The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech May 15, 2023 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. In the News CNBC: DeSantis allies could shift $86 million to help him run for president as watchdogs cry foul By Kevin Breuninger and Brian Schwartz .....[Campaign Legal Center] argues that such a transfer from a candidate-controlled state committee to a federal super PAC is illegal. But other experts disagree, and [CLC’s Shanna] Ports acknowledged that the Federal Election Commission “has not had the teeth to enforce in this area.” There’s history to support that claim: The FEC allowed a similar maneuver during the 2020 congressional race of Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla... Friends of Ron DeSantis could soon try to transfer a moneybag roughly 800 times the size of Donalds’. But experts say that when it comes to the law, size doesn’t matter. “Ultimately, the legal principles aren’t really changed by the amount of money involved,” Bradley Smith, a Republican former FEC commissioner, said of the potential transfer of funds. “My basic take on it is that I don’t think they’re going to have a real problem,” Smith said. The Hill: Students embrace political clothing to make their voices heard By Lexi Lonas .....Clothing has long been used for American students to express their political opinions, with the most famous example culminating in the Supreme Court case Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District… Since then, courts have gone in “different directions” and with “different approaches” when examining political clothing in schools, said Vera Eidelman, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberty Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project… David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, said...the important standard is district officials giving students an equal platform to all opinions. “If they find that these sorts of things are causing enormous disruption at the school, then they would have to do something, but they would have to do something so that all viewpoints are treated equally,” Keating said. Supreme Court Washington Post: Supreme Court overturns public-corruption conviction of Cuomo aide By Robert Barnes .....The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the 2018 conviction of a former aide to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), once again expressing skepticism of the ways federal prosecutors combat public corruption and influence peddling. The justices took the case to determine whether Joseph Percoco could be convicted of depriving the public of his “honest services” given that he was working for Cuomo’s reelection campaign — rather than in his former role as an aide to the governor — when he accepted $35,000 in payments from a construction company. The Courts Law360: FEC Can't Send GOP Groups' Campaign Spending Suit To DC By Katie Buehler .....A federal judge in Ohio won't send a lawsuit challenging the Federal Election Commission's limits on coordinated campaign spending to the district court in Washington D.C., rejecting the agency's claim that federal election laws require constitutional challenges to be filed in the nation's capital . . . Free Expression Wall Street Journal: JPMorgan Targeted by Republican States Over Accusations of Religious Bias By Jathon Sapsford .....Nineteen Republican state attorneys general sent a letter this month addressed to JPMorgan Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, accusing the nation’s largest bank of a “pattern of discrimination” and of denying customers banking services because of political or religious affiliations. In March, 14 Republican state treasurers wrote a similar letter to Mr. Dimon, making the same accusations. The letters said JPMorgan terminated client accounts due to religious beliefs—which the bank denies—and they also demanded the bank respond to detailed survey questions on issues of concern to conservatives. The survey probes policies around speech freedoms, for example, in a nod to conservatives who believe employees of faith should feel free to express disagreement with workplace priorities such as diversity or climate initiatives they view as progressive. National Review: For Argument’s Sake By James Lileks .....Turns out we can’t even have a debate about debating. Members of the debate team at James Madison University have decided that “free speech should not extend to requiring us to platform or amplify ideas that are exclusionary, discriminatory, or hostile.” Apparently, debate meets will now resemble a Soviet show trial but without so much suspense over the outcome. Online Speech Platforms Axios: Democracy isn't ready for its AI test By Ryan Heath .....After initially banning political uses of ChatGPT, OpenAI is now focused on banning "high volumes of campaign materials" and "materials personalized to or targeted at specific demographics." AI could upend 2024 elections via... Fundraising scams written and coded more easily via generative AI. A microtargeting tsunami, since AI lowers the costs of creating content for specific audiences — including delivering undecided or unmotivated voters “the exact message that will help them reach their final decisions,” according to Darrell West, senior fellow at Brooking Institution's Center for Technology Innovation. Incendiary emotional fuel. Generative AI can create realist-looking images designed to inflame, such as false representations of a candidate or communities that are targets of a party's ire. Social media platforms, meanwhile, are cutting back on their election integrity efforts... In Congress, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill requiring disclosure when AI is used for political ads. Federal Election Commission vice chairman Sean Cooksey, a Republican, thinks AI ads can be regulated via existing rules. Fox News: Developer creates pro-First Amendment AI to counter ChatGPT's 'political motivations' By Jon Michael Raasch .....An AI researcher developed a free speech alternative to ChatGPT and argued that the mainstream model has a liberal bias that prevents it from answering certain questions. "ChatGPT has political motivations, and it's seen through the product," said Arvin Bhangu, who founded the AI model Superintelligence. "There's a lot of political biases. We've seen where you can ask it give me 10 things Joe Biden has done well and give me 10 things Donald Trump has done well and it refuses to give quality answers for Donald Trump." "Superintelligence is much more in line with the freedom to ask any type of question, so it's much more in line with the First Amendment than ChatGPT," Bhangu said. "No biases, no guardrails, no censorship." The Hill: Twitter under fire for perceived censorship ahead of election in Turkey By Julia Shapero .....Twitter is facing criticism for restricting content in Turkey ahead of Sunday’s election… Twitter CEO Elon Musk defended the decision on Saturday, tweeting, “The choice is have Twitter throttled in its entirety or limit access to some tweets. Which one do you want?” The States The Guardian: Latest arrests of ‘Cop City’ protesters ‘feel like overreach’, experts say By Timothy Pratt .....The latest arrests are “stunning and feel like overreach”, said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University. They come under a law making it a felony to intimidate a law enforcement officer, and are in response to a printed flyer. “It raises serious first amendment concerns,” the ACLU of Georgia wrote in an email. “It is also part of a broader pattern of the state of Georgia weaponizing the criminal code to unconditionally protect law enforcement and to silence speech critical of the government.” Caroline Hart Tennenbaum and Abeeku Osei Vassall, of Atlanta, and Julia Dupuis, of Fullerton, California, were arrested 28 April, after leaving a flyer on mailboxes in Cartersville, a Georgia town about 45 miles north-west of Atlanta. The flyer, exclusively obtained by the Guardian, called a policeman who lived in the neighborhood a “murderer” for participating in the 18 January shooting and killing of activist Manuel Paez Terán. San Francisco Chronicle: California court reinstates defamation suit against Rep. Maxine Waters By Bob Egelko .....A state appeals court reinstated a defamation suit Wednesday against Rep. Maxine Waters, a veteran Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, for accusing her 2020 campaign opponent of having been dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Center Square: ‘Transparency wins’: WA candidates must reveal donors of money moved to new campaigns By Brett Davis .....The Washington State Public Disclosure Commission has unanimously voted to issue new guidance related to the transfer of surplus funds from previous campaigns to new campaigns, making such funds subject to disclosure and contribution limits in political races. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." 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