim)
- The latest in the broadcast TV/copyright kerfuffle (skim)
- FilmOn – Read article and skim linked opinion
- First Aereo, Now FilmOn: Another Fight for Innovation and Competition in TV Technology
- Hope Fades as FilmOn Loses
- TvEyes (skim up to pg 11, read the rest)
- Second Circuit Gouges TVEyes (skim linked 2nd circuit opinion)
- EFF on Locast (read) Decision (skim)
- Bartz v. Anthropic (read)
- Thompson Reuters v. Ross (read)
- Kadrey v. Meta (skim)
- (You aren’t going to read this 108 page report, so feel free to look up a summary of it….or read this one)
11) P2P Law and Piracy – 10/8
- LaMacchia Loophole
- Optional: United States v. LaMacchia
- Why The Recording Industry Really Stopped Suing Its Customers
- Arista v. Limewire (read II. and V.)
- Porn Company Is Suing Hundreds of NJ Residents
- FAQs for Subpoena Targets
- Capitol v. Thomas
- Sony v. Tenenbaum
- Judge Rules BitTorrent Cases Must Be Tried Separately
- Mother Jones: Why it’s getting harder to sue illegal movie downloaders
- PRENDA ROUNDUP (read wikipedia article; skim as many of the original sources at the bottom as you find interesting)
- …ends with Prison for Founder
- Court Blocks Speculative Invoicing
- Record Labels Sue Verizon for Not Disconnecting Pirates
- Watch:
12) DRM and Anti-circumvention – 10/13
- Gabriella Coleman, Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest Among Free and Open Source Software Developers (p. 435-448)
- Richard Stallman, The Right to Read
- DMCA Rulemaking Primer
- The Triennial Rulemaking Process
- ArsTechnica, LOC asks how should we let you break DRM?
- ArsTechnica, Why a Random Federal Agency Gets To Decide How We Break DRM
- 2024 Rulemaking (READ — Note the streamlined process, and then read the 2021 stuff)
- 2021 Rulemaking (EFF) (read)
- Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. (read section IV, skim concurrences)
- Matthew Green v. DOJ, No. 23-5159 (D.C. Cir. 2024). (skim – but please read pages 35 and 36)
- Who’s Driving This Thing – Anti DRM Victories and Milestones 2015
- DMCA Exemptions (Historical – SKIM/Consult for Reference)
- 2018 Exemptions Don’t Go Far Enough
- VW and the DMCA & “Let Owners Look Under the Hood“
- Independent Game Developer Pranks Pirates With ‘Game Dev Tycoon’
- Game Dev Trolls Pirates with Unbeatable Boss
- ‘Deus Ex: The Fall’ Prevents Players With Jailbroken iOS Devices From Firing Guns
- It is time, yet again, to beg for the right to repair
- Microsoft Has Committed to the Right to Repair
- Apple’s U-Turn On The Right to Repair
- (explore) http://www.copyright.gov/1201/ and
- (optional – just for fun or further reading) Randall Picker, Razor-and-Blade Myth(s)
13) Intro to Free Speech – 10/20
- New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964) (read majority opinion)
- …Still Good Law
- Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844 (1997), (read majority opinion)
- Ashcroft v. ACLU
- Skim: Cohen v. California (read “Subsequent Jurisprudence”)
- Jack M. Balkin, The Future of Free Expression in the Digital Age, 36 Pepp. L. Rev. 2008 (Read pp. 102-112)
- Jack M. Balkin, Media Access: A Question of Design, 76 George Wash. L. Rev. 2008 (Read I,II,III, skim IV)
- Batzel v. Smith, 333 F.3d 1018 (9th Cir. 2003) (Read majority opinion only, 8431-8460)
- Supreme Court Sidesteps Ruling on 230 (so when you ask in class where the line is, I will go ¯_(ツ)_/¯ and point you to this)
- BUT: See Moody v. Netchoice ( read 1-8, skim otherwise), and Anderson v. Tiktok (read 3-10) [or honestly, if you’re not going to, at least read this news article)
- FCC v Fox, 556 U.S. ___ (2009) (Read: Syllabus and the Concurring Opinion by Justice Thomas. Skim the Majority Opinion Sections “Statutory and Regulatory Background” and “Governing Principles.”)
- FCC v. Fox (Fox II)(2012), (Read: Syllabus, Skim: Part 2 and 3)
- The Atlantic: Facebook Like Is Now Covered by First Amendment
- Bland v. Roberts (read 36-48; skim background)
- Packingham
- Court: Bloggers have First Amendment protections
- Jonathan Weinberg, Rating the Net [Excerpt] (OPTIONAL)
- Rumsfeld v. Fair Oral Argument (This section is OPTIONAL….but highly recommended if you want to understand modern speech restrictions)
- Transcript here (note Justice Breyer’s question on page 43)
- Summary
14) Anonymity & Online Identity – OCTOBER BREAK EXTRA READING
- The Reasons You Can’t be Anonymous Anymore
- Jose Martinez, Broadway Star of ‘Xanadu’ and ‘Wicked’ Sues To Reveal Twitter Poster Behind STD Claim
- Special Proceeding Order
- Kashmir Hill, Civilizing the Internet, One Lawsuit at a Time
- Kashmir Hill, Lessons Learned from Skanks in NYC
- Chris Soghoian, Twitter’s Privacy Policy and the Wikileaks Case
- Chris Soghoian, NYTimes, When Secrets Aren’t Safe With Journalists
- Parmy Olson, Lawsuits against Web Trolls are on the rise
- Daniel Solove, The Future of Reputation, Ch. 6 p. 136-150, Chapter 8: pp. 189-205 [Full Text]
- Judge: Public Tweets Have No Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
- People v. Harris
- Leon v. Target (skim but READ pages 8-11)
- Rosario v. Clark (skim)
- “Actually Yes“
- Ehling v. Monmouth (skim)
15) Defamation, Private Photos, and Hate Speech – 10/22
- The Restatement (Second) of Torts, § 558 Elements of Defamation (only read § 558)
- Communications Decency Act §230
- Ron Wyden: I wrote Section 230
- The Internet’s Most Important, and Misunderstood, Law
- Section 230, An Overview — read pages 1-16. (skim as much as the rest as you find interesting. read pages 8-16 carefully if you still don’t understand pre-230 law and what happens without it)
- Jonathan Zittrain, A History Of Online Gatekeeping, 19 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 253 (Spring 2006), (p. 257-263) (SKIM)
- Barrett v. Rosenthal, 40 Cal.4th 33 (2006) (1-34)
- Doe v. Ciolli (Order Denying Motion to Quash) (SKIM)
- What it’s like to fight hate online
- Matal v. Tam (read only Supreme Court section). Opinion (read pages 24-26)
- You No Longer Need To Be Online To Be A Victim of Cuberbullying
- D.C. v. R.R, 182 Cal App. 4th (2d Dist 2010) (Read majority opinion; skim dissent for the posts made by commenters)
- Kinney v. Barnes (2014)
- WaPo on Elonis (read article; skim linked opinion if so inclined)
- Counterman (read) Opinion (skim as much as you want of Kagan’s majority opinion; READ BARRETT’S DISSENT IN FULL)
- Facebook Posting That Someone Has Herpes Is Criminal Harassment
- People v. Marquan
- Ars Technica, FCC Asked to Monitor “Hate Speech, Misinformation Online”
- Halle Berry Thanks Jennifer Garner, Adele & More Celeb Parents After Paparazzi-Deterrent Bill Passes
- NY New Revenge Porn Bill
- Palin v. NY Times (2d Cir. 2019)
- McDougal v. Fox News (SDNY 2020)
16) Censorship I — Of Leaks and Creeps – 10/27
- Miller v. California, 415 U.S. 15(1973) (read syllabus)
- New York v. Ferber, 485 U.S. 747 (1982) (read syllabus)
- United States v. Stevens
- Snyder v. Phelps
- United States v. Ortiz-Graulau, 526 F.3d 16 (2008) (read until the paragraph which begins with “The district court excluded the testimony…”)
- Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (read syllabus)
- Pentagon Papers Case a.k.a. New York Times Co v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (read Per Curium Opinion and J. Brennan’s Concurrence)
- WikiLeaks, journalism ethics and the digital age: what did we learn?
16) Censorship II & Great Walls – 10/29
- Murthy, (read pp 21-29, lightly skim otherwise and cross reference your understanding here)
- Moody v Netchoice (pp 1-8, skim rest — ignore standing discussions and focus on censorship/1st amendment discussion, cross ref here)
- Free Speech Coalition v Paxton (read – gloss over what you dont understand and read for vibes when it comes to scrutiny, read the dissent too)
- NRA v. Vullo (skim for vibes, note no dissents)
- Transparency Reports (browsw for a few seconds, max)
- Google Transparency Report (skim) (note historical changes)
TwitterX Transparency Report (skim)- Meta Global Government Requests (skim)
- Warrant Canary (wikipedia)
- Reddit Deletes Warrant Canary
- Jeffrey Rosen, Google’s Gatekeepers
- Bruce Schneier, Review of Access Denied
- WSJ: China Censors Your Internet [PDF]
- A Generation Grows Up In China
- 68 Things You Can’t Say On China’s Internet
- Yahoo Pulls out of China
- A Decade After the Arab Spring…
- Twitter Will Stiffen Moderation Policies In Response to War in Ukraine
- Meta Platforms Exempted Russian War Crimes…
- Struggle for Trust Online
17) Search & Seizure in the Digital Age – 11/3
- Fourth Amendment
- Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967)
- Kyllo v. United States, 533 U.S. 27 (2001)
- United States v. White, 401 U.S. 745 (1971) (read summary)
- United States v. Place, 462 U.S. 696 (1983) (read summary)
- California v. Ciraolo, 476 U.S. 207 (1986) (read summary)
- Ogletree v. Cleveland State (skim)
- EFF, Privacy: Searching and Seizing Computers (skim)
- United States v. Raymonda (2d Cir. 2015) (skim opinion and concurrence)
- Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1 (1985) (read majority opinion)
- Bryan v. MacPherson, 630 F.3d 805 (9th Cir. 2010) (superseding opinion)
- Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372 (2007) (read majority opinion by J. Scalia and J. Stevens’ Dissent)
- OPTIONAL: Scott v. Harris Chase Video
18) Privacy in the Web 2.0 World – 11/5
- United States v. Jones, 132 S.Ct. 945 (2012) (Read Majority Opinion & Sotomayor’s Concurrence)
- Hoffa v. United States, 395 U.S. 293 (1966) (Read intro and section I, skim dissent of Warren, C. J.)
- Los Angeles v. Patel, (2014) (Skim majority opinion; Read Scalia’s dissent)
- Law Students Teach Scalia About Privacy And The Web
- Kashmir Hill, How a Company Takes Full Advantage of your Facebook Information
- Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet — and How to Stop It (Chapter 9 – p. 200-221)
- When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online
- If You’re Not Paying for It; You’re the Product
- http://actualfacebookgraphsearches.tumblr.com/
- XKCD: Latitude
- Instagram, Facebook, and the perils of Sharenting
- The Sharenting Reckoning Is Here (3 Sublinked Articles)
- Ten Years of Sharenting
19) Net Neutrality — 11/13
- Mozilla v. FCC (Read II; skim anything else you find of interest)
- What Does It mean?
- MCP 185 (skim twice, but read 15-18 in particular)
- Net Neutrality is Struck
- A Super-Simple Way to Understand the Net Neutrality Debate
- The Court Allowed the FCC To Kill Net Neutrality Because (Washing Machines)
- Packet Switching and Circuit Switching [SKIM] [This will be explained in class]
- Brand X — 100% optional, but skim if you want to understand the whole “DNS-means-its-an-information service”
- HOW WE GOT HERE (Below are the “History” Readings)
- What Is Title II?
- FCC Sets New Net Neutrality Rules
- Court Backs Treating Internet As Utility, Not Luxury [Wapo Coverage here: “Plain English“]
- T-Mobile’s Unlimited Video Raises Net Neutrality Concerns
- Comcast May Have Found A Major Net Neutrality Loophole
- NYTimes, Net Neutrality and Economic Equality are Intertwined
- NYTimes: Net Neutrality Has Been Repealed
- FCC Plans Net Neutrality Repeal
- FCC Leading Us Towards Catastrophe
- How the FCC Can Save the Open Internet [PDF]
- Tim Wu: Why The Courts Have to Save Net Neutrality
- Comcast v. FCC Wikipedia summary (Optional but highly suggested: Appellate court ruling)
20) We Don’t Talk About Bruno Crypto (11/17)
- Benefits of Blockchain (IBM)
- What is Blockchain (IBM)
- What is a blockchain oracle?
- …and what’s the oracle problem?
- Last Week Tonight – Crypto
- Last Week Tonight — Crypto II
- Nick Weaver on Crypto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9nv0Ol-R5Q
- And More…
- Future of Crypto (2022)
- SNL – NFTs
- Life and Death
- Sold for 1m
- NFTs Explained
- The People Who Lost Serious Cash In NFTs
- Rise and Fall of NFT’s
- Once Upon a Time in Shaolin
- The Decade in Blockchain
- From Scam to Game to Priceless Work of Art (read transcript)
- Web3IsGoingGreat
21) Online Participation – Memes, Communities, and “Citizen Journalism” (11/19)
- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (read Chapter 11 – Memes: the new replicators)
- Rob Walker, When Funny Goes Viral
- Instagram News Memes
- A Meme About Blue Pens….
- How memes became a major vehicle for misinformation
- Malcolm Gladwell, Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted (read this carefully it rocks!)
- XKCD, Map of Online Communities (and The Original)
- Brad Rosen & Elizabeth Stark, Is Trolling a Valid Pedagogical Technique for Socratic Exploration of Course Material?
- Hampster Dance
- Sarah Palin Email Hack (skim for background on next reading)
- Kernell Trial Testimony (read)
- Know Your Meme: Shitposting
- 50 Days of Mayhem: How LulzSec Changed Hacktivism Forever
- LulzSec
- Ed Pilkington, LulzSec Hacker “Sabu” released after “extraordinary” FBI cooperation.
- Alexis Madrigal, The Anatomy of a Misinformation Disaster
- EFF, Legal Guide For Bloggers/Reporters’ Privilege
- CS Monitor, When Tweets Repeat a Lie
- Lies, Damn Lies, and Viral Content (yes it is long af. read it anyway. the pdf AVAILABLE HERE is easier to read)
- Kash Hill, Penn State Scandal Teaches Ashton Kutcher a “Google Before You Tweet” Lesson
- The Meme Election
- Truth is a Virus: Meme Warfare and the Billionaires for Bush (or Gore)
- Douglass Mackey Sentenced
- Bonus: YouTube non-figuratively right now
20) Innovation, Appliancization, Education and Knowledge – 12/1
- Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (Intro, Ch. 5, pp. 1-5, 101-126)
- Venturebeat, App Store Could Spread Like Wildfire (Note: this is from 2008)
- So Why Isn’t There More App Store Competition? (skim)
- Mac App Store – The Subtle Exodus (skim)
- Please Don’t Make Me Download Another App
- Epic v Apple
- Epic v. Google
- Isaac Asimov, Profession (read)
- Wikipedia, Khan Academy (skim)
- Wikipedia, Access to Knowledge Movement (skim)
- TC, Why is the university still here?
- TC, How Should We Learn?
- NYT – Katie Hafner, An Open Mind
- NYT – Jeff Selingo, Demystifying the MOOC
- NYT – Farhad Manjoo, Udacity says…,
- NYT – Remember the MOOC?
- ARS: Real Learning In A Virtual Classroom is Difficult
- Jonathan Zittrain, Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, http://futureoftheinternet.org/static/ZittrainTheFutureoftheInternet.pdf (p. 235-45 — Conclusion)
- Apple has to face Monopoly Lawsuit (Apple v. Pepper / Illinois Brick) [Decision here if you wish to see it – majority is Kavanaugh/Ginsburg/Breyer/Kagan/Sotomayor]
- (Skim Transcript of Oral Argument)
- COVID Roundup: One, Two, Three
FIN) Where are we going? (Are we in a hand basket??) (12/3)
- The Law Can’t Keep Up With Technology (And that’s a good thing) {PDF}
- How the Internet Has Changed Dating See ALSO: CHART
- How Dating Apps Ruined Dating
- Instant Gratification and the Pursuit of Perfection
- Why Attention Seeking is the Defining Need of our Times
- 8 Ways Tech Has Completely Rewired Our Brains
- My Smartphone Gave Me A Painful Neurological Condition
- People Are In Denial About Using Devices While Walking
- The Key of Awesome #97: Look At Your Phone
- Feds Pushing Blocks of Apps While Driving
- Tinder and the Dawn of the Dating Apocalypse
- Teens, Technology and Friends
- TikTok Brain Explained
- TikTok: Candy Store?
- Antidote Just As Bad
- Face Time vs. Screen Time
- The Growing Culture of Impatience
- Snapchat ends Speed Filter
- Social Media Adolescent Addiction MDL MSJ Opp– Skim pp 5-10
- How has the internet changed/us in 20 years (2020)
- 36 Ways The Web Has Changed Us (2014)
- The Internet Transforms Modern Life (2005)
- Technology Has Made Life Different; Not Necessarily More Stressful
- Beware the Filter Bubble
- Did Facebook’s Big New Study Kill My Filter Bubble Thesis (ed note: No)
- Does Online Shaming Prevent Us From Being Able to Grow And Change
- The Public Shaming Pandemic
- The Price of Public Shaming In the Internet Age
- Social Media Is Destroying Human Interaction
- America Has A Loneliness Epidemic
- Why Is The Loneliness Epidemic So Hard To Cure
- Virtual living rooms, adult ‘after-school clubs’ and AI lovers
- The Internet, Community, and Virtual Third Places (Pew 2001)
- If You Want To Belong, Find A Third Place
- Do Yourself a Favor And Go Find a Third Place
Yale Law Tech 
