First Amendment News

The U.S. senate will consider a bill requiring companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter to deliver more information about political advertising on their networks. The Honest Ads Act will require the companies to create a public registry with the names and contact information of any person or group that spends over $500 a year on political ads online. (Forbes, October 19, 2017, by Kathleen Chaykowski) The bill is intended to fight the meddling of foreign

University of Oregon students who claimed they were not violating the First Amendment in preventing the university’s president form speaking said since the repression came from students not the state, it was in itself an act of free speech.  Law professors Howard Gillman and Erwin Chemerinsky write that the so called “heckler’s veto” has no place in  a free speech country, “If audience members had a general right to engage in disruptive or threatening behavior

Stories that could be challenged in the courts are going unpublished or hiding behind paywalls, writes Mike Masnick in techdirt, October 17, 2017. He claims the “Gawker effect” is responsible as publishers run scared after the March 2016 $140 million award for Hulk Hogan in his defamation lawsuit against Gawker Media for running a tape of him having sex with his best friend’s wife. Reporter Kim Masters, Columbia Journalism Review, October 13, 2017, writes that

With fake news threatening the basis of free expression, free speech defenders must fight against censorship of deceptive and disreputable ideas as they work tirelessly to help the public recognize the truth. We need a new movement that provides information to help consumers determine the reliability of news sources. (Foreign Policy, October 12, 2017, by Suzanne Nossel) A new report from PEN America outlines strategies that will help the public gain access to fact-checking initiatives

Joe Rannazzisi formerly of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration told 60 Minutes that a coalition of insiders allowed the drug distribution industry to market pills to unscrupulous pharmacies and pain clinics that ignited the opiate crisis. (CBS News 60 Minutes, October 17, 2017, by Bill Whitaker) Forty-one attorneys and the Pennsylvania attorney general are demanding that the distributors release documents of their opiate dealings. (CBS News, October 16, 2017, by Demarco Morgan)