donal brown

A settlement between plaintiffs and the UC San Diego and a student satirical publication was notable for gaining protection for student journalists against financial censorship. After objecting to an article in the Koala, a satirical newspaper, the student government withdrew funding for every student media outlet. (Student Press Law Center, September 18, 2020, by Ginny Bixby and Joe Severino) The university will pay $162,500 as part of the settlement in the case brought by the

Facebook and Twitter are suspending accounts engendered through a pro-Trump group, Turning Point Action, that pays conservative youth to adopt election talking points as their own. The messages go out like spam on social media with no mention of Turning Point Action or its youth branch Turning Point USA. (The Washington Post, September 15, 2020, by Isaac Stanley-Becker) Facebook said it removed accounts for violating policies regarding multiple accounts, and Twitter removed accounts for violating

A Washington, D.C. federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must release a part of the legal opinions it was keeping under wraps. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson found that one class of opinions on inter-agency disputes were final opinions and as such were statements of policy and interpretations adopted by at least one of the disputing agencies and could be released. (The National Law Journal, September 14, 2020, by Jacqueline Thomsen) The opinions cited by

Writing in The Verge, September 9, 2020, Casey Newton says that President Donald Trump’s dislike of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act may lead to greater censorship if they make platform companies legally liable for user posts. Newton argues that a new report offers a better solution. A Rutgers law professor suggests that more could be required for companies in exchange for Section 230 protection. A United Kingdom proposal would “’require platform companies to

A Homeland Security official filed a whistleblower complaint to protest orders to downplay white supremacist threats and Russian interference in the presidential election. Brian Murphy, who was head of the intelligence branch of Homeland Security, was demoted in August, he said, for expressing concerns and cooperating with the department’s inspector general. (The New York Times, September 9, 2020, by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Nicholas Fandos) Murphy’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, released a statement that accompanied the complaint: