socialmedia
The Supreme Court will allow federal agencies to resume widespread communication with social media companies for the purposes of suppressing controversial speech. For everyone who was perturbed by the Twitter Files and Facebook Files—which revealed a vast web of government pressure on private actors, called jawboning—this is a regrettable outcome. The case was Murthy v. Missouri—also known as Missouri v. Biden—and involved a group of individuals who were kicked off Facebook and Twitter. They contended that the platforms took such actions at the behest of the federal government. The Court held ...
Reason
Julian Assange was released from prison this week after agreeing to plead guilty to conspiring to disclose classified documents related to national security. After five years behind bars, it's hard to exactly call this a win for the WikiLeaks founder. But on the surface, it is a loss for the U.S. government, which wanted to put Assange away for a much, much longer period of time. And yet, on some level, authorities got exactly what it seems they wanted: a warning to anyone who would dare to publish information that makes the government look bad. It provides a clear view of what happens when yo...
Reason
A case pending at the U.S. Supreme Court stems from the efforts a multitude of federal agencies made to remove certain viewpoints from public view. In other words, they sought to abridge freedom of speech—you know, that thing that the First Amendment explicitly bans. The case, Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden), may support or overturn the 5th Circuit's ruling that the government violated the First Amendment to reduce the circulation of viewpoints that various agencies believed noxious. This included, the court noted in its decision, controversies surrounding the "COVID-19 lab-lea...
Reason
Remember when the federal government accused social media companies of spreading misinformation about COVID-19? Well, according to a recent bombshell report from Reuters, top U.S. policy makers should have pointed their fingers at a giant mirror. That's because the U.S. military, under both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, deliberately spread misinformation on social media about the COVID-19 vaccines, in hopes of encouraging Filipinos to distrust the Chinese government. The disinformation campaign—which involved hundreds of fake accounts on X—promoted the idea that Sinova...
Reason
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit concerning the software X (formerly Twitter) uses to find illegal porn images. The suit was brought by Mark Martell, who objected to X using Microsoft's PhotoDNA software. Martell argued that PhotoDNA—which is used across the tech industry to detect and report child porn—required the collection of biometric data and that this collection violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). A win for Martell could have imperiled the use of PhotoDNA and similar software by all sorts of tech companies, thwarting tools that have proved useful in fighting ...
Reason
Surgeon General wants warning labels for social media: We already have 'em for booze and cigarettes. So why not Instagram and TikTok? Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has a New York Times op-ed out today that calls for Congress "to require a surgeon general's warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents." Such a label would serve to "regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe." "Faced with high levels of car-accident-related deaths in the mid- to late 20th century, lawm...
Reason
Hunter Biden, the troubled son of President Joe Biden, was convicted this week of three charges related to illegally purchasing a gun while suffering from drug addiction. It is fair to ask whether prosecutors should have brought these charges in the first place; Reason's Jacob Sullum described the violated law in question as "widely flouted, haphazardly enforced, and constitutionally dubious." Republican Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) wrote on X: "Hunter might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it. There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, an...
Reason
The creators behind BASEDPolitics are suing over a measure meant to either ban TikTok or force its divestiture. President Joe Biden signed the (highly unconstitutional) bill in April, and it already faces several legal challenges, including one filed by TikTok and one filed by eight TikTok content creators. Like those efforts, the BASEDPolitics suit focuses on the law's affront to free speech. "We wanted to file a lawsuit that was specifically focused on free speech and the First Amendment from the creators' perspective, rather than some of the other, business-related concerns in other lawsuit...
Reason
In a welcome development for people who care about liberty, Australia's government suspended its efforts to censor the planet. The country's officials suffered pushback from X (formerly Twitter) and condemnation by free speech advocates after attempting to block anybody, anywhere from seeing video of an attack at a Sydney church. At least for the moment, they've conceded defeat based, in part, on recognition that X is protected by American law, making censorship efforts unenforceable. A Censor Throws In the Towel"I have decided to discontinue the proceedings in the Federal Court against X Corp...
Reason
Shooting fireworks out of a helicopter sounds fun. Shooting fireworks out of a helicopter at a Lamborghini sports car sounds really fun, especially if everyone on the helicopter and everyone in the Lamborghini consents. Alex Choi, a YouTube and Instagram vlogger in California, produced a video of him and his crew doing just that. But he forgot to ask one important group for permission: the federal government. Earlier this week, the feds indicted Choi for "causing the placement of explosive or incendiary device on an aircraft," a crime with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The indictmen...
Reason
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