Mary Anne Franks

Mary Anne Franks

Mary Anne Franks is an American legal scholar, author, activist, and media commentator. She is a professor of law and the Michael R. Klein Distinguished Scholar Chair at the University of Miami School of Law, where she teaches First Amendment law, Second Amendment law, criminal law, criminal procedure, family law, and law and technology. She also serves as President and Legislative and Technology Policy Director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative.Franks' scholarly work focuses on online harassment, free speech, discrimination, and violence. Franks also writes for various news media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The Guardian. She was a regular contributor to The Huffington Post. As a frequent legal commentator in the media on cyberlaw and criminal law issues, Franks has been quoted in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker, and she has appeared on CNN, the Today show, and Vice News. Franks is a co-producer of the 2015 film Hot Girls Wanted, a documentary produced by the actress Rashida Jones that examines the "professional amateur" porn industry.Franks's work in advocating for legislative, technological, and social reform on the issue of nonconsensual pornography ("revenge porn") has been instrumental in drafting recent state legislation against the practice in the United States. She has worked with Congresswoman Jackie Speier on a federal criminal bill, the Intimate Privacy Protection Act (IPPA), which evolved into the ENOUGH Act, and again into the SHIELD Act. The SHIELD Act is now part of the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021, which the United States House of Representatives passed with bipartisan support in March 2021. Franks also advi

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