Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech June 11, 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]. We're Hiring! Litigation Attorney – Institute for Free Speech – Virtual .....IFS is hiring an Attorney with at least seven years of experience to support its ongoing litigation efforts. The position is located either in the Washington, DC office or remotely at any location within the United States with reasonable access to air travel. This is a rare opportunity to litigate to protect and advance Constitutional rights. IFS challenges laws, practices, and policies that infringe upon First Amendment freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and petition concerning politics. Cases typically secure people’s rights to speak at public meetings, such as school boards and legislative hearings, protect people’s ability to give and receive campaign contributions, and ward off any intrusion into people’s private political associations. You would work to hold censors accountable and secure legal precedents clearing away a thicket of laws, regulations, and practices that suppress speech about government and candidates for political office, threaten citizens’ privacy if they speak or join groups, or impose heavy burdens on political activity. The Courts Reuters: US judicial panel tweaks amicus brief disclosure rule, seeks public views on AI By Nate Raymond .....A U.S. judicial panel on Tuesday moved to increase disclosure of who finances friend-of-the-court briefs filed by advocacy groups to influence litigation and advanced what would be the federal judiciary's first nationwide regulation of AI in the courts. After years of debate, the U.S. Judicial Conference's Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure during a meeting in Washington, D.C., voted to finalize a new disclosure requirement governing the funding of amicus briefs that fell far short of the broader reforms Democratic lawmakers argued were needed. That new rule would require the filer of an amicus brief to name any donor who earmarked more than $100 for the preparation of the brief if that person or entity had been a member of the organization filing it for less than 12 months. Amicus brief filers formed in the last year must disclose the date they were formed, with the goal of addressing the concern that an entity was created just for that purpose, said U.S. Circuit Judge Allison Eid, chair of the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules. The new rule built on an earlier disclosure requirement, one that Eid said many were not aware of, that could be evaded if a brief's financier simply became a member of the group filing it around the same time the financier made a contribution... The rule now goes the Judicial Conference, the judiciary's top policymaking body, for its review. It will then go onto the U.S. Supreme Court and, if it concurs, will take effect unless Congress acts to prevent it. The Courts Boston Globe: First Amendment lawsuit claims R.I. school district blocked a critic from social media accounts By Edward Fitzpatrick .....In a First Amendment lawsuit filed Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island is challenging the Smithfield School District’s decision to block a local school critic from the social media accounts of the district and the schools superintendent. Trump Administration New York Times: Trump Threatens Any Protesters at Military Parade With ‘Very Big Force’ By Erica L. Green and Maggie Haberman .....President Trump said on Tuesday that protesters who assembled during a military parade he planned in Washington on Saturday for the Army’s 250th birthday would be met with “very big force” — a dark warning that made no distinction between peaceful demonstrations and violent confrontations. In remarks from the Oval Office before he left for North Carolina, where he was scheduled to participate in events at Fort Bragg related to the anniversary, Mr. Trump boasted about the “amazing day” he planned before saying that any demonstrators would be dealt with harshly. “For those people that want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force,” Mr. Trump said. “And I haven’t even heard about a protest, but you know, this is people that hate our country, but they will be met with very heavy force.” New York Post: Trump on Miranda Devine’s podcast: LA riot flag burners should get year in prison, Newsom could be ‘charged in theory’ By Josh Christenson .....In the inaugural episode of Post columnist Miranda Devine’s “Pod Force One” — which will feature some of Washington’s most influential movers and shakers every week — Trump said all rioters found to be setting the Stars and Stripes ablaze should earn an “automatic” one-year jail sentence. “I happen to think if you burn an American flag — because they were burning a lot of flags in Los Angeles — I think you go to jail for one year,” he said. “Just automatic.” NBC News: Trump says Elon Musk will face 'very serious consequences' if he funds Democratic candidates By Kristen Welker and Alexandra Marquez .....President Donald Trump on Saturday said there would be “serious consequences” if tech mogul Elon Musk funds Democratic candidates to run against Republicans who vote in favor of the GOP’s sweeping budget bill. “If he does, he’ll have to pay the consequences for that,” Trump told NBC News in a phone interview, but declined to share what those consequences would be. “He’ll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that,” he added. Online Speech Platforms New York Times: YouTube Loosens Rules Guiding the Moderation of Videos By Nico Grant and Tripp Mickle .....The new policies, which were outlined in the training materials, are an expansion of YouTube’s exceptions. They build on changes made before the 2024 election, when the company began permitting clips of electoral candidates on the platform even if the candidates violated its policies, the training material said. Previously, YouTube removed a so-called public interest video if a quarter of the content broke the platform’s rules. As of Dec. 18, YouTube’s trust and safety officials told content moderators that half a video could break YouTube’s rules and stay online. Other content that mentions political, social and cultural issues has also been exempted from YouTube’s usual content guidelines. The platform determined that videos are in the public interest if creators discuss or debate elections, ideologies, movements, race, gender, sexuality, abortion, immigration, censorship and other issues… During training on the new policy, the trust and safety team said content moderators should err against restricting content when “freedom of expression value may outweigh harm risk.” If employees had doubts about a video’s suitability, they were encouraged to take it to their superiors rather than remove it. YouTube employees were presented with real examples of how the new policies had already been applied. The platform gave a pass to a user-created video titled, “RFK Jr. Delivers SLEDGEHAMMER Blows to Gene-Altering JABS,” which violated YouTube’s policy against medical misinformation by incorrectly claiming that Covid vaccines alter people’s genes. The company’s trust and safety team decided that the video shouldn’t be removed because public interest in the video “outweighs the harm risk,” the training material said. The video was deemed newsworthy because it presented contemporary news coverage of recent actions on Covid vaccines by the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The video also mentioned political figures such as Vice President JD Vance, Elon Musk and Megyn Kelly, boosting its “newsworthiness.” The States Tallahassee Democrat: DeSantis administration blasted for 'chilling' Florida press with cease-and-desist letter By Stephany Matat .....By sending and posting on social media an unsigned cease-and-desist letter to an Orlando Sentinel reporter, Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration infringed on press freedom by demanding that reporting stop about an initiative spearheaded by his wife, First Amendment attorneys say. NY Daily News: Longshot NYC mayoral candidate Michael Blake sues CFB to go to second debate By Josephine Stratman .....Michael Blake, a longshot mayoral candidate, has sued New York City’s Campaign Finance Board over not being allowed in the second mayoral debate this week, arguing the board has unfairly denied him a spot on the stage this Thursday. The board said in late May that Blake would not be participating in the debate because he hadn’t met the fundraising thresholds to qualify for it. But Blake’s campaign argues in the suit, filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court, that he had, in fact, met the requirements — receiving $255,313 matchable dollars from 1,592 matchable donors — and that it was the CFB’s system errors that mistakenly made it seem that he hadn’t. “You’re denying him on stage because of your errors? That’s just ridiculous,” Blake told the Daily News. The candidate, a former Bronx Assembly member, wants the CFB to “correct” its documentation of more than 100 contributions that have allegedly been incorrectly excluded from his total fundraising numbers, so that he can go to the debate. Florida Bar News: Judges grapple with surge in online threats, doxing, and harassment By Jim Ash .....Once considered a college prank, pizza doxing has taken on a much darker meaning as perpetrators increasingly employ it to protest adverse rulings. Chief U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard, who oversees Florida’s sprawling Middle District, calls it an “intimidation tactic.” “It’s a form of harassment,” she said. “It lets the judge know, ‘I know where you live, or I know where your daughter lives.’” Until now, pizza doxing has been a mostly federal court phenomenon. Recent U.S. Marshal Service figures show more than 100 incidents in seven states, including Florida, as more judges are assigned to hear some 200 pending challenges to the current administration’s policies. According to a recent New York Times investigation, some 277 federal judges — nearly a third of the federal judiciary — have reported being threatened in some fashion this fiscal year. 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." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. 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