Federal judge blocks enforcement of Iowa’s book ban law; Iowa Public Radio, December 29, 2023

 Grant Gerlock, Iowa Public Radio ; Federal judge blocks enforcement of Iowa’s book ban law

"A federal judge has blocked the state of Iowa from enforcing major portions of an education law, SF 496, which has caused school districts to pull hundreds of books from library shelves.

The temporary injunction prevents enforcement of a ban on books with sexually explicit content, which the judge in the case said likely violates the First Amendment. It also blocks a section barring instruction relating to sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school, which he called “void for vagueness.”

The decision follows a hearing last week that combined arguments from two separate challenges against the law signed by Gov. Kim Reynolds in May. A lawsuit brought by LGBTQ students calls the law discriminatory while another from a group of educators and the publisher Penguin Random House claims it violates their freedom of speech.

Enforcement provisions in the law that apply to book removals were set to take effect January 1...

Judge Stephen Locher said in his ruling released late Friday afternoon that the court was unable to find another school library book restriction “even remotely similar to Senate File 496.” Where lawmakers should use a scalpel, he said, SF 496 is a “bulldozer” that has pulled books out of schools that are widely regarded as important works.

“The underlying message is that there is no redeeming value to any such book even if it is a work of history, self-help guide, award-winning novel, or other piece of serious literature,” Locher wrote. “In effect, the Legislature has imposed a puritanical ‘pall of orthodoxy’ over school libraries.”"

Realtor ethics case involving gay rights, Montana pastor garnering national attention; KTVH, December 29, 2021

Mike Dennison, KTVH ; Realtor ethics case involving gay rights, Montana pastor garnering national attention

"Weyandt said Huber can hold and express any religious belief he wants, but that he can’t profess anti-gay views and still be a member of the Realtors’ group, according to the code of ethics.

“I definitely respect the individual’s right to their freedom of speech and expression, but when you’re clearly violating the governing doctrine of a private institution, that issues membership, that’s a whole other story,” he said.

Weyandt also said Huber is free to continue selling real estate. 

However, if a Code of Ethics violation leads to Huber getting kicked out of the Realtors’ group, he would lose access to the Montana Regional multiple-listing service for properties, potentially making it difficult to conduct business as a real-estate agent."

DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?; Comic Book Resources, November 30, 2018

Vincent Pasquill, Comic Book Resources; DC's Doomsday Clock #8 Leaked Thanks to... Vladimir Putin?

[Kip Currier: Read the two sentences excerpted below from an 11/30/18 Comic Book Resources article about a soon-to-be-released comic book published by DC Comics...

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing. As President Putin appears in the issue, DC reportedly submitted it for review to the Russian government."

and then let it sink in how fortunate we are to have freedom of expression and intellectual freedom in this country. The right to think and say what we want. The right to read what we want. The right to read a comic book of our choosing!

Read the article's first sentence again:

"In Russia, all media depicting President Vladimir Putin has to be passed through the government for approval before publishing."

That is as extraordinary to learn, as appalling as it is to contemplate. The idea that the head of a sovereign nation would be so threatened, so afraid of what might be said about him in a comic book--in any writing, for that matter--that "chilling effects" advance review--censorship--is mandated.

That is the quintessence of weakness and cowardice.

That is the essence of totalitarianism, the default position of autocrats and tyrants the world over.

We must never forget, sadly, that the vast majority of this world's citizens do NOT enjoy freedom of speech or expression, precious rights enshrined in our U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment. This story is a stark reminder of how exceptional freedom of expression is, how priceless yet vulnerable its hopeful spark is, and how it must be safeguarded and nurtured.

And how important it is to champion freedom of expression for others around the world, as well as for those of us who can exercise this cherished and singular civil liberty. "We the people", indeed.]

Twitter Fails E.U. Standard on Removing Hate Speech Online; New York Times, May 31, 2017

Mark Scott, New York Times; Twitter Fails E.U. Standard on Removing Hate Speech Online

"Twitter has failed to meet European standards for removing hate speech online, figures to be published Thursday show, as pressure mounts, particularly on the Continent, for tech companies to do more to tackle such harmful material.

The battle between European policy makers and tech companies over what should be permitted online has pitted freedom of speech campaigners against those who say hate speech — in whatever form — has no place on the internet.

In this standoff, European officials have called on Silicon Valley companies to take down at least 50 percent of the hate speech from their services once they are notified, and they signed up the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google to a voluntary code of conduct last year to combat the rising tide of harmful content online."

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), March 30, 2017

Kerry Sheehan and Kit Walsh, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): 

EFF Says No to So-Called “Moral Rights” Copyright Expansion

"The fight over moral rights, particularly the right of Integrity, is ultimately one about who gets to control the meaning of a particular work. If an author can prevent a use they perceive as a “prejudicial distortion” of their work, that author has the power to veto others’ attempts to contest, reinterpret, criticize, or draw new meanings from those works...

A statutory right of attribution could also interfere with privacy protective measures employed by online platforms. Many platforms strip identifying metadata from works on their platforms to protect their users' privacy, If doing so were to trigger liability for violating an author’s right of attribution, platforms would likely be chilled from protecting their users’ privacy in this way.

For centuries, American courts have grappled with how to address harm to reputation without impinging on the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. And as copyright’s scope has expanded in recent decades, the courts have provided the safeguards that partially mitigate the harm of overly broad speech regulation."

‘I’m not afraid’: The president of tiny Estonia gives a giant lesson in leadership; Washington Post, March 28, 2017

Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post; ‘I’m not afraid’: The president of tiny Estonia gives a giant lesson in leadership

"“No, I’m not afraid. … I trust NATO.”...

Kaljulaid is the first woman and youngest person to ever be elected president of Estonia. What makes her ascension even more remarkable is that she is in a job she did not initially seek. Kaljulaid was in her 12th year on the European Court of Auditors when the Estonian Parliament, which elects the head of state, turned to her as a compromise candidate in October...

And during the Brussels Forum, the president of the young, free country rose up to deride the consumerism that defines democracy today. “Too many people in the world associate democracy with their ability to go and buy more and more every year,” Kaljulaid said. “I come from a country where it’s much more popular to remind people that democracy is available at every income level and this is something which you need to protect … The freedom of speech. The freedom of thinking. The freedom of coming and going.”

‘We’re going to put a bullet in your head’: #PizzaGate threats terrorize D.C. shop owners; Washington Post, 12/6/16

John Woodrow Cox, Washington Post; ‘We’re going to put a bullet in your head’: #PizzaGate threats terrorize D.C. shop owners:

"Ousmaal first reported the harassment of her restaurant to D.C. police two weeks ago, but in emails she shared with The Post, an officer told her they couldn’t do anything to prevent free speech. He suggested she file a lawsuit.

She understands freedom of speech, Ousmaal replied in an email, but “derogatory libelous and hateful blogs and emails should not and cannot qualify.”"

Oh Good, a “Professor Watch List”; Slate, 11/23/16

Rebecca Schuman, Slate; Oh Good, a “Professor Watch List” :

"This Monday, an organization called Turning Point USA launched a website called the Professor Watchlist, which provides the full names, locations, offenses—and sometimes photographs—of liberal academics it has singled out for ignominy. In any other year in recent memory on this continent, these would be two unrelated events. But in the United States in late 2016, as the president-elect’s surrogates cite Japanese internment as a “precedent” for what may come, any “watch list” of any sort is worrying. One that targets outspoken intellectuals with views that oppose a mercurial future president who spent the weekend tweeting petulantly at the cast of a Broadway play? Abjectly terrifying.

The mission of the watch list, according to its website, is to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values, and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” The site invites users to nominate candidates, asking that they “submit a tip” about the nefarious pinkos who teach them (that’s S-C-H-U-M-A-N with one n, by the way). Some of the professors on the list have responded thoughtfully to their inclusion; others on social media have trolled the list with complaints about Indiana Jones and Jesus...

Don’t misunderstand me. The answer is not to take the site down altogether, for that would be censorship, and censorship is not the solution, just like it isn’t the solution when the 45th president of the United States gets his fee-fees hurt. But in this time of national reckoning, responsible conservatives need to pay attention to context. Why not, for example, a site that indexes classroom bias by incident and date, instead of by the professor’s name?"

Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’; New York Times, 11/25/16

Andrew Higgins, Mike McIntire, Gabriel J.X. Dance, New York Times; Inside a Fake News Sausage Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’ :

"Mr. Latsabidze, who apparently has broken no laws, said that any crackdown on fake news might work in the short term but that “something else will come along to replace it.”

“If they want to, they can control everything,” he said, “but this will stop freedom of speech.”

For now, the postelection period has been bad for business, with a sharp fall in the appetite for incendiary political news favoring Mr. Trump."

‘Pearls Before Swine’ strip pulled over ISIS reference; Comic Book Resources, 8/1/16

Brigid Alverson, Comic Book Resources; ‘Pearls Before Swine’ strip pulled over ISIS reference:

"The July 27 installment of “Pearls Before Swine” was pulled from national syndication because of a joking reference to ISIS, according to creator Stephan Pastis. (While he doesn’t specifically say so, it seems likely his syndicate, Universal Uclick, removed the strip, as it doesn’t appear on the GoComics website.)"

World Press Freedom Day Is A Terrifying Reminder Of What Reporters Could Face If Trump Is Elected; Huffington Post, 5/3/16

Alana Horowitz Satlin, Huffington Post; World Press Freedom Day Is A Terrifying Reminder Of What Reporters Could Face If Trump Is Elected:

"f the way Donald Trump and his supporters have treated journalists during the campaign is any indication, the media will be anything but free if he wins the presidency.

World Press Freedom Day, commemorated on Tuesday, comes just days after a GQ writer was hit with a barrage of antisemitic attacks following the publication of an article that criticized Melania Trump’s skincare line."

He told me he’d “cut out my kids’ tongues”: The experience with online harassment I can’t forget; Salon.com, 3/13/16

Darlena Cunha, Salon.com; He told me he’d “cut out my kids’ tongues”: The experience with online harassment I can’t forget:

"According to the Pew Research Center, 26 percent of young women on the Internet have been stalked, and 23 percent have been physically threatened. Of all people who have experienced online harassment (40 percent of all Internet users), 26 percent did not know the real identity of the perpetrator. While there are currently cyberstalking laws, they are hard to enforce, and victims must know their harasser’s identity to take him to court. And in 2010, those laws didn’t yet exist at all. The police told me there was nothing they could do. With no other recourse, I started checking on my children two or three times a night, waiting for an attack that never happened."

The Trump Campaign Gives License to Violence; New York Times, 3/14/16

Editorial Board, New York Times; The Trump Campaign Gives License to Violence:

"Here’s a medley of Mr. Trump’s comments condoning violence over the past few weeks:

“I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you.”

“In the good old days this doesn’t happen, because they used to treat them very, very rough.”

“I love the old days. You know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks.”

“If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would ya? Seriously. Just knock the hell out of them...”

Protesting in front of the Boca Raton rally on Sunday, Kate Newton and Elizabeth Versalie, both in their 50s, said they had to speak out. They turned up at the amphitheater two hours before the rally and were denied entry when security guards saw their signs, which said “Stop the Hate.”

“It’s all about standing up for freedom of speech for us,” Ms. Versalie said. “Nobody should be running a campaign on fear and bigotry.”"

Three missing Hong Kong booksellers to be freed on bail, say police; Associated Press via Guardian, 3/3/16

Associated Press via Guardian; Three missing Hong Kong booksellers to be freed on bail, say police:

"Three of five missing Hong Kong booksellers will be freed on bail soon while mainland Chinese authorities continue their investigation, police have said.

Lui Por, Cheung Chi-ping and Lam Wing-kee will be “released on bail pending investigation in the coming few days”, said Hong Kong police in a brief notice late on Wednesday, based on information from the public security department in neighbouring Guangdong province.

The disappearances of the three, along with two other men, Swedish citizen Gui Minhai and British citizen Lee Bo, have drawn international attention over fears Beijing is eroding the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s rule of law and civil liberties, such as freedom of the press.

The publishing company that the five are associated with specialised in books on sensitive Chinese political topics that proved popular with visitors from the mainland, where they were prohibited from sale."

Ruling Could Help Washington Redskins in Trademark Case; New York Times, 12/22/15

Richard Sandomir, New York Times; Ruling Could Help Washington Redskins in Trademark Case:

"The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington made the ruling in a case involving an Asian-American dance-rock band that sought to register a trademark for its provocative name, the Slants. The court said the First Amendment “forbids government regulators to deny registration because they find the speech likely to offend others.”

Writing for the majority, Kimberly A. Moore, a judge on the appeals court, said: “It is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment that the government may not penalize private speech merely because it disapproves of the message it conveys.”...

Still, Tuesday’s ruling was considered a major one in trademark law — the striking down of a provision of the nearly 70-year-old Lanham Act that deals with disparaging or offensive trademarks.

“The majority opinion is a very broad rejection of the proposition that the federal government can refuse registration or use of a trademark based on whether certain groups find the mark to be disparaging,” said Jeremy Sheff, a law professor at St. John’s University School of Law who specializes in intellectual property. “It was exactly on that basis that the Redskins’ marks were canceled.”

Whatever happens in the appeals court to the Redskins’ registered trademarks, the team’s use of its name is not in jeopardy. Although it symbolizes racism and intolerance to some, and has inspired groups to demand that it be replaced, the Redskins’ owner, Daniel Snyder, has vowed never to drop it. He has fought a public battle to prove the name does not offend all Native Americans. And he has the backing of the N.F.L., which has been paying the costs of defending the trademarks."

Call and Response; Chronicle of Higher Education, 12/1/15

Tamara Venit Shelton, Chronicle of Higher Education; Call and Response:

"The Call to Action, its list of grievances and demands, has received a mixed response from the faculty here at the college. The majority, including me, have proffered support, but some professors worry that the student movement threatens academic freedom. Will new administrators, additional academic resources, and diversity training lead to more invasive measures that undermine our authority as experts and constrain our freedom of speech?

Those concerns are real. So are the concerns of marginalized students.

As Claremont McKenna rebuilds and moves forward, our faculty, administrators, and students will have to overcome resentment and skepticism. We will have to comprehend one another with humility and empathy.

As professors, we may have to rethink the space of the classroom — from a place under our authority to an environment that we co-create with our students. From my corner of campus, I find myself with a renewed commitment to teaching history and, through history, empathy.

I will not shrink from difficult conversations about race and power."

Ban Before Reading; New York Times, 11/6/15

David K. Shipler, New York Times; Ban Before Reading:

"The American Library Association gets 300 to 500 reports of book challenges annually and estimates the actual volume at five times that number. If you picture citizens in towns across America parsing every line, however, you’ll be disappointed to learn that many passionate parents are not passionate about reading the books in question.

So it is with would-be censors everywhere. At Theater J, a Jewish theater in Washington, D.C., several conservative activists campaigned last year against an Israeli play they never went to see. And who thinks the Ayatollah Khomeini read past the title of “The Satanic Verses” before issuing his fatwa against Salman Rushdie?"

Hacking Victims Deserve Empathy, Not Ridicule; New York Times, 9/2/15

Farhad Manjoo, New York Times; Hacking Victims Deserve Empathy, Not Ridicule:

"There has been a tendency in the tech commentariat to minimize the Ashley Madison breach. The site has always seemed like a joke and possibly a scheme, and those who fell for it a testament to the Internet’s endless capacity to separate fools from their money.

But the victims of the Ashley Madison hacking deserve our sympathy and aid because, with slightly different luck, you or I could just as easily find ourselves in a similarly sorry situation. This breach stands as a monument to the blind trust many of us have placed in our computers — and how powerless we all are to evade the disasters that may befall us when the trust turns out to be misplaced...

“It’s easy to be snarky about Ashley Madison, but just because it’s unpopular or even immoral, it doesn’t mean this sort of activity shouldn’t be protected,” said Scott L. Vernick, a lawyer who specializes in digital privacy issues at the firm Fox Rothschild. “This gets at fundamental issues like freedom of speech and freedom of association — today it’s Ashley Madison, tomorrow it could be some other group that deserves protection.”"

Youth Symphony Cancels Program That Quotes ‘Horst Wessel’ Song; New York Times, 3/4/15

Michael Cooper, New York Times; Youth Symphony Cancels Program That Quotes ‘Horst Wessel’ Song:

"Jonas Tarm had won the kind of opportunity most young composers can only dream of: the New York Youth Symphony had commissioned a piece from him and planned to play it this Sunday at Carnegie Hall. But the youth symphony pulled his piece this week after learning that it includes a musical quotation from the “Horst Wessel” song, the Nazi anthem.

Mr. Tarm, a 21-year-old junior at the New England Conservatory of Music, said that his nine-minute piece, which is about conflict, totalitarianism and nationalism, also incorporated the anthem of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, with each one quoted for about 45 seconds. In a telephone interview he said that he was stunned by the symphony’s decision to pull the piece, which he described as an act of censorship...

The orchestra’s decision was criticized by the National Coalition Against Censorship.

“Some audience members may have painful memories associated with the official music of oppressive regimes, but that should not mean that any work that references this music must be silenced,” Svetlana Mintcheva, the coalition’s director of programs, said in a statement. “Attempts to sanitize contemporary art do not protect young people or survivors of oppressive regimes; they can only succeed in suppressing the voice and violating the vision of creative artists, as well as in impoverishing public conversation about important, though disturbing, issues.“"

Popular Yik Yak App Confers Anonymity and Delivers Abuse; New York Times, 3/8/15

Jonathan Mahler, New York Times; Popular Yik Yak App Confers Anonymity and Delivers Abuse:

"Eastern Michigan is one of a number of universities whose campus has been roiled by offensive “yaks.” Since the app’s introduction a little more than a year ago, it has been used to issue threats of mass violence on more than a dozen college campuses, including the University of North Carolina, Michigan State University and Penn State. Racist, homophobic and misogynist “yaks” have generated controversy at many more, among them Clemson, Emory, Colgate and the University of Texas. At Kenyon College, a “yakker” proposed a gang rape at the school’s women’s center...

“Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps,” said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of “Hate Crimes in Cyberspace.” “It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way.”

Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app’s privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm. Schools can block access to Yik Yak on their Wi-Fi networks, but banning a popular social media network is controversial in its own right, arguably tantamount to curtailing freedom of speech. And as a practical matter, it doesn’t work anyway. Students can still use the app on their phones with their cell service."