University of Georgia School of Law Professor Thomas E. Kadri presented his article “Cyberflashing,” co-authored with Harvard Law School SJD candidate Brenda Dvoskin, at a workshop hosted by Goethe University’s Center for Critical Computational Studies in Frankfurt, Germany. He also discussed several current works-in-progress during a visit to the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society in Berlin, Germany. 

At these gatherings, Kadri discussed several of his current projects, including his work investigating how large technology companies have adopted particular strands of feminism to gain, exercise, and justify their power to regulate sexual speech and imagery. He also presented a related project that explores a recent legislative trend to regulate “cyberflashing,” which is the act of sending a nude image to a person without receiving prior consent. Lastly, Kadri discussed a piece proposing a regulatory response to how data brokers are enabling and exacerbating interpersonal abuse like stalking and harassment. 

The Weizenbaum Institute aims to investigate “the ethical, legal, economic and political aspects of digital change” to create an empirical basis for “responsible digitalisation.” Kadri explains how his current research fits within this framework:

“With each new innovation in the digital age, it can be tempting to assume that our capacity to use technology in a certain way means that we should use it in that way. My work, in part, seeks to resist this kind of technological determinism. Digitalization has offered huge benefits for humanity, but that doesn’t mean humanity should abdicate responsibility for judging — including through law — how we should use technology. Though it’s not for me to say, my hunch is that this kind of critical approach to technology (and law) would align with the Weizenbaum Institute’s aims to create a foundation for “responsible digitalisation.”

Kadri is an Assistant Professor of Law at UGA Law, and his research focuses on torts and criminal law, with an emphasis on how technology, law, and social norms enable and affect privacy, speech, and abuse. His scholarship appears in journals including the Harvard Law Review Forum, UCLA Law Review, Texas Law Review, Utah Law Review, Maryland Law Review, and Journal of Free Speech Law and he has published shorter pieces in The New York Times and Slate. His course offerings include Torts, Cybercrime, and Regulating Digital Abuse. 

Prior posts on Kadri’s scholarship can be found here.