Censorship

Free-speech advocates  -- including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology—are afraid that a bill currently making its way through Congress could significantly weaken existing protections for online speech. In the United States, one of the most critical planks supporting free expression online is a section of the 1996 Communications Decency Act known as Section 230, often referred to as the “safe harbor” clause.

President Donald Trump’s arrival in Beijing on Wednesday will serve as a test of reach for his preferred communications tool, Twitter. The White House is declining to comment on the president’s ability to tweet in China or the precautions being taken to protect his communications in the heavily monitored state. It’s about more than cybersecurity. Knowing the president’s penchant for showmanship, some aides are trying to build up social media suspense before Air Force One is wheels-down in Beijing. Spoiler alert: The American president will get his way.

Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of seven professors Monday in support of the Columbia Knight First Amendment Institute’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s ability to block opponents from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed.

On October 17, President Donald Trump launched a vague, yet ominous Twitter-driven attack on NBC, rhetorically asking, “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?  Bad for country!” The short answer to the President’s question is “never.”  A slightly longer answer is that there is no license to challenge and, even if there were, no broadcaster should worry that its license would ever be in jeopardy because of disagreement with its programming. [Andrew Jay Schwartzman]

On October 23, 2017, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai responded to multiple Members of Congress regarding First Amendment freedoms and the independence of the FCC. Numerous lawmakers, notably House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Michael Doyle (D-PA), and Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), had written to Chairman Pai over the influence of a radio network funded by the Russian government being used on U.S. airwaves to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Instant-messaging apps, video streaming and other new content platforms in China will face closer scrutiny under new rules issued by the country’s internet regulators. In a statement Oct 30, the Cyberspace Administration of China said messaging apps and other new forms of information dissemination can be used to engage in illegal behavior.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s appetite for shutting down the free press is a reminder of his open admiration for strong men dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. Those strongmen limit the freedom of the press and, in some cases, kill and jail journalists.

[Commentary] In this age of “new” censorship and blunt manipulation of political speech, where is the First Amendment? Americans like to think of it as the great protector of the press and of public debate. Yet it seems to have become a bit player, confined to a narrow and often irrelevant role. It is time to ask: Is the First Amendment obsolete? If so, what can be done? These questions arise because the jurisprudence of the First Amendment was written for a different set of problems in a very different world.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai got a grilling from Democratic members of the House Communications Subcommittee, who were unhappy with his deregulatory thrust and his perceived failure to sufficiently parry the President's threats against TV licenses. Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was among a host of Democrats who upbraided the chairman for what they said was a delayed, and "tepid," as Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) put it, response to the President's tweeted threats against TV licenses and NBC over a news story he called fake.

Chairman Pai said he had repeated "again and again and again" that the First Amendment must be and would be at the heart of the FCC's work, including journalists reporting as they see fit without government interference. He said that was why he opposed a news diversity study under his predecessor. Chairman Pai said his record is clear, but that presidential attacks on the press were not new. But it was not as clear to Democrats that the chairman was not leaving room in his past statements for actions beyond just not pulling licenses. Pressed for more clarity from Pallone, Pai committed to not affecting license transfers in other ways due to the content of newscasts, not to launch investigations based on the content of newscasts, and that the FCC would not retaliate against companies based on the content of newscasts.