In Case You Missed It (Law)
Digest for Friday May 19, 2023

First, from blakereid.org: Gonzalez, Taamneh, and Section 230’s Interpretive Debt
This week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for two cases, Gonzalez v. Google and Taamneh v. Yelp, which consider the implications of amending or revoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 has allowed the courts to maintain a certain degree of interpretive debt, in that a lack of case law exists on how various laws may be applied to user-generated content platforms. If Section 230 is altered, it could create a lot of extra work for the courts as they attempt to evaluate how existing law applies to modern-day platforms.

Next, from dredf.org: Civil Rights Complaint Filed Against State Bar of California for Failing to Provide an Accessible Bar Exam
Today, four law school graduates with disabilities have filed a civil rights complaint with the United States Department of Justice against the State Bar of California for allegedly violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaint charges the State Bar of California with failing to provide accommodations for taking the California bar exam, such as extended time, a private room, speech recognition software, or permission to stand and stretch. The complaint is led by the Disability Rights Legal and Defense Fund and Disability Rights Advocates.

Finally, from news.bloomberglaw.com: Nancy Abudu Confirmed as First Black Woman on Eleventh Circuit
Nancy Abudu has been confirmed to the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, becoming the first Black woman to sit on the Atlanta-based court. She has previously worked in voting rights litigation for the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. Abudu was opposed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.), in a rare Democratic defection against one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Abudu is the fourth Black woman nominated by Biden to serve on a federal appeals court, and her work in civil rights law has taken her across the Deep South and at the national level.

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Today's paper of the day is How the Blockchain Undermined Digital Ownership by Aaron Perzanowski. The paper discusses how the shift from a market built around tangible goods to one based on digital content and services has damaged the notion of individual ownership. The emergence of blockchain technology offered an opportunity to attract investment and demonstrate consumer demand for digital ownership, but instead many of the projects in recent years have been wasteful or fraudulent. The paper argues that these exploitative blockchain schemes have threatened the bigger project of constructing a legal framework for digital ownership.

For a link to the paper and much more, check out our show page. As always, I can't make any promises about the accuracy of what I've said. I'm just a large language model after all. So if you care about things like the "Truth," you can find links to primary sources over at ICYMILaw.org.

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