The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech July 31, 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 Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Court Rejects First Amendment Challenge to School District's Ban on Students "Misgendering" Classmates By Eugene Volokh .....From Chief Judge Algenon Marbley (S.D. Ohio) today in Parents Defending Education v. Olentangy Local School Dist. Bd. of Ed.: Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Federal Court Blocks Arkansas Law That Limits "Harmful to Minors" Books in Libraries and Bookstores, and Also Limits "Inappropriate" Books in Libraries By Eugene Volokh .....An Arkansas statute (Act 372) makes it a crime (in its section 1) for librarians and booksellers to "[f]urnish a harmful item to a minor." The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment does not protect the distribution of "obscenity," a narrow category that basically covers hard-core pornography. To be obscenity, a work must satisfy all three of the following elements, largely drawn from Miller v. California (1973), though with extra detail added by Smith v. U.S. (1977), Pope v. Illinois (1987), and Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc. (1985): Congress New York Times: Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren: When It Comes to Big Tech, Enough Is Enough By Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren .....Our Digital Consumer Protection Commission Act would create an independent, bipartisan regulator charged with licensing and policing the nation’s biggest tech companies — like Meta, Google and Amazon — to prevent online harm, promote free speech and competition, guard Americans’ privacy and protect national security. The new watchdog would focus on the unique threats posed by tech giants while strengthening the tools available to the federal agencies and state attorneys general who have authority to regulate Big Tech... Americans deserve to know how their data is collected and used and to control who can see it. They deserve the freedom to opt out of targeted advertising. And they deserve the right to go online without, say, some A.I. tool’s algorithm denying them a loan based on their race or politics. If our legislation is enacted, platforms would face consequences for suppressing speech in violation of their own terms of service. The commission would have the flexibility and agility to develop more expertise and respond to new risks, like those posed by generative A.I. FARA Wall Street Journal: Hunter Biden, FARA and Unequal Justice By The Editorial Board .....FARA is a long-ignored law dating to 1938 that special counsel Mueller brought out of mothballs in an attempt to pry information out of Donald Trump’s associates. It requires Americans acting as an “agent of a foreign principal” under most circumstances to register with the U.S. government. As we noted at the time, in the nearly half-century up to 2016 the Justice Department brought only seven criminal FARA cases and won three convictions. The rarity of prosecutions created much confusion about how and when the law applies. That didn’t stop Mr. Mueller. As special counsel investigating nonexistent Russia collusion, he used FARA to prosecute Trump associates who were mostly accused of lying about their work on behalf of foreign governments... As long as FARA was targeting people in the Trump orbit, Democrats cheered these prosecutions... They may regret that legal standard now that federal prosecutors have confirmed to Judge Noreika that FARA charges could still be lodged against the President’s son. Based on Mr. Mueller’s prosecutions, Hunter is vulnerable. Biden Administration Wall Street Journal: The Biden Administration’s Assault on Free Speech By Philip Hamburger and Jenin Younes .....Among the revelations in the so-called Twitter files was that government officials pressured social-media companies to censor posts unfavorable to the Biden administration. The White House has denied this, insisting that companies like Meta and Twitter adopted content-moderation policies on their own. But internal documents newly released by the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on Weaponization of the Federal Government prove that government pressure led Meta to go beyond what it otherwise would have in censoring user speech. Court-ordered discovery in Missouri v. Biden has already revealed that the White House strong-armed platforms into more censorship than they considered justified—prompting the judge to declare that the administration had made “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” The new documents go further, showing that the administration drove much of Meta’s censorship. The Hill: ‘Facebook Files’ show Biden’s administration even targeted jokes for censorship By Jonathan Turley .....The newly released “Facebook Files” revealed a concerted effort by the Biden administration to censor not just false information, but also true information, along with jokes that its functionaries simply found annoying. Months ago, I testified before Congress on censorship after Elon Musk’s release of internal Twitter communications, also known as the Twitter Files. I warned that the government was engaging in “censorship by surrogate,” using corporate allies to do indirectly what it is legally prevented from doing directly. The Media Racket News: The Most Embarrassing "Facebook Files" Revelation? The Press, Exposed as Censors By Matt Taibbi .....We see repeatedly in internal communications not only in the email above, but in the Twitter Files, in the exhibits of the Missouri v Biden lawsuit, and even in the Freedom of Information request results beginning to trickle in here at Racket, that the news media has for some time been working in concert with civil society organizations, government, and tech platforms, as part of the censorship apparatus. Free Expression New York Times: D.E.I. Programs Are Getting in the Way of Liberal Education By Christopher F. Rufo .....These are not neutral programs to increase demographic diversity; they are political programs that use taxpayer resources to advance a specific partisan orthodoxy. After the publication of my reporting, Mr. DeSantis signed legislation abolishing D.E.I. programs in Florida’s public universities, arguing that they violated the principles of liberal education. Despite the anti-liberal nature of these programs, however, many center-left liberals have expressed concern about abolishing D.E.I. in state universities. Some commentators have claimed that Mr. DeSantis’s legislation amounts to a restriction on freedom of speech; others have asserted that it violates the autonomy of public universities. Neither argument, however, passes muster. D.E.I. administrators in state universities are not faculty members and, as public employees, are not entitled to unlimited First Amendment rights in their official duties, according to Supreme Court precedent. Universities require competent administrators, but their role is to support the scholarly mission of the university, not use it as a vehicle for their favored political interests. Campuses are better served when administrators delegate the function of social criticism to faculty and students, rather than promote a single answer to complex political problems. Axios: Microsoft's Xandr bans political ads By Sara Fischer .....Xandr, the advanced TV advertising company Microsoft acquired in 2021, on Thursday told advertisers that it plans to ban political ads beginning October 1, according to an email obtained by Axios. Online Speech Platforms New York Times: Researchers Poke Holes in Safety Controls of ChatGPT and Other Chatbots By Cade Metz .....When artificial intelligence companies build online chatbots, like ChatGPT, Claude and Google Bard, they spend months adding guardrails that are supposed to prevent their systems from generating hate speech, disinformation and other toxic material. Now there is a way to easily poke holes in those safety systems. In a report released on Thursday, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the Center for A.I. Safety in San Francisco showed how anyone could circumvent A.I. safety measures and use any of the leading chatbots to generate nearly unlimited amounts of harmful information. Their research underscored increasing concern that the new chatbots could flood the internet with false and dangerous information despite attempts by their creators to ensure that would not happen. It also showed how disagreements among leading A.I. companies were creating an increasingly unpredictable environment for the technology. PACs New York Times: $60 Million Refund Request Shows Financial Pressure on Trump From Legal Fees By Maggie Haberman and Shane Goldmacher .....The political action committee that former President Donald J. Trump is using to pay his legal bills faced such staggering costs this year that it requested a refund on a $60 million contribution it made to another group supporting the Republican front-runner, according to two people familiar with the matter. Candidates and Campaigns Mediaite: Megyn Kelly Grills Ron DeSantis On Free Speech, Asks How His War Against Bud Light and Disney Isn’t ‘Viewpoint Discrimination’ By Candice Ortiz .....Megyn Kelly grilled 2024 GOP hopeful Ron DeSantis over his continued war with various corporations and pointedly asked the Florida governor if he was “using government to punish citizens for political wrong think.” The exchange took place on the Friday edition of SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show where Kelly asked DeSantis if his treatment of Disney, which spoke out against a Florida bill on teaching gender ideology in school, and Bud Light for their partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney, was “viewpoint discrimination.” “You, in my view, are pretty quick to use the power of the state against certain corporations you don’t like,” Kelly began. “Aren’t you doing the very thing to these companies that conservatives are mad at left-wing leaders for doing?” The States Axios: Minnesota legalizes crypto contributions for state campaigns By Torey Van Oot .....Crypto contributions to state political campaign committees are now explicitly allowed under a law that took effect this month. Under the new rules, Minnesota campaigns must convert donations made via virtual currency to U.S. dollars within five days. The contribution is valued at what it was worth at the time of the donation. Any changes in price within the five-day grace period must be reflected separately in the committee's campaign finance report… While the Federal Election Commission has allowed crypto contributions to federal campaigns, rules vary widely across states. Minnesota is one of at least two states to have a law explicitly allowing crypto contributions, per the National Conference of State Legislatures. Several others, including California and Colorado, have administrative regulations on the books. Such contributions are prohibited in Oregon, Michigan, and North Carolina. 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]