This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].  

Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Tuesday, June 20.

FIRE: FIRE to Supreme Court: Tell New Jersey criticism doesn’t require consent

By Daniel Ortner

.....Imagine having to obtain approval from a person you want to criticize before opening your mouth. 

Last month, FIRE filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take this case and clarify the standard for determining whether a law is considered content- or viewpoint-based.

Courthouse News: Twitter users suspended for Covid tweets argue to reinstate case against feds

By Kevin Koeninger

.....Twitter users who gained popularity for criticizing officials during the Covid-19 pandemic argued Thursday before an appeals court panel to reinstate First Amendment claims against the federal government for viewpoint suppression.

Ed. note: Read our joint amicus brief with the Manhattan Institute in support of Plaintiffs-Appellants and Reversal here.

Tennessee Lookout: Shelby County Schools sued after banning “School Board Five” from meetings

.....Five Memphis education advocates have filed suit against the Shelby County Board of Education and the district’s chief safety and security officer, alleging their First and 14th Amendment rights have been violated after they were banned from attending school board meetings. 

The lawsuit states Memphis Police told the group they were barred “forever” from any Shelby County Board of Education property — including all schools — and would face criminal trespassing charges if they violated the order. 

Holtzman Vogel: Regulating Robocalls: New FCC Rules Take Effect July 20

By Michael Bayes, Andrew Pardue, and Jared Bauman

.....The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently announced that new rules for non-telemarketing artificial or prerecorded voice calls (i.e., “robocalls”) go into effect on July 20, 2023. The new rules limit the number of robocalls that may be placed to a particular landline phone number to three during any consecutive 30-day period unless the caller obtains prior consent to place more, and impose stricter requirements for obtaining consent. As a result, virtually all nonprofit and political organizations will need to make adjustments to their robocalling programs before July 20.

People United for Privacy: Donor Privacy Helped Secure the Fight for Black Equality

By Brian Hawkins

.....As we celebrate Juneteenth, the federal holiday commemorating African-American slaves in Texas learning of their freedom a year after the Emancipation Proclamation, it’s worth noting how anonymous giving has been an essential component of the long struggle for racial justice. From the fight against slavery to the movement for equal rights, black social activism has relied on Americans being able to privately support these causes without fear of retribution.

Washington Post (Technology 202): Meta rolls back covid misinformation rules

By Cristiano Lima

.....Meta is rolling back its policies against covid misinformation globally, ending the rules in countries like the United States where the pandemic is no longer considered a national emergency while keeping them in place where officials say the threat remains high.

The tech giant’s oversight board in April recommended that it “maintain” its rules against misleading coronavirus content until global health authorities removed the pandemic’s emergency status, a step the World Health Organization took two weeks later in May. 

Wall Street Journal (LTE): Who Decides What’s Allowed on Social Media?

.....Jed Rubenfeld’s “The Censorship Machine Is Running in 2024” (op-ed, June 6), advocating legislation barring social-media platforms from determining not to carry certain speech during a political campaign, runs directly into a First Amendment barrier. That is the consequence of having the government decide what views social media must carry.

The Supreme Court put it well in its unanimous ruling in Miami Herald v. Tornillo (1974).

Daily Caller: Left-Wing Megadonor Teams Up With Tech Giants To Tell Americans What News They Should Trust

.....Left-wing megadonor Craig Newmark worked with several technology giants to launch a project that gives guidelines readers can use to determine what news stories should be trusted, according to its website.

The Trust Project lists eight “trust indicators” that are designed to inform readers about which news stories to trust, according to the website. The project’s funders include tech giants Microsoft, Google and Facebook, as well as Newmark, who is a prolific donor to journalism schools and left-wing media groups such as Mother Jones and ProPublica. 

New York Post: AI ‘deepfakes’ poised to wreak havoc on 2024 presidential election: experts

By Thomas Barrabi

.....An onslaught of high-quality, AI-generated political “deepfakes” has already begun ahead of the 2024 presidential election – and Big Tech firms aren’t prepared for the chaos, experts told The Post.

Striking examples of AI-generated misinformation have already circulated on the web – including a deepfake video of President Biden verbally attacking transgender people, false pictures of former President Donald Trump resisting arrest and viral photos of Pope Francis wearing a Balenciaga puffer jacket.

New Jersey Monitor: Governor Murphy appoints new campaign finance watchdog board

By Nikita Biryukov

.....Gov. Phil Murphy appointed four commissioners to the state’s campaign finance watchdog Thursday, ending an 11-week stretch of inactivity that began when the last members of the Election Law Enforcement Commission board resigned in March over legislation they said defanged the agency.

Willamette Week: Oregon Senate Passes Bill Banning Politicians From Accepting More Than $100 a Year in Cash From One Donor

By Sophie Peel

.....The Oregon Senate passed a bill Thursday afternoon that bans any political candidate or committee from accepting more than $100 annually in cash from any one source.

Republican lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Tim Knopp (R-Bend) and House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson (R-Prineville), drafted that bill in response to WW’s reporting in May that Rosa Cazares and Aaron Mitchell, the co-founders of embattled cannabis chain La Mota, gave tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions to top Democrats in stacks of cash. 

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): "Hamtramck Council Approves Banning LGBTQ+, Other Flags on City Property"

.....This seems to be constitutional, and I wouldn't even describing it, as the [Detroit News] article title does, as "banning" certain flags "on city property." The resolution is limited to "City flagpoles"; if a private person wants to carry a flag on a city street, or display it at some booth at a festival in a city park, the resolution wouldn't forbid that. Nor is it really a "ban" in a meaningful sense: Rather, it's the city defining the content of its own speech. Whenever a government entity decides what to say, it has to decide what not to say, but that isn't generally a ban, just a deciding to put up a permanent monument to the Union dead in a city park isn't a "ban" on monuments to the Confederate dead or the Soviet dead or the French dead.

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