First Amendment News

With Elon Musk asserting his ideas of turning Twitter into a free speech haven, the Buffalo shooting demonstrates the importance of moderating content on the social media. In the wake of the shooting, the social media companies worked hard to remove posts that were legal but in violation of their policies.They included posts of the shooting and the shooter’s racist diatribe. (The Washington Post, May 18, 2022, by Will Oremus) For related FAC coverage, click

State legislators are introducing laws to require keepers of library databases cataloging books, journals and articles to limit student access to material obscene, pornographic sexually exploitative or harmful to minors. Utah and Tennessee already have laws on the books with laws pending in Minnesota and Oklahoma. Educators fear that the laws could further restrict teachers’ ability to deal with issues of race, racism, sex and gender identity. (The Washington Post, May 10, 2022, by Hannah

Informatics professor Filippo Menczer in The Conversation, May 11, 2022, says Elon Mask’s bold bid to acquire Twitter and convert it to a free speech haven free of censorship of conservative views and excessive moderation has inspired much debate. Research shows that although social media companies are often lax in enforcing policies, there is no evidence of anti-conservative bias but revealed that Twitter has a conservative bias. And changing Twitter’s regulatory practices would allow free

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) exercises immense influence in the executive branch, but its opinions rarely enter the public domain. The Knight Institute and the Campaign for Accountability are using the courts to get the OLC to comply with the Freedom Of Information Act provision for “reading room,” requiring government agencies to disclose final legal opinions. They are requesting the release of twenty five -year-old opinions. the Knight Institute has also created

A report by The New York Times about intercepted radio transmissions from Russian soldiers demonstrates how investigative reporters are using open-source reporting, satellite images, mobile phone or security camera recordings and other internet tools to report the news. (TVN, May 9, 2022, by David Bauder of The Associated Press) Open source journalism allows reporters to access user-produced content on the web to find stories and supporting visual evidence. The process allows greater transparency in making