February 6, 2024

In the News

The Federalist: When A Mom Stood Up For Her Special-Needs Son, School Board Bullies Silenced Her In Person And Online

By Dean McGee

.....On a personal level, the policy I found most offensive was the district’s ban on criticism of its own employees and administrators — a type of policy referred to by attorney Alan Gura of the Institute for Free Speech as “the Voldemort Rule: he who must not be named.”

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Comments on Artificial Intelligence in Campaign Ads

By Bradley A. Smith and Eric Wang

.....Amplifying on what other commenters have noted, the Commission should deny the Petition because the rule the Petition envisions would exceed the Commission’s statutory authority. Specifically, the Petition asks the Commission to prohibit certain content that uses generative AI concerning federal candidates that falls within the ambit of defamation law and is adjudicated by courts. The Commission does not have authority under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, as amended (“FECA” or “Act”) to regulate defamation. Moreover, in order to address the types of speech the Petition urges regulation of, the Commission would have to adopt an unconstitutionally vague and subjective content regulatory standard.

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Donor Privacy

People United for Privacy (Lunch & Learn): Previewing Threats and Opportunities for Donor Privacy in the 2024 Legislative Sessions

.....Don't miss out: PUFP's Lunch & Learn webinar previewing 2024's top threats and opportunities for nonprofit donor privacy in the states is this Wednesday, February 7 at 1 PM EST.

State legislative sessions are heating up! Here at People United for Privacy, that means we are busy tracking threats to free speech and personal privacy in state capitols across the country. Now, we are ready to share that information with you. Please join PUFP Vice President Matt Nese and Director of Government Affairs Alex Baiocco for a 45-minute Lunch and Learn webinar. During this session, we will preview a forthcoming PUFP memo that tracks state disclosure threats, discuss opportunities on the horizon to strengthen privacy protections, and share how you can join us in these efforts.

Register here.

Free Expression

ABA Journal: Free speech and academic freedom standards will now be part of ABA accreditation process

By Julianne Hill and Amanda Robert

.....Law schools will now be asked to explicitly protect free speech rights for faculty, students and staff as part of the ABA accreditation process. Though law school faculty have long enjoyed protections for academic freedom, this would be the first accreditation standard to address free speech for the entire community within law schools.

The ABA House of Delegates on Monday voted in favor of the creation of the law school standards regarding academic freedom and freedom of expression at its midyear meeting in Louisville, Kentucky.

Resolution 300 was brought by the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar. It calls for the adoption of Standard 208, which requires law schools to “protect the rights of faculty, students and staff to communicate ideas that may be controversial or unpopular, including through robust debate, demonstrations or protests.” It does not provide specific policy language.

Intercept: Northwestern Students Face Criminal Charges for Pro-Palestine College Newspaper Parody

By Connor Echols

.....The mock front page featured fake quotes from school officials, accusations of Israeli war crimes, and a fake ad for Birthright Israel — the travel abroad program that sends young American Jews to Israel — with the tagline “One man’s home is another man’s former home!” Overnight, someone had pinned the mock papers on bulletin boards, spread them on desks in lecture halls, and even wrapped the false front pages around roughly 300 copies of the Daily Northwestern itself…

Following the investigation, local prosecutors brought charges against two students for theft of advertising services. The little-known statute appears to only exist in Illinois and California, where it was originally passed to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from distributing recruitment materials in newspapers. The statute makes it illegal to insert an “unauthorized advertisement in a newspaper or periodical.” The students, both of whom are Black, now face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

Taxpayer-Financed Campaigns

New York Times: Ex-N.Y.P.D. Official Admits Funneling Illegal Funds to Adams Campaign

By Jonah E. Bromwich, Dana Rubinstein and William K. Rashbaum

.....Dwayne Montgomery, a retired police inspector who was once friendly with Mayor Eric Adams, pleaded guilty on Monday to misdemeanor conspiracy, saying that he had directed straw donors to contribute to the mayor’s 2021 campaign.

Mr. Montgomery was indicted in July by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, accused of a scheme to funnel contributions to the campaign and to conceal the source of donations…

New York City’s campaign finance law was central to the conduct detailed in the July indictment.

To help candidates without access to big donors, New York City matches the first $250 of a city resident’s donation eight to one.

The indictment said the defendants tried to hide the source of large donations by funneling them through the so-called straw donors — people who make campaign contributions using someone else’s money. That let the campaign collect more city matching funds and could have helped the defendants win influence with the incoming administration. It is unclear how much public money was spent as a result of the scheme.

Online Speech Platforms

Meta: Labeling AI-Generated Images on Facebook, Instagram and Threads

By Nick Clegg

.....As a company that’s been at the cutting edge of AI development for more than a decade, it’s been hugely encouraging to witness the explosion of creativity from people using our new generative AI tools, like our Meta AI image generator which helps people create pictures with simple text prompts.

As the difference between human and synthetic content gets blurred, people want to know where the boundary lies. People are often coming across AI-generated content for the first time and our users have told us they appreciate transparency around this new technology. So it’s important that we help people know when photorealistic content they’re seeing has been created using AI. We do that by applying “Imagined with AI” labels to photorealistic images created using our Meta AI feature, but we want to be able to do this with content created with other companies’ tools too. 

That’s why we’ve been working with industry partners to align on common technical standards that signal when a piece of content has been created using AI.

The States

Florida Politics: Bill lowering defamation lawsuit standards advances in Senate

By Gray Rohrer

.....Legislation making it easier to sue journalists and news outlets for defamation passed through its first Senate panel, despite objections from groups spanning the ideological spectrum that it would put a “chilling effect” on free speech.

The bill (SB 1780), sponsored by Sen. Jason Brodeur, a Sanford Republican, was rewritten Monday to remove some of the harshest provisions derided by critics, including a piece that would have eroded protections in state laws for journalists against disclosing the identity of a source in a legal proceeding.

But opponents of the measure still contend it will undercut free speech protections. One of the main issues was a part of the bill that would create a presumption in law that if a news outlet published a false statement by an anonymous source, they were acting with “actual malice” — the standard in a defamation lawsuit.

Reporters Committee: Arizona bill targeting ‘swatting’ could raise First Amendment concerns

By Emily Hockett

.....“Swatting” — falsely reporting a crime to draw an aggressive police response — is an extraordinarily harmful and potentially lethal prank that should be very illegal.

It has also become a popular tactic to harass public officials...

In the department of “bad facts make bad law,” the Arizona Legislature is currently considering a bill aimed at targeting swatting, but that could sweep further and raise concerns for public interest news reporting and free speech more broadly. H.B. 2508 would criminalize “initiating or circulating a report of bombing, fire, offense or other emergency knowing that such report is false and intending … that it will cause public alarm or an emergency response.”

The bill does not, however, define the term “public alarm” and it is not otherwise defined in Arizona law. This may be a problem, since when left open to interpretation, “caus[ing]” public alarm could cover a wide range of activities, including those of journalists.

Courier Journal: You have the right to criticize your government. Kentucky lawsuit must uphold free speech.

By Brian A. Morris

.....Under the First Amendment, you’re supposed to have the right to criticize the government without fear of retaliation. But this week, the Kentucky Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in a case that shows the extraordinary lengths local governments will go to silence their critics and to send a message: Speak out against us, and we’ll come after you…

David lives in Highland Heights, Kentucky, where he served on the city council and its safety subcommittee. David has always cared deeply about his community, eventually running for mayor. To launch his campaign, David chose a medium that dates to the founding of America: A political pamphlet. David published a six-page pamphlet that criticized city leaders and explained how he was “a better choice.” How did the city officials handle the criticism? They sued David for defamation.