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Everyone knows that a fundamental principle of American democracy is the First Amendment guaranteeing many freedoms to US citizens including freedom of the press and freedom of speech. It is one of those concepts that underlies our society, but is often mentioned only in passing, and rarely considered in practice. Few people even broadcasters and other media companies have cause to think about First Amendment principles in their day-to-day operations. The concepts embodied by the First Amendment are almost a given except when they are not.

In our politically polarized society, there are more and more arguments made about regulation of speech in various contexts often made without significant consideration of those First Amendment principles. On the broadcast side, we have seen Commissioner Carr react to two cases where the FCC has seemingly been called on to regulate the speech (or anticipated speech) of broadcasters. One case involved a call to deny the sale of a broadcast station allegedly based on a perceived change in the political orientation of its programming from liberal to conservative (see the Carr statement here), and another calling for the FCC to investigate a TV station in Baltimore for allegedly being too focused on investigations into a local government official (see the Carr statement here and an NAB statement also weighing in on the controversy here). While there may well be issues in each case that go beyond the question of the proposed speech of the broadcasters involved, the issue of whether the FCC can get involved in the regulation of political positions taken by broadcasters is one that is addressed both by the Communications Act and past FCC precedent.

We have written many times about how the FCC is restricted by the First Amendment and Section 326 of the Communications Act from regulating the speech of broadcasters. Section 326 states:

Nothing in this chapter shall be understood or construed to give the Commission the power of censorship over the radio communications or signals transmitted by any radio station, and no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech by means of radio communication.

The FCC has weighed the impact of the First Amendment and Section 326 in numerous cases and found that these principles keep it out of content regulation (with certain limited exceptions, such as indecency and obscenity). This hands-off policy has been a consistent theme through the FCCs decisions in a variety of areas. See, for instance our article last year regarding the FCCs denial of a complaint about stations airing President Trumps news conferences that allegedly contained false information that violated the broadcast hoax rule; our article here on the FCCs reluctance to get involved in assessing the truth of attacks made in political ads; our articles here and here on the FCCs policy that it does not regulate the format of broadcast stations; the FCCs decision to end enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine (see our article here); its denial of previous requests that it penalize a licensee for allegedly airing fake news reports (see our article here); and its decisions to not substitute its judgement for that of the licensee in cases where the FCC was asked to deny renewal applications based on a petitioners assessment that the programming selected by the licensee did not best serve the public interest (see our article here).

This consistent position keeps the FCC out of regulating the political speech of broadcasters. But these same issues are now being raised by both liberals and conservatives in the context of regulating online speech. We have seen calls for the regulation of Internet platforms that do not limit the speech of some individuals (see, for instance, the controversy last week around the continued ban of former President Trump on Facebook), as well as calls from others to forbid these platforms from blocking individuals, particularly where these platforms provide access to some but not all candidates for political office. Because online platforms are private companies with their own free speech rights, including the right not to be associated with certain speech of others or with hate speech, it is not necessarily the same analysis as content regulation by government actors. The First Amendment generally will not apply to the decisions of private online platforms in the same way that it does to government actors, like the FCC, which generally are barred from injecting themselves into content decisions. But there are still calls for online regulation of these platforms and we will delve into some of those arguments and their implications for the First Amendment in an article to be published in the near future.

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The First Amendment's Role in Broadcast and Online Regulation - Lexology

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle moved to Los Angeles in 2020. The Duke of Sussex has only been in the U.S. for a little over a year, but hes already starting to get the hang of our customs. For one, hes beginning to see how easily our First Amendment, the right to free speech, can be abused.

Prince Harry was a guest on Dax Shepards Armchair Expert podcast on May 13. Their discussion of the dukes mental health advocacy led Prince Harry to discuss how the First Amendment can make us vulnerable.

One year into his American residency, Prince Harry admits he has much to learn about our constitution. However, hes spent enough time here to see how not everybody uses free speech for noble purposes.

Ive got so much I want to say about the First Amendment as I sort of understand it, but it is bonkers, he told Shephard. I dont want to start going down the First Amendment route because thats a huge subject and one which I dont understand because Ive only been here a short time. But, you can find a loophole in anything. You can capitalize or exploit whats not said rather than uphold what is said.

Part of Prince Harrys advocacy includes calling out some of the harmful institutions of society. For example, he spoke to Shepard about how gossip and social media keeps people in a loop of hate.

Laws were created to protect people, he said. I believe we live in an age now where youve got certain elements of the media redefining to us what privacy means. Theres a massive conflict of interest. Then youve got social media platforms trying to redefine what free speech means. I wonder why youre doing that?

RELATED: Prince Harry Just Shared the 3 Times Hes Felt Completely Helpless in His Life

Prince Harry warned listeners that corporate interests were manipulating their right to free speech.

Again, this has been happening for 15 years now, he said. The laws have been completely flipped by the very people that need them flipped so they can make more money and they can capitalize off our pain, grief and general self-destructive mode thats happened at the moment. Conflict of interest is the major piece here.

Fortunately, the duke was not just cautioning about doom and gloom. He said the power is within every individual to deprive those negative influences of power.

RELATED: Prince Harry Says His Royal Life Was Like The Truman Show

It does come back to supply and demand, he said. If we collectively became better at not clicking on or not spreading and sharing the things we know are putting people through hell, then theres no market for it. The more depressed and the harder life becomes, we end up surrendering to the information parallel with our own feelings.

Source: Armchair Expert podcast

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Excerpt from:
Prince Harry Calls The First Amendment 'Bonkers' and He Makes a Good Point - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

In Short

The Situation: The Federal Communications Commission ("FCC") under President Biden is likely to revive Obama-era net neutrality rules repealed by President Trump's FCC.

The Issue: Net neutrality raises First Amendment questions that have yet to be addressed by the Supreme Court, although in 2017, then-D.C. Circuit Judge Kavanaugh concluded that the Obama-era net neutrality rules violated the First Amendment.

Looking Ahead: The First Amendment is likely to play a key role in any proceeding to revisit the FCC's net neutrality rules and in any subsequent litigation.

2015 Net Neutrality Rules

Net neutralitythe principle that broadband internet access service providers should transmit all internet content equallyhas long prompted legal and policy debate, and the federal government's posture on the issue has shifted several times during the past decade. After several attempts to impose net neutrality during the Bush and Obama administrations, the FCC adopted net neutrality rules in the 2015 Open Internet Order to prevent broadband providers from blocking or slowing internet traffic to websites and applications. The FCC also classified broadband service as a Title II "telecommunications service" under the Communications Act.

First Amendment Issues

Broadband providers challenged the Open Internet Order, arguing in part that the net neutrality rules violated the First Amendment by forcing broadband providers to transmit speech with which they might disagree. In 2017, the D.C. Circuit upheld the net neutrality rules after concluding that nondiscrimination and equal access obligations do not violate the First Amendment. In a dissent from the denial of rehearing en banc, then-Judge Kavanaugh viewed the FCC's net neutrality rules as restricting broadband providers' editorial discretion over what content to carry over the internet in violation of the First Amendment.

2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order

That First Amendment issue never reached the Supreme Court because the Trump FCC repealed the Obama-era net neutrality rules in the 2018 Restoring Internet Freedom Order. In that order the FCC also reclassified broadband internet access service as an "information service" under Title I of the Communications Act, and explicitly moved to preempt state net neutrality laws. In 2019, the D.C. Circuit largely affirmed the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, except the court vacated the FCC's preemption decisionclearing the way for a handful of states, including California, to enact their own net neutrality laws.

The Road Ahead

President Biden campaigned on a promise to restore the Obama-era net neutrality rules, and the Biden FCC appears poised to revive them. Since taking office, President Biden appointed a leading proponent of net neutrality as a White House advisor, and his Department of Justice withdrew a lawsuit challenging California's net neutrality law. The two current Democratic FCC commissioners have long championed net neutrality, and the acting chairwoman dissented from the Restoring Internet Freedom Order.

The First Amendment will loom large in any FCC proceeding to restore the net neutrality rules once the FCC is at full strength. In the time since the D.C. Circuit ruled that the First Amendment was no obstacle to the FCC's net neutrality rules, dissenting Judge Kavanaugh was elevated to the Supreme Court. As demonstrated by the Supreme Court's decision to invalidate the CFPB's structure in Seila Law LLC v. CFPB, then-Judge Kavanaugh's opinions on government actions and authorities often foreshadow the views of a majority of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court's views about government regulation of online speech will likely play a central role in the conversation regarding the next iteration of the FCC's net neutrality rules.

More:
The Road Ahead for Net Neutrality and the First Amendment - JD Supra

D.C.'s ban on dancing at weddings provoked eyerolls when it was first announced. Now a bride-to-be is suing to stop the regulation, arguing that it is an irrational and unconstitutional restriction on her special day.

On Monday, Margaret Applebya doctoral student and D.C. residentfiled a lawsuit against D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine in U.S. District Court, arguing that a ban on dancing at her upcoming June wedding violates her First Amendment rights.

"The First Amendment does not permit the District to irrationally discriminate against wedding dancing, while simultaneously allowing equally dangerous, though less expressive, activities to continue without remark," said Adam Schulman, a senior attorney with the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, which along with the Liberty Justice Center is representing Appleby.

The wedding dancing ban was first announced as part of Bowser's April 26 public health order. That order allows "multi-purpose" facilities to host weddings and other "special non-recurring events"at 25 percent capacity without the need for a special city waiver starting May 1. But it also required attendees to be seated. "Standing and dancing are not allowed," reads the order.

This restriction applies to Appleby's wedding in spite of all the other health precautions she had agreed to take, including requiring guests and vendors to be masked (unless seated and eating), making available guests' contact information for contact tracing purposes, and providing hand sanitizer throughout the venue.

Appleby and her fiance were planning to have a maskless "first dance," which they assumed was permissible given that they are members of the same household and have both been vaccinated. The explicit ban on dancing came as a shock to them, and to wedding planners throughout the city.

Both dancing and wedding rituals, Appleby's lawsuit argues, are First Amendmentprotected expression. To restrict this expression while permitting dancing in fitness classes and strip clubs is, it says, "arbitrary and underinclusive."

Their lawsuit also argues that D.C.'s restriction on expressive dancing is not "narrowly tailored" to achieve the city's public health goals, because it bans dancing even if participants are masked or vaccinated.

The lawsuit asks that D.C.'s ban on masked, socially distanced dancing be ruled unconstitutional and the city be prevented from enforcing it.

The reopening of the country's most restrictive jurisdictionsa group that definitely includes D.C.has produced a bizarre mix of restored freedoms and arbitrary restrictions. COVID-hawk governors and mayors are begrudgingly permitting more activities while also regulating them to death. Lawsuits like Appleby's are a necessary corrective to the absurd rules that are coming along with these halting reopenings.

Read more:
New Lawsuit Argues That D.C.'s Ban on Dancing at Weddings Violates the First Amendment - Reason

In a commencement address delivered at Michigan Stadium in 2010, President Barack Obama famously prescribed a cure for the enmity ailing our politics.

"If you're someone who only reads the editorial page of The New York Times, try glancing at the page of The Wall Street Journal once in a while," he exhorted. "If you're a fan of Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh, try reading a few columns of the Huffington Post website."

The president's sage advice went unheeded. As evidenced by voters' schizophrenically partisan opinions about President Joe Biden's legitimacy, too many of us now huddle in toxic media bubbles feedback loops confirming our political biases.

Reinstating and modernizing the time-tested Fairness Doctrine, a policy dating back to 1929 that for nearly six decades required over-the-air broadcasters to present both sides of public issues, would help burst those bubbles.

Wrapping themselves in the First Amendment, partisans and broadcasting conglomerates would fight any effort to resuscitate the Fairness Doctrine.

But freedoms are not absolute. In 1969, the Supreme Court held in Red Lion that the Fairness Doctrine withstands legal scrutiny: The First Amendment allows the government to require a broadcast licensee "to present those views and voices which are representative of his community."

Indeed, the Supreme Court ruled the Fairness Doctrine furthers the purpose of the First Amendment by creating "an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail."

A Fairness Doctrine equal to the task of meeting today's challenges, including ubiquitous social networks and 24/7 cable news, would have to be carefully crafted to pass constitutional muster. But a regulatory and enforcement scheme one that balances myriad competing interests could be devised.

Ideological regulators at the Federal Communications Commission gutted the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 by selling a fiction: An increase in cable channels eliminated any need for government to shape editorial content.

The argument was not evidence-based. Fairness Doctrine opponents never established a correlation between an increase in broadcast outlets and voters' exposure to contrasting viewpoints.

History has disproven assumptions undergirding arguments hyped by libertarians who advocated the Fairness Doctrine's demise: Competition for public trust would "force" broadcasters to cover many sides of issues; the doctrine causes outlets to remain silent on controversial issues; in a bustling media marketplace, voters would listen to each other and change their minds.

These predictions were as misguided as futurists who prophesied that, like George Jetson, we'd now be commuting in flying cars.

Sean Hannity's business model doesn't give airtime to Nancy Pelosi. "Morning Joe" MSNBC producers make profits by playing to progressive partisans.

We know now broadcasters will never voluntarily walk away from the billions of dollars annually generated by wall-to-wall "politainment."

Rather than meaningfully engage each other, we rarely, if ever, emerge from partisan corners a fact reflected by our news consumption. Republicans overwhelmingly get their political and election news from Fox News, a recent Pew Charitable Trust poll found. One-fifth of Democrats and Republicans receive their news only from sources catering to like-minded audiences.

The electronic iron curtain dividing our media landscape explains why former President Donald Trump's approval ratings stayed locked in place throughout his four tumultuous years in office, why he maintains an iron grip on Republicans today, and why liberals often unfairly paint his supporters with the broadest of brushes, peremptorily dismissing them as morally irredeemable.

We don't have to live in a world in which millions of eyeballs are glued to hyper-partisan TV. Grassroots groups across the political spectrum (from the ACLU to the NRA) supported the Fairness Doctrine. It allowed them to register complaints about editorial imbalance and demand "reasonable opportunity for presentation of opposing points of view."

The Fairness Doctrine worked. It resulted in, for example, airtime being granted to respond to the political harangues of a fiery radio evangelist and the revocation of a broadcast license belonging to another radio station whose programming was "highly racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Negro and anti-Roman Catholic."

Enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine generated public trust in the media, which in recent years has plummeted to all-time lows, according to Gallup.

As importantly, the Fairness Doctrine cultivated an ethos of civic responsibility, promoted allegiance to journalistic codes of ethics, and stood as a beacon of objectivity.

Imagine the sunnier reality a wisely implemented, clearly defined Fairness Doctrine would help usher in. News outlets would be incentivized to broadcast truly "fair and balanced" news coverage. Partisan screeds more likely would be answered with counterstatements of fact.

The media, with its cacophonous echo chambers, are self-evidently in dire need of reform. It's time to revive the Fairness Doctrine and even expand it so it applies to cable TV's demagogic talking heads.

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Commentary: It's time to revive Fairness Doctrine and expand it - Crain's Detroit Business