[Official] Censorship from governmental actors thread

https://jonathanturley.org/2023/04/26/204148/

15 minutes ago
Michigan Students Sue After Being Forced to Remove “Let’s Go Brandon” Sweatshirts
by jonathanturley

Image from D.A. v. Tri County Area Schools Complaint

In Tinker v. Des Moines, the Supreme Court famously declared that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” That may be true but apparently they can shed their sweatshirts in Michigan. In a newly filed complaint, two middle school students are suing Tri County Area Schools after they were ordered to remove their sweatshirts featuring the anti-Biden slogan “Let’s Go, Brandon.” The lawsuit filed by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) makes a compelling case that the schools acted in an unconstitutional fashion in censoring the political message.

“Let’s Go Brandon!” has become a similarly unintended political battle cry not just against Biden but also against the bias of the media. It derives from an Oct. 2 interview with race-car driver Brandon Brown after he won his first NASCAR Xfinity Series race. During the interview, NBC reporter Kelli Stavast’s questions were drowned out by loud-and-clear chants of “F*** Joe Biden.” Stavast quickly and inexplicably declared, “You can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon!’”

“Let’s Go Brandon!” instantly became a type of “Yankee Doodling” of the political and media establishment.

In this case, an assistant principal (Andrew Buikema) and a teacher (Wendy Bradford) “ordered the boys to remove the sweatshirts” for allegedly breaking the school dress code. However, other students were allowed to don political apparel with other political causes including “gay-pride-themed hoodies.”

The district dress code states the following:

“Students and parents have the right to determine a student’s dress, except when the school administration determines a student’s dress is in conflict with state policy, is a danger to the students’ health and safety, is obscene, is disruptive to the teaching and/or learning environment by calling undue attention to oneself. The dress code may be enforced by any staff member.”
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The district reserves the right to bar any clothing “with messages or illustrations that are lewd, indecent, vulgar, or profane, or that advertise any product or service not permitted by law to minors.”

The funny thing about this action is that the slogan is not profane. To the contrary, it substitutes profane words for non-profane words. Nevertheless, “D.A.” was stopped in the hall by Buikema and told that his “Let’s Go Brandon” sweatshirt was equivalent to “the f–word.”

That seems a strikingly biased and selective enforcement of the policy. Before students appear in “Let’s Go Buikema” sweatshirts, the school should reconsider its stance on free speech.

As the Supreme Court stated in Iancu v. Brunetti (2019), “viewpoint discrimination is an egregious form of content discrimination and is presumptively unconstitutional.”

In the appendix of the complaint, FIRE has included a letter from counsel for the district, Kara Rozin, who insists that the school may make such clearly selective judgments on censorship. I believe that she is dead wrong on the First Amendment in this case. Frankly, I am surprised that the school district has elected to litigate this matter rather than seek a settlement. While the district may find lower court judges who would support the district, it should lose this case as a denial of protected speech.

What is so troubling is the message being taught here by the district. It is one of arbitrary enforcement and speech intolerance. It is precisely why we are seeing a generation of speech phobic students entering higher education. They have been taught since elementary school that speech is harmful and they do not have to tolerate the opposing views of others. My guess is that it is the teachers, not the students, who are most offended by anti-Biden sentiments.

This is an important free speech case for that reason and FIRE is to be commended for taking up the cause for these middle school students. This was once the work of the ACLU, which has largely abandoned its signature commitment to free speech. FIRE is now filling that void and this is a great case to reinforce free speech rights in our schools.
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https://reason.com/2023/06/05/e-u-s-digital-services-act-threatens-americans-free-speech/

E.U.'s Digital Services Act Threatens Americans' Free Speech
Online platforms should resist binding us all to the rules of censorship-happy jurisdictions.
by J.D. Tuccille
6.5.2023 7:00 AM

Thierry Breton, one of the European Union's more obnoxious bureaucrats, is visiting social media companies in the U.S. to check on their readiness to comply with a controversial—indeed, deeply troubling—new E.U. law regulating online content. That law commits private firms to apply E.U. rules to broadly defined "illegal content" and whatever officials consider to be "disinformation."

While they probably won't do it, tech company executives should tell Breton to get lost and work to insulate themselves from Europe's control freaks.

Creepy in Any Language
"I am the enforcer," European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton told Politico ahead of his planned journey to visit American tech companies to "stress test" them for compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), which goes into effect this summer. "I represent the law, which is the will of the state and the people."

That comment probably sounds creepy in any of the E.U.'s many languages, but the supranational body's officials are increasingly overt about their intention to apply speech restrictions beyond their jurisdiction. Breton himself has been especially pointed in his dealings with Elon Musk, the Twitter head who, while not always consistent, is the most vocal free speech advocate among social media executives.

"Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation," Breton tweeted two weeks ago. "But obligations remain. You can run but you can't hide. Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under #DSA as of August 25. Our teams will be ready for enforcement."

With Twitter out, signatories to the Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation include a range of tech companies, associations, and organizations. Among them is the partially State Department-funded Global Disinformation Index which, earlier this year, listed Reason as a high disinformation risk, along with the New York Post, Real Clear Politics, The Daily Wire, The Blaze, One America News Network, The Federalist, Newsmax, The American Spectator, and The American Conservative. Inclusion on the list seems to reflect the Index staff's ideological disagreement with the outlets.

"If a self-described disinformation-tracking organization wants to loudly proclaim, in partisan fashion, that advertisers should only use mainstream and liberal news sites, it has that right," Reason's Robby Soave noted at the time. "But advertisers should take note of its obvious bias, total lack of transparency in detailing media outlets' scores, and other methodological issues."

Needless to say, this isn't an encouraging sign for the trustworthiness of the E.U.'s own efforts against whatever it defines as "disinformation."

Breton isn't alone in forecasting a global extension of the E.U.'s preference for speech confined within strictly defined boundaries. In January, during separate interviews at the World Economic Forum, European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová criticized Musk's "freedom of speech absolutism" in resisting the Digital Services Act and confidently predicted the United States will soon adopt laws against "illegal hate speech." Beyond dubious predictions about legal changes that would run afoul of the First Amendment, there's a clear expectation in Brussels that online platforms will be conscripted into enforcing the E.U.'s content rules.

A Highly Politicized Model of Enforcement
The DSA "gives way too much power to government agencies to flag and remove potentially illegal content and to uncover data about anonymous speakers," the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned last summer as the legislation took final form. "The DSA obliges platforms to assess and mitigate systemic risks, but there is a lot of ambiguity about how this will turn out in practice. Much will depend on how social media platforms interpret their obligations under the DSA, and how European Union authorities enforce the regulation."

The EFF was relatively kind in assessing the law, largely because earlier proposals were even more intrusive. Still, added Christoph Schmon, EFF's International Policy Director, "we can expect a highly politicized co-regulatory model of enforcement with an unclear role of government agencies, which could create real problems."

Wide-Ranging, Incoherent Censorship
"'Illegal content' is defined very differently across Europe," cautioned Jacob Mchangama, head of Justitia, a Danish think tank. "In France, protesters have been fined for depicting President Macron as Hitler, and illegal hate speech may encompass offensive humor. Austria and Finland criminalize blasphemy, and in Victor Orban's Hungary, certain forms of 'LGBT propaganda' is banned. The Digital Services Act will essentially oblige Big Tech to act as a privatized censor on behalf of governments — censors who will enjoy wide discretion under vague and subjective standards."

Given that the law prescribes a potential penalty of "6% of the annual worldwide turnover of the provider of intermediary services" for companies that fail to satisfy regulators, online services have a powerful incentive to restrict more speech rather than less to please a multitude of censors.

"The European policies do not apply in the U.S., but given the size of the European market and the risk of legal liability, it will be tempting and financially wise for U.S.-based tech companies to skew their global content moderation policies even more toward a European approach to protect their bottom lines and streamline their global standards," adds Mchangama. The result, he predicts will be "a wide-ranging, incoherent, multilevel censorship regime operating at scale."

A Formalized Censorship-Industrial Complex
Journalists including Michael Shellenberger and Matt Taibbi have pointed to collaboration between government agencies and tech companies to suppress voices and messages disfavored by officialdom as evidence of a "censorship-industrial complex" of privatized speech control that bypasses First Amendment protections. These very real arrangements have largely taken place behind the scenes, retreating (though not disappearing) when exposed. The E.U.'s Digital Services Act formalizes such deputized speech control, putting nominally private entities in the unenviable position of screening online content so as to escape massive fines.

Despite its withdrawal from the Code of Practice Against Disinformation, that will include Twitter, too, so long as it is subject to European law. Thierry Breton is coming to the U.S., after all, as "the enforcer" of speech controls, meaning he expects the E.U. to reach companies here.

Americans and residents of other free-speech-friendly countries should ask that tech companies build custom hothouses of government-approved speech for their customers in restrictive jurisdictions, so the rest of us can enjoy freer environments (and if the subjects of restrictive regimes are savvy enough to bypass control freaks, good for them). The alternative is to hope companies send E.U. officials packing, even if that means ending their formal presence on the censorship-happy continent.
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Lockdown Dissenters Were Muzzled in the U.K. as Well as the U.S.
Thin-skinned authoritarians of the world, unite!

https://reason.com/2023/06/09/lockdown-dissenters-were-muzzled-in-the-u-k-as-well-as-the-u-s/

excerpt:

Violating Rights and Pushing Bad Policy
Suppressing opposing opinions from physicians, journalists, activists, and anybody else who might have seen downsides to the policies preferred by those in power turns out to have been not just a violation of free speech rights (a big deal itself), but an excellent way of greasing the path to disaster. What officialdom called "disinformation" was actually the sort of healthy debate that raises valid concerns, differing values, and important considerations overlooked by thin-skinned authoritarians who prefer censorship over challenges to their egos.

The Telegraph quoted criticism from civil liberties advocates as well as lawmakers from the ruling Conservative Party that implemented Britain's lockdowns and speech controls.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that many of the foundations of our democracy – such as free speech and parliamentary scrutiny – were completely disregarded during the pandemic," commented Miriam Cates, a Conservative member of Parliament.

We could say much of the same here in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Unfortunately, despite their annoyance at being exposed, there's little evidence that authoritarian officials have learned any lessons.
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more at the link