The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech February 29, 2024 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]. In the News PBS NewsHour (Video): Supreme Court hears cases involving free speech rights on social media By Anna Nawaz .....Ed. note: IFS Vice President for Litigation Alan Gura was interviewed by PBS NewsHour about the Netchoice cases and the Institute for Free Speech amicus brief. Poynter: An Iowa reporter was refused legislature access for 5 years — a frightening denial of press freedom By Laura Belin .....I’ve worked as a journalist for almost three decades. I’ve written extensively about Iowa politics since 2007. My byline has appeared online for the Iowa Capital Dispatch, CNN, Raw Story, and several local newspapers. But it took a lawsuit to get the Iowa House of Representatives to acknowledge my First Amendment right to cover the legislature on equal footing with other statehouse reporters. The Iowa House chief clerk recently, finally approved my request for a seat on the press bench — five years after I first applied for credentials. This saga should frighten anyone who cares about press freedom. When journalists are denied basic First Amendment rights, it’s not just their newsroom that suffers. It also hurts citizens’ access to information and undermines democracy. Supreme Court SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court skeptical of Texas, Florida regulation of social media moderation By Amy Howe .....The Supreme Court on Monday appeared skeptical of a pair of laws in Texas and Florida that would regulate how large social media companies control content posted on their sites. During nearly four hours of arguments, several justices suggested that the laws violate the First Amendment because they infringe on the ability of companies like Facebook and YouTube to make decisions about the content that appears on their platforms. But at the same time, the justices expressed concern about the posture in which the companies’ challenge came to the court, suggesting that it could prevent them from weighing in on the Florida law in particular. New York Times: Supreme Court Seems Wary of State Laws Regulating Social Media Platforms By Adam Liptak .....Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh read a sentence from a 1976 campaign finance decision that has long been a touchstone for him. “The concept that government may restrict the speech of some elements of our society in order to enhance the relative voice of others is wholly foreign to the First Amendment,” he said, indicating that he rejected the states’ argument that they may regulate the fairness of public debate in private settings. SCOTUSblog (Relist Watch): Holding protest organizers liable for injuries By John Elwood .....The first of this week’s new relists, Mckesson v. Doe, is already on its second (or, if you count stay applications, third) trip to the Supreme Court. It arises out of a Black Lives Matter protest that took place in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the wake of the police shooting of Alton Sterling there in the summer of 2016. DeRay Mckesson helped organize protests in front of the Baton Rouge police headquarters. During those protests, a police officer known by the pseudonym John Doe was struck by a hard object and badly injured. Doe sued Mckesson, together with “Black Lives Matter” as an unincorporated association, for liability for his injuries. He sought damages for Mckesson’s negligence, alleging that he “knew or should have known … that violence would result” from the demonstration he “staged;” that he was “present during the protest” but “did nothing to calm the crowd;” and that he had “directed” demonstrators to protest in the street, in violation of state law prohibiting the blocking of a public highway. The Courts Cleveland.com: ‘Knowing winks and nods’ don’t prove Larry Householder was bribed, attorneys argue in appeal By Jeremy Pelzer and Jake Zuckerman .....Lawyers for ex-Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder fired a shotgun blast of arguments, ranging from a biased judge to faulty jury instructions, in an appeal seeking to reverse his 20-year prison sentence for bribery. In a 105-page brief (not counting its appendix) filed with the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals late Monday, Householder’s lawyers mounted sweeping arguments about evidentiary problems with his trial, and broader arguments of law about the acceptable political uses of tens of millions of dollars in anonymously funded contributions. In perhaps his most potent argument, Householder’s lawyers said, in short, that a bribe agreement must be explicit. A wink and a nod or mob-like innuendo won’t cut it. Rather, they say under court precedent there must be an “explicit” quid pro quo between payee and payor. Such a rule would raise the bar significantly for any prosecutors targeting public officials for taking bribes. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Requiring Public High School Student to Perform Monologue by Classmate May Be Unconstitutional Speech Compulsion By Eugene Volokh .....The monologue was sexually themed, but it's not clear to what extent the court's rationale might extend to situations where a student objects to the monologue for other reasons. From Judge Jennifer Dorsey's decision today in Evans v. Hawes (D. Nev.): Congress Leader Mitch McConnell: Biden Admin. Shreds Distinction Between Labor Advocacy And Political Agitation .....“Last week, the Biden Administration’s left-wing majority on the National Labor Relations Board issued a ruling in a case with far reaching consequences for free speech. “The decision had its roots in a quest by the Board’s activist General Counsel to appease the core Democratic alliance of Big Labor and progressive activists. This comes after President Biden fired her predecessor just moments after his inauguration. “The facts of the case are simple: an employer terminated an employee for violating a content-neutral company dress code that prohibited employees from displaying causes or political messages unrelated to workplace matters. The employee refused to comply, and was fired. “Breaking decades of precedent, the NLRB now says that the employer was wrong to do so and must rehire the employee and provide back pay. Free Expression The Atlantic: I Was a Heretic at The New York Times By Adam Rubenstein .....In the years preceding the Cotton op-ed, the Times had published op-eds by authoritarians including Muammar Qaddafi, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Vladimir Putin. The year of the Cotton op-ed, it also published the Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece Regina Ip’s defense of China’s murderous crackdown on prodemocracy protests in Hong Kong, Moustafa Bayoumi’s seeming apologia of cultural and ethnic resentments of Jews, and an article by a leader of the Taliban, Sirajuddin Haqqani. None of those caused an uproar. Last year, the page published an essay by the Hamas-appointed mayor of Gaza City, and few seemed to mind. But whether the paper is willing to publish conservative views on divisive political issues, such as abortion rights and the Second Amendment, remains an open question. Archive.today link Time: The Future of Censorship Is AI-Generated By Jacob Mchangama and Jules White .....The material of a long dead comedian is a good example of content that the world´s leading GenAI systems find “harmful.” Lenny Bruce shocked contemporary society in the 1950s and 60s with his profanity laden standup routines. Bruce's material broke political, religious, racial, and sexual taboos and led to frequent censorship in the media, bans from venues as well as to his arrest and conviction for obscenity. But his style inspired many other standup legends and Bruce has long since gone from outcast to hall of famer. As recognition of Bruce's enormous impact he was even posthumously pardoned in 2003. When we asked about Bruce, ChatGPT and Gemini informed us that he was a “groundbreaking” comedian who “challenged the social norms of the era” and “helped to redefine the boundaries of free speech.” But when prompted to give specific examples of how Bruce pushed the boundaries of free speech, both ChatGPT and Gemini refused to do so. ChatGPT insists that it can't provide examples of “slurs, blasphemous language, sexual language, or profanity” and will only “share information in a way that's respectful and appropriate for all users.” Gemini goes even further and claims that reproducing Bruce's words “without careful framing could be hurtful or even harmful to certain audiences.” The States New York Times: In Trump Criminal Case, Manhattan D.A. Asks for Gag Order Before Trial By Jonah E. Bromwich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum .....Manhattan prosecutors on Monday asked the judge overseeing their criminal case against Donald J. Trump to prohibit the former president from attacking witnesses or exposing jurors’ identities. The requests, made in filings by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, noted Mr. Trump’s “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him.” In outlining a narrowly crafted gag order, the office hewed closely to the terms of a similar order upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington in another of Mr. Trump’s criminal cases. KTVB 7: Anti-SLAPP bill clears Idaho senate committee By Andrew Baertlein .....The Idaho Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee offered a do-pass recommendation to Senate Bill 1325 (S1325) to create a new chapter of Idaho Law allowing defendants of weak lawsuits to dismiss the case before costly legal fees. 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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