May 13, 2020

Professor published in new Oxford Handbook

Professor Emily Laidlaw has published a chapter in Oxford Handbook of Online Intermediary Liability.

Professor Emily Laidlaw has published the chapter "Notice-and-Notice-Plus: A Canadian Perspective Beyond the Liability and Immunity Divide” in the Oxford Handbook of Online Intermediary Liability. The book is designed to provide a comprehensive, authoritative and 'state-of-the-art' discussion of by highlighting emerging trends. This book discusses fundamental legal issues in intermediary liability online, while also describing advancement in intermediary liability theory and identifying recent policy trends.

Emily's chapter examines various intermediary liability regulatory models to address harmful speech (the liability of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for content posted by third parties). It builds on earlier work with Hilary Young, where they proposed to the Law Commission of Ontario a model called notice-and-notice-plus for defamation law. This paper explores the viability of deploying that model to other kinds of harmful speech, with case studies examining hate speech and terrorist content. This analysis illuminates key tensions in intermediary liability law, namely the strengths and weaknesses of generalist liability regimes, the dynamic of different kinds of unlawful speech and the access to justice problems created by complex regulatory regimes.

Learn more