First Amendment News

Trump allies are releasing damaging information about journalists working for news outlets that they consider unsympathetic to the Trump administration. The group is attempting to discredit reporters by investigating their posts on social media and other public statements. So far information about reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and the The New York Times has been published. Much of the information has been verified including anti-Semitic social media posts by a Times journalist. (The New

A small town newspaper prevailed in a dispute over its investigation of a tax break for a car wash after a county attorney asked the sheriff of Malheur County to mount its own investigation of a reporter who had e-mailed an official after hours. The sheriff closed his investigation saying no laws were broken. The reporter was trying to contact Greg Smith, the county director of development, for his comment on the story, but Smith

Writing in The Atlantic, August 21,2019, First Amendment lawyer KenWhite wants those defending free speech to avoid “misstatements, misconceptions, and bad arguments about the First Amendment.” White cites the following as particularly weak: “Not all speech is protected; there are exceptions to the First Amendment”; “This speech isn’t protected, because you can’t shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater”; “Incitement and threats are not free speech”; “Fighting words are not free speech”; “Hate speech is not

Harvard legal scholar Cass R. Sunstein, SSRN, July 29, 2019, writes that Times v. Sullivan is an “anachronism” given advances in technology and “new findings in behavioral science.” Given the way agents both domestic and foreign try to manipulate U.S. politics, the Supreme Court may want to reconsider its ruling in 2012 that intentional falsehoods are protected by the First Amendment. Sunstein writes, “Government should have authority to control deepfakes and doctored videos, and also certain

Twitter and Facebook are fighting back against a Chinese-based disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. The social media giants have suspended a number of accounts saying that they have evidence that the Chinese government is directing the campaign. The suspended accounts were also inciting political discord in Hong Kong. (CNBC, August 19, 2019, by Annie Palmer) The companies have never before taken down disinformation accounts originating in China. Facebook eliminated seven