First Amendment News

A federal district judge backed the Albany Unified School District finding that they acted legally in disciplining students over a racist Instagram of a coach and fellow students. The judge acknowledged the students’ free speech rights but found that the posts were “school speech” so fell outside the protections. The students involved sued the district for violating their First Amendment rights especially since the speech was not on school grounds or related to school activities.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a digital privacy rights case this week centering on the right of the federal government to gather data of individuals from cell phone companies without probable cause warrants. The government argues that if a person’s information voluntarily channels through a third party such as a phone company, there is no right to privacy. Rights advocates say that in the wireless era and the proliferation of cell phones, the

In the context of a breaking news event, Google’s struggle with fake news stems from the failure of its algorithms to determine truth and reality. There is no verified information to promote so libel and preposterous claims sneak in. During the October 1 shooting in as Vegas, Google was unable to stifle a story identifying an innocent man as the shooter. (The Canberra Times, November 18, 2017, by Mark Bergen of Bloomberg News) Partisan trolls

With the Federal Communications Commission sacking net neutrality rules, the EFF argues that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will now be able to block web providers and discriminate on the basis of content. The EFF says that given two recent Supreme Court Decisions, the public cannot seek justice by using anti-trust remedies. (Electronic Freedom Foundation, November 17, 2017, by Corynne McSherry, Kit Walsh, Mitch Stoltz and Ernesto Falcon) The FCC will vote on the new rules

To combat fake news, Google and Facebook are joining The Trust Project, a nonpartisan initiative to help online users distinguish between truthful information and propaganda, lies and commercial pitches. For instance, starting now all news articles on Facebook will have an icon next to it that you can click to read about the ethics of the publisher’s organization, their standards, their journalists’ backgrounds and their methods. (techcrunch, November 16, 2017, by Sarah Perez) Originating at