Banned by Twitter. A tweet condemning COVID-19 vaccinations has gotten author Alex Berenson—dubbed by The Atlantic “the pandemic’s wrongest man” (April link)—permanently booted off the service.
■ Fox News host Tucker Carlson is encouraging Berenson to “sue the crap” out of Twitter on First Amendment grounds …
■ … but, as Raw Story notes, “Twitter is not a government entity, and thus they can do whatever they want on their platform.”
‘Power … nearly incomprehensible.’ A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial concludes federal antitrust laws should be changed to rein in Facebook, which has pushed society into “territory not envisioned by those who crafted … the First Amendment.”
■ An Ohio court has tossed a man’s complaint that Facebook violated his free-speech rights by suspending his account after he posted a picture of President Biden’s son Hunter with two prostitutes.
■ Pulitzer-winning columnist Mary Schmich explains how her departure from the Chicago Tribune condemned her to “Facebook hell.”
‘Dead on arrival.’ Legal experts tell the Courthouse News Service that Donald Trump’s class-action suits against Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are doomed.
■ New York University research concludes Trump’s tweets that were blocked for conveying election misinformation nevertheless wound up on other companies’ sites.
■ Experts tell Politico that seven Capitol Police officers’ lawsuit against Trump—accusing him and others of conspiring for the Jan. 6 insurrection—faces “an uphill battle … due to broad First Amendment protections accorded to speech on political topics.”
■ The New York Times looks ahead to this fall’s Supreme Court session, in which justices will consider whether government censure of elected officials—seemingly on the rise in the pandemic—constitutes a form of free speech or a First Amendment threat.
‘Deprived of their First Amendment rights.’ Ruling for three homeless men, a federal judge has concluded Alabama’s solicitation and begging statutes “criminalize panhandling and arguably form unconstitutional restrictions on protected speech.”
■ Another federal judge is ordering Oklahoma City to pay almost $1 million to lawyers who successfully challenged that town’s panhandling limits.
Food fights. In a further victory for animal-welfare advocates, a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court’s finding that a Kansas law threatening criminal penalties for people who take jobs at agricultural facilities to expose abuse violates the First Amendment.
■ A New York University student, writing in Reason about a ruling in favor of a California company’s right to use butter and cheese to describe vegan products: “Who thought it was a good idea to give the government control over marketing?”
■ Another federal appeals court has refused to block anti-abortion protesters who have been harassing people outside a New York clinic.
Hate spate. The FBI says hate-crime reports nationwide rose last year to their highest level in 12 years …
■ … driven mainly by attacks on Asian and Black people.
■ A Cornell Law professor: Hate-crime laws “do not violate any defensible version of First Amendment freedom of speech.”
On campus …
‘The First Amendment does not provide you an excuse to skip classes to speak, write, assemble or petition for change.’ Freedom Forum senior fellow Gene Policinski offers K-12 students—and their parents—back-to-school counsel on the freedom of speech.
■ A federal judge has ruled that a Missouri public school didn’t violate the First when it suspended a student who posted a Snapchat video of herself drinking alcohol off-campus.
■ Virginia’s Supreme Court has upheld the reinstatement of an elementary school gym teacher who said the First Amendment gave him the right to refuse to refer to transgender students by their preferred pronouns.
