Former CAI Executive Director, Professor Robert Fellmeth, Publishes Op-Ed on Legal Accountability for Social Media Platforms
SAN DIEGO — University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Children’s Advocacy Institute’s (CAI) Founder and former Executive Director Robert C. Fellmeth published an op-ed titled, “Juries, Not Politicians, Will Soon Decide the Fate of Child-Harming Social Media Platforms.”
In his column, Fellmeth argues that widespread evidence has shown major social media platforms are harming children through facilitating extreme content, addiction, mental health issues, and more. Fellmeth criticizes politicians at both the federal and state levels for failing to enact effective laws to protect kids, largely due to weak legislation, loopholes like Section 230, and Big Tech influence. He points to recent legal developments that allow more lawsuits against platforms to proceed past early dismissal and give juries the power to decide whether companies should be held financially responsible for harm. Fellmeth suggests that ordinary jurors, rather than lawmakers or corporate interests, may soon be the key force in holding social media companies accountable and prompting meaningful change.
To read the full piece, please visit Townhall.
About the Children’s Advocacy Institute
The Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI), founded at the nonprofit University of San Diego School of Law in 1989, is one of the nation's premiere academic, research, and advocacy organizations working to improve the lives of children and youth, with special emphasis on improving the child protection and foster care systems and enhancing resources that are available to youth aging out of foster care.
In its academic component, CAI trains law students and attorneys to be effective child advocates throughout their legal careers. Its Child Advocacy Clinic gives USD Law students three distinct clinical opportunities to advocate on behalf of children and youth, and its Dependency Counsel Training Program provides comprehensive training to licensed attorneys engaged in or contemplating Dependency Court practice.
CAI's research and advocacy component, conducted through its offices in San Diego, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C., seeks to leverage change for children and youth through impact litigation, regulatory and legislative advocacy, and public education. Active primarily at the federal and state levels, CAI's efforts are multi-faceted—comprehensively and successfully embracing all tools of public interest advocacy to improve the lives of children and youth. To support CAI’s work, please visit CAI GIFT.
About the University of San Diego School of Law
Each year, USD educates approximately 800 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest law and taxation.
USD School of Law is one of the 88 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 34th nationally among U.S. law faculties in scholarly impact and 35th nationally in past-year faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.