In the News
By Ronald K.L. Collins
.....The Institute for Free Speech is pleased to present the Free Speech Index: A first-of-its-kind analysis of laws restricting speech about government in all 50 states. This Index is the most comprehensive examination of state laws governing and regulating political engagement ever published.
The Free Speech Index rates each state on how well it supports the free speech and association rights of individuals and groups interested in speaking about candidates, issues of public policy, and their government.
To assess each state’s performance, we ranked the states in ten categories, each of which examines a different area of state law burdening speakers and groups.
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By Kaelan Deese
.....Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Tuesday defended his position in the 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case, arguing it was essential to preserve the free speech rights of media outlets and other corporations despite becoming a "lightning rod" for attacks against campaign finance rules...
Alito, 72, argued that without the protections granted in the 2010 case, news outlets and entertainment companies owned by corporations could forfeit their free speech rights.
“If corporations did not have free speech rights and the government could regulate all of this as it wished — wow,” the justice said. “Who wants that regime?”
During the conversation, the conservative justice championed the fundamental values of First Amendment protections, arguing that "any speech involving public issues — involving politics, government, history, economics, law, science, religion, philosophy, the arts, anything of that level of importance — the general rule has to be that the government has to stay out." ...
Alito notably dissented in a May high court decision that refused to take up a case that sought to block Texas from enforcing its law that forces large social media platforms to host speech they otherwise would find objectionable. Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas also said they would grant the application for the case, NetChoice v. Paxton .
In response to Alito's comments, University of California law professor Rick Hasen suggested Alito's statements may have contradicted his earlier willingness to hold private Big Tech companies accountable for censorship on their platforms...
Brad Smith, an attorney and former commissioner for the FEC, clarified in a tweet that Hasen's argument might only show Alito's position as "superficially inconsistent."
"The law prior to Citizens United was an effort to suppress speech by corporations. The social media laws are efforts to stop corporations from suppressing speech by others," Smith added.
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The Courts
By Jon Brodkin
.....The Republican National Committee is suing Google over Gmail's spam filtering, claiming the company is "unlawfully discriminating against" the RNC by "throttling its email messages because of the RNC's political affiliation and views."
"Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors' and supporters' spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building," claims the lawsuit filed Thursday in US District Court for the Eastern District of California. The spam filtering has "caused the RNC to lose valuable revenue in California and the rest of the country, and Google's conduct will continue to cost the RNC further revenue in the coming weeks as the 2022 midterm election looms, and beyond," it says.
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The Media
By Annie Gowen
.....Cities 92.9’s deliberate blurring of the ethical line that separates traditional journalism and opinion is significant because polls show that while Americans are generally distrustful of national news, they tend to express more faith in local news, which they tend to see as less biased and more relevant to their lives, said Brendan Nyhan, an American political scientist and professor at Dartmouth College who has studied misinformation in local news.
“The fear is that local media becomes a pathway for misinformation,” Nyhan said. “There is a void in many communities where local news has shrunk or disappeared completely, and yet people still trust it. That combination may make ideologically motivated news sites more influential.”
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Online Speech Platforms
By Sarah Weaver
.....Twitter employees are circulating an open letter to Elon Musk asking him not to fire them, after the tech mogul said he planned to terminate a significant portion of the staff if he takes over the company, Time reported Monday…
The demands made in the letter include preserving the number of employees currently working at the company, not discriminating on the basis of political orientation, and ensuring fair severance policies.
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The States
By Rebecca Falconer
.....Meta, Facebook's parent company, was hit with a $24.7 million fine Wednesday after a Washington judge found the tech giant had intentionally violated the state's campaign finance disclosure laws 822 times.
The fine that King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued "represents the largest campaign finance penalty anywhere in the country — ever," per a statement from Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. A Meta spokesperson said the firm is assessing its options and declined to comment further.
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By William Morris
.....The public comment period during Monday's meeting of the Newton City Council would be familiar from many Iowa government meetings: The speaker criticized the city's police department, calling for it to be defunded and for the city to support non-criminal responses to traffic violations, drug use and other social problems.
But then the speaker, activist and former Newton resident Noah Petersen, got more specific with his criticism, and things got heated, as seen in a video posted to YouTube by a fellow activist.
"I think the top two fascists in this town, Mayor Michael Hansen and the chief of police, need to be removed from power," said Petersen.
Arrested when he refused Hansen's order to leave the meeting, Petersen and supporters now are claiming the city violated his First Amendment rights.
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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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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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