The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech September 28, 2022 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 OpenSecrets: With Deadlocked Vote on Dark Money, DISCLOSE Act Fails to Clear Senate By Keith Newell .....The [DISCLOSE Act] is opposed by several conservative groups, including the Heritage Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the Institute for Free Speech... The American Civil Liberties Union has also opposed the bill, claiming it would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech and privacy rights. In a 2019 letter to Congress, the ACLU maintained its opposition to the act, arguing that “it would chill the speech of issue advocacy groups and nonprofits such as the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, or the NRA that is essential to our public discourse and protected by the First Amendment.” ... As Sandra Fulton of the ACLU’s Washington legislative office argued in 2010, “The harassment and attacks on members of the civil rights movement show that anonymity can in fact be a matter [of] personal safety.” Prominent Republicans, including McConnell, have adopted this stance… [FEC Commissioner Sean] Cooksey has also echoed this argument, tweeting that “people still face risks today from group membership, especially unpopular groups.” The Courts The Atlantic: Is This the Beginning of the End of the Internet? By Charlie Warzel .....A state compelling social-media companies to host all user content without restrictions isn’t merely, as the First Amendment litigation lawyer Ken White put it on Twitter, “the most angrily incoherent First Amendment decision I think I’ve ever read.” It’s also the type of ruling that threatens to blow up the architecture of the internet. To understand why requires some expertise in First Amendment law and content-moderation policy, and a grounding in what makes the internet a truly transformational technology. So I called up some legal and tech-policy experts and asked them to explain the Fifth Circuit ruling—and its consequences—to me as if I were a precocious 5-year-old with a strange interest in jurisprudence. Associated Press: Federal court finds 3rd Iowa ag-gag law unconstitutional By David Pitt .....A federal judge has struck down the third attempt by the Iowa Legislature to stop animal welfare groups from secretly filming livestock abuse, finding once again that the law passed last year violates free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution. Congress Washington Post: Dark money in politics is a problem. History points to a solution. By Bo Blew .....Despite pleas from President Biden, Senate Republicans blocked the Disclose Act, legislation that would require advocacy groups to provide names of donors who give $10,000 or more if they advocate for particular candidates or issues… Yet the better example of how to address the flood of dark money in politics may come from before the fight over modern campaign finance laws. Online Speech Platforms CNN: How political candidates are targeting you on social media based on your music tastes, shopping habits and favorite TV shows By Casey Tolan .....Candidates in some of the highest-profile midterm races are using Facebook and Instagram ad targeting to aim messages at voters based on their music tastes, sports fandoms, shopping destinations and television habits, a CNN review of data from the social media platforms found.  The data, which Facebook parent company Meta has started to make public in recent months, provides a snapshot into how political campaigns are slicing and dicing online groups of voters based on very specific interests. And it’s a sign that as America grows more politically polarized, the candidates are using cultural icons as proxies for politics. “There are very few things in American culture, whether it’s media organizations or music groups or brands, that do not have some kind of political association,” said Samuel Woolley, a University of Texas at Austin professor who runs the school’s Propaganda Research Lab. “Political campaigns are using that to their advantage.” Online Speech Platforms Meta: Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From China and Russia By Ben Nimmo and David Agranovich .....Today, we’re sharing our findings into two covert influence operations — from China and Russia — that we took down for violating our policy against Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB). We shared information with our peers at tech companies, security researchers, governments and law enforcement so they too can take appropriate action. At the end of our full report, we’re also including threat indicators to help the security community detect and counter malicious activity elsewhere on the internet. See the full CIB Report for more information. 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 First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. Follow the Institute for Free Speech ‌ ‌ ‌ The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]