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from the the-1st-amendment-applies dept

We've discussed in the past the various court rulings that say that public officials (such as the President) cannot block users on social media as it violates the 1st Amendment. There has been vigorous debate on this (as well as plenty of confusion) but the basic concept is that the courts view the space beneath a social media post -- where people comment -- as a "designated public forum" and as such, bars any content-based discrimination.

That should apply to all government institutions -- not just the social media accounts of those holding elected office. A fascinating new report from FIRE, digs deep into this issue by highlighting that tons of public universities are using opaque Facebook blocklists to hide student comments. For private universities, it wouldn't be a 1st Amendment issue, but courts have repeatedly said that public universities are an arm of the government, and thus Constitutional limits apply to them as well. From the opening of the report:

In October 2019, Facebook founder and chief executiveofficer Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University,extolling the virtues of freedom of expression and notingin particular the importance of college students abilityto express who they were and what mattered to them,including through challeng[ing] some established ways ofdoing things on campus.

Because Facebook is a private entity, the First Amendmentwhich only limits government actorsdoes not require itto honor expressive freedom. Zuckerbergs endorsementof freedom of expression as a principle is a welcome andencouraging development.

It is, however, at odds with the fact that Facebook providesgovernments the tools to censor. These actors includepublic universities and colleges which are bound by theFirst Amendmentthose very campuses where studentshave challenged some established ways of doing things.

These tools include Facebooks automated content filters,which allow state institutions to automatically hide userscomments if they contain words included on Facebooksundisclosed list of offensive words or the governmentactors customized list of prohibited words. These toolsenable public universitiesand other government actorsto quietly remove critical posts, transforming the Facebookpages into less of a forum and more of a vehicle for positivepublicity.

And yes, this does create a serious 1st Amendment issue:

Theres no social media exception to the First Amendment, said Adam Steinbaugh, author of the FIRE report. Government actors cannot sanitize public discourse whether its President Trump blocking Twitter critics or American colleges filtering dissent on their social media accounts. By selectively eliminating particular viewpoints, universities are violating the First Amendment.

The report contains numerous examples of problematic filters:

The report also notes that -- even more closely related to the Trump case -- that many public universities block user accounts:

Because of this, FIRE, together with EFF, have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to help fix this issue:

Facebook can curb abuse of its tools through transparency and restrictions on accountsbelonging to state actors. As our report recommends, Facebook should:

For what it's worth, this is also a good example of how FOIA laws help aid in transparency. Part of the report was developed via heavy use of FOIA and similar laws to request the details of the social media filters used by public universities:

Altogether, FIREs surveyissued public recordsrequests to 224 publicuniversities and collegesin 47 states and theDistrict of Columbia.198 institutions providedsubstantive responses.

While some may have arguments for why colleges should be allowed to filter aspects of their social media accounts, when we're talking about public universities, the 1st Amendment needs to apply.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, blocking, filters, public universities, social media filtersCompanies: facebook

See the original post here:
Public Colleges Are Violating The 1st Amendment In Using Facebook Filters - Techdirt

Donald Trump is at war with the First Amendment and the free press. The war is on full display nearly every day in hisrage-filled press conferenceson the COVID-19 pandemic, in which he regularly condemns the fake news media and bashes reporters who dare to ask the slightest probative questions about his handling of the ongoing public-health crisis.

Trumps war is also longstanding. And it is waged not only on television and inangry tweetsand atcampaign rallies(which have been put on hold because of the coronavirus), but also in courtrooms across the country in the form of defamation lawsuits designed to shame, silence and punish his critics.

The latest victim of the presidents intimidation-by-litigation strategy is TV stationWJFW, an NBC affiliate located in Price County in the rural reaches of northern Wisconsin. On April 13, Trumps principal reelection campaign committeeDonald J. Trump for President, Inc., headquartered in New York Citysued the stationin the countys circuit court. The suit alleges that the station had libeled the campaign and harmed the reputation of the president by airing an anti-Trump attack ad produced by Priorities USA Action, a pro-Democratic Super PAC.

Entitled Exponential Threat, the ad features audio and video clips of Trump downplaying the severity of the virus and disavowing any responsibility for his administrations slow and incompetent response to the virus overlaid against a graph displaying the exponential rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. since January.

The lawsuit contends that the ad stitched together Trumps statements about the virus in a false, misleading, deceptive and malicious manner to make it appear that he had called the virus a hoax. According to the complaint, Trump never termed the virus itself a hoax, but instead said at arallyin Charleston, South Carolina, on February 28, that the Democrats were perpetrating a hoax by politicizing his record on the virus.

The lawsuit comes on the heels ofother recent threatsmade by the Trump campaign to take legal action against TV outlets in Florida, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania for broadcasting the same ad.

The presidents campaign committee has also been busy suing print media. In March, the committeesued the Washington Postfor defamation allegedly arising from opinion columns written by journalistsGreg SargentandPaul Waldmanin June 2019 on the possibility of renewed foreign collusion in the 2020 election. And in February, Trumps 2016 campaign committeesued the New York Times, claiming defamation stemming from an op-ed about Russian collusion written in March 2019 by Max Frankel, who had served as the papers executive editor from 1986-94.

Sadly, the presidents latest round of defamation revenge is part of a pattern that dates back to his formative days as a real-estate developer and publicity-seeking huckster in New York City.

As detailed in a2016 studypublished by the Media Law Resource Center, Trump filed his first major libel suit in 1984, when he took the Chicago Tribune and architecture columnist Paul Gapp to court, claiming that he had sustained $500 million in damages as a result of an article Gapp had written, maligning Trumps plans to build a 150-story skyscraper in lower Manhattan. The case wasdismissedthe following year after the presiding judge determined Gapps article was a constitutionally protected expression of opinion.

The Media Law Resource Center study alsosummarizesTrumps failed defamation lawsuit against writer Timothy OBrien and the Time Warner Book Group, Inc. Now asenior columnist with Bloomberg Opinion, OBrien asserted in a 2005 bookTrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donaldthat Trump wasnt actually a billionaire. OBriens estimate of Trumps net wealth so rankled the future president that he demandeda whopping $5 billion in damages.Like the lawsuit against Gapp, the case was eventuallydismissed.

In addition, thestudychroniclesTrumps case against comedian Bill Maher. Trump targeted Maher in 2013 for a disparaging joke he told on NBCsTonight Show, in which he offered to donate $5 million to charity if Trump could prove he was not the spawn of his mother having sex with an orangutan. After Trump sent a copy of his birth certificate to Maher and the comedian refused to pay up, Trump sued Maher for breach of contract in California. Trump voluntarilywithdrew the caseeight months later, however. Although his then-spokesperson, Michael Cohen,told Politicothat Trump planned to amend and renew the lawsuit, he never did.

Like most of Trumps past defamation forays, the presidents latest round of defamation lawsuits seems destined to crash and burn. The cases will falter for one simple reason: they are utterly devoid of legal merit.

Under the Supreme Courts landmark 1964 ruling inNew York Times Co. v. Sullivan, criticism of public officials is entitled to stringent First Amendment protections. As the great liberal Justice William Brennan wrote for a unanimous court inSullivan, the Constitution embodies our profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks

Public officials, Brennan instructed, must be precluded from recovering damages for allegedly defamatory statements related to official conduct unless they prove that the statements are made with actual malicethat is, that they are made with the knowledge that they are false or with reckless disregard of whether they are true or false.

Insubsequentcases, the Supreme Court extendedSullivans actual malice holding to defamation lawsuits initiated by public figures andbusiness entitiesthat have obtained public-figure status, such as Trumps political campaign committees.

Sullivanis one of the Supreme Courts most consequential decisions, providing the press with the safeguards needed to keep the public informed and hold the rich and powerful to account. Among the courts current members, onlyClarence Thomashas gone on record to suggest thatSullivanbe reconsidered.

Why, then, does the president persist? The answer, it appears, is purely political.

At arally in Fort Worth, Texas, in February 2016, Trump told a throng of cheering red-meat followers, I think the media is among the most dishonest groups of people Ive ever met. Theyre terrible. If I become president, oh, do they have problems. Theyre going to have such problems.

And thenhe added, in a veiled reference toSullivan:

One of the things Im going to do if I win, and I hope we do, and were certainly leading, is Im going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. Were going to open up those libel laws so that when the New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because theyre totally protected.

As of now, the president is losing his war on the First Amendment and the free press. But as Trumps improbable rise to power confirms, the future remains uncertain. If we have learned anything in the Trump era, it is that our constitutional rights can never be taken for granted.

Bill Blum is a retired judge and a lawyer in Los Angeles. He is a lecturer at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication. He writes regularly on law and politics and is the author of three widely acclaimed legal thrillers:Prejudicial Error,The Last Appeal, andThe Face of Justice.

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Trump keeps escalating his war on the First Amendment and hes losing the fight - Raw Story

Tennessean Opinion Editor David Plazas spoke to Linda Peek Schacht, former Harvard fellow and former Lipscomb University administrator Nashville Tennessean

Journalists work hard to be accurate, trustworthy, and to seek truth and report it truthfully. Facts and good information matter especially when lives are stake.

Students in Jennifer Ducks journalism classes at Belmont University learn how to assess the credibility of information and sources.

Duck also teaches her classes how to debunk myths, which are bountiful on places like social media platforms, where people tend to share links, often without clicking on, reading or vetting them.

The COVID-19 pandemic makes the stakes higher than ever.

This is a matter of life or death, said Duck, an instructor at Belmont in Nashvilleand a Clemson University Ph.D. student. We need truth and we need facts. Journalists help us separate fact from fiction.

Her research focuses on the importance of a free press, which is more important than ever as mixed messages have emerged from government leaders, generally at the national level, about how to handle the novel coronavirus crisis.

Media organizations including The Tennessean and others have striven to separate fact from fiction in daily fact check articles and deep reporting, which seeks to use data, credible sources and science to help inform the public and keep people safe.

So, it is encouraging that Duck urged students to compete in the National Student Essay Competition on the topic of freedom of the press, sponsored by The McCarthy Family Foundation in partnership with The Tennessean, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other U.S. newsrooms.

First Amendment of the US Constitution text, with other Constitution text above(Photo: Getty Images)

Several students, from middle school to college, submitted essays by the April 24 deadline.

They all show a great deal of maturity in wanting to be informed and discerning citizens who defend constitutional freedoms.

Remember: Freedom of the press is one of five freedoms delineated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government from enacting laws to abridge it.

Hear more Tennessee Voices:Get the weekly opinion newsletter for insightful and thought provoking columns.

Our founding fathers valued a free press, wrote Frank Runyon, a seventh grader at Richview Middle School in Clarksville. Thomas Jefferson once said,Freedom will be a short-lived possession unless the people are informed. Our founding fathers who believed in democracy thought that freedom of the press was an essential key to our freedom.

Jefferson and other presidents also became angry at the press when journalists were critical, but holding government accountable is why the Founding Fathers wanted to protect a free press.

Tennessee Voices, Episode 22: Linda Peek Schacht on leadership and truth

Tennessee Voices, Episode 11: Shanna Hughey, president of ThinkTennessee

Often, people will lump all journalists as the media, but citizens need to push back against this slight and ask: Which media organization? What did they get wrong (or right)? Is this just a propaganda attempt to discredit the free-flow of information to citizens who deserve to know the truth?

Katie Kuhnash, a senior studying music business at Belmont, reflected in her essay on the importance of being well-informed at a time when Americans are so limited in their ability to spend time with friends, see their families and do commerce because of stay-at-home orders.

In a time where so much is limited, I think it is more important than ever to keep our press free, she wrote. This is also one of the most mysterious, uninformed times we have ever lived through, where being informed is more important than ever.Where being a democracy is more important than ever.

Citizens should search for the truth and be discerning.

But know this: Journalists work hard to be accurate andtrustworthy, and to seek truth and report it truthfully.

We take the First Amendment seriously and are keenly aware that credible information, especially today, is a matter of life and death.

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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network newsrooms in Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him atdplazas@tennessean.comor tweet to him at@davidplazas. Subscribe and support local journalism.

Read or Share this story: https://www.tennessean.com/story/opinion/columnists/david-plazas/2020/04/26/coronavirus-era-freedom-press-matter-life-and-death/3008537001/

Read more from the original source:
Why freedom of the press is a matter of life and death in coronavirus era | Plazas - Tennessean

Students in Jennifer Ducks journalism classes at Belmont University learn how to assess the credibility of information and sources.

Duck also teaches her classes how to debunk myths, which are bountiful on places like social media platforms, where people tend to share links, often without clicking on, reading or vetting them.

The COVID-19 pandemic makes the stakes higher than ever.

This is a matter of life or death, said Duck, an instructor at Belmont in Nashville and a Clemson University Ph.D. student. We need truth and we need facts. Journalists help us separate fact from fiction.

Her research focuses on the importance of a free press, which is more important than ever as mixed messages have emerged from government leaders, generally at the national level, about how to handle the novel coronavirus crisis.

Media organizations including The Tennessean and others have striven to separate fact from fiction in daily fact check articles and deep reporting, which seeks to use data, credible sources and science to help inform the public and keep people safe.

So, it is encouraging that Duck urged students to compete in the National Student Essay Competition on the topic of freedom of the press, sponsored by The McCarthy Family Foundation in partnership with The Tennessean, the Committee to Protect Journalists and other U.S. newsrooms.

Several students, from middle school to college, submitted essays by the April 24 deadline.

They all show a great deal of maturity in wanting to be informed and discerning citizens who defend constitutional freedoms.

Remember: Freedom of the press is one of five freedoms delineated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits government from enacting laws to abridge it.

Our founding fathers valued a free press, wrote Frank Runyon, a seventh grader at Richview Middle School in Clarksville. Thomas Jefferson once said, Freedom will be a short-lived possession unless the people are informed. Our founding fathers who believed in democracy thought that freedom of the press was an essential key to our freedom.

Jefferson and other presidents also became angry at the press when journalists were critical, but holding government accountable is why the Founding Fathers wanted to protect a free press.

Often, people will lump all journalists as the media, but citizens need to push back against this slight and ask: Which media organization? What did they get wrong (or right)? Is this just a propaganda attempt to discredit the free-flow of information to citizens who deserve to know the truth?

Katie Kuhnash, a senior studying music business at Belmont, reflected in her essay on the importance of being well-informed at a time when Americans are so limited in their ability to spend time with friends, see their families and do commerce because of stay-at-home orders.

In a time where so much is limited, I think it is more important than ever to keep our press free, she wrote. This is also one of the most mysterious, uninformed times we have ever lived through, where being informed is more important than ever. Where being a democracy is more important than ever.

Citizens should search for the truth and be discerning.

But know this: Journalists work hard to be accurate and trustworthy, and to seek truth and report it truthfully.

We take the First Amendment seriously and are keenly aware that credible information, especially today, is a matter of life and death.

David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network newsrooms in Tennessee and an editorial board member of The Tennessean.

Read more:
Freedom of the press a matter of life and death in COVID-19 era - Columbia Daily Herald

The Hollywood sign is a beloved Southern California landmark. Built in 1923 and donated to the City of Los Angeles in 1944, it sits on public land atop Mt. Lee in Griffith Park.

The sign truly belongs to the public. And yet, in a sleight of hand, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce insists that it owns trademark rights to the signs likeness and therefore can charge for the use of that image.

For years, lawyers for the chamber have been threatening to sue over the use of the Hollywood sign in a variety of projects, from a student film and UCLA law school recruitment brochure to an advertising campaign and tourist photo. British YouTuber Tom Scott mocked the chambers trademark bullying by bleeping out the word Hollywood Sign and pixelating the sign as if it were some X-rated porn star in his video about the sign.

The chamber, which has had control of licensing trademarks for the sign since at least 1992, claims it has certain trademark rights for usage of the Sign or its likeness for commercial purposes. But what most people dont realize is that the chamber tried and failed to register trademarks on the Hollywood sign with two applications to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 2004.

The trademark office rejected the applications because you cant get trademark protection for the the name of a place. The Hollywood sign may be a landmark, but it is also the name of a place. Trademarks are only granted for geographic names in association with specific products and services. The only way that the chamber could have won a trademark for the Hollywood sign is if it had showed that the public widely associated the sign with a specific product. Thats what the owners of Arrowhead Water or California Pizza Kitchen did.

Before the chamber could appeal the trademark offices rejection, the big Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, CBS Broadcasting, 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures and Universal City Studios went ballistic because the chambers applications sought a trademark for the sign as a stage prop. The studios feared that the chamber would demand licensing fees to show the sign in movies and TV shows, according to studio sources. After the studios filed papers with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeking more time to file comments, the chamber abandoned its applications.

The chamber, however, was not dissuaded from pushing its right to trademark the word Hollywood. It sought and obtained federal trademarks for the word, using the signs blocky all-caps, staggered lettering.

This time, the chamber followed the requirements for applying for a trademark for a geographical location. It argued that the word HOLLYWOOD had become known to the public as the brand name for candy, food, jewelry, clothing, athletic apparel, paper, licensing of intellectual property, and advertising services after five years of continuous use in the marketplace. The trademark office granted these dubious trademarks.

Those registrations do not apply to an image of the sign itself. But that hasnt stopped the chamber from demanding that filmmakers, television producers and other artists pay licensing fees to show the sign in their works. There is no need to pay. As one scholar explained, these creative works dont violate trademark laws when they simply show the Hollywood sign to signify that the scene took place in Hollywood. Thats called descriptive fair use.

Theres also the First Amendment. The constitutional right to free expression gives the creators of films, television shows, video games, and YouTube videos the right to show the Hollywood sign for artistic reasons or realism without paying a dime. But even when people are within their legal rights to use the image, they pony up when they get a cease-and-desist letter from the chamber demanding money because its cheaper than a lawsuit.

Many courts have reaffirmed a First Amendment protection for expressive works. The most recent decision came down on March 31 from a federal judge in New York. The judge dismissed a trademark lawsuit brought by the maker of Humvees against Activision, the publisher of the Call of Duty video games. He ruled that Activision has a First Amendment right to show the trademarked Humvees, which provide a dose of realism in depicting contemporary warfare.

The Hollywood sign is a historical, geographical and cultural touchstone for Los Angeles. Its not just a billboard for Hollywood. Its an icon that has come to represent dreams made here in California. You shouldnt have to pay a licensing fee for that.

Susan E. Seager is a staff attorney at the UC Irvine Law School Intellectual Property, Arts, and Technology Clinic and Sachli Balazadeh-Nayeri is a law student working in the clinic.

Read more:
Op-Ed: Should anyone own the rights to HOLLYWOOD? - Los Angeles Times