The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech October 12, 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 Continuing Education of the Bar: Ninth Circuit Rejects Political Orgs' First Amendment Challenge to AB 5 By Katherine Proctor .....The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday rejected an effort by three political organizations to keep classifying their doorknockers and signature gatherers as independent contractors, holding that California's "ABC test" for worker classification doesn't violate the organizations' free speech rights… Alan Gura, vice president of litigation for the Institute for Free Speech, argues for the plaintiffs, and told CEB in an email that they are disappointed with the decision and plan to seek rehearing en banc. “California plainly discriminates against workers who perform the same job functions based on the content of their speech,” Gura said. “When the only difference between job classifications is the content, function, or purpose of a worker’s speech, the state regulates speech, not jobs, and it must justify that discrimination--something California hasn’t even tried to do here.” The Courts USA Today: Michigan mom fought for her special needs son. The school board reported her to the feds. By Ingrid Jacques .....Like many parents during COVID-19, Sandra Hernden didn’t like how her school district’s remote learning policies were hurting her children... So she started pushing back against the school board's decisions. She sent emails and communicated with the school board via Zoom, as well as attended in-person board meetings. Some of those interactions became heated and some of the rhetoric was over the top. But, from what I've seen in written correspondence between Hernden and board members that is now the subject of a federal lawsuit, Hernden's words did not rise to the level of threatening behavior or speech unprotected by the First Amendment. The board’s response? To retaliate against Hernden by contacting her employer and then the U.S. Department of Justice. Hernden responded last week by suing the district for violating her constitutional rights. Montana Free Press: Federal judge: Montana campaign rules apply to out-of-state super PAC By Alex Sakariassen .....A federal judge in Missoula last week resolved a recent legal dispute between an out-of-state super PAC and Montana Commissioner of Political Practices Jeff Mangan, ruling that Mangan’s application of state disclosure requirements to the group was constitutional. Epoch Times: Former Employee Sues Miami-Dade County for Violating Rights of Religion, Free Speech By Patricia Tolson .....A former employee of Miami-Dade County in Florida is suing the county’s board of commissioners after he says he was fired over his Christian beliefs about transgender ideology and his refusal to attend punitive “diversity training.” John Labriola, who served as a media aide for the Miami-Dade County Board of Commissioners from 2013 to 2021, wrote an opinion piece that was included in the March 2021 edition of Sophie’s Voice, a newsletter published by Sophie Publishing House Inc. Online Speech Platforms Wall Street Journal: Censorship Is a Consumer Harm By Michael Faulkender and Stephen Miran .....Big Tech’s avatars among lobbyists and academics claim there’s no sense in which consumers are harmed by the concentrated economic power amassed by these companies, as they attempt to narrow the scope of what consumers can expect from their purchases. Yet a deeper dive into what consumers actually do with tech products reveals real harm, and provides classical economic justification for government to intervene in Big Tech as they would with any other monopoly. Election Law Blog: My New Paper: “Donald Trump Should Remain Deplatformed from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube Despite the High Bar That Platforms Should Apply to the Question of Deplatforming Political Figures” By Rick Hasen .....I have posted this short paper on SSRN (prepared for this week’s Stanford/UCLA conference on replatforming Donald Trump). Here is the abstract: Wired: The Election-Swinging, Facebook-Fueled, Get-Out-the-Vote Machine By Nancy Scola .....The energetic 36-year-old Tara McGowan is the CEO of a company called Good Information, where she oversees a mini empire of progressive local news sites across the United States... McGowan believes these outlets are the antidote to bad information—the hyperbole and lies that proliferate in Americans’ social media feeds and promote ideas mostly from the ideological right. Through the calculated injection of news stories into these feeds, McGowan thinks she can claw a crumbling republic back from the brink and—this is the important part—get more people to vote. She’s confident these new recruits to the democratic process will lean decidedly left. Rynard walked her through an experiment in using Facebook’s powerful ad-targeting tools. Iowa’s primary elections were taking place the next day, and he wanted to know whether a handful of Iowa Starting Line’s stories could shape the results. Newsweek: BlackRock Invests in Censorship By Peter Flaherty .....Why is BlackRock, the largest investment firm in the world, promoting censorship? That is a question clients might want to ask after BlackRock cast its shareholder votes against a proposal designed to ensure transparency in how Big Tech platforms respond to government demands for censorship. The proposal was sponsored by the National Legal and Policy Center, which I chair. As a shareholder in Alphabet, the parent of Google, we asked the company to provide a report, updated semi-annually and published on its website, that would disclose requests from "the Executive Office of the President, Centers for Disease Control, or any other agency or entity of the United States Government" to remove or take down material from its platforms. The States WECT News: Resident considers lawsuit after county commissioner throws him out of meeting for criticizing her By Michael Praats .....The right to criticize the government is a Constitutional right granted by the First Amendment. On Monday, New Hanover County Commission Chairwoman Julia Olson-Boseman had a resident, Neal Shulman, removed from the public meeting when he tried to do just that. 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. 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