In the United States, COVID-19 has thrown the brutality of late capitalism into sharp relief. Billionaires donate a tiny fraction of their wealth while cities offer homeless people a demarcated parking lot so they can practice social distancing while sleeping on the pavement.

While we confront how little our social contract of cheap goods and low taxes has bought us at home, the virus has exposed American exceptionalism for all of its hubris and Hollywood hucksterism.

We are the only industrialized nation without universal healthcare coverage; 30 million people are uninsured (more than the entire population of Australia). No national…

While I travel a lot and recently moved away, I consider Portland, Oregon my home. My daughter lives in Portland, as do many friends and small businesses I love. I want to help, so I have put together this list of COVID-19 resources to help Portland’s workers and small-business owners navigate and survive this difficult time.*

The Lowdown for Workers

If you are still physically reporting to work:

Employers have a legal duty to provide a place of employment free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause the death or serious physical harm to employees. If you have a safety concern about your exposure to COVID-19 and are unable…

This is the fifth in a series of blog posts focusing on Facebook’s role in inciting genocide against the Rohingya in Myanmar as a lens through which to explore corporate accountability, human rights and social media content regulation. The Myanmar military systematically used Facebook as a tool for ethnic cleansing, employing false news and inflammatory posts to stoke fear and justify their violence against the Rohingya. For years, Facebook ignored warning signs that it was contributing to deadly hate speech in Myanmar. …

An Exploration of Corporate Accountability, Human Rights and Content Regulation — Part 4

Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide has prompted me to embark on a series of blog posts exploring corporate accountability, human rights and social media platform content regulation. Last month, the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar released its full report which found that, “Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate, in a context where for most users Facebook is the internet.” …

The multiple issues raised by Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide have prompted me to embark on a series of blog posts to explore corporate accountability, human rights and social media platform content regulation. In my last post, I explained how U.S. law shields web publishers from liability from suit over content posted by third parties — and that, even absent that shield, litigation is in many ways ill-suited to address the broader issues raised by Facebook’s power in Myanmar.

But some suits, particularly those with human rights claims, can raise awareness and force change by virtue of their moral…

Facebook’s role in the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar raises a multitude of questions about how to prevent the spread of dangerous hate speech— without quashing vital free expression online. So many questions, in fact, that this is part two in a series exploring those issues. I’m a lawyer, so my thoughts naturally tend to lawsuits as a way to change corporate behavior.

Can the survivors of the Rohingya genocide sue Facebook in the U.S. for its role in propagating the hate speech that contributed to the violence against them?

The answer, so far, is surprisingly unequivocal. It is no.

Several…

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council released a report, which found that the Myanmar armed forces engaged in mass killings and gang rape against members of the Rohingya ethnic minority, as well as widespread systematic destruction of their villages.

The report further found that “Facebook has been a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate,”and that Facebook’s response to the problem “has been slow and ineffective.”

The finding is not a surprise; earlier this year, UN investigators said Facebook played a “determining role” in the deteriorating human rights situation of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Indeed, a recent Reuters…

All of the following rules are simple. Some derive from my time as a freelance writer, when my livelihood (and my editors) demanded that I write clearly. Some derive from my time as a federal judicial clerk, when I read and analyzed legal writing — all day, five days a week — for two years. I use them every time I write a brief or motion and they serve me well.

1. Use topic sentences.

Write every heading and subheading as a sentence, and write a topic sentence for every paragraph. I cannot emphasize the importance of topic sentences enough. …