This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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The Courts
By Amanda Pampuro
.....A group of fiscally conservative Coloradans has standing to sue the state over its campaign disclosure rules, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said Wednesday, in an order remanding the case to the district court for review of its alleged First Amendment violations.
"For standing, Colorado Union argues that it fears an enforcement action. The credibility of that fear involves a fact-issue that prevents summary judgment,” wrote Circuit Judge Robert Bacharach, in a 28-page opinion.
The Colorado Union of Taxpayers challenged the state’s disclosure requirements in a lawsuit filed Sept. 11, 2020. The Colorado Stop the Wolf Coalition was also an original party on the case, but left in 2021.
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By Andrew Zhang
.....A federal judge on Wednesday denied a request from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to temporarily restrain Google from removing two videos of the presidential candidate as he seeks to sue the company for censorship.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote that Kennedy’s claim that the company violated his First Amendment rights is unlikely to succeed because Google is a private entity. Thompson also wrote that a restraining order was not necessary because he would not be irreparably harmed if the order was not granted.
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FCC
By Todd Shields
.....Regulators invited public comment on whether the US broadcast license for Fox Corp.’s TV station in Philadelphia should be renewed after a grassroots organization asked that it be denied, saying Fox knowingly broadcast false news about the 2020 election.
The Federal Communications Commission said in a notice that broad public participation in the proceeding would “serve the public interest.”
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Free Expression
.....An Ontario court ruled against psychologist and media personality Jordan Peterson Wednesday, and upheld a regulatory body's order that he take social media training in the wake of complaints about his controversial online posts and statements.
Last November, Peterson, a professor emeritus with the University of Toronto psychology department who is also an author and media commentator, was ordered by the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo a coaching program on professionalism in public statements.
That followed numerous complaints to the governing body of Ontario psychologists, of which Peterson is a member, regarding his online commentary directed at politicians, a plus-sized model, and transgender actor Elliot Page, among other issues.
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By Matt Taibbi
.....Just when you may have thought things couldn’t get any crazier: American playwright and humorist C.J. Hopkins, profiled in this space on numerous occasions, has been sent a “punishment order” by a German judge, offering him a Sophie’s Choice of 60 days in jail or 3,600 euros.
His crime? Essentially, insulting the German health minister in a tweet, and using a scarcely-visible image of a Swastika on a mask in a book critical of the global pandemic response, The Rise of the New Normal Reich.
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Online Speech Platforms
By Will Oremus
.....As wildfires ravage western Canada, Canadians can’t read the news about them on Facebook or Instagram. This month, Facebook parent company Meta blocked links to news organizations on its major social networks in Canada to protest a law that would require it to pay publishers for distributing their content.
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By Emily Baker-White
.....TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance has spent years negotiating a national security agreement with the Biden Administration that would avoid a ban on the short video app in the United States. Now, a draft of that agreement from summer 2022 reveals just how much control ByteDance may have to give the U.S. government. Were it to be finalized, the agreement would provide the government near unfettered access to internal TikTok information and unprecedented control over essential functions that it does not have over any other major free speech platform.
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Candidates and Campaigns
By Grayson Logue
.....Artificial intelligence has become a common weapon in political information warfare. The Morning Dispatch reporter, Grayson Logue, is joined by Darrell M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the co-editor-in-chief of TechTank, to explain the unique threat that A.I. poses.
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The States
By Phil Williams
.....A chancellor ruled quickly Wednesday morning that those entering the Tennessee House could bring back their 8x11 signs.
Chancellor Ann Martin filed a temporary restraining order that will allow the signs until Sept. 5, which will be far past when special session concludes. The order means signs are allowed in the House gallery in the capitol and the Cordell Hull meeting rooms.
This happened after a lawsuit filed early Wednesday morning by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, which asked a Davidson County judge to block the Tennessee House from enforcing a newly adopted rule that prohibits protesters from displaying small signs during legislative proceedings.
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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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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.
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