Supreme Court kicks cases about tech companies’ First Amendment rights back to lower courts − but appears poised to block states from hampering online content moderation | The Conversation
The U.S. Supreme Court has sent back to lower courts the decision about whether states can block social media companies such as Facebook and X, formerly Twitter, from regulating and controlling what users can post on their platforms. Laws in Florida and Texas sought to impose restrictions on the internal policies and algorithms of social media platforms in ways…
Read MoreWhy university presidents find it hard to punish advocating genocide − college free speech codes are both more and less protective than the First Amendment | The Conversation
If a student were to walk off the Harvard campus and onto a street in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and argue for the genocide of Jews, the U.S. Constitution would bar prosecuting her for hate speech. If the same student left her perch on the sidewalk and returned to the Harvard campus to continue…
Read MoreSupreme Court to consider giving First Amendment protections to social media posts | The Conversation
The First Amendment does not protect messages posted on social media platforms. The companies that own the platforms can – and do – remove, promote or limit the distribution of any posts according to corporate policies. But all that might soon change. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear five cases during this current term, which ends in…
Read MoreThere’s no ‘disinformation’ exception to the First Amendment | The Hill
Misinformation and disinformation retain the basic characteristics of speech. Unless they fall into one of very few exceptions, they are protected from censorship under the First Amendment. Consistent with those very limited exceptions, any effort by the government to prevent the dissemination of ideas or opinions, even if they are based on untruths, is unconstitutional.…
Read MoreJack Smith’s requested gag order, like judicial orders restricting Trump’s speech, seeks to balance constitutional rights | The Conversation
In each of former President Donald Trump’s four indictments, he has been allowed to stay out of jail before his trial so long as he abides by certain conditions commonly applied to most people accused of crimes in the U.S. In the federal case in Washington, D.C., that concerns Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the…
Read MoreJack Smith’s Trump indictment goes where free speech ends and criminal conspiracy begins | The Hill
Before Monday’s additional state indictment in Georgia, former President Trump stood accused in federal court of criminal conspiracy to subvert the 2020 presidential election results. Conspiracy charges, by their very nature, include communication. But on the second page of the federal indictment, in the third enumerated paragraph, the prosecution attempts to make clear that Trump is not being…
Read MoreIndoctrination, Orthodoxy and The First Amendment | Medium
Whether it comes from the right or the left, viewpoint discrimination is poison to democracy. And these days, it is coming from both sides. It is positively Orwellian — each side hopes it can exorcize words and phrases from the lexicon and thereby purge unwanted perspectives from our collective thoughts. Each seeks to cancel the…
Read MoreGiuliani claims the First Amendment lets him lie – 3 essential reads | The Conversation
From The Conversation: In his response to a lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers who said Rudy Giuliani harmed them by falsely alleging they mishandled ballots in the 2020 presidential election, Giuliani has admitted lying. But he says the women suffered no harm – and claims that his lies are protected by the First Amendment to…
Read MoreWhat the First Amendment really says – 4 basic principles of free speech in the US | The Conversation
Elon Musk has claimed he believes in free speech no matter what. He calls it a bulwark against tyranny in America and promises to reconstruct Twitter, which he now owns, so that its policy on free expression “matches the law.” Yet his grasp of the First Amendment – the law that governs free speech in the U.S.…
Read MoreThere is no First Amendment right to violence | New York Daily News
In his farewell address to Congress, Rep. Adam Kinzinger chastised his Republican colleagues for justifying the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as “legitimate political discourse.” As the Jan. 6 Committee report made clear, while the message of Trump supporters might be protected political speech, the medium used by the insurrectionists — violent attacks on…
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