The Courts

USA Today: Facebook, YouTube and Twitter strike back, sue over Texas social media censorship law

By Jessica Guynn

Technology trade groups that represent Facebook, Google’s YouTube and Twitter are suing Texas to stop a new state law that cracks down on social media companies for censoring conservative speech.

The lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday challenges the law signed earlier this month by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott that would allow any state resident banned from a social media platform for their political views to sue…

“At a minimum, H.B. 20 would unconstitutionally require platforms like YouTube and Facebook to disseminate, for example, pro-Nazi speech, terrorist propaganda, foreign government disinformation, and medical misinformation,” the lawsuit alleges.

In addition, the new state law “will work to chill the exercise of platforms’ First Amendment rights to exercise their own editorial discretion and to be free from state-compelled speech,” it said.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: A girl threatened with charges or jail over her COVID social media posts has won a lawsuit against the sheriff

By Bruce Vielmetti

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a high school girl who said she was threatened with jail if she didn’t take down her social media posts about her brush with COVID-19 last year.

Amyiah Cohoon, then a sophomore, took a spring break trip to Florida with the Westfield Area High School band in 2020. The students returned to Wisconsin on March 15, earlier than planned, because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Cohoon posted on Instagram that she thought she had been infected, had been to hospitals, and though she tested negative, her doctors thought she probably had had it earlier. In a final post, she is wearing an oxygen mask and says she’s beaten COVID, and urges others to stay safe.

On March 27, Marquette County Sheriff’s Sgt. Cameron Klump came to the Cohoon home and said Sheriff Joseph Konrath had ordered the posts be taken down, as he didn’t believe there were any confirmed cases of COVID in the county…

Cohoon took down the posts but sued Konrath and his deputy a month later.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig granted her summary judgment in the case…

“While Defendants in this case may have believed their actions served the greater good, that belief cannot insulate them. Demanding a 16-year-old remove protected speech from her Instagram account is a First Amendment violation,” [he wrote in the decision.]

Variety: John Stossel Sues Facebook Alleging Defamation Over Fact-Check Label, Seeks at Least $2 Million

By Todd Spangler

Former TV journalist John Stossel is demanding at least $2 million in damages from Facebook in a lawsuit he filed against the social media giant, alleging the company defamed him by appending fact-checking labels to two videos he posted about climate change…

According to Stossel’s lawsuit, in the past year he posted two short video reports on Facebook in which he “interviewed experts in the climate change arena.”

In one video, “Government Fueled Fires,” about the 2020 wildfires in California, Facebook and its fact-checking partners “falsely attributed to Stossel a claim he never made, and on that basis flagged the content as ‘misleading’ and ‘missing context,’ so that would-be viewers would be routed to the false attribution statement.” The complaint says that Stossel’s video “explored a scientific hypothesis” that “while climate change undoubtedly contributes to forest fires, it was not the primary cause of the 2020 California fires.” Per the suit, Stossel says he never made the claim that “Forest fires are caused by poor management. Not by climate change,” which was in Facebook’s fact-check…

On the second video, “Are We Doomed?”, Facebook added a “partly false”/“factual inaccuracies” label… Stossel claims the Facebook fact-check didn’t actually challenge any facts in the video, and he argues that the company’s fact-check process “is nothing more than a pretext… to defame users with impunity, particularly when Defendants disagree with the scientific opinions expressed in user content.”

Free Speech

USA Today: First Amendment Day is an important reminder of the rights we enjoy – and must protect

By Jan Neuharth

Saturday is First Amendment Day, a day to celebrate the document that allows all Americans – without government interference – to practice a faith or not, speak freely, publish ideas, gather in support or protest, and petition the government for change. It marks the day in 1789 when Congress sent the amendments that became the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights to the states for approval.

To salute the occasion, the Freedom Forum – an organization devoted to fostering First Amendment freedoms for all – will release a survey conducted in July and August 2020, when we asked more than 3,000 Americans how they feel about the First Amendment today. Our respondents came from every corner of the country and spanned age, gender, race and economic background – a true representation of our diverse nation…

Some findings surprised us – and we’ve been surveying Americans on this topic since 1997.

Congress

Wall Street Journal: A Democratic Dole for the Press

By The Editorial Board

The Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget bill features tax breaks for countless progressive causes, but one buried in the fine print is a doozy…

The “Payroll Credit for Compensation of Local News Journalists” offers print and digital publishers up to $50,000 a year for each journalist on staff. The tax credits are capped at 50% of each employee’s wage in the first year and drop to 30% thereafter. “Democracy depends on original reporting, and local newspapers are responsible for more than half of that,” Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden told the Seattle Times last week…

To qualify for the credit, a publication must have no more than 750 employees. It also must “[serve] the needs of a regional or local community,” and employ at least one journalist who lives in that area…

A federal subsidy would do more harm than good. Subsidies from Washington conflict with the democratic mission Mr. Wyden describes, which requires an independent press. Local papers in the mold of left-leaning National Public Radio stations wouldn’t serve a politically diverse public. Most Americans already mistrust the press, and making journalists more dependent on government will compound the suspicion of bias.

The States

Portland Tribune: Changes proposed to Portland public campaign finance program

By Jim Redden

The Portland City Council will consider a series of changes to the city’s Open and Accountable Elections public campaign finance program on Wednesday, Sept. 29.

Although the program has only been used in the 2020 elections, the changes are recommended by the citizens committee appointed to oversee it…

Major recommended changes include:

• • Changing the name to Small Donor Elections to reduce confusion with other campaign-finance reform initiatives.

  • Increasing the 6-to-1 match on the first $50 to a 9-to-1 match on the first $20.

  • Adopting rules to allow candidates to use donations in races for other offices.

  • Transferring the authority to enforce the Honest Elections contribution limits approved by Portland voters from the City Auditor’s Office to the program.

NYCLU: To protect the safety and First Amendment rights of New Yorkers, the Strategic Response Group must be disbanded

By Isabelle Leyva and Caroline Waring

On January 18, protestors marched across the Brooklyn Bridge in honor of Martin Luther King Jr Day, stopping only to break into song and dance. But when they reached City Hall Park in Manhattan, they were met by police officers clad in riot gear.

Officers flooded the streets and ordered everyone to clear the roadway. Protesters obliged, but moments later, officers in the NYPD’s Strategic Response Group (SRG) charged at the marchers. They pushed, pummeled, and dragged protesters into the street. By the end of the night, 28 people were arrested.

For more than a year, the NYCLU’s protest monitors have witnessed and documented incidents like this across New York City. A clear pattern quickly emerged: When SRG arrives on the scene, officers escalate situations and injure New Yorkers who are exercising their First Amendment rights.

To protect the safety and First Amendment rights of New Yorkers, the unit must be disbanded.