The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech June 20, 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]. The Courts Bloomberg Law: Black Lives Matter Protest Leader May Be Sued by Injured Officer By Aysha Bagchi .....A police officer plausibly alleged that a Black Lives Matter protest leader could be held liable for the officer’s injuries by leading the protest in an unreasonably dangerous manner, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. The decision marked the second time the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued that ruling. The US Supreme Court tossed out the earlier judgment because the Fifth Circuit hadn’t sent a question tied to Louisiana state law to the Louisiana Supreme Court before ruling on a federal constitutional issue. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Court: Public School Likely May Ban Student from Wearing "There Are Only Two Genders" T-Shirt, By Eugene Volokh .....From L.M. v. Town of Middleburgh, decided today by Judge Indira Talwani (D. Mass.): WMTW: A Utah city violated the First Amendment in denying a drag show permit, judge rules By Associated Press .....The city of St. George must issue a permit for a Utah-based group that organizes drag performances to host an all-ages drag show in a public park, a federal judge ruled, calling the city's attempt to stop the show unconstitutional discrimination. "Public spaces are public spaces. Public spaces are not private spaces. Public spaces are not majority spaces," U.S. District Judge David Nuffer wrote in a Friday ruling granting the preliminary injunction requested by the group. "The First Amendment of the United States Constitution ensures that all citizens, popular or not, majority or minority, conventional or unconventional, have access to public spaces for public expression." Congress Washington Post (Technology 202): Lawmakers propose ‘blue-ribbon’ AI commission By Cristiano Lima .....A bipartisan group of lawmakers are backing creating a federal commission to develop a strategy for regulating artificial intelligence, the latest addition to a growing crop of legislative proposals tackling new AI tools like ChatGPT. Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Ken Buck (R-Colo.) on Tuesday are introducing a bill that would require Congress and the White House to appoint 20 people across government, industry, civil society and the computer science field to an AI commission. The group would issue three reports over two years to policymakers with recommendations for “mitigating the risks and possible harms” of AI while “protecting” U.S. tech innovation. New York Times: G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election By Steven Lee Myers and Sheera Frenkel .....On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online. The effort has encumbered its targets with expansive requests for information and, in some cases, subpoenas — demanding notes, emails and other information related to social media companies and the government dating back to 2015. Complying has consumed time and resources and already affected the groups’ ability to do research and raise money, according to several people involved. Free Expression The Atlantic: Universities Shouldn’t Be Ideological Churches By Robert P. George .....Where there is a consensus on normative matters, or where a consensus is more or less clearly driven by normative beliefs and commitments, such consensus provides no justification for the university or one of its units to publicly commit itself to a political position. If anything, it raises the question of why there is a consensus on difficult moral or other normative issues on which, broadly in our society, reasonable people of goodwill disagree. Where are the dissenting voices? Has groupthink set in—in a unit, or perhaps in an entire field? What message does the lack of representation of dissenting voices send to students? Has there been discrimination or favoritism based on viewpoint? If so, is it continuing? Has this affected hiring and promotion decisions, or created what is broadly known to be a hostile environment for people who dissent from established orthodoxies? Washington Post: Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, dies at 92 By Harrison Smith and Patricia Sullivan .....Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the voluminous, top-secret history of the Vietnam War known as the Pentagon Papers, a disclosure that led to a landmark Supreme Court ruling on press freedoms and enraged the Nixon administration — serving as the catalyst for a series of White House-directed burglaries and “dirty tricks” that snowballed into the Watergate scandal — died June 16 at his home in Kensington, Calif. He was 92. Online Speech Platforms HuffPost: Twitter Halts Promotion Of Campaign Video Due To ‘Abortion Advocacy’ By Alanna Vagianos .....Twitter blocked a Democrat’s campaign video from being promoted on its platform because it expressed support for abortion rights, according to email conversations obtained by HuffPost… When the Hunt campaign reached out to Twitter to inquire about the holdup, an employee said the video was blocked from promotion because of “the mention of abortion advocacy.” “Ah yes, the mention of abortion advocacy is the issue here,” a Twitter employee told Hunt’s campaign Wednesday in an email reviewed by HuffPost. The employee said the company may have “some good news to share on that front” in the next week or so, seemingly suggesting it may change its standards and practices on content discussing abortion rights. “For now, though, you still won’t be able to message around that topic,” the employee added. Candidates and Campaigns Politico: Fakery and confusion: Campaigns brace for explosion of AI in 2024 By Madison Fernandez .....Dozens of Democratic strategists gathered on Zoom on Wednesday for a novel meeting. The topic: How to combat an expected explosion of AI-generated fake content flooding TV airwaves and mailboxes in 2024. The meeting, hosted by the progressive group Arena, drew more than 70 officials. They talked about how generative AI could produce misinformation and disinformation at a pace and scale campaigns have not experienced before… Last month at CampaignTech East, a confab of digital campaign experts, commissioners from the Federal Election Commission offered opinions about regulating AI in campaigns. Democratic Commissioner Shana Broussard suggested that current FEC political ad disclosure rules could be adapted to encompass AI, whereas Republican Commissioner Trey Trainor said he was in favor of “as little regulation as possible.” The States New York Times: How Local Officials Seek Revenge on Their Hometown Newspapers By Emily Flitter .....Two of the most powerful women in the village of Delhi in central New York sat face to face in a brick building on Main Street for what would become a fight over the First Amendment. It was the fall of 2019. Tina Molé, the top elected official in Delaware County, was demanding that Kim Shepard, the publisher of The Reporter, the local newspaper, “do something” about what Ms. Molé saw as the paper’s unfair coverage of the county government. Ms. Shepard stood her ground. Not long after, Ms. Molé struck where it would hurt The Reporter the most: its finances. The county stripped the newspaper of a lucrative contract to print public notices, subsequently informing The Reporter that the decision was partly based on “the manner in which your paper reports county business.” Gibson Dunn: New York’s Highest Court Addresses Recent Anti-SLAPP Amendments and Multiple Aspects of Defamation Law in Lawsuit Against Kesha .....The New York Court of Appeals, the highest court in New York, recently issued a decision regarding several elements of New York’s defamation law, including what plaintiffs qualify as “public figures” for purposes of determining their burden of proof for defamation claims, the applicability of New York privileges against defamation liability, and the scope of certain of the 2020 amendments to New York’s anti-SLAPP law. Those amendments to sections 70-a and 76-a of the New York Civil Rights Law strengthened the protections for defendants in so-called SLAPP suits (“strategic lawsuits against public participation”) that seek to punish and chill the exercise of the rights of petition and free speech. Notably, this appears to be the first decision from New York’s highest court regarding the amendments New York adopted to its anti-SLAPP law in 2020. 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." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. Follow the Institute for Free Speech ‌ ‌ ‌ The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]