General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW6170 / JDOC6170 |
| Course name: | Internet and Social Media Law and Policy |
| Programme offered under: | LLM Programme / JD Programme |
| Semester: | First |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Credit point value: | 9 credits / 6 credits |
| Remarks | Priority to LLM(T&IPL) students |
1.2 Course description
Information and communication technologies are part of the very fabric of contemporary societies. Their understanding and mastery are a required form of literacy in the 21st century. Social dynamics everywhere have changed because of these technologies, and in their image a new social paradigm has been formed. As a social science, law is not immune to these transformations but is rather profoundly influenced by them and perhaps no technological development has shaped the face of law more profoundly than the Internet.
This course will empirically assess some core transformations which, in different areas, the Internet has brought to the law. While other courses in our programme (for instance, “Regulation of Cyberspace”) question at a higher level of abstraction the normative foundations of such transformations, in “Law and the Internet and Social Media” our aim is to give you an introductory overview of the concrete, practical shifts that the institutions of law have been experiencing in a number of different areas because of the Internet – the regulatory architecture of cyber space and from Identity and Privacy to Copyright, and from Defamation and Liability in Online Environments like metaverse, online harm, privacy, copyright, defamation, to Cybercrime and Jurisdiction how social media is changing traditional media.
Main topics will vary slightly from year to year. The focus of our course is on major common law jurisdictions, taking the law in the Hong Kong and United Kingdom as a starting point. Nonetheless, occasional – and in some areas extensive – references to the law in the European Union will be made.
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Angus Young | alyoung@hku.hk | CCT 301 | By email |
1.4 Course Outline (for elective course)
| Please click the link here for the course outline (HKU Portal login required). |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Be able to grasp central concepts and ideas in the relations between law, public policy, platforms, and network information technologies and apply them to solve important legal problems of contemporary information societies.
CLO 2 Develop a critical and comparative appreciation of the ways in which different jurisdictions tackle these problems.
CLO 3 Be familiar with a number of substantive topics that will be relevant for further research in this field.
2.2 LLM and JD Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link:
LLM – https://course.law.hku.hk/llm-plo/
JD – https://course.law.hku.hk/jd-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Class participation | 10% | 1, 2, 3 | |
| Research essay | 40% | 1, 2, 3 | |
| Take-home examination | 50% | 1, 2, 3 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by course convenor(s). See also Course Outline above.
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Lecture: | 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Private study time: | 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor(s).
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/