The Supreme Court Should Reject Clandestine Government Censorship of Online Speech
The Biden administration’s social media meddling went far beyond "information" and "advice."
The Biden administration’s social media meddling went far beyond "information" and "advice."
If partisans have one thing in common, it's confirmation bias.
The justices established guidelines for determining whether that is true in any particular case.
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The government is entitled to try to persuade social media to take down posts, but not to coerce them to do so.
Several justices seemed concerned that an injunction would interfere with constitutionally permissible contacts.
Plus: A listener asks about Republicans and Democrats monopolizing political power in the United States.
The newspaper portrays the constitutional challenge to the government's social media meddling as a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters.
"It's a disturbing gift of unprecedented authority to President Biden and the Surveillance State," said Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.).
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Instead of freeing Americans from censorship, the TikTok bill would tighten the U.S. government's control over social media.
Another blow to the idea that algorithms are driving our political dysfunction.
Even as they attack the Biden administration's crusade against "misinformation," Missouri and Louisiana defend legal restrictions on content moderation.
"Laws like this don't solve the problems they try to address but only make them worse," says a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression attorney.
A new bill would ban TikTok and give the president power to declare other social media apps off limits.
"People are not in politics for truth-seeking reasons," argues the data journalist and author of On The Edge: The Art of Risking Everything.
A law forcing kids off social media sites is still likely coming to Florida.
"It is immoral that in a poor country like ours," the Argentine president said, "the government spends the people's money to buy the will of journalists."
The First Amendment restricts governments, not private platforms, and respects editorial rights.
Supreme Court arguments about two social media laws highlight a dangerous conflation of state and private action.
Maybe the problem for teens isn't screens, but what they are replacing.
The Supreme Court seems inclined to recognize that content moderation is protected by the First Amendment.
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The laws violate the First Amendment because they require social media sites to abjure most content moderation, and platform speech they disapprove of.
Both states are trying to force tech companies to platform certain sorts of speech.
From limits on liability protections for websites to attempts to regulate the internet like a public utility, these proposals will erode Americans' right to express themselves.
The president criticized companies for selling "smaller-than-usual products" whose "price stays the same." But it was his and his predecessor's spending policies that caused the underlying issue.
"None of these laws prevent kids from viewing anything. They just prevent kids from posting," argues Shoshana Weissmann.
Banning people under age 16 from accessing social media without parental consent "is a breathtakingly blunt instrument" for reducing potential harms, the judge writes.
Maybe the problem for teens isn't screens, but what they are replacing.
Throughout Republican-run Western states, lawmakers are passing legislation that treats adults as if they are children.
The Biden administration's interference with bookselling harks back to a 1963 Supreme Court case involving literature that Rhode Island deemed dangerous.
AI tools churning out images of fake IDs could help people get around online age-check laws.
Plus: A listener asks if it should become the norm for all news outlets to require journalists to disclose their voting records.
The verdict vindicates the constitutional rights that Louisiana sheriff's deputies flagrantly violated when they hauled Waylon Bailey off to jail.
Republicans and Democrats are using emotional manipulation to push an agenda of censorship.
Don't let a moral panic shut everything down.
Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.
Social media influencer Caroline Calloway might not be a reliable narrator, but Scammer is an honest memoir nevertheless.
Laws like Utah's would require anyone using social media to prove their age through methods such as submitting biometric data or a government-issued ID.
Where are the misinformation czars and the mainstream media fact-checkers now?
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The Things Fell Apart host explains how a 1988 quack medical concept inspired George Floyd's death in 2020 and how Plandemic rewrote Star Wars.
The Things Fell Apart host Jon Ronson explains how a 1988 quack medical concept inspired George Floyd's death in 2020 and how Plandemic is basically a rewrite of Star Wars.
It's Super Size Me for internet intellectuals.
In an amicus brief filed in Murthy v. Missouri, they ignore basic tenets of First Amendment law in order to quash online speech they don't like.
Free societies generally leave these matters to individuals and families.