Speech

First it was $45 million in Texas. Then $964 million in Connecticut. Now there’s another Connecticut penalty, thanks to a judge who imposed additional punitive damages. The judge cited Jones’s “utter lack of repentance” for subjecting families to years of harassment by lying about their children’s deaths. A separate order bans Jones from moving assets out of the country, preempting an attempt to keep his money out of the courts’ hands.

The BBC reports on a new wave of amateur documentarians harassing victims of the Manchester Arena bombing, similar to the Sandy Hook truthers spurred on by Infowars.

A new paper from researchers at the Brookings institute finds that YouTube’s algorithm makes all groups (liberal, moderate and conservative) slightly more conservative, rather than the universal push to extremes that many had assumed.

The site is kind of like the very monetized cousin of AO3, and with that monetization (and popularity) comes the need to protect its young audience. A Forbes investigation recently found that sexual predators appeared to be targeting Wattpad’s youngest users. Now Wattpad has announced a series of tools and policies to protect those users, while still trying to allow adult-oriented content to stick around.

The ruling doesn’t have immediate consequences for Instagram’s parent company Meta, but the decision might set the stage for future UK liability cases against sites for allegedly hurting teens’ mental health.

The Infowars host has already been hit with millions of dollars in damages for spreading lies about Sandy Hook — but today’s hearing suggests he could be on the hook for even more.

The controversial Journalism Competition and Preservation Act — which would let news publishers negotiate payments for being linked by sites like Google — suffered a setback earlier this month thanks to a surprise Ted Cruz amendment trying to limit the platforms’ moderation options. After some negotiations between Cruz and sponsor Amy Klobuchar, it’s back for markup today, and it’s got critics even more worried than before.

The law still isn’t in effect, but the court’s opinion sets up a Supreme Court battle over the future of content moderation and the First Amendment. Mike Masnick has a good (if wonky) breakdown up already. It’s… well, it’s one of the dumbest First Amendment opinions in a long time.

Remember when a Texas appeals court decided to blow up internet moderation with no explanation? Well, it finally explained itself, and so far I don’t feel any better. We’re still working our way through the decision, but you can read it below. For now, though, the Supreme Court already temporarily blocked the law while its court battle continues.