Supreme 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…

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There’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.…

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Jack 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…

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Indoctrination, 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…

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There 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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Commentary: Here’s what diversity is about, Justice Thomas | Albany Times Union

Dear Justice Thomas, I am a professor at Syracuse University. I teach argumentation, advocacy, and First Amendment theory. During oral arguments in the affirmative action cases brought by Students for Fair Admissions against the University of North Carolina and Harvard University you are quoted saying, “I’ve heard the word ‘diversity’ quite a few times, but…

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A Battle for the Soul of Our Schools | Medium

The current debates about appropriate curriculum and constitutional boundaries inside the classroom are nothing less than a fight for the soul of the educational system in the United States. As Anya Kamenetz, explained in her New York Times essay, the public school system as we know it today was designed as a public good, an inclusive and diverse…

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The Anti-Abortion Movement’s Attempt to Criminalize Abortion Speech | Ms. Magazine

Censorship is a dirty word in America, and so it should be. It imposes silence upon speech, creating an empty void which instead should be filled with debate and discussion. As anti-abortion lawmakers continue to draft legislation to limit abortion access, opponents of new bans are horrified by the sweeping prohibitions lurking within—such as proposals that…

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A Group of School Board Threats and the First Amendment | Medium

Let’s start here: since the middle of the last century, the constitutionally accepted default option is to protect speech. And one more thing, the First Amendment does not provide any guidelines for civility. Boisterous, angry, offensive speech is shielded from silence by the power of the First Amendment. It provides cover for us to annoy…

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Freedom Speaks Over the Howl of Anti-Protest Legislation | Medium

Since 2017, 36 states have enacted legislation that restricts the right to protest on public streets and rights of way. Such legislation has taken on new life in the aftermath of growing civil rights protests and current Covid-19 vaccination mandates. However, such bills often wrongly conflate the right to engage in sometimes hyperbolic, discordant, or anger-inducing speech with conduct…

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