Recent Developments in Social Media & AI Litigation

Reframing the Legal Landscape: Recent Developments in Social Media and AI Litigation - Professor Matt Bergman

• Course Number: LAW-282
• Course Type: Foundational
• Credits: 2
• Enrollment Limit: Determined by the Registrar

Description: The year 2022 marked the advent of an entirely new type of personal injury litigation against social media companies focused on the defective design of social media apps rather than the harmful content they hosted. This trailblazing litigation has spawned pathbreaking legal holdings and high-profile bellwether trails that have reframed the landscape of social media litigation. Since 2024, personal injury product liability litigation has expanded to AI platforms and chatbots which raise equally profound issues of first impression. This course will apply legal history and economic analysis to contextualize these new social media and AI litigations within traditional frameworks of product liability, First Amendment law, and high-tech jurisprudence. Class sessions will discuss trial and appellate court rulings and journal articles on the following twelve topics:

• • Birth of the Internet and Enactment of Section 230
  • Construction of Section 230 Citadel of Immunity
  • Social Media Economics and Algorithmic Design
  • Legislative Regulation of Social Media: COPPA, FOSTA-SESTA
  • Judicial Criticisms of Section 230
  • Product Liability Assault on Section 230 Citadel
  • Legislative Limits on Social Media: COPPA & FOSTA-SESTA
  • First Amendment Challenges to Social Media Regulation
  • AI Transition from Attention Economy to Intimacy Economy
  • Product Liability and Large Language Models
  • Applicability of First Amendment to AI Generated Speech
  • Causation Defenses to Social Media and AI Product Liability Claims
  • Large Language Models, Trademark and Copyright Protection
• Content Notice: Some cases, materials, classroom presentations, and discussions in this course may include graphic depictions of the human body, explicit material, and discussion of death, suicide, or other sensitive topics.
• Prerequisite: None
• Evaluation Method: Midterm exam and final exam
• Capstone: no
• WIE: no