The Tug between Private and Public Power Online

Authors

Evelyn Douek

Abstract

Professor Zittrain's article describes, in his characteristically vivid and engaging way, one of the most consequential tugs of war of the internet age: the battle over the rules for what can and cannot be said online. The legal centerpiece of Zittrain's story is the Skokie case from the late 1970s, which held that Nazis had a First Amendment right to march in a Chicago suburb with a large population of Holocaust survivors.¹ Zittrain calls the case "a near-perfect encapsulation of mainstream late twentieth century characterization of the right to free speech in America."² And he's right-there is perhaps no more iconic decision in the First Amendment canon.³ It is considered by many to be one of the "truly great victories for the First Amendment."⁴ And the Skokie case matters to the tug of war over online speech because "the ethos of American civil libertarianism that reached apogee in the 1960s and 70s political and legal establishments in turn infused the mainstream use of the Internet."⁵ No other case so neatly encapsulates the spirit of the early internet era.

First Page

209

Recommended Citation

Evelyn Douek, The Tug between Private and Public Power Online, 61 Duq. L. Rev. 209 (2023).
Available at: https://dsc.duq.edu/dlr/vol61/iss2/3