EXPERTS IN THE NEWS: Puerto Rico’s Bankruptcy and Facebook’s Violence Dilemma

Puerto Rico Capitol Building

Puerto Rico bondholders in for bumpy bankruptcy ride I Reuters

In five of six recent public bankruptcies in which the debtor defaulted on bonds, pensioners walked away with full recovery, while bondholders took haircuts, according to data from Moody’s Investors Service. Among those settlements, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, bondholders took a reduction in the value of their investments by an average of about 25 cents on the dollar, according to Moody's, while in Stockton, California, the haircut was 50 percent.

“If the market hasn’t taken this dynamic into account by now, you can imagine they will after Puerto Rico, given its enormous scale,” said bankruptcy expert Drew Dawson, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law.

Facebook is hiring a lot more humans to deal with its violence and harassment problem I Mic

While it's reassuring to see Facebook trying to get a handle on this issue, the company should have foreseen the potential downsides of its live video streaming products ahead of releasing it, and had better tools and teams in place to deal with them before rolling the product out to millions of its users.

So when "Facebook says, 'Oh, we're trying to figure out ways to get a handle on [violent, abusive content],' that should be an unacceptable response," Mary Anne Franks, a professor at the University of Miami School of Law and the legislative and tech policy director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, told Mic "Because if they didn't have a handle on it before, they shouldn't have rolled out the product."

CONTACT: Catharine Skipp at 305-284-9810 or cskipp@law.miami.edu



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