This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].  

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.”

[FEC Commissioner Sean] Cooksey has also echoed this argument, tweeting that “people still face risks today from group membership, especially unpopular groups.”

The Atlantic: Is This the Beginning of the End of the Internet?

.....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

.....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.

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…

CNN: How political candidates are targeting you on social media based on your music tastes, shopping habits and favorite TV shows

.....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.

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.

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