Question

Take a look at the potential promises and perils of the Internet and the implications for communication law. You can focus your discussion around privacy, political communication, copyright/trademark law – or another topic – and using at least 3 cases develop a discussion with the pre-Internet understanding and the developments in case law currently relevant.

Answer 1

Internet which is certainly a blessing can also be a curse. Internet makes it so easy to find & research laws and getting free advice but there could be inaccurate information available on internet. When performing your own research there may be some outdated infomation available on internet. Smart researchers can reach wrong conclusions when rely on inaccurate or outdated information on internet.

Cases:-

a) When someone is determining the physician need in the hospital for the patients admission. Person conducting research on internet might find Sept, 2015 memo from CMS titled " Hospital Inpatient admission order and certification". One could read and assume that he has found the asnwer but there could be another memo dated Feb, 2016 available on internet with same title and text which varies from Sept, 2015 memo. Reason could be that over the years intrepretation of provisions have changed and its possible to find various documentations with different approaches. The bottom line is while it is worthwhile to engage in internet research, you need to make sure that the results are truely valid. b) Privacy is also a big issue while using internet and connected devices. The internet is connecting more devices everyday. This growth carries several benefits as it will change the way people perform everyday tasks. For example:- smart lighting is reducing overall energy consumption, connected cars linked up with smart city infrastruction to create a entirely different ecosystem for the drivers and connected healthcare devices give people fuller look at their health but with all theses benefits comes risk, as increase in connected devices gives hackers and cyber criminals more entry points and also risk the privacy of individuals.

c) Social media is said to have an impact on the public discourse and communication in the society. In particular, social media is increasing used in political context. More recently, microblogging services like Twitter and social networking sites like facebook are believed to have the potential for increasing political participation. While Twitter is an ideal platform for user to spread not only information in general but also political opinions publicly through their networks. Political institutions have also begun to use facebook pages or groups for the purpose of entering into direct dialogues with citizens and encouraging political discussions and all this has made it difficult to collect, monitor, analyze, summarize and visualize political relevent information on internet.