First Amendment News

Meta is ending its news tab on Facebook to reduce its news content before the 2024 elections after criticism of how it deals with false information on its platforms. Mata claimed that those using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. dropped by over 80 percent last year. (The Associated Press, April 1, 2024, by Sallee Ann Harrison) Research in 2023 showed that half of adults get some news from social media with three-in-ten adults

The Marion County Record filed a lawsuit in the wake of a April 11, 2023 police and sheriff raid on the newspaper and the alleged resultant death of its 98-year-old owner. The newspapers and the Marion city mayor were often at odds. The mayor attempted to get Marion city elected officials to sign a statement giving him to power to dismiss them from office. The attempt followed a failed recall of the then-vice mayor. (The

Partisan news sites now equal the number of local genuine local newspapers making it difficult for a citizen to understand the biases and values of the sites. The sites appear as legitimate news sources but hide their origins in dark money and special interests. (ars technica, April 2, 2024, by Hannah Murphy of the Financial Times) With Rush Limbaugh and Fox News leading the way, right-wing news became a national force, now bolstered by the

Arizona senate candidate Kari Lake caved on defending herself against a defamation lawsuit filed by Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer who said Lake claimed falsely that he caused her defeat in a close race for governor by printing 19-inch images on 20-inch ballots and inserting 300,000 or so “bogus” ballots into the election count. (Arizona Capitol Times, March 26, 2024, by Kuera Riley) Aaron Blake in The Washington Post, March 27, 2024, writes that recent

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is defending multi-billionaire Elon Musk and X by suing Media Matters for its investigations of hate speech on X. Bailey claims Media Matters fraudulently manipulated data to show that X placed ads for leading brands next to Nazi posts. (ars technica, March 26, 2024, by Jon Brodkin) Bailey’s lawsuit seeks internal documents on its 2023 coverage of X and hate speech. It follows the move by Texas attorney general, Ken