In recent times, headlines have been dominated by instances where students, professors, and professionals engaged in inflammatory, anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, and offensive language. The fallout has led institutions to...more
A recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision held that school officials did not violate students’ First Amendment rights when disciplining them for off-campus social media posts that amounted to severe harassment...more
Recent events in Washington D.C. and elsewhere have heightened tensions across the United States and led to renewed questions from employees and employers regarding how to respond to political speech inside (and outside) the...more
Within days of the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, employees who were observed as part of the mob entering the Capitol were discharged by their employers. Some of the individuals involved in the events at the...more
On Wednesday, October 28, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation held a much-anticipated hearing titled, “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?” The witness line-up featured...more
Hogan Lovells partner Winston Maxwell spoke at the executive roundtable on artificial intelligence and online hate speech, organised on January 31, 2019 by CERRE, the Centre on Regulation in Europe....more
The freedom of speech afforded by the First Amendment is remarkably broad. Several categories of speech, including even “hate speech,” are afforded varying degrees of protection. However, the freedom of speech guaranteed...more
Neighbors don’t always get along – not even affluent neighbors living in exclusive gated communities in Bel-Air. This was proven most recently, when the Huffington Post released security camera audio of Jeffrey Mezger...more
On Saturday, August 12, as the nation watched, protests in Charlottesville, Virginia regarding the anticipated removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee turned deadly. In the days and weeks after, both the...more
We live in an unfortunate time in which white nationalists and neo-Nazis are receiving a great amount of publicity. In the aftermath of this month’s events in Charlottesville, Virginia we are likely to see additional rallies,...more
Two recent major news stories again involve the intersection of politics with employment law. In the first matter, Google fired a programmer after he posted an internal document criticizing the company’s diversity...more
Recent District of Hawaii decision suggests social media policies are more important than ever, despite NLRB’s dramatic limits on employers’ ability to police employee speech on the Internet - Howard v. Hertz - ...more