Exploding bad objections to free speech, exploring ‘LABYRINTHS’ with Amanda Knox, and electioneering with selfies in NC!
Bringing you the latest free speech news (9/15/24)
Story of the week
Answers to 12 Bad Anti-Free Speech Arguments (Quillette) by me
This was originally published in Areo Magazine in 2021. I threw it together pretty quickly, and I’m interested in revisiting and updating it, so any and all feedback is greatly appreciated!
This week in FIRE’s blog
RED FLAG: Franklin & Marshall students wave their speech rights goodbye by Ross Marchand
FIRE to NYU: Last chance to fix free speech issues on campus before accreditor complaint by Graham Piro
Election talk is cheap, but ballot selfies are worth a thousand (First Amendment-protected) words by Daniel Ortner
Pennsylvania executive order gags public workers’ speech — on and off the clock
This week in ERI
FIRE’s encampments survey asked students: “How aware are you, if at all, of your college campus’ written policies on campus protests?” Roughly a fifth (19%) of students say they are “not aware at all.”
Worse, among the roughly 80% of students who said they had some level of awareness of their campus’ speech policies, many of them are confused about what kinds of protest actions are protected speech and which ones are not. [...] College administrators have a history of inconsistently and arbitrarily enforcing vaguely worded speech policies to suppress certain kinds of expression on campus but not others.
This week on “So to Speak”
This week,
host spoke with the Ayn Rand Institute’s Tara Smith and Onkar Ghate about Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, its emphasis on reason and individual rights, and how it applies to contemporary free speech issues.
FIRE in the press!
No longer truly ‘elite’: Top colleges fail on free speech AND basic tolerance (New York Post) by me
Perversely, these days the more expensive the college or university and the more “elite” its reputation, the more chilled its environment for open discourse and constructive disagreement.
These once-revered universities, still generally respected for reputations earned in earlier eras, are ironically among the worst offenders when it comes to stifling independent thought — so much so that they’re torpedoing trust in academia’s credibility as a center for objectivity and discovering truth.
Reflection on Right-Wing Cancel Culture (Persuasion) by
These examples underscore a critical lesson: the original sin of cancel culture does not rest with any single ideology or group, but rather with our species' hard-wired tendencies towards tribalistic behavior and the self-righteous urge to punish outgroups who transgress taboos. 2,500 years before the advent of social media, the Buddha aptly warned against giving into anger with its “poisoned root and honeyed tip.” This dynamic explains the endless battles ginned up by Very-Online Culture Warriors, including those involved in recent attempts to cancel left-wingers who post distasteful things about Trump.
International free speech stories of the week
UK: Woman cleared by court for coconut placard at rally (BBC) by Jess Warren, with PA Media
Pakistan: Pakistani police officer kills man accused of blasphemy (Reuters) by Saleem Ahmad
London Calling: Ronnie’s First Amendment Roundup
Another week, another social media age-verification/use-restriction law preliminarily enjoined as unconstitutional. This time, it’s the Utah Minor Protection Social Media Act, which requires platforms to employ a 95% accurate age-assurance system, to set their default privacy settings on minors’ accounts to prioritize maximum privacy, and to disable on them any features that prolong engagement, like continuous scroll/pagination, autoplay, and push notifications. The court held NetChoice is likely to succeed on its claim that the entire Act violates the First Amendment given the sweep of its definition of “social media” to which it applies, and the unjustified, content-based restrictions the Act imposes, as there is “no dispute” that that implicates speech given the Supreme Court’s recognition that social media exercise editorial discretion. The court held Utah’s generalized interest in protecting minors from mental health-and privacy-related harms associated with excessive social media use was lacking clear, causal support, and that the state failed to show the law is narrowly tailored to serve any legitimate interest, especially given that parental controls are a less restrictive alternative, and the Act is both under- and over-inclusive in its reach. That’s consistent with arguments FIRE made on behalf of social media user plaintiffs it represents in the case (whom the court, in the same order, dismissed on the ostensive ground of failing to allege social media platforms want to continue to serve them – despite the platform plaintiffs saying as much – though the court did invite the users to amend their complaint to make the point explicit).
Media of the week
I was thrilled to join Amanda Knox on her Labyrinths Podcast to reflect on my career in free speech advocacy and a whole lot more. Check out the full interview.
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Ballot selfies being illegal actually makes sense to me, because it would provide a means for people to verifiably sell their vote, as well as for controlling spouses to force the content of their partner's vote. Best to prevent both of those.
Harvard continues to justify its last place free speech ranking.