First Amendment News

HuffPost editor Lydia Polgreen warns of the dire consequences with the proliferation of fake news that threatens the “information ecosystem on which modern civilization depends.” Says Polgreen, “The collapse of the information ecosystem has already wreaked havoc on our political systems. It has undermined democratic elections. It has shaken basic trust in institutions. It has left us with a world in which anyone is free to choose their own facts. It threatens to fundamentally destabilize

Confronted with substantial financial losses, the McClatchy newspaper chain is considering its options including selling out. A hedge fund, McClatchy’s biggest lender and stockholder, is among the possible buyers. (Poynter, November 13, 2019, by Rick Edmonds) Chicago’s Tribune Publishing announced this week that it will close Hoy, its Spanish-language weekly newspaper and website in December. A third of Chicago’s population is Hispanic, but there has been no increase in Hoy’s circulation since 2016. (NiemanLab, November

While Twitter maintains its policies do not prevent revealing the name of the whistleblower in the Trump Ukrainian debacle, Facebook said its harm policy prevents “outing of witness, informant, or activist.” (First Amendment Watch, November 12, 2019) Social media users, though, are reporting they have been suspended from Twitter from mentioning the supposed name of the whistleblower in posts. (The Blaze, November 7, 2019, by Sarah Taylor) YouTube is also removing the whistleblower’s name. Most

A federal district court judge dealt a blow to the Trump administration for its policy allowing online access to blueprints for making plastic guns on 3-D printers. The judge held that the administration gave no explanation for reversing its stance that export laws against the foreign distribution of firearms blocked the publication of the blueprints. (The New York Times, November 12, 2019, by Mihir Zaveri) The judge also noted that the administration should have notified

The California Fourth District Court of Appeals reversed a ruling by a superior court judge that prevented a blogger from publishing Fullerton city hall documents regarding police misconduct. The blogger, Joshua Ferguson, and a colleague obtained the records from the city’s Dropbox Account. The city called the records “stolen.” The appeals court blocked the lower court order while it considers the case. As FAC’s David Snyder has explained, such prior restraint is unconstitutional. (Voice of