The influence of clothing on first impressions : Rapid and positive responses to minor changes in male attire

Clothing communicates information about the wearer and first impressions can be heavily influenced by the messages conveyed by attire. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of minor changes in clothing on the perception of a male model, in the absence of facial information with limited time exposurePeer reviewe

The True Prevalence of “Sexting”.

This factsheet presents and critiques the findings of recent studies estimating the prevalence of youth “sexting.” The authors contend that research findings to date have been inconsistent and many widely‐publicized studies have been flawed in their design. It is difficult to compare findings and draw clear conclusions due to inconsistent terminology between studies and the inclusion of material not of primary concern to the public and law enforcement, such as text‐only messages, images of adults, or images of youth that do not constitute child pornography under legal statutes. These findings are then often reported in distorted or exaggerated ways by the media, leading to public misperception. The authors present a number of suggestions to future researchers and to journalists wishing to cite statistics on sexting

Legal Update 2007: Where the Lawsuits Are

Lawsuits are a fact of life for most major corporations, organizations, and agencies. Over the course of a typical year, they may be involved in dozens of lawsuits over a wide variety of issues. Customers and users sue over products or services. Employers sue over workplace issues. Suppliers sue–or get sued–over contract issues. Or they initiate lawsuits to protect their products, services, employers or suppliers. Lawsuits are a fairly routine cost of doing business. However, some lawsuits have an impact that is far beyond the routine. They may start quietly or with a splash of headlines, but the results may impact the life or bottom line of a company, its products, services or practices, or the industry as a whole. Some companies survive such lawsuits, as Microsoft survived after the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuits in the 1990's. Other companies don’t, as witnessed by the original Napster

Social Media Accountability for Terrorist Propaganda

Terrorist organizations have found social media websites to be invaluable for disseminating ideology, recruiting terrorists, and planning operations. National and international leaders have repeatedly pointed out the dangers terrorists pose to ordinary people and state institutions. In the United States, the federal Communications Decency Act’s § 230 provides social networking websites with immunity against civil law suits. Litigants have therefore been unsuccessful in obtaining redress against internet companies who host or disseminate third-party terrorist content. This Article demonstrates that § 230 does not bar private parties from recovery if they can prove that a social media company had received complaints about specific webpages, videos, posts, articles, IP addresses, or accounts of foreign terrorist organizations; the company’s failure to remove the material; a terrorist’s subsequent viewing of or interacting with the material on the website; and that terrorist’s acting upon the propaganda to harm the plaintiff. This Article argues that irrespective of civil immunity, the First Amendment does not limit Congress’s authority to impose criminal liability on those content intermediaries who have been notified that their websites are hosting third-party foreign terrorist incitement, recruitment, or instruction. Neither the First Amendment nor the Communications Decency Act prevents this form of federal criminal prosecution. A social media company can be prosecuted for material support of terrorism if it is knowingly providing a platform to organizations or individuals who advocate the commission of terrorist acts. Mechanisms will also need to be created that can enable administrators to take emergency measures, while simultaneously preserving the due process rights of internet intermediaries to challenge orders to immediately block, temporarily remove, or permanently destroy data

Rules of Engagement

Why does the law treat engagement rings differently from other gifts? The answer is rooted in a history in which courts generally entertained litigation over broken engagements. As legislatures slowly abolished actions for breach of promise to marry in the early and middle decades of this century, on the grounds that such actions were inconsistent with modem understandings of love and marriage, one potential fact pattern for successful plaintiffs emerged: the case in which a man sues a woman for the return of his engagement gifts. The history and logic of this body of law-the rules of engagement invite examination