News & Opinion

Federal appeals court rejects free speech claim in cyberstalking case

The 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals limited the reach of federal cyberstalking law on actions “with the intent to kill, injure, harass, intimidate, or place under surveillance with intent to kill, injure, harass, or intimidate another person.” The action must also put a victim in reasonable fear of death or injury. The court found that the law was not overbroad in restricting speech in the case U.S. v. Yung. The court reasoned that the

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Open government roundup: Developer sues Richmond over hasty decision on Point Molate

A developer is suing the City of Richmond alleging a violation of the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, in voting to deny special taxing in relation to a plan for 1,400 homes at Point Molate. The developer claimed there was scant time between meetings and said the expeditious settling of the matter indicated the possibility of secret or serial meetings. (Richmond Confidential, June 9, 2022, byi Madeline Taub) The Cypress town council is

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Day of reckoning looms for Alex Jones in Sandy Hook defamation

The Sandy Hook families who successfully sued Alex Jones for defamation in two states are anticipating trials to determine his penalties now that his quest for bankruptcy has ended. (newstimes, June 8, 2022, by Rob Ryser) “Initially, writes Dan Solomon in the Texas Monthly, June 8, 2022, “it appeared as if the cases might present some compelling constitutional questions about whether Jones’s speech was protected under the First Amendment. As they progressed, though, it became clear that

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Efforts made to keep robot speech responsible

Artificial intelligence innovations such as OpenAI’s GPT-3 open new frontiers in language processing and generation but also enhance the risk of its use to “spread chaos, scale harm and watch the world burn.” Open AI is so concerned that it is offering a free content filter to identify profane language but also hate speech used against certain groups and people. (TechCrunch, June 1, 2022, by Natasha Lomas) OpenAI withheld release of GPT-3 to developers until

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