donal brown

Margaret Sullivan in The Guardian, February 24, 2023, says that Fox News, “the propaganda arm of the U.S. right wing” will be forced to become more responsible if they lose the $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit to Dominion Voting Systems. Angelo Carusone, of Media Matters wants mainstream journalists to stop treating Fox reporters as legitimate reporters dedicated to reporting the truth. In the months ahead Fox is faced with the problem of how far they should

Progressives say Section 230 allows for excessive hate speech and false information while the right wants more leeway for conservative voices. In hearing cases on the freedom of the internet, the Supreme Court seemed reluctant to make a definitive decision, rather preferring to punt to Congress. The core of the dispute concerns whether social media companies’ algorithms recommending content to users make the companies publishers rather than just neutral forums. (The Wrap, February 24, 2023,

In hearing Twitter v. Taamneh, the Supreme Court was attempting to interpret a 2016 anti-terrorism law, Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), that allowed U.S. citizens to sue anyone who “aids and abets, by knowingly providing substantial assistance” to someone committing a terrorist act. Given the vague language and complex guidelines in JASTA and a 1983 decision on what it is to “aid and abet” terrorism, the court gave no clear indication of how

In hearing Gonzalez v. Google, the Supreme Court was reluctant to embrace the arguments that Google was liable for an Islamic State attack that killed a U.S. exchange student. They were also reluctant to favor restrictions on Sections 230, a law Congress enacted to protect the internet companies from lawsuits. (The Washington Post, February 21, 2023, by Robert Barnes, Cristiano Lima and Will Oremus with Gerrit De Vynck) The proceedings offered no indication the court

The Department of Defense released new guidelines for transparency in their court system that fail to provide access required by a 2016 law passed by Congress. The law requires timely release of court records “at all stages of the military justice system…including pretrial, trial, post-trial, and appellate processes.” The guidelines allow the military to avoid releasing records until after a trial ends and to withhold key trial information particularly in the case of a not