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

Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Tuesday, November 29. Happy Thanksgiving from the Institute for Free Speech!

Ballot Access News: U.S. District Court Strikes Down Florida Law Making it Illegal for Candidates for Non-Partisan Office to Mention Party

By Richard Winger

.....On November 8, U.S. District Court Judge M. Casey Rodgers, a Bush Jr. appointee, struck down a Florida law [prohibiting] a candidate for non-partisan office to “campaign” based on party affiliation. The plaintiff, a candidate for School Board, had been fined for saying he was a “lifelong Republican.” Hetherington v Madden, n.d., 3:21cv-671. Here is the 31-page opinion.

Behind the Black: Pushback: Court orders school board to stop censoring and banning parents

By Robert Zimmerman

.....In a victory for free speech, a federal judge has ruled that the censorship and banning of some parents by the Forsyth County Board of Education in Georgia was unconstitutional, and must cease immediately.

Cato Daily Podcast: How States Protect and Punish Political Speech

Hosted by Caleb O. Brown

.....How do states rank when it comes to protecting the right to speak publicly about politics? Scott Blackburn is author of the Free Speech Index at the Institute for Free Speech.

Courthouse News: High court primed to temper political bribery convictions in case with ex-Cuomo aide

By Kelsey Reichmann

.....Next week the Supreme Court will hear an appeal over the risk of criminalizing political lobbying efforts. 

“When a public official accepts money to convince the government to do something, we call him a crook,” Yaakov Roth, an attorney with Jones Day, wrote in a brief for Percoco.“But when a private citizen accepts money to convince the government to do something, we call him a lobbyist.” 

Bloomberg Law: High Court to Review Speech Test in Jack Daniel’s Trademark Case

By Isaiah Poritz

.....The country’s largest whiskey maker will finally get its day before the US Supreme Court in a dog-toy trademark case that could shape the contours of brand enforcement, artistic expression, and the First Amendment.

Brennan Center: Billionaires Provided 15 Percent of Funding for the Midterms

By Michael Waldman

.....In the 2022 midterms, the 100 largest donors collectively spent 60 percent more than every small donor in the United States combined, according to a Brennan Center analysis of publicly available data. (Small donors are those who give $200 or less.)

New York Times: Inside Sam Bankman-Fried’s Quest to Win Friends and Influence People

By  Kenneth P. Vogel, Emily Flitter and David Yaffe-Bellany

.....In the three years since Mr. Bankman-Fried launched FTX, the company, its executives and its philanthropic arm spent or pledged hundreds of millions of dollars in political and charitable contributions, consulting fees, investments in media outlets and even real estate…

Reason ("Volokh Conspiracy"): Mastodon's Content-Moderation Growing Pains

By Alan Rozenshtein 

.....Ever since Elon Musk purchased Twitter, Mastodon, a decentralized microblogging platform, has seen millions of new users. I've written elsewhere about the architecture that make Mastodon unique—specifically, each Mastodon server (known as an "instance") can choose its own content moderation standards, blocking whatever content, users, or even other instances that it wants. This leads to what I've called "content moderation subsidiarity" and allows users to tailor their experience while still generally being able to follow and be followed by users on other instances.

The Atlantic: Ron DeSantis’s Speech Policing Could Hurt the Right Too

By Conor Friedersdorf

.....If free speech and fighting racism come into conflict, which is more important? If you think you know how American conservatives and progressives would answer that question, I’ve got a story to confound you.

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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