January 14, 2025

In the News

Idaho Statesman: Idaho bill aims to protect free speech from frivolous lawsuits. Here’s how it would work

By Ian Max Stevenson

.....The bill is the second attempt from Sen. Brian Lenney, R-Nampa, at passing anti-SLAPP legislation. A similar bill he brought last year failed by a narrow margin in the Senate. Lenney told the Idaho Statesman that his legislation is the same as last year’s bill, and is based off of one initiated by the Uniform Law Commission, a nonprofit that proposes standard legislative language for state legislatures to adopt. For its anti-SLAPP bill, the commission lists endorsements from the American Civil Liberties Union, Institute for Free Speech, Institute for Justice, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and other groups.

Supreme Court

Just Security: How Not to Decide TikTok: U.S. press freedom hangs in the balance

By David Cole

.....After more than two hours of argument Friday morning in TikTok v. Garland, the Supreme Court appears likely to allow the U.S. government to force divestiture or shuttering of the platform on January 19. The justices may grant TikTok, and themselves, a temporary reprieve while they resolve the dispute. But the argument suggested that the Court will affirm the law.

In my view, that’s the wrong result. Never before has the government singled out a media outlet and forced its closure, much less one used by half of Americans. Even if there are legitimate national security concerns raised by the possibility that China may gain access to TikTok’s customer data, there are plainly less restrictive alternatives to protecting those interests than shuttering a platform for expression. And the government’s only other justification for its law – the possibility that China might covertly influence the content that appears on the platform – is per se impermissible under the First Amendment, which does not allow the government to regulate the content of our public debate, even if it believes the ideas expressed are against its interest, and even if they come from abroad.

SCOTUSblog: Challenge to Texas age-verification on porn sites comes to Supreme Court

By Amy Howe

.....A trade group for the adult entertainment industry will appear at the Supreme Court on Wednesday in its challenge to a Texas law that requires pornography sites to verify the age of their users before providing access – for example, by requiring a government-issued identification. The law applies to any website whose content is one-third or more “harmful to minors” – a definition that the challengers say would include most sexually suggestive content, from nude modeling to romance novels and R-rated movies.

The Courts

Center Square Illinois: Former IL GOP AG candidate sues House GOP leader, alleging social media censorship

By Greg Bishop

.....The former Republican Illinois Attorney General candidate is taking the Illinois House Minority Leader to federal court over alleged censorship on her social media page used to communicate government business. 

An attorney representing Thomas DeVore, who ran unsuccessfully for AG in 2022, filed the lawsuit Monday in the Northern District of Illinois federal court, alleging Illinois House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, is censoring DeVore. 

“More recently, DeVore expressed critical viewpoints of Leader McCombie’s political actions on her Primary Public Forum in response to Facebook post(s) she had made about government business. As a result of DeVore’s expression of these critical viewpoints, Leader McCombie has banned him completely from her Primary Public Forum and has otherwise deleted his comments,” the lawsuit alleged. “As such, his comments are no longer viewable by the general public, including the over 17,000 followers of Leader McCombie’s Primary Public Forum.”

FEC

The Hill: Trump-appointed FEC commissioner to resign on inauguration

By Caroline Vakil

.....Sean Cooksey, a Trump-appointed commissioner on the Federal Election Commission (FEC), announced Monday that he would be resigning on President-elect Trump’s first day in office.

“I am proud of my work on the Commission and the agency’s significant accomplishments during my tenure,” he wrote in a letter to President Biden.

“In particular, I am pleased to have played a role in the Commission’s work repealing unnecessary regulations, lessening burdens on freedom of speech, and reforming agency procedures to respect due process,” he continued.

Cooksey also said he hoped Trump would nominate new appointees to the FEC for commissioners whose terms had already expired.

CFPB

Bloomberg Law: Banks' Forced Contract Terms, Speech Curbs Targeted by CFPB

By Evan Weinberger

.....US financial companies would be barred from issuing boilerplate contracts to consumers forcing them to waive constitutional rights under a new rule that specifically prohibits deplatforming customers for negative reviews or political speech.

The Federal Trade Commission’s Credit Practices Rules would be extended to banks and other companies overseen by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under a proposal the CFPB issued Monday. The FTC’s rule prohibits companies from using contract provisions such as confessions of judgment, assignments of wages, and those making household goods a security interest.

Congress

The Federalist: Bills Aim To Stop Big Tech, Big Government From Silencing Speech Again

By M.D. Kittle

.....Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., was among the first to see evidence of what many Americans suspected: Big Tech colluding with the Biden administration to silence speech. Now he’s reintroducing legislation to hold government bureaucrats and social media giants accountable for their sins of omission…

The Censorship Accountability Act creates a right to sue federal employees who violate “rights secured by the First Amendment.” The legislation is modeled on the core enforcement tool of civil rights law — Section 1983 of Title 42 of U.S. Code.

The Hill: Don’t expect Mark Zuckerberg to save social media

By Alex Abdo

.....With or without fact-checkers, though, Zuckerberg will still be the one deciding the rules for what billions of people can see and say every day online. That’s the real problem, and no amount of tinkering with his company’s content moderation policies will solve it. We need congressional action, instead…

How do we dilute the platforms’ power? We need regulation. Congress could, for example, force the platforms to be “interoperable,” so that users from one platform could communicate with users of another. This would allow users of, say, Facebook to talk with users of other platforms, preventing the kind of lock-in that insulates the companies from competition.

Congress could also enact a privacy law that gives users more control over their own data, or it could buttress the authority of the Federal Trade Commission to protect user privacy. Doing so would make it easier for users to take their data to new platforms and harder for the platforms to amass that information in the first place. And Congress could pass transparency laws that would make it easier for journalists, researchers and the public to study the platforms and expose whatever harms they cause.

Online Speech Platforms

Washington Post (Tech Brief): The push to ‘billionaire-proof’ social media

By Will Oremus

.....On Monday, a group of technologists and celebrity funders announced plans for a public interest foundation with a goal to kick-start the development of new social media apps built on the same technology that powers Bluesky. The campaign, called Free Our Feeds, envisions an “entire ecosystem of interconnected apps and different companies that have people’s interests at heart” — giving users the ability to move freely between the apps, which could include alternatives to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or even Bluesky itself.

The States

Las Vegas Sun: Requiring AI transparency in political ads proposed in Nevada

By Kyle Chouinard

.....Nevada lawmakers will consider a bill requiring political campaigns to disclose when they use artificial intelligence in ads to alter the reality of a situation.

The bill would require a disclosure if AI or other digital software is used in a campaign ad to create realistic depictions of something that never actually happened. For example, if the bill is signed into law, the phrase “This image has been manipulated” would need to be the largest text on a mailer. Similar requirements address newspaper, radio and TV ads.

The 2025 Legislature begins next month.

The disclosure would only be required when “synthetic media” is used to create “a fundamentally different understanding” of the edited content, meaning red-eye fixes and other small photo touch-ups wouldn’t be enough to trigger the law. The legislation would carry a maximum $50,000 penalty for those who violate the rules.

The proposed bill was submitted on behalf of Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar. It would require that a copy of ads containing the disclaimer be filed with his office.

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Boston Police Officer's Tweets from "Stop the Steal" Rally Protected by First Amendment Against Government Employer Retaliation

By Eugene Volokh

.....An excerpt from the >16,000-word opinion written by Commissioner Paul Stein in Abasciano v. Boston Police Dep't, decided last month by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Civil Service Commission, though just posted on Westlaw: