Our Online Journal features original pieces written and edited by our Online staff at Columbia. They are not representative of any views held by the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review Editorial Board.
The Metaverse aims to blur the distinction between reality and virtual worlds to create an unprecedented extended reality (XR) universe for human social interactions. A revolutionary proposal by Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, the Metaverse consists of a network of three-dimensional virtual worlds where people can interact with others using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies to work, learn, and socialize.
Read MoreEvery new Apple release comes with a media blitz about the new iPhone’s improved camera quality, the speed of the M1 processor chip in the latest MacBooks, or the sound quality of the next generation AirPod Pros. An Apple product’s design interface is carefully curated—all with the goal of arousing a feeling of sleekness and fashion in the consumer. However, despite Apple’s futuristic facade, its labor model is backwards and deeply problematic. Indeed, Apple’s cobalt batteries are built on the backs of child labor in mines, causing severe physical harm to children and violating international standards of human rights.
Read More23andMe. AncestryDNA. MyHeritage. With the fast-paced development of genetic technology on the rise, these services have taken the biotechnological industry by storm, reaching the everyday American faster and more easily. Private citizens are able to access their entire genetic history, ancestry, and the exact specifics of their DNA with just a click of a button or a quick visit to a specialist.
Read MoreRebecca Buckwalter-Poza woke up one morning in 2017 to find she had been blocked by @realDonaldTrump on Twitter. Dani Bostick woke up to the same news later that year, as did Annie Rice, an author, William LeGate, a tech entrepreneur, and Caroline Orr, a researcher. Soon, a contingent of Twitter dissenters emerged who all had been banned from the president’s official Twitter page.[1]
Read MoreDespite this rapidly changing age of technology, the legal system still remains inefficient, expensive, and bureaucratic, presenting troublesome difficulties when one must quickly resolve a family dispute. As demonstrated by a family dispute case from the Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL), “Dora tried to hire a lawyer, but she was turned down … because she could only spend 500 dollars on assistance. On a court website with 131 forms ... a social worker helped her to identify the five she needed. The key form had 33 boxes she could tick…”[1]
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