Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech January 6, 2025 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 Center Square Maine: Maine puts law limiting super PAC contributions on hold By Chris Wade .....Maine has agreed to temporarily suspend a new voter-approved law limiting contributions to super PACs in response to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new requirements. Question 1, one of four referendums approved by Maine voters in the Nov. 5 elections, sets a new limit of $5,000 for contributions to independent expenditure groups that spend money independently to support or defeat candidates in federal, state and local elections. The bipartisan measure was approved by nearly 74% of Maine voters, according to state election results. The Institute for Free Speech challenged those limits in court, filing a lawsuit on behalf of the conservative political action committee Dinner Table Action, a super PAC that funds mostly Republican candidates and causes. The plaintiffs argue that the voter-imposed limits on campaign contributions will have a chilling effect on free speech among individuals and groups looking to contribute to their efforts. However, an agreement approved by U.S. Magistrate Court judge Karen Frink Wolf suspends enforcement of the new law until May 30, 2025, as the legal challenge plays out in court. Institute for Free Speech Senior Attorney Charles “Chip” Miller praised the agreement to temporarily suspend the law, saying it "avoids expenses necessary to obtain a temporary restraining order, an expense that Maine would ultimately bear when we prevail." Supreme Court Wall Street Journal: Banning TikTok Would Violate America’s Free Speech Tradition By Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff .....Starting Jan. 10, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in TikTok v. Garland, the company’s challenge to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which requires TikTok to stop operations in the U.S. unless ByteDance, the Chinese company behind the video-sharing app, sells it to a new owner by Jan. 19. Last week, President-elect Donald Trump filed a brief in the case asking the Court to delay the law’s effective date “to allow his incoming Administration to pursue a negotiated resolution that could prevent a nationwide shutdown of TikTok.” If the Court upholds the law, more than 170 million American TikTok users will lose access to it. But the effect could end up being much broader. Even Americans who don’t use TikTok could soon find their favorite online platforms subject to the whims of regulators and lawmakers. The Courts Courthouse News Service: Judge blocks parts of California bid to protect kids from social media By Matt Simons .....A federal judge on Tuesday barred the state of California from enforcing key parts of Senate Bill 976, also known as the Protecting Our Kids from Social Media Addiction Act, finding it may infringe tech companies' First Amendment rights. The law, passed in September, prevents social media platforms from knowingly providing an addictive feed to minors without parental consent. In a mixed-bag ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward J. Davila found that "because NetChoice has shown that parts of SB 976 are likely to infringe upon the First Amendment, the court grants in part and denies in part NetChoice’s preliminary injunction motion." The decision wasn’t a complete win for NetChoice, the powerful tech lobbying group that sued the Golden State in a bid to thwart the law. Although Davila, a Barack Obama appointee, agreed that limits on notifications and reporting how many minors are on their platforms should be blocked, he rejected NetChoice's request for an injunction of provisions for parental controls and restrictions on personalized feeds. The Tennessean: Tennessee's new age verification law put on hold in win for free speech advocates By Angele Latham .....A Tennessee law that was set to go into effect on Wednesday has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge, who said the law was a "scorched earth" approach to the free speech rights of Tennesseans. The Protect Tennessee Minors Act has been temporarily paused after a motion to block the law, filed by adult trade association and advocacy group the Free Speech Coalition in early December, was granted by Chief United States District Court Judge Sheryl Lipman on Monday. The block will halt any potential harm to the plaintiffs as a result of the law while the lawsuit continues. AP News: Trump’s lawyers ask judge to halt Friday’s hush money case sentencing while they appeal to block it By Michael R. Sisak .....President-elect Donald Trump asked a judge Monday to halt this week’s sentencing in his hush money case while they appeal his recent rulings upholding the verdict. Trump’s lawyers said they plan to ask a state appeals court to reverse Judge Juan M. Merchan’s decision last week, which set the case for sentencing on Friday — little over a week before he’s sworn in for his second term. In a pair of rulings in recent weeks, Merchan rejected Trump’s bid to throw out the verdict and dismiss the indictment on presidential immunity grounds and because of his impending return to the White House. In a decision last week, the judge signaled he is not likely to sentence Trump, a Republican, to any punishment for his historic conviction on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Acknowledging the demands of the transition process, he had given Trump the option to attend in person or appear virtually by video. Department of State Washington Examiner: State Department documents reveal secret plans to route ‘censorship’ office to new hub By Gabe Kaminsky .....The State Department has crafted plans to distribute staffers from a shuttered office accused of censoring conservatives to a new internal “hub” that will coordinate its activities, according to documents obtained by the Washington Examiner. The Global Engagement Center, the office that Republicans accused of working with groups aiming to demonetize right-leaning media outlets in the United States, shut down in late 2024 upon lawmakers agreeing to no longer fund it. However, in a non-public letter to members of Congress on Dec. 6, the State Department outlined its plans to “realign” more than 50 GEC officials and tens of millions of dollars in funding to a hub purporting to counter foreign interference, documents show. The plans, which have not been reported on until now, will likely lead to investigations from Republicans into the State Department’s handling of the GEC’s closure. That’s because, according to senior GOP staffers who reviewed them, they appear to indicate that the Biden administration is merely rebranding the GEC under a different name — forming a new body that could be poised to engage in work akin to that which landed the office in hot water over the last two years. Online Speech Platforms Semafor: Meta will appoint Republican Joel Kaplan to lead global policy team, as Nick Clegg steps down By Liz Hoffman, Reed Albergotti, and Gina Chon .....Meta is revamping its global policy team, with President Nick Clegg stepping down and being replaced by Joel Kaplan, his deputy and the company’s most prominent Republican, people familiar with the matter said. Kaplan, who was White House Deputy Chief of Staff under George W. Bush, has been one of the most forceful voices inside Meta against restrictions on political speech, arguing internally that such policies would disproportionately mute conservative voices. Clegg, a former British deputy prime minister and ex-leader of the country’s Liberal Democrats, joined Meta in 2018 to lead its policy and lobbying efforts and was named president in 2022. The shift, three weeks before Donald Trump’s inauguration, comes as US companies are embracing the president-elect, courting his inner circle, and backing away from progressive stances many had embraced in recent years. NBC News: Elon Musk accused of censoring conservatives on X who disagree with him about immigration By David Ingram .....Tech billionaire Elon Musk faced accusations of censorship Friday from fellow conservatives after several prominent right-wing accounts who had criticized Musk’s views on immigration said that they subsequently lost access to premium features on Musk’s social media app, X. At least 14 conservative accounts said late Thursday or Friday that X had revoked their blue verification badge, cutting them off from a variety of premium features, including the ability to monetize their accounts through subscriptions and advertising revenue-sharing, according to a review conducted by NBC News. Some accounts said the number of those affected was far higher. The accounts were all still active Friday, but without access to monetization features; some of them said they worried about their ability to keep posting. Some conservatives said they considered X’s actions to be a betrayal by Musk, who purchased the service then known as Twitter in 2022 in part because he said it had unfairly limited conservative speech. Politico EU: ‘Nobody was tricked into voting for Trump’: Why the disinformation panic is over By Laurie Clarke .....When Donald Trump won in 2016, social media got the blame. Not this time. Trump's first victory in the U.S. presidential election that year — plus the shock vote in the U.K. to leave the European Union — had the chattering classes on both sides of the Atlantic scrambling for an explanation. They soon found social media. In the case of Brexit, the argument went, voters were brainwashed by shadowy data outfit Cambridge Analytica; in the case of Trump, it was Russian trolls. “Everyone was saying technology is to blame,” said Reece Peck, associate professor of journalism and political communication at the City University of New York. “These algorithms are to blame.” What followed was almost a decade of alarm over disinformation, with legislators agonizing over which ideas social media platforms should allow to propagate, and hand-wringing at how this was all irrevocably corroding the foundations of society. A vibrant cottage industry — dubbed “Big Disinfo” — sprang up to fight back against bad information. NGOs poured money into groups pledging to defend democracy against merchants of mistruth, while fact-checking operations promised to patrol the boundaries of reality. The States New York Daily News: N.Y. must end partisan campaign finance cronyism By Ryan Silverstein .....Kamala Harris’ campaign is barely cold, and the Democratic Party is already regrouping for 2028, by which time they’ll be ready to retake the presidency — by hook, or more likely, by crook. On Dec. 9, the New York State Public Campaign Finance Board passed a resolution changing how a surplus is calculated for the State Public Financing program. This resolution perfectly exemplifies how New York’s Democrats continue to write the state’s campaign finance rules for their own benefit... Under the Public Campaign Financing Program, any surplus of funds must be repaid to the New York State Public Campaign Finance Board up to the amount the campaign received. Instead of returning this money, Democrats have found a way to keep it. In passing the resolution along party lines, Democrats have allowed for transfers of non-public funds to state political committees to count as an expenditure during the surplus calculation. This is ingenious because the Public Campaign Financing statute does not require non-public funds (funds raised by the campaign) and public funds (funds campaigns receive from the Public Campaign Finance Program) be kept in separate accounts — meaning those funds are commingled. AP News: Ohio governor vetoes medical free speech clause he says would gut state’s regulatory power By Julie Carr Smyth .....Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed part of a bill late Thursday that state lawmakers cast as protecting the medical free speech of doctors and other health professionals but that the Republican governor says would “totally gut” the state’s ability to regulate misconduct… DeWine said in a veto message that the medical oversight language added to a the bill could have had “devastating and deadly consequences for patient health.” “Ohio’s medical licensing boards exist to protect patients and the public from bad actors in the medical field,” he wrote. He said health professionals who give harmful medical care shouldn’t get a “legal shield” to avoid accountability by “saying there was a difference of ‘medical opinion.’” WUSA9: Virginia lawmaker aims to have political ads disclose use of artificial intelligence By Matthew Torres .....Virginia State Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax County, already pre-filed a bill before the General Assembly convenes in January that would require political ads to disclose the use of AI... His bill said, “A person who knowingly disseminates artificial audio or artificial visual media intended to influence a political campaign shall include a conspicuous statement at the beginning of such media that states, “THIS MEDIA DOES NOT REPRESENT A TRUE RECORDING OF THE CANDIDATE.” The bill outlines strict requirements including disclaimers must cover at least 33% of the image for any visuals, and audio media “shall include a verbal reading of such conspicuous statement that takes at least five seconds to complete.” Violators would be found guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor but if the ads were released within 90 days of an election, the charge would be upgraded to Class 1. “There ought to be a disclaimer on it, so voters know they’re not looking at something that’s real,” Surovell added. 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