August 15, 2024

The Courts

Reuters: US judge blocks Missouri rule curbing socially-conscious investing

By Daniel Wiessner

.....A federal judge in Missouri struck down on Wednesday the Republican-led state's rule limiting the ability of financial professionals to consider environmental, social, and corporate governance factors in giving investment advice.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Bough in Kansas City agreed with a trade group, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, that the 2023 rule was invalid because it imposed requirements on investment banks and broker-dealers that do not exist in federal law.

The rule issued by Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft would require investment advisers who consider ESG objectives, such as combating climate change or supporting a social movement, to disclose them to customers and obtain their consent.

Bough said that along with its conflicts with federal law, Missouri's rule violated the free-speech rights of investment advisers and was so vague that it could not be enforced under the U.S. Constitution.

State officials "could have embarked on a public-information campaign to advance their desired message," wrote Bough, an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Against UCLA, Stemming from Risk of Repetition of Exclusion of Jewish or Pro-Israel Students from Parts of Campus

By Eugene Volokh

.....From today's order by Judge Mark Scarsi (C.D. Cal.) in Frankel v. Regents:

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post (Tech Brief): Trump’s mysterious X promos show the limits of digital ad transparency

By Cristiano Lima-Strong and Aaron Schaffer

.....Days after former president Donald Trump’s highly publicized live stream with Elon Musk on X, there’s little-to-no public information about how much the GOP nominee may have paid to promote the event, highlighting key gaps in online campaign transparency.

Bloomberg: Meta Shuts Down CrowdTangle, Tool Used for Tracking Online Misinformation

By Davey Alba

.....Meta Platforms Inc. on Wednesday shuttered CrowdTangle, a popular social media analysis tool that journalists, civic groups and researchers used to monitor trending posts on platforms like Facebook and Instagram in real time.

The timing of the tool’s shutdown, months ahead of a major US presidential election, has drawn concern from groups that relied on CrowdTangle to track the flow of information on social media, including viral falsehoods that have led to real-world harm. Using CrowdTangle, journalists and researchers could show how many users engaged with a piece of content, which groups supercharged the spread of a post and just how often political and medical misinformation went viral on Facebook and Instagram.

Washington Post: See why AI detection tools can fail to catch election deepfakes

By Kevin Schaul, Pranshu Verma and Cat Zakrzewski

.....Deepfake detectors have been marketed as a silver bullet for identifying AI fakes, or “deepfakes.” Social media giants use them to label fake content on their platforms. Government officials are pressuring the private sector to pour millions into building the software, fearing deepfakes could disrupt elections or allow foreign adversaries to incite domestic turmoil.

But the science of detecting manipulated content is in its early stages. An April study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism found that many deepfake detector tools can be easily duped with simple software tricks or editing techniques.

Meanwhile, deepfakes and manipulated video are proliferating.

Washington Post:  Why the disinformation brigade has utterly failed to weaken Trump

By Megan McArdle

.....[T]he larger effort has been repeatedly marred when the disinformation experts have acted as censors, suppressing information that turned out to be true, and spreading other information that was false.

Think back to the years the American public spent on the verge of finding out that Trump was a Russian plant. Recall when it was “misinformation” to suggest the pandemic might have started in a Wuhan lab. Recollect how a bevy of putative experts assured us that Hunter Biden’s laptop was probably a “Russian information operation” rather than … Hunter Biden’s laptop. If these memories have faded, remember that just a couple months ago, we were hearing that videos of President Joe Biden’s obvious decline were actually expert-certified “cheap fakes.”

After each embarrassment, I thought, “Aha, this will teach the disinformation experts some humility.” And each time, they have reemerged, unchastened. 

Candidates and Campaigns

Axios: Harris campaign's Google ads rewrite news headlines

By Sara Fischer

.....The Harris campaign has been editing news headlines and descriptions within Google search ads that make it appear as if the Guardian, Reuters, CBS News and other major publishers are on her side, Axios has found.

It's a common practice in the commercial advertising world that doesn't violate Google's policies, but the ads mimic real news results from Search closely enough that they have news outlets caught off guard.

The States

News From the States: Kentucky school district posts against Amendment 2 raise questions about political influence

By McKenna Horsley

.....One Kentucky public school district is speaking against a proposed constitutional amendment that would affect school funding — raising questions about what school districts can say on political issues.

New York Times: A California Bill to Regulate A.I. Causes Alarm in Silicon Valley

By Cade Metz and Cecilia Kang

.....A California bill that could impose restrictions on artificial intelligence has tech companies, investors and activists scrambling to explain what the first-of-its-kind legislation could mean for their industry in the state.

The bill is still winding its way through the state capital in Sacramento. It is expected to reach the California state assembly appropriations committee on Thursday before facing a vote by the full assembly.

If signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the bill would require companies to test the safety of powerful A.I. technologies before releasing them to the public. It would also allow California’s attorney general to sue companies if their technologies cause serious harm, such as mass property damage or human casualties.

Reason: San Francisco City Council Targets Free Speech To Cover Up Its Own Housing Failures

By Ethan Blevins

.....The San Francisco city council is smashing the mirror because it doesn't like the face staring back at it. The council just approved a ban on websites that offer data about local rental markets and help landlords set their rents. The council blames these tools for exploding housing costs. It's a classic case of killing the messenger that will do nothing to fix a problem of the city council's own creation—and it violates the First Amendment.