First Amendment News

The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partially upheld one of Iowa’s ag-gag laws after a lower court ruling found the law unconstitutional. Over the last nine years, the Iowa passed four laws to prevent animal rights activists from becoming employees and recording practices in livestock facilities. The court ruled that states should be allowed to criminalize false statements in the course of trespass, that is, a person could be charged with a crime for

Florida enacted a law to go into effect July 1 banning Florida businesses from requiring proof of Covid-19 vaccination to receive services. The ban also applies to non-profits, schools, and state and local government agencies. Stiff fines await those out of compliance with the new law. (JDSupra, May 13, 2021) A Florida judge issued a preliminary injunction August 8 in a lawsuit by the Norwegian Cruise Line. The judge ruled the law likely violated the

Twitter announced that it would collaborate with the Associated Press and Reuters to combat lies on its platform. The news agencies will provide context to events to help Twitter attach labels to tweets or compile information about a topic. (Reuters, August 2, 2021, by Sheila Dang) The company has established a Curation team to add explanatory content, but the collaboration will better enable Twitter to provide accurate and authoritative information to fast moving news topics.

Policy analyst Clare Morrel and constitutional law professor Philip Hamburger, Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2021, argue that Big Tech censorship is in need of regulation. “A statute limiting the ability of a Big Tech company to express its own views,” they write, “would almost certainly be unconstitutional. What about a law limiting viewpoint discrimination where the companies serve as a publicly accessible conduit for the speech of others?” Mike Masnick of techdirt, August 4,

The Center for Countering Digital Hate reported that 84 percent of antisemitic content endured online even though users had flagged them. (The Hill, August 2, 2021, by Alexandra Kelley) Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube and TikTok had the capacity to act but choose not to. The companies did not take action on 89 percent of the antisemitic conspiracy theories, 80 percent of posts denying the Holocaust and 70 percent of the posts with neo-Nazi and white