What is it about?
Private companies exert considerable control over the flow of information on the internet. Whether users are finding information with a search engine, communicating on a social networking site or accessing the internet through an ISP, access to participation can be blocked, channelled, edited or personalised. Such gatekeepers are powerful forces in facilitating or hindering freedom of expression online. This is problematic for a human rights system which has historically treated human rights as a government responsibility, and this is compounded by the largely light-touch regulatory approach to the internet in the west. Regulating Speech in Cyberspace explores how these gatekeepers operate at the intersection of three fields of study: regulation (more broadly, law), corporate social responsibility and human rights. It proposes an alternative corporate governance model for speech regulation, one that acts as a template for the increasingly common use of non-state-based models of governance for human rights.
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Why is it important?
This book will appeal to readers interested in understanding the impact of technology businesses on the right to free speech on the internet. Through a series of case studies, readers can explore where the law ends and social responsibility begins concerning human rights issues online. This book will particularly appeal to readers uncomfortable with the hard line of law or freedom approaches to internet regulation as it charts an alternative path proposing a governance model for regulation of speech on the internet.
Perspectives
Emily B. Laidlaw is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Calgary, prior to which she spent almost ten years in the United Kingdom where she completed her LLM and PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science and held a lectureship at the University of East Anglia. She researches and consults in the areas of information technology, copyright and media law, human rights and corporate social responsibility.
Dr Emily Laidlaw
University of Calgary
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This page is a summary of: Regulating Speech in Cyberspace, January 2015, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/cbo9781107278721.
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