Social Media Law Blog

Introducing the Solicitor of the Year – Private Practice Shortlist: Q&A with Yair Cohen, Partner at Cohen Davis Solicitors

Yair Cohen talked on Al Jazeera earlier this month about the online gaming message board 8chan, which became a haven for extremist content. Social media platforms to be accountable for amplifying hate speech from Yair Cohen Solicitor on Vimeo. 8chan is where the suspect of the El Paso Shooting is believed to have posted a […]

‘There’s no way out’, says Yair Cohen, Social Media Expert Yair Cohen Live on RT International Facebook new privacy tool Off-Facebook activity from Yair Cohen Solicitor on Vimeo. Earlier this week, Facebook introduced a new privacy feature that will give users clearer information from apps and websites they browse outside of the social network and […]

Artificial intelligence might be great for Facebook and particularly for boosting up its advertising revenue. However, let’s remember that history is full of examples of individuals who did exceptional things under exceptional circumstances because they managed to change. They managed to change what they were statistically meant to become, and they did this by challenging themselves.

It’s an industry wide problem but will the big tech giants ever understand the reach of the damage that their negligent behaviour can cause? Facebook has created a reporting tool for scam adverts and donated £3m to Citizens Advice for an anti-scan project called Scams Action. The project was launched by Facebook after they agreed to […]

Instagram has introduced two new systems using artificial intelligence. One, which will be known as Comment Warning, will be responding to comments that will prompt the encouragement of rewording if abuse Yair Cohen says to BBC World

Simone Burns death. What impact can sharing such material have on an individual and what can be done to limit the distress and damaged

Yair Cohen , Social Media Lawyer, discusses Twitter’s recent decision of hiding harmful tweets by politicians

In an interview with RT News, Yair Cohen – Internet Law and Social Media Lawyer, discusses alongside Bill Merr, a privacy campaigner, the recent revelation about Facebook’s moderator contractors’ poor working conditions and what Facebook could possibly do to improve working conditions.

US Congress launches Big Tech Antitrust Probe The federal government is warming up its antitrust enforcement machine and is likely to be in the first stages of a ‘top-to-bottom review of the market power’ and is pointing it at the giant tech platforms – Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple. The anti-trust probe has been initiated […]

In the UK, there are no specific laws to shield social media companies from being held accountable for the material which is published on their platforms. The courts, however, have largely allowed them to get away with claims that they are not “publishers” but only provide

The government will eventually, like it or not, police the internet. This is inevitable. The recently published White Paper which warned internet companies very clearly of its intention to set up a new internet regulator is an indication of what social media companies should expect to see in the future. How powerful this regulator will be, will largely depend on how genuine social media companies’ effort to combat intolerance, prevent self-harm and decrease the amount of fake news is.

Bloomberg have reported that Vodafone had discovered ‘hidden back doors’ in Huawei’s home equipment, including an internet router in 2009/2010, that would allow the Chinese company unauthorised access to user’s home and business fixed line networks in Italy. Vodafone has admitted vulnerabilities, which were identified by independent security testing initiated by Vodafone as part of […]

Internet police author Yair Cohen says I am often asked, how much of a responsibility do we as internet users have, to police the internet ourselves and decide whether we are going to watch certain images or share horror films of live events. After all, the more we share the more we encourage others to commit social media atrocities.
This is a very interesting question. It is easy to blame us, the people, for our part in watching and sharing horrific images via social media. At the same time, people should not be judged too harshly in this regard because after all, we are only human. When we see something that is shocking, something t

Why is it that people feel that they can say what they want about people on the internet that they wouldn’t necessarily say to someone’s face?. It broadly goes back to the early days of the internet, where there was a perception that the internet was outside the scope of regulations and policing. It was […]