The emergence of social media led to profound changes in the way we interact with technology and each other. Every day — often without thinking — we use social media platforms for myriad purposes, including to keep family and friends apprised of developments in our lives, to reconnect with long-lost friends, to debate contemporary social and political issues, to conduct business, and even to find romance. It is unsurprising, therefore, that social media established itself as a worldwide phenomenon. According to current estimates, there are nearly 2.8 billion users of social media worldwide, and that number is expected to increase dramatically over the next several years. There are now hundreds of thousands of messages and posts on social media websites and mobile apps occurring every minute. As several Supreme Court Justices recently observed, social media is “embedded in our culture,” and there is perhaps no other forum in history that is so accessible and in which speech is so prolific.

Originally published in The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology - Fall 2017.