Legal Frontiers in Digital Media 2025

Thursday, May 8th, 2025

Mission Bay Conference Center
1675 Owens Street
San Francisco, CA 94143

The Media Law Resource Center and the UC Berkeley Center for Law & Technology are proud to present the next in this series of conferences that explore emerging legal developments surrounding digital content in today’s multi-platform world. Since 2008, this event has led the global conversation about matters at the intersection of digital media, freedom of speech and law. This year’s conference will feature sessions running from approximately 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 8th. Registration fees include a hot lunch (sponsored by Microsoft) and an evening reception at 5:00 p.m. (sponsored by Google).

UC Berkeley School of Law has certified this program for 5.00 General Hours of California Continuing Legal Education credit. Note that UC Berkeley only certifies MCLE credit for the California bar. To verify reciprocity with your state, please check with your state’s bar.

CONFERENCE AGENDA

Registration
9:30 am – 10:00 am

Opening Remarks
10:00 am – 10:10 am

A Perfect Storm for Content Moderation
10:10 am – 11:10 am
Social media platforms are weathering a political maelstrom when it comes to content moderation, encountering fierce headwinds out of Washington, D.C. against broad trust & safety activity, cross-currents out of states demanding that access to “adult content” be limited, fog from the Supreme Court,  and sharks circling Section 230. Meanwhile, a hurricane looms on the horizon as the EU demands accountability for platform failure to create a safe online environment. We’ll talk about options for charting a course through the rough seas.

Speakers:
Jeff Hermes, Deputy Director, Media Law Resource Center (Moderator)
Lisa Femia, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation
Mike Masnick, Founder & Editor, Techdirt
Dorien Verhulst, Partner, Brinkhof

Fifteen Minute Break

Reclaiming the Offense in the First Amendment War
11:25 am – 12:25 pm
The current wave of legislation restricting online speech seems designed to frustrate First Amendment challenges. Some statutes, like those at issue in the Moody case, are so broad that facial challenges might be impractical despite numerous patently unconstitutional applications. So-called “bounty laws,” meanwhile, evade judicial review by delegating enforcement of unconstitutional prohibitions to private citizens. Combined with the Supreme Court’s eager reliance on procedural issues to avoid the merits of the online speech cases that came before it last term, First Amendment challengers face considerable obstacles to pre-enforcement relief. Will challengers be limited to bringing narrow challenges, obtaining only client-specific relief, and subject to serial litigation? Or can they reclaim the offensive to fight these laws at the source?

Speakers:
Adam Sieff, Partner, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP (Moderator)
Will Creeley, Legal Director, FIRE
Stephanie Joyce, SVP & Chief of Staff, CCIA
Daphne Keller, Director of Program on Platform Regulation, Stanford Cyber Policy Center

One-hour and fifteen minute lunch break (Sponsored by Microsoft)

Rebuilding the Online Castle (While Still Inside)
1:40 pm – 2:40 pm
This session will focus on the litigation defenses that online media, platforms and products can employ, including terms of service and other tactics. Among other things, our panel will focus on how to counter the strategies used by plaintiffs’ class action lawyers to force mass arbitration and to embroil companies in expensive litigation, particularly in an environment where Section 230 exceptions are being increasingly recognized.

Speakers:
Susan Rohol, Partner, Willkie (Moderator)
Mariam Abdel Malek, Director, Privacy Legal, Pinterest
Nicholas Reddick, Partner, Willkie
Bill Shafton, VP Business & Legal Affairs, Grindr

Ten-minute stretch break

Global Considerations for Obtaining AI Training Data
2:50 pm – 3:50 pm
This session will look at strategies and risks of acquiring AI training data from a global perspective, including licensing and copyright exceptions such as fair use as they exist around the world. We’ll also discuss the impact of international legal regimes for AI, including potential opt-out rights under the EU AI Act and freewheeling environments like China, where models such as DeepSeek have been accused of misappropriating the work of other models and upending fair competition.  

Speakers:
Lauren Chamblee, Assist. General Counsel, Microsoft (Moderator)
Brian Carver, Copyright Counsel, Google
Remy Chavannes, Partner, Brinkhof
Janel Thamkul, Deputy General Counsel, Anthropic

Fifteen-minute snack break

Liability Problems with Agentic AI
4:05 pm – 5:05 pm
In the near future, AI will be tasked with making our lives easier, doing research, booking tickets, and engaging in a wide-array of online interactions on behalf of users.  Some of these may result in harm, breach terms of service, and break the law. This session will explore US theories of liability for the unintended consequences of these tools and inquire whether existing legal concepts are up to the task of fairly assigning blame when potential liability arises.  It will also explore how the technology behind these tools informs the legal questions.

Speakers:
Ethan Wong, Assoc. Product Counsel, Google (Moderator)
Joe Fireman, Senior Product Counsel, OpenAI
Rebecca Jacobs, Assoc. General Counsel, Anthropic
Benjamin Softness, Partner, King & Spalding

Cocktail Reception to Follow (Sponsored by Google)

Questions? Contact us at digitallaw@medialaw.org.