Social media censorship, ransomeware and online privacy.

These are among the issues Prof. Mark Grabowski addressed when he sat down for an interview with a writer from Adelphi University's newsletter. Grabowski teaches a course on "Cyber Law & Ethics" and his new textbook, Cyber Law and Ethics: Regulation of the Connected World, comes out next month.

Read the full interview by clicking here.

Mark Grabowski addressed how new regulations by the Biden Administration might impact Bitcoin's price, which has skyrocketed to all-time highs in recent weeks.

“Government regulations may actually help cryptocurrency in the long run, but they invariably hurt the market in the short term,” Grabowski explained, adding that “perhaps the one thing that most Republicans and Democrats in Congress seem to agree on is that more cryptocurrency regulations are needed.”

Grabowski's remarks appear in a news story by financial news site Finance Magnates.

On Jan. 20, Yellen suggested that lawmakers should ‘curtail’ the use of cryptocurrencies because of the belief that they are ‘mainly’ used for illegal activity. Soon after, Bitcoin's price and the cryptocurrency market began dropping.

“Treasury Secretary-to-be Janet Yellen’s negative comments on cryptocurrency” may have spooked Bitcoin markets, said Grabowski, who teaches a course and wrote a book on cryptocurrencies.

Mark Grabowski, who teaches cyber law and ethics, weighed in on YouTube's decision this week to remove videos pertaining to alleged “widespread fraud or errors” that took place in this year’s presidential election.

This kind of censorship will likely “continue unabated,” Grabowski told The Epoch Times. “In fact, it’s probably going to get worse.”

Although YouTube's new policy does not violate any laws, including the First Amendment, Grabowski said the censoring of such videos “violates the spirit of Section 230 for platforms like YouTube,” noting that the company shouldn’t “be taking on editorial roles and deciding which viewpoints are objectionable.”

“This is not — to use the law’s own words — an ‘action voluntarily taken in good faith.’ And I doubt YouTube will apply this policy to videos claiming election fraud in other countries,” he said.

Online censorship and Section 230 are among the topics Grabowski covers in his forthcoming textbook on Cyber Law & Ethics, which will be published by Routledge in 2021.

Social media censorship of a controversial news story may have drawn more attention to it,  Mark Grabowski told the Deseret News.

When the New York Post recently published an article involving allegations related to Joe Biden's son, Hunter, Twitter and Facebook stepped in to control the story’s spread.

While fewer people may have seen the story on the social media platforms, more were driven to look up the article on the New York Post website, said Mark Grabowski, an associate professor specializing in cyber law and digital ethics at Adelphi University.

“When you try to cover up information, it usually backfires. That’s what happened here,” said Grabowski, who speculates that without social media censorship, the New York Post article would have been a relative nonissue with legacy media sources downplaying or ignoring it. “They ended up making it a bigger story.”

While the censorship does not violate the First Amendment, Grabowski said it goes against the spirit of free speech.

“Do we really want Facebook and Twitter serving as an editor for American media and journalism, deciding what information is suitable for the public?” asked Grabowski, who does not know whether the claims in the New York Post article are true.

In response to a Department of Homeland Security report that China was meddling in the upcoming U.S. election, Mark Grabowski told the Epoch Times that “shouldn’t be surprising.”

China has much riding on the election's outcome. China’s currency trading this week surged to a 17-month high after new data showed Biden leading the polls, he noted, citing media reports.

China’s election interference has been largely underreported and goes beyond what the DHS report has detailed, he added. Furthermore, Beijing’s cyber tactics have become “much more nuanced and sophisticated in recent years than even many experts realize,” said Grabowski, a professor of cyber law and ethics.

Grabowski said he was aware of at least two politics-oriented online forums that have been “slammed with traffic from China in recent months.”

Mark Grabowski has a new article in the latest edition of the University of Baltimore's peer-reviewed Journal of Media Law & Ethics.

The piece examines the  so-called “mugshot” websites through the lens of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics.

"As the national conversation on criminal justice shifts following the police killing of George Floyd, newsrooms are beginning to reevaluate their mugshot galleries and several have decided to discontinue them," he writes. "With the law providing little, if any, help, according to First Amendment scholars, the issue is primarily an ethical one."

Grabowski — a former journalist who teaches "Cyber Law & Ethics" at Adelphi University — concludes that, while mugshot sites are not an inherently unethical journalism practice, many news outlets present mugshots utilizing ethically dubious methods that urgently need to be reformed. 

Mark Grabowski was quoted in a report from CQ Researcher on the future of the controversial internet moderation law known as Section 230.

Section 230, part of the Communications Decency Act, has come under fire from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers because it allows websites and apps to moderate content however they like without liability. 

“Section 230's future is precarious, even if Trump is not re-elected,” said Grabowski, who wrote a textbook on cyber law and teaches a course on the subject. “Both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill agree Section 230 has got to change, but they can't agree on why or how.”

Mark Grabowski is profiled in the latest edition of Adelphi University's Academic & Creative Research Magazine.

The article focuses on Grabowsk's interest in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. In addition to teaching a course on "Bitcoin & Blockchain" at Adelphi, Grabowski has written a textbook on the topic. He was also awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study cryptocurrency regulations in The Philippines. 

The profile is available here.

With the 2020 presidential election fast approaching, where do Democrat nominee Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris stand on tech issues?

Mark Grabowski, a cyber law and ethics professor, told the Epoch Times that a Biden-Harris administration could produce a number of different policies when it comes to big tech: “An effort to restore President Obama’s network neutrality policies; a possible push to eliminate Section 230 protections for the Internet; a retreat from the tech war with China; and pressure on Silicon Valley tech companies to hire more women and minorities."

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Mark Grabowski was quoted in a recent U.S. News & World Report story on "The History of Bitcoin."

Grabowski, who teaches a course on "Bitcoin & Blockchain" and wrote a book about it, explained Bitcoin's volatile price history.

The story also appeared in other news outlets. Grabowski will research cryptocurrency in Asia in 2021 on a Fulbright Fellowship.