The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech July 6, 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 San Francisco Chronicle: Ninth Circuit strikes down Oregon law against secret recordings By Bob Egelko .....Oregon’s ban on secretly recording conversations except those involving life-threatening crimes or police participants is an unconstitutional restriction on speech based on its content, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. The ruling is unlikely to affect a California law against nonconsensual recording because it applies only to confidential, nonpublic conversations and does not exempt any topics of discussion. But it could be used to challenge a separate California law, passed in 2021, that makes it a crime to secretly record or film someone within 100 feet of an abortion clinic in an attempt to intimidate the person from obtaining or providing reproductive care. The Oregon law was challenged by Project Veritas, a nonprofit right-wing organization whose members have posed as liberals in undercover actions to expose alleged left-wing bias in the media and elsewhere, and have occasionally been found guilty of crimes in those actions. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the group that the law was an invalid “content-based restriction on speech.” Washington Post: State Dept. cancels Facebook meetings after judge’s ‘censorship’ ruling By Joseph Menn, Will Oremus, Cat Zakrzewski and Naomi Nix .....One day after a Louisiana federal judge set limits on the Biden administration’s communications with tech firms, the State Department canceled its regular meeting Wednesday with Facebook officials to discuss 2024 election preparations and hacking threats, according to a person at the company. The move came hours before Biden’s Department of Justice filed a notice that it will appeal the ruling. New York Times: Disinformation Researchers Fret About Fallout From Judge’s Order By Tiffany Hsu and Stuart A. Thompson .....A federal judge’s decision this week to restrict the government’s communication with social media platforms could have broad side effects, according to researchers and groups that combat hate speech, online abuse and disinformation: It could further hamper efforts to curb harmful content. Alice E. Marwick, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was one of several disinformation experts who said on Wednesday that the ruling could impede work meant to keep false claims about vaccines and voter fraud from spreading. Supreme Court Cato: Social Media “Blockings” Send Two Cases to the Supreme Court By Thomas A. Berry .....Next term, the Supreme Court will decide two cases raising questions unique to the social media age. Many public officeholders have social media accounts that are not formally run by the government, but which the officeholders nonetheless use to discuss public affairs. In Port Huron, Michigan, the city manager used a Facebook account to discuss COVID-19 emergency measures and other city policies. In Poway, California, two school board members used Facebook and Twitter accounts to discuss school district issues. When these officeholders were criticized by constituents on their social media accounts, they “blocked” some of those users, which prevented the constituents from reading or commenting on the officeholders’ posts. DOJ Rolling Stone: Biden’s DOJ Is Pressuring Journalists to Help Build Its Case Against Assange By James Ball .....The Department of Justice and FBI are pressuring multiple British journalists to cooperate with the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, using vague threats and pressure tactics in the process. I know because I am one of the British journalists being pressured to cooperate in the case against him, as someone who used to (briefly) work and live with him, and who went on to blow the whistle on WikiLeaks’ own ethical lapses. Free Expression Reason: UCLA Declined To Hire a Professor After Students Denounced His Mild DEI Criticism By Robby Soave .....Yoel Inbar is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He was slated to join the University of California at Los Angeles as a tenured professor of psychology, but the offer failed to materialize after 66 students signed a petition urging the administration not to hire him. The students' issue with Inbar? In an episode of his podcast Two Psychologists Four Beers, Inbar mildly criticized diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements as used by university administrations to screen potential hires. He described DEI statements as compelled speech and empty "value signaling." "It is not clear what good they do," said Inbar. His comments were quoted in the student petition, which essentially confirms the very criticism Inbar was making of DEI statements: The students appear to take the view that opposition to DEI statements should in fact be grounds for nonemployment. The Atlantic: The Hypocrisy of Mandatory Diversity Statements By Conor Friedersdorf .....The costs of mandatory DEI statements are far too high to justify, especially absent evidence that they do significant good. Alas, proponents seem unaware of those costs. Yes, they know that they are imposing a requirement that many colleagues find uncomfortable. But they may be less aware of the message that higher-education institutions send to the public by demanding these statements... Mandatory DEI statements send the message that it’s okay for academics to chill the speech of colleagues. If half of faculty members believe that diversity statements are ideological litmus tests, fear of failing the test will chill free expression within a large cohort, even if they are wrong. Shouldn’t that alone make the half of academics who support these statements rethink their stance? Online Speech Platforms Daily Caller: RFK Jr. Floats Idea For Government-Owned Social Media Site That Would Be ‘Free Of Censorship’ By Jason Cohen .....Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed the potential establishment of a government-operated social media platform during an interview with actor and comedian Russell Brand on Tuesday. Kennedy articulated his strategies for eradicating censorship within the United States and mentioned the possibility of implementing a government-run social media platform if alternative approaches prove ineffective during the interview. “If the government has to start its own [platform] under some rubric that is guaranteed to be free of censorship, then I will do that,” Kennedy said. The States New York Times: Judge Investigated Over His Profane TikTok Videos By Tracey Tully .....For two years, a judge in New Jersey used a pseudonym to post TikTok videos of himself lip-syncing lyrics from popular rap songs. In some, he was wearing judicial robes or shown walking through a courthouse, according to the state’s Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct. Others included explicit references to violence, sex and misogyny. At least one was taken in bed. On Monday, the court system said it had filed a complaint against the Superior Court judge, Gary N. Wilcox, who will now face a hearing that could lead to discipline ranging from a reprimand to dismissal from the bench. The complaint argues that Judge Wilcox’s decision to post the TikTok videos showed “poor judgment and demonstrated disrespect for the judiciary and an inability to conform to the high standards of conduct expected of judges.” The case, which will likely involve free speech arguments, was filed a day after the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a potentially precedent-setting decision related to privacy protections when using social media. The court ruled that the police needed to prove more than basic probable cause to continuously monitor Facebook to investigate crimes, concluding that the surveillance was the “functional equivalent” of tapping a person’s phone. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. 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