September 23, 2024

In the News

Boston Globe: In New Hampshire, flags spark a free speech lawsuit

By Steven Porter

.....One of the flagpoles outside Nashua City Hall is the latest lightning rod in litigation over free speech.

The pole, which stands next to those flying the American and New Hampshire flags, features a rotating assortment of banners contributed by community members to acknowledge special occasions, cultural heritage, and worthy causes.

But the city’s refusal to fly certain flags has sparked consternation, and a local couple, Stephen and Bethany R. Scaer, allege officials are infringing on their First Amendment rights.

One of their two rejected flags says “Save Women’s Sports” and promotes awareness of people who no longer identify as transgender. The other, which features a pine tree and the slogan “An Appeal to Heaven,” has historic roots in the American Revolution but recently has been co-opted by Christian nationalists.

Nashua’s risk manager, Jennifer L. Deshaies, rejected the applications, saying the flags were “not in harmony with the message that the City wishes to express and endorse.” The Scaers appealed to Mayor James W. Donchess, but he upheld the rejections.

Earlier this month the Scaers sued the city in federal court, with backing from the Institute for Free Speech. One of their attorneys, Nathan Ristuccia, said Nashua’s policy had inappropriately given city officials “unbridled discretion to censor speech they dislike.”

The Tennessean: In win for Tennessee free speech law, SmileDirectClub loses appeal against NBC News

By Angele Latham

.....Tennessee is one of few states across the nation with formidable anti-SLAPP laws. According to the Institute for Free Speech's annual anti-SLAPP report card, which looks at developments in anti-SLAPP protections across the country, Tennessee is 12th best in the nation for anti-SLAPP protections — one of only 17 states with an "A" rating on the subject.

The Courts

Townhall: How the Biden-Harris DOJ Is Privatizing Partisan Censorship to Silence Dissent

By Dan Backer

.....The First Amendment is under threat nationwide, and the most dangerous attack may well be in a “sleeper” federal case from the battleground state of New Hampshire. Earlier this year, political consultant Steve Kramer—known for his questionable use of robocalls—worked for Rep. Dean Phillips' (D-MN) long-shot 2024 Democratic presidential primary campaign. Kramer paid for the use of an AI-generated version of Joe Biden to persuade Democratic primary voters to sit out the primary (why is entirely unclear, since the Democratic National Committee wouldn’t recognize it). Kramer ran afoul of the law, so New Hampshire’s attorney general charged him with 13 felony counts of voter suppression and 13 misdemeanor counts of impersonation of a candidate.

But that’s not really the story. In May, the League of Women Voters—a political group unaffected by the odd robocalls—sued Kramer and several layers of telecom infrastructure providers (Lingo Telecom and Life Corporation) over the robocall scandal. Why, you might ask? The League made the unprecedented argument that the Voting Rights Act contains both a private right of action (it doesn’t) that extends to non-threatening communications they deem false (it doesn’t) - weaponizing the law over non-existent threats.

Congress

Politico: Lobbyists exploit massive loophole to wine and dine lawmakers, aides at fancy getaways

By Adriana Navarro, Caley Fox Shannon, Taylor Nichols, and Heidi Przybyla

.....In 2007, after one of the biggest scandals in K Street history, Congress cracked down on lobbyists’ ability to wine and dine lawmakers and aides with a host of reforms — including limits on extravagant, all-expenses-paid trips.

In the nearly two decades since, the influence industry has blown a hole through those rules, according to a new analysis of House travel disclosure data by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland in partnership with POLITICO. U.S. representatives and their staff have taken at least 17,000 trips since 2012 that were paid for by private parties, many of them nonprofits with deep ties to lobbyists and special interests.

Free Expression

New York Times: How the Powerful Outmaneuvered the American Protest Movement

By Zeynep Tufekci

.....Those in power have figured out how to outmaneuver protesters: by keeping peaceful demonstrators far out of sight, organizing an overwhelming police response that brings the threat of long prison sentences, and circulating images of the most disruptive outliers that makes the whole movement look bad.

It works. And the organizers have failed to keep up.

The digital platforms they rely on make it difficult to impose any discipline on the message being communicated. Crackpot agitators and off-the-wall causes attach themselves more easily than ever. Conflict erupts. Fueled by the drama-loving algorithms of social media platforms, the movements descend into ugly public bickering…

The irony is that the very tool that has undermined the power of the protests — the internet — initially contributed to some of the most spectacular protests in history, starting with the convention of the World Trade Organization in Seattle in 1999.

Candidates and Campaigns

The Guardian: Labelling Trump’s lies as ‘disputed’ on X makes supporters believe them more, study finds

By Nick Robins-Early

.....Labelling tweets featuring false claims about election fraud as “disputed” does little to nothing to change Trump voters’ pre-existing beliefs, and it may make them more likely to believe the lies, according to a new study.

The study, authored by John Blanchar, an assistant professor from the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and Catherine Norris, an associate professor from Swarthmore College, looked at data from a sampling of 1,072 Americans surveyed in December of 2020. The researchers published a peer-reviewed paper on their findings this month in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Misinformation Review.

Online Speech Platforms

San Fransisco Chronicle: Their job is to combat Chinese-language misinformation. Inside this S.F. group’s operation

By Ko Lyn Cheang

.....As the fastest growing group of eligible U.S. voters, Asian Americans are poised to play a pivotal role in battleground states. This has also made them a prime target for bad actors looking to manipulate their views through false narratives, say Piyaoba’s researchers, who specifically seek out right-wing misinformation, they say, because of their umbrella organization’s progressive mission and because such content is more widespread.

“The Chinese American community is really suffering from disinformation from so many complex and powerful processes,” said Jinxia Niu, program manager for the nonprofit’s Chinese Digital Engagement Team and the Piyaoba team leader.