This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact Luke Wachob at [email protected].
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The Courts
.....A federal court order protecting N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein from prosecution under a state law against campaign lies has been extended to Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles announced the extension during a hearing Thursday morning in Greensboro.
Eagles expects to make a decision about a preliminary injunction in the case by Tuesday. That decision would determine whether Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman can proceed with charges against Stein connected to a disputed 2020 television campaign ad.
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Congress
By Isaac Stanley-Becker
.....The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign arm of the Republican caucus, is preparing to escalate its attack on Google over the company’s email spam filter, which it blames for recent fundraising disappointments, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.
A draft letter on NRSC letterhead, and addressed to Google, claims that “Google and its algorithms have handed a distinct advantage to Democrat fundraising efforts, resulting in Republicans raising millions of dollars less than they should be able to.” And a Wednesday afternoon email from an NRSC official to chiefs of staff and legislative directors for Republican senators asks them to have their bosses sign the letter before leaving for their August recess.
The email states that Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) is spearheading the effort.
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FEC
By Ashley Gold
.....Google's proposed program to help keep campaign emails out of users' spam folders wouldn't violate campaign finance laws, the Federal Election Commission said Wednesday.
Google in June asked the commission to rule on whether its plan would be considered a sort of contribution to politcial campaigns, as Axios reported.
The FEC's draft answer says it would be lawful for Google to offer the pilot program to eligible participants. The commission still has to vote to adopt this draft for Google to be able to go ahead with the plan...
Public comments filed to the FEC heavily oppose the proposal.
The Democratic National Committee wrote to the FEC Wednesday to object to the pilot program.
"This program will undermine the Commission’s stated goal to protect political donors from deceptive solicitations by increasing the likelihood that such solicitations will reach donors’ inboxes," Sam Cornale, executive director of the Democratic National Committee, wrote.
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Free Expression
By Eugene Volokh
.....Tuesday and yesterday, I blogged the Introduction and the beginning of the argument in favor of such statutes; today, I turn to some arguments against such statutes (and you can see the whole article right now, if you'd like, by looking at the PDF).
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The Media
By Andrey Mir
.....Public trust in the media has hit an all-time low. Common explanations for this crisis of credibility include bias, polarization, and fake news, but these causes are themselves effects of the tectonic, and generally overlooked, shift in the media’s business model. Throughout the twentieth century, journalism relied for its funding predominantly on advertising. In the early 2010s, as ad money fled the industry, publications sought to earn revenue through subscriptions instead of advertising. In the process, they became dependent on digital audiences—especially their most vocal representatives. The shift from advertising to digital subscriptions invalidated old standards of journalism and led to the emergence of post-journalism.
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By George F. Will
.....In disagreeable times — e.g., now — nostalgia can be a narcotic. It is, however, reasonable to look longingly back to when newspapers were full of advertisements for department stores, grocery stores and automobile dealerships.
And news, much of it distressing: The world is a fallen place, and, as journalists say, we do not report the planes that land safely. Still, newspapers mattered more, and functioned differently, when they were substantially supported by advertisements for local businesses, rather than, as many increasingly are, by readers’ digital subscriptions.
So argues Andrey Mir in “How the Media Polarized Us” in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The title of Mir’s essay treats “media” and “newspapers,” his primary subject, as synonyms. But social media and cable television have pulled newspapers in their direction.
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Online Speech Platforms
By Mark Scott
.....Get ready for Facebook versus the researchers: Round 2.
With just over four months to go before midterm elections, academics at New York University are gearing up for another battle with Facebook over how to track digital ads after their first attempt got them banned from the company’s ad database after the 2020 presidential election.
At stake is how transparent Facebook should be about how people are targeted with partisan messages and how much data it should give to outside researchers. That standoff is heating up ahead of the midterms.
On Wednesday, the NYU researchers launched a searchable database of Facebook digital political ads they’ve managed to pull together despite the ban, putting them right back in the company’s crosshairs.
“I’m scared of getting sued. But what I’m more scared of is another Jan. 6,” said Laura Edelson, one of the academics behind the project and co-lead at NYU’s Cybersecurity for Democracy project.
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Candidates and Campaigns
By Srijita Datta
.....Candidates running for U.S. Senate have collectively raised more than $970 million, according to data from federal campaign finance filings analyzed by OpenSecrets, which includes candidates who lost in primaries.
More than $138 million of the money flowing into U.S. Senate races that came from candidates self-financing their own campaigns.
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By Elena Schneider
.....[Sam Bankman-Fried] was also one of just a handful of donors who spent $10 million-plus backing President Joe Biden in 2020, and in the last year, he’s hired a network of political operatives and spent tens of millions more shaping Democratic House primaries. It was a shocking wave of spending that looked like it could remake the Democratic Party bench in Washington, candidate by candidate. Looking ahead to the 2024 election, he has said he could spend anywhere from $100 million to $1 billion...
“We’ve never seen something like this on this scale,” said Bradley Beychok, co-founder of American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC. “On our side, there’s a small pool of people who write these kinds of checks and they tend to be the same folks. But Sam, to his credit, came right in with a big splash.”
In 2022, Beychok continued, “he could make a big difference for Democratic candidates — if he wants.”
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The States
By Kurt Erickson
.....Missouri ethics regulators are preparing for a change in state law designed to allow some businesses to write checks directly to candidates for office.
The law is aimed at stopping shell companies from pumping dark money into campaigns by requiring limited liability companies, or LLCs, with a specific tax status to register with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Andrew Koenig, R-Manchester, comes four years after former Gov. Eric Greitens was investigated for using “shell companies” to bankroll his 2016 campaign for governor.
The MEC Thursday released guidance on how the new requirements will work and said it is developing a portal on its website for companies to register and for candidates to search whether a company has submitted the proper paperwork.
Under the new law, companies would have to be in business for at least one year and would have to register with the MEC if they want to contribute to candidates.
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By Brooks DuBose
.....A campaign finance system that would give some candidates the option of accepting government funding if they only accept small donations could be coming to Anne Arundel County.
A coalition of state and local voter groups announced Monday it had delivered a petition with more than 11,000 signatures from county residents — a thousand more than required — to the Anne Arundel County Elections Board to add a question about the proposed charter amendment on the November general election ballot.
If the question were to pass it would create an optional campaign finance system for candidates for county executive and County Council who could opt to raise money through local small-dollar donors with each donation matched by county government funding. Other jurisdictions, including Baltimore City and Baltimore, Howard and Prince George’s counties, have implemented similar systems.
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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."
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