■ The American Civil Liberties Union brief calls the government’s action “anathema to the First Amendment.”
■ See Bello read his poem.
■ The ACLU on a Tennessee case: “The state … is violating a rapper’s First Amendment rights by trying to use his lyrics as evidence at trial.”
Twitter and Facebook: More to come. The two companies’ CEOs tell Congress that, with two forthcoming special elections in Georgia to decide control of the U.S. Senate, they’re not done fighting election disinformation.
■ Internet-regulation issues are piling up for President-elect Biden’s team.
Not so free. After hanging around conservatives’ would-be Twitter-killer, Parler, journalist Corey Friedman concludes, “Where free speech is concerned … it’s shaping up to be more mirage than oasis.”
■ Environmental reporter Emily Atkin spent three hours on Parler, following every account the site recommended: “I did not need to go back.”
‘Ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian.’ After using those words on social media to describe those who voted for Biden—and encouraging them to unfriend him—a Virginia college professor has quit.
■ A Pennsylvania school district wants the Supreme Court to clarify whether educators’ power to discipline students extends to off-campus social media posts.
‘I haven’t forgotten what happened when he was in charge.’ As ex-President Barack Obama talks up the value of journalism while promoting his new memoir, Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan recalls: “His administration set records for stonewalling or rejecting Freedom of Information requests.”
■ Richard Stengel, named leader of Biden’s transition team for U.S.-owned media outlets—including Voice of America—has championed limits on the First Amendment (2019 link).
■ The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf on Stengel in 2019: “It seems derelict for a U.S. diplomat to fail to defend the Bill of Rights to foreign counterparts.”
■ Adweek: “New York has upped protections for journalists and media organizations that face threatening, but ultimately bogus, lawsuits.”
‘Previously unimaginable restrictions on individual liberty.’ In a speech to the reactionary Federalist Society, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito warned that the COVID-19 pandemic has—for better or worse—“served as a sort of constitutional stress test … and … highlighted disturbing trends.”
■ Jewish News Syndicate editor-in-chief Jonathan S. Tobin: Alito “was exactly right. … Basic respect for some rights is dying.”
■ Biden has picked a former Alito clerk as counsel to the president.
‘It is the highest form of protected speech.’ A lawyer for a Wisconsin TV station sued by the Trump campaign for running an ad critical of the president calls the court’s dismissal of the case a triumph for free political speech.
■ The Trump administration seems not all that committed to its vendetta against TikTok …
■ … and a TikTok employee has agreed to drop his suit against the Trump administration.
Realtors’ reality. Responding to a wave of complaints, the National Association of Realtors is expanding its Code of Ethics to cover members’ conduct outside their workplace duties—threatening expulsion for those who use hate speech or harassing language in public—including social media.
■ The association’s president says “the First Amendment does not preclude … this ethical duty as a condition of membership.”
■ A federal appeals court says a Florida sheriff was within her rights to have critical comments removed from her government and campaign Facebook pages.