On today’s internet, the boundaries of acceptable speech are set by a few massive platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and a handful of others. If those companies find something unacceptable, it can’t travel far — a restriction that’s had a massive impact for everyone from copyright violators to sex workers. At the same time, vile content that doesn’t violate platform rules can find shockingly broad audiences, leading to a chilling rise in white nationalism and violent misogyny online. After years of outcry, platforms have grown more willing to ban the worst actors online, but each ban comes with a new political fight, and companies are slow to respond in the best of circumstances. As gleeful disinformation figures like Alex Jones gain power — and the sheer scale of these platforms begins to overwhelm moderation efforts — the problems have only gotten uglier and harder to ignore. At the same time, the hard questions of moderation are only getting harder.
The prime metaphor in the case so far, raised by TikTok’s attorney, is an analogy about whether the government could ban The Washington Post from operating if the Chinese government kidnapped Jeff Bezos’ children and forced him to print propaganda. (He’s against it.) Regardless of the questions over speech and TikTok, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seems pretty skeptical of his claim that the government couldn’t meaningfully step in.
Roberts raises the national security concerns of ByteDance working from China. “Do you dispute that ByteDance has ultimate control” of TikTok? Francisco does dispute it, but he says, “I don’t think it would change the analysis.”
TikTok attorney Noel Francisco is making opening arguments on the livestream — stressing the First Amendment’s role in the case and the potential speech burdens for TikTok and its users. He’s arguing that TikTok’s speech is, in particular, its recommendation algorithm, which is the least likely piece to be approved for a sale by the Chinese government.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments from TikTok, a group of TikTok users, and the US government before deciding whether to block a law that will otherwise take effect on January 19th. You can listen on C-Span or the Supreme Court’s site, starting at 10AM ET.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case against the TikTok divest-or-ban bill on Friday, which will determine the future of the app in the US.
The Meta CEO is pushing back on critics who say the company is only making its content policy changes because it’s “too hard for people to leave.” Zuckerberg shot back that he’s “counting on these changes actually making our platform better,” and while some may leave for “virtue signaling,” most users will enjoy the changes.
The ten fact-checking organizations will continue to receive payments until August, and those who haven’t signed 2025 contracts could get severance, Business Insider reports. Meta told members of the International Fact-Checking Network that their partnerships were ending just 45 minutes before it publicly announced sweeping changes to its content moderation and fact checking policies.
Poor Mark Zuckerberg. Imagine calling the 2024 election a “cultural tipping point” for “prioritizing speech” and then the guy who got elected starts bragging about how he threatened you into self-censorship. At least Trump won’t throw him in jail?
Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton will be heard on January 15th. Vox explains what’s at stake in this battle over a Texas law requiring age verification to access sites with pornography
The Supreme Court will consider TikTok’s case against a divest-or-ban law early next year, and a wave of filings has hit the docket this afternoon — from the parties involved as well as numerous institutions and public figures, including President-elect Donald Trump. If you want a firsthand look, the full list is linked below.
[www.supremecourt.gov]
Incoming FCC chair Brendan Carr is excited to start using the spectrum licensing system to punish broadcasters for airing criticism of his boss, and now he wants Disney CEO (and ABC owner) Bob Iger to know it. Nice TV network you’ve got there, Bob. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it.
The House is focused on averting a government shutdown, and there’s no sign of KOSA — a bill that, as my colleague Lauren Feiner recently wrote, has exhausted just about everyone:
“I personally am not going to feel bad if KOSA doesn’t pass this year,” [Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen] tells me on Monday. “And that’s because my expectations for what is possible in the United States anymore are really, really low.”
The Kids Online Safety Act was supposed to fix (or break) the internet. Now, after nearly three years of rewrites, it’s got days left to pass.
The American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Knight First Amendment Institute are asking the court to pause the law that could ban TikTok on January 19th while considering the case. They “urge the Court to see the Act for what it is: a sweeping ban on free expression that triggers and fails the most exacting scrutiny under the First Amendment.”
[www.supremecourt.gov]
Leaders of the House panel that led the divest-or-ban bill against TikTok warned the CEOs to be ready to comply once the bill takes effect — assuming it’s not stopped before then. The warning comes after a federal court ruled the bill is constitutional. Under the law, app marketplaces could get in trouble for letting users download the app.
[Select Committee on the CCP]
That’s after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) blocked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s short-lived bid to pass the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act by unanimous consent of the chamber. If passed, it would shield reporters from being forced by the government to reveal their sources.
404 Media is fighting a subpoena from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to seize confidential reporting material:
In order to do our job well, journalists need to be independent from the government and from outside corporate interests. ... Our sources—many of whom are particularly vulnerable—share information with us specifically because we are independent from the state.
As we’ve said before: tell your Senator to pass the PRESS Act.
TikTok is running out of time and legal recourse to avoid a US ban unless its China-based parent company ByteDance sells it. Here’s the tl;dr on why a three-judge panel unanimously ruled to uphold the law that could expel TikTok, and what comes next.
Not spending ad dollars on a website because its owner keeps spouting weird conspiracy theories is a very serious antitrust problem, and as usual, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is on it. Surely the best use of law enforcement’s time and money.
Ken White of Popehat is a longtime proponent of anti-SLAPP laws, which shift legal costs off people who get hit with bogus, speech-suppressing lawsuits. With anti-speech suits by billionaires in the news lately, he’s restarting a long-running series on them — building up to why we need one at the federal level now.
[The Popehat Report]
The Elon Musk-run social media company is trying to stop a California law that would require platforms to block “materially deceptive” election content during set periods before and after voting, Bloomberg reports. X is arguing the law violates the First Amendment, pointing to “a long history” of Constitutional protections for critiques of government “that includes tolerance for potentially false speech made in the context of such criticisms.”
The Free Speech Coalition is challenging a Texas law that requires proof of age to access adult sites — and more broadly, the Supreme Court will be weighing the tradeoffs of making people identify their ages online. Oral arguments were just scheduled for early next year.
[Free Speech Coalition]
Google is facing compounding penalties in Russia for restricting propaganda YouTube channels. It doesn’t seem terribly worried:
“We have ongoing legal matters relating to Russia,” the company noted in the report. “For example, civil judgments that include compounding penalties have been imposed upon us in connection with disputes regarding the termination of accounts, including those of sanctioned parties. We do not believe these ongoing legal matters will have a material adverse effect.”
It is not the Supreme Court test. The SCOTUS case the quote is from was overturned in 1969, when the court replaced the “clear and present danger” test with the Brandenburg test.
Perhaps most incredibly, Yale Law School graduate JD Vance followed up and uncritically repeated the “fire in a crowded theater” phrase.
