Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech October 15, 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 Just the News: Moms for Liberty wins half a million dollar settlement in Florida school board case By Misty Severi .....Conservative political organization Moms for Liberty recently won its case against a Florida school board and was awarded over $500,000 in the settlement. The lawsuit began in November 2021, when Brevard Public Schools (BPS) tightened its public comment policies that shortened speaking times, controlled when certain topics could be discussed and banned signs from being raised during meetings. The case centers on allegations that the board discriminated against people and silenced those who opposed the board's views on topics such as face masks and gender-affirming policies. Moms for Liberty was awarded $568,000 from BPS, which the board approved last week. “Parents and community members have a First Amendment right to hold their local school leaders accountable during public meetings,” Brett Nolan, senior attorney at the Institute for Free Speech, which represented Moms for Liberty, said. “We hope that this substantial fee award will make other government officials think twice before silencing speech they don’t like.” The settlement comes after an Appeals Court ruled last year that the speaking restrictions violated the First Amendment. Richmond Times-Dispatch [via Archive Today]: Commentary: New rules of engagement testing free speech By Tom Garrett .....Our culture of free speech faces a profound test. In the wake of the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk, some former free speech advocates — not all, but enough — seemed to switch sides. These erstwhile free-speech supporters now revel in their newfound ability to weaponize “cancel culture” after railing against it for years. At the same time, former defenders of speech suppression have hypocritically “rediscovered” the value of free speech as ideas they support are suddenly in the government’s crosshairs. Original (paywalled) Free Expression New York Times: I Resigned as Manhattan’s U.S. Attorney. Law Schools Are Missing the Point of My Story. By Danielle Sassoon .....Universities, no less than the professionals they teach, have an obligation to uphold civil dialogue as the bedrock of a functioning democracy. Administrators continue to overlook that this obligation means they must guarantee forums to explore a diversity of ideas safely and openly. A recent episode at New York University School of Law illustrates the problem. Administrators forced N.Y.U.’s Federalist Society chapter, a conservative student group, to cancel an on-campus event scheduled for this past Tuesday, Oct. 7, with my Manhattan Institute colleague Ilya Shapiro, a constitutional scholar whose recent book criticizes the illiberal takeover of legal education and the rise of antisemitism on many university campuses. The school’s reasons for denying event approval were a moving target, but when students questioned why the event was not viable on the chosen date, the school cited security reasons. After The Free Beacon reported on the cancellation and free-speech groups criticized N.Y.U., the law school reversed course and came up with the resources to host the event safely. This was not an isolated incident. For years, conservative speakers on campuses — from DePaul University to the University of California, Berkeley, to Dartmouth College — have had their events denied forums, shut down or derailed by security threats or anticipated backlashes that ostensibly posed safety concerns. Washington Post: News outlets broadly reject Pentagon rules before deadline for signing By Scott Nover .....Media across the ideological spectrum said they will not sign the Defense Department’s restrictive new press policy by Tuesday’s afternoon deadline. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN said they wouldn’t sign, as did Newsmax and the Washington Times. Matt Murray, The Post’s executive editor, said the policy runs counter to the Constitution’s guarantee of freedom of the press. “The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information,” he said in a statement Monday. “We will continue to vigorously and fairly report on the policies and positions of the Pentagon and officials across the government.” Reason: Algorithmic Censorship Changes the Way We Talk By Matthew Petti .....The kids these days have a lot of silly euphemisms. Porn becomes corn. Sex becomes seggs. Nipples are nip nops and a picture of an eggplant can stand in for a penis. Killing someone becomes unaliving them, and people kermit sewerslide instead of committing suicide. Everything slightly risqué or unpleasant becomes baby talk. But not because teens are overgrown infants—it's a bottom-up response to top-down censorship. As social media has become a bigger part of modern life, platforms have adopted elaborate policies to appease advertisers and politicians who might not be happy with the content that people organically share. Besides simply deleting content and banning creators, sites can subtly nudge users, algorithmically promoting certain sorts of content while demoting others. The policies are often frustratingly opaque, but many users have figured out well what will or won't anger the invisible censor. That doesn't stop them from talking about taboo topics. For the younger generation, social media is often the first and only place to learn about various elements of the world they live in, and sometimes those elements include sex, drugs, violence, and politics. So teenagers have come up with an elaborate system of cheeky substitutes for words that would otherwise get their content shadow banned. Emojis and wordplay form a language. Adam Aleksic explores this "algospeak" in a book of the same name. Aleksic runs Etymology Nerd, a popular TikTok channel that explores linguistics and the broader social issues around language. He learned through trial and error what the algorithm would reward and punish. Candidates & Campaigns Washington Examiner: Chinese money seeps into every level of American politics By Robert Schmad .....In just the last couple of weeks, investigations from the Washington Examiner and the Washington Free Beacon have revealed that members of the CCP are injecting cash into competitive gubernatorial races in New Jersey, Virginia, and Arizona to assist Democratic candidates. “Federal campaign finance law strictly prohibits foreign nationals and foreign governments from contributing any money or making any independent expenditures in American candidate elections,” former Federal Election Commission member Hans von Spakovsky told the Washington Examiner. “And it doesn’t just apply to federal elections, but that statute also applies to state and local elections … So if someone in the state of Virginia, a candidate, is getting a donation from someone who is not a U.S. citizen, that’s a violation of federal law.” … The FEC may have its work cut out for it, as previously unreported federal campaign finance records show that executives at Wanxiang Group have donated nearly $1 million since 2000 to federal political committees, with the bulk of their spending occurring in the last five years. Beneficiaries of the Chinese cash include big names such as former President Joe Biden, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), various state Democratic Parties, and Mike Pence’s 2024 presidential campaign. While some of the contributions were directed toward Republicans, the vast majority were made out to Democrats. Despite the troves of evidence, the FEC and Justice Department have historically been criticized for inaction regarding foreign influence campaigns. Washington Examiner: Chairman of major voting machine firm faces scrutiny for partisan political donations By Samantha-Jo Roth .....Devin Talbott, founder of the Maryland-based investment firm Enlightenment Capital and chairman of voting machine giant Hart InterCivic, is under scrutiny for his extensive political donations to Democratic candidates while leading a major U.S. election technology company, a combination raising questions about potential conflicts of interest in the U.S. voting system. Talbott’s firm invests heavily in the aerospace, defense, government, and technology sectors. As chairman of Hart InterCivic, he also plays a central role in shaping the company’s operations and the voting systems it supplies to states nationwide. At the same time, he has contributed more than $100,000 to Democratic candidates, committees, and PACs over the past decade while overseeing one of the country’s leading voting technology suppliers. Federal Election Commission records show Talbott has given tens of thousands of dollars to campaigns for Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Jon Tester, while also donating to the Democratic National Committee and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. His only recorded contribution to a Republican was a $520 donation to Nikki Haley’s 2024 presidential campaign. The States Alaska Beacon: National Republican campaign group must comply with subpoena, Alaska Supreme Court says By James Brooks .....A national group that backed Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s re-election campaign in 2022 must comply with a subpoena issued as part of a yearslong investigation, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled Friday. In a 13-page decision, the court rejected a series of arguments offered by attorneys representing the Republican Governors Association, and it ordered the organization to comply with the subpoena... Since 2022, the Alaska Public Offices Commission has been seeking documents from the RGA — a national group that backs Republican candidates for governor — to determine whether or not the group illegally colluded with Dunleavy’s 2022 campaign. The RGA is considered an “independent expenditure” group and thus is barred by law from coordinating with a political candidate’s campaign. In 2022, two progressive groups filed complaints against the RGA. The state watchdog agency APOC, which regulates political campaign spending, began an investigation, but the RGA refused to comply with a subpoena seeking banking information and relevant communications. BakerHostetler: States Tighten Rules on Foreign Influence and Political Spending By Allen J. Dickerson, Lee A. Casey, and Allison D. Tuck .....An expanding wave of state legislation is redefining how foreign corporate ownership and influence are treated with respect to political and issue speech. Over the past two years, numerous states have advanced measures to restrict foreign nationals and foreign-influenced entities from spending in state and local elections. These efforts carry significant implications for domestic corporations, trade associations and the media and technology platforms that disseminate their messages. The scope of these restrictions varies widely from state to state. Many state laws mirror federal law, covering individuals who are neither U.S. citizens nor lawful permanent residents, foreign governments and political parties, and corporations formed or headquartered abroad. Others sweep more broadly, extending the definition of “foreign-influenced” to include U.S. companies with modest or passive foreign ownership. AZ Mirror: Arizona airports refuse to play Noem video blaming Democrats for shutdown By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy .....The state’s two largest airports, one of which is the operational hub for “ICE Air”, cited policies barring political advertising to explain why they are not playing a video of U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming the ongoing federal government shutdown on Democrats. Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport both confirmed to the Arizona Mirror that they are not displaying a video of Noem that was promoted by the White House as being played at “every public airport in America.” Politico: Newsom signs age verification law, siding with tech giants over Hollywood By Tyler Katzenberger .....Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed a law requiring device-makers like Apple and Google to check users’ ages online, marking a win for tech companies that had rallied behind it in the face of opposition from Hollywood studios. California’s age-checking law boasts rare buy-in from major tech firms including Google, Meta, OpenAI and Snap, unlike similar plans recently passed in deep-red Utah and Texas that sharply divided the industry. That unity may have also helped insulate California’s measure from a last-minute opposition campaign led by entertainment giants. Now, with Newsom’s approval, the plan could become a national template for shielding kids from potentially inappropriate or harmful content without drawing Big Tech’s ire. The Verge: New California law requires AI to tell you it’s AI By Hayden Field and Dominic Preston .....A bill attempting to regulate the ever-growing industry of companion AI chatbots is now law in California, as of October 13th. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 243, billed as “first-in-the-nation AI chatbot safeguards” by state senator Steve Padilla. The new law requires that companion chatbot developers implement new safeguards — for instance, “if a reasonable person interacting with a companion chatbot would be misled to believe that the person is interacting with a human,” then the new law requires the chatbot maker to “issue a clear and conspicuous notification” that the product is strictly AI and not human. 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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