Chapter 37: Further Reading and Resources

1. Wu, Tim. The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age. Columbia Global Reports, 2018.

Wu, the Columbia Law professor who coined "net neutrality," argues that concentrated platform power is not merely an antitrust problem but a threat to democratic deliberation and free expression. Relevant chapters examine how monopolistic speech platforms alter the dynamics of the information marketplace and what structural remedies — rather than content-based regulation — might restore competitive conditions. Wu's framework illuminates why marketplace of ideas metaphors are undermined by structural concentration, making the book essential background for understanding the limits of speech libertarianism in platform environments.

2. Balkin, Jack. "Free Speech in the Algorithmic Society: Big Data, Private Governance, and the Future of Democracy." UC Davis Law Review, Vol. 51, 2018.

One of the most cited law review articles on digital speech governance, Balkin argues that the major threat to free expression in the digital age is not government censorship but private "algorithmic censorship" and the architecture of attention economies. He develops the concept of "new school speech regulation" — government working through private intermediaries rather than directly restricting speech — and argues this requires new First Amendment theory. Essential reading for students who want to understand the intellectual foundations of debates about platform power and speech governance.

3. Kaye, David. Speech Police: The Global Struggle to Govern the Internet. Columbia Global Reports, 2019.

Written by the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression (2014-2020), this concise and readable book examines how global internet platforms have become the de facto arbiters of speech standards worldwide. Kaye provides detailed analysis of how platforms make content moderation decisions, the accountability deficits in those decisions, and what international human rights law provides (and fails to provide) as a framework. His critique of laws like Germany's NetzDG is particularly valuable for understanding the UN human rights community's perspective on platform regulation.

4. Zittrain, Jonathan. The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It. Yale University Press, 2008. (Updated analysis available through Berkman Klein Center publications.)

Zittrain's foundational text on the "generativity" of the internet — its capacity to be repurposed by anyone — and the forces eroding that generativity through lockdown of platforms and devices. While published before the current platform regulation debates, Zittrain's framework remains essential for understanding why architecture matters as much as law in governing speech. His more recent work at the Berkman Klein Center addresses platform governance, content moderation, and the interplay between technical design and legal regulation.

5. Electronic Frontier Foundation. "Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act." EFF Deep Links (ongoing analysis). Available at: eff.org/issues/cda230

The EFF maintains the most comprehensive publicly accessible analysis of Section 230 litigation, legislative proposals, and policy debates. The organization's legal analysis, while advocating a specific position (strong Section 230 protection), is carefully grounded in legal doctrine and provides detailed examination of how proposed reforms would affect different types of platforms and users. Students should engage with EFF analysis while also consulting the arguments of reform advocates to develop a complete picture.

6. Citron, Danielle Keats. The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age. W.W. Norton, 2022.

Citron, one of the foremost legal scholars of online privacy and intimate privacy violations, provides the foundational academic argument for stronger legal protection against non-consensual intimate imagery and the other forms of online abuse that SHIELD Act-type legislation addresses. Her earlier work, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace (2014), established the academic framework for understanding how online harassment and non-consensual intimate imagery cause concrete, measurable harms that justify legal intervention. Essential for students examining the SHIELD Act case study.

7. Roth, Yoel, and Nick Pickles. "Updating Our Approach to Misleading Information." Twitter Blog, 2020. (Archived.)

Roth, who served as Twitter's Head of Site Integrity, co-authored this internal policy explanation that provides unusual transparency into how a major platform approaches misinformation policy design at the operational level. Reading platform-authored policy documentation alongside academic and legal analysis gives students a more complete understanding of how legal and policy constraints translate into practical platform decisions. Note that Roth's subsequent public commentary (including congressional testimony) provides additional context.

8. Persily, Nathaniel, and Joshua A. Tucker, eds. Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

This edited volume brings together leading political scientists, sociologists, and legal scholars to assess the evidence on social media's effects on democratic processes. Chapters address filter bubbles, echo chambers, foreign interference, and platform regulation. The volume is distinguished by its careful attention to what the empirical evidence does and does not support, providing a valuable corrective to both alarmist and dismissive accounts of social media's political effects.

9. Nyhan, Brendan, et al. "Like-Minded Sources on Facebook Are Prevalent but Not Polarizing." Nature, 2023.

This landmark study — the product of Facebook's 2020 election research collaboration with academic researchers — provides some of the most rigorous evidence available on how algorithm changes affect information exposure on social media. The study found that removing algorithmic ranking (switching to chronological feed) reduced exposure to politically congenial content but did not significantly reduce political polarization. Students should read this study alongside commentary from researchers who dispute its findings and methodology, as it illustrates how empirical evidence about platform effects is actively contested.

10. European Commission. Digital Services Act: Regulation (EU) 2022/2065. Official Journal of the European Union, 2022.

The full text of the DSA is publicly available and essential reading for understanding what the regulation actually requires — as opposed to characterizations by advocates and critics. Students should read at least Articles 1-25 (the general obligations and hosting service obligations) and Articles 33-43 (the VLOP/VLOSE provisions) to understand the tiered structure. The Commission also publishes implementation guidance and enforcement decisions that illustrate how the regulation operates in practice.

11. Kreimer, Seth F. "Censorship by Proxy: The First Amendment, Internet Intermediaries, and the Problem of the Weakest Link." University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 155, 2006.

Kreimer's article remains one of the foundational academic analyses of "government censorship by proxy" — the practice of governments pressuring private intermediaries to restrict speech rather than directly regulating it. His analysis of the mechanisms and constitutional limits of jawboning provides essential background for understanding the Murthy v. Missouri litigation and the broader debate about government-platform communication. Students interested in the First Amendment dimensions of government-platform relationships should read this alongside more recent work responding to it.

12. Masnick, Mike. "Section 230 of the CDA Has Saved the Internet — And That's What It Was Supposed to Do." Techdirt (ongoing analysis). Available at: techdirt.com

Masnick, a journalist and commentator, provides detailed and accessible analysis of Section 230 litigation, legislative proposals, and policy debates from a strong pro-230 perspective. While Techdirt is advocacy journalism rather than academic analysis, Masnick's coverage of specific cases and legislative language is consistently well-researched and provides valuable context for understanding how Section 230 operates in practice. Students should read alongside academic legal analysis and reform advocates' perspectives.

13. Benkler, Yochai, Robert Faris, and Hal Roberts. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press, 2018.

This landmark empirical study of the 2016 and 2018 U.S. election media environments uses computational analysis of millions of news articles and social media posts to understand how misinformation spreads. The book's central finding — that the right-wing media ecosystem was significantly more insular and epistemically closed than the center-left media environment — is both influential and contested. Students should engage with both the book's findings and with critical responses to understand the methodological debates about how to study partisan media environments.

14. Diakopoulos, Nicholas. Automating the News: How Algorithms Are Rewriting the Media. Harvard University Press, 2019.

Diakopoulos, a computational journalism scholar, examines how algorithmic systems are changing news production, distribution, and consumption. The book provides essential technical context for legal and policy debates about algorithmic amplification, recommendation systems, and platform architecture — helping students understand what policymakers would actually need to regulate when they discuss "algorithmic accountability." The book is accessible to non-technical readers and provides concrete examples of how algorithmic systems shape information exposure.

15. Klonick, Kate. "The New Governors: The People, Rules, and Processes Governing Online Speech." Harvard Law Review, Vol. 131, 2018.

Klonick's article, based on interviews with platform policy staff, provides the most empirically grounded account of how platform content moderation actually works — the people who make decisions, the rules they apply, the pressures they face, and the limitations of their systems. This ground-level perspective is essential for evaluating regulatory proposals that assume platforms can reliably identify and act on various categories of harmful content, including misinformation. The article launched a significant body of subsequent scholarship and is required reading in most law school internet law courses.