Another Critic Of Egypt's Government Gets Hit With 'Fake News' Charges

Free Speech

from the thanks-trump dept

Fake news is a handy term deployed by authoritarians to criticize speech they don’t like. Since it’s such a malleable term, it’s been co-opted by a handful of foreign governments as the basis for new laws. We don’t have a fake news law here, fortunately, but it’s Trump’s frequent use of the term that has given it worldwide traction.

Egypt’s “fake news” laws comes bundled with lots of other speech-censoring add-ons. Earlier this year, an Egyptian journalist was charged with “spreading false news” and “misuse of a social media account”[!] for exposing state police brutality. The government’s evidence against the journalist included account suspensions by US social media companies quite possibly triggered by takedown requests the government had issued.

Egyptian human rights activist Amal Fathy is the latest victim of the “fake news” law, which was tacked onto a sweeping “cybercrime” bill that gives the Egyptian government more direct control of citizens’ access to internet services.

Here’s how Fathy fell victim to the new cyberlaws:

Last May, Amal Fathy posted a 12-minute video on Facebook in which she described how she had been sexually harassed while visiting her bank.

She also criticised the government for not doing enough to protect women.

She was arrested two days later, and charged with attempting to harm the Egyptian state and possessing indecent material.

Fathy received a two-year suspended sentence and a $560 fine for criticizing her government. Her actions were described by the government as “spreading fake news.” The word “news” apparently also covers opinions, which aligns it with the US President’s deployment of the term.

Fathy won’t be the last person punished for criticizing the Egyptian government. The law is working just the way it was always supposed to, even if it was pitched to residents as something necessary to counter national security threats.

Egypt’s government now has even more power to block internet services and directly oversee any social media accounts with large numbers of followers. Critics of the government aren’t threatening the security of the nation, but the government is willing to overlook the letter of the law to pursue its true, dissent-crushing spirit.

Filed Under: criticism, egypt, fake news, free speech, suppression

Thomas Goolnik Gets Google To Forget Our Story About Him Getting Google To Forget Stories About Thomas Goolnik

Free Speech

from the sorry-thomas dept

You’ll recall, of course, that prior to the GDPR, there was a big case against Google in the EU that created, out of thin air, a “right to be forgotten” (perhaps, more accurately, “a right to be delinked”) saying that for certain classes of information that showed up in Google’s search index, it should be treated as personal data that had to be delinked from that user’s name as no longer relevant. This never made any sense at all. A search result is not like out-of-date customer database info, yet that’s how the Court of Justice in the EU treated it. Unfortunately, with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect earlier this year, the “right to be forgotten” was even more officially coded into law. We’ve noted recently, there have been a few attempts to use the GDPR to delete public information on American sites, and now we at Techdirt have been hit with what appears to be just such an attempt.

This particular attempt goes back to some previous attempts under the pre-GDPR “right to be forgotten” setup. We need to dig into the history a bit to understand the details. You see, soon after the floodgates opened on delinking names from Google, we wrote about an article in the NY Times discussing how five of its articles had been delinked via RTBF claims. It was not 100% clear who had made the requests, but we did highlight some of the names and stories, including one where we called the removal “questionable.” It involved a NY Times article from 2002 about a legal action by the FTC which went after a group of companies allegedly run by a guy named Thomas Goolnik. The companies — TLD Network, Quantum Management and TBS Industries — were accused of “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” by selling domains that did not exist at the time (specifically, they were trying to sell domains using top level domains that did not exist, including .sex, .bet, .brit, and .scot.)

The FTC eventually settled with Goolnik and the companies with some significant concessions:

The settlement bars the defendants from making misrepresentations about the usability of domain names or about the nature of any product or service they sell over the Internet. The settlement also bars the defendants from failing to clearly and conspicuously disclose material limitations or conditions on the usability or functionality of domain names. The settlement bars the defendants from selling customer lists. In addition, the defendants will turn over as much as $300,000 being held in merchant accounts for consumer redress. Redress payments will be available to consumers in the UK and other countries, as well as the United States. The settlement also contains record-keeping requirements to allow the FTC to monitor compliance with the court’s order.

This seems like information that is very much in the public interest. Someone, however, doesn’t think so. There are many indications that that “someone” is Thomas Goolnik. Ten months after our article talking about the NY Times article about Google delinking their story about Thomas Goolnik’s legal troubles with the FTC, we received a notification from Google that our article about the NY Times article had also been delinked under a RTBF request. So we wrote about that. A week later, we received a notice that this new article had also been delinked via a RTBF request.

In that post, in September of 2015, we were extremely clear to anyone from Google looking over that post that it was not about Goolnik’s earlier activities (which we still believed were in the public’s interest), but specifically about Thomas Goolnik’s current actions — specifically an action to abuse the RTBF process to try to hide the fact that he was credibly accused by the FTC of unfair or deceptive practices, leading to a substantial settlement. Since Google had already memory holed two of our articles on the subject, we even included “a special note to the Google RTBF reviewer reading” that post:

We are purposely not mentioning the details of the original story that Thomas Goolnik would no longer like to be associated with. Even if you believe that information is no longer relevant, this article does not discuss that. Instead, it discusses newsworthy and relevant information about Thomas Goolnik today, which is that he’s filing a series of right to be forgotten requests to Google on any story that mentions his attempts to use the RTBF to delete his history. The original EU ruling clearly states that that when a search engine is evaluating a RTBF request, that it should see if the data is “inadequate, irrelevant or no longer relevant, or excessive in relation to the purposes for which they were processed and in the light of the time that has elapsed.” This is not about irrelevant information from the past. This is about what appears to have happened this week or last.

Anyway, on Wednesday, three years later, we received… a new notification, that that third article had now been delinked under a RTBF request.

To: Webmaster of https://www.techdirt.com/,

Due to a request under data protection law in Europe, Google can no longer show one or more pages from your site in Google Search results. This only affects responses to some search queries for names or other personal identifiers that might appear on your pages. Only results on European versions of Google are affected. No action is required from you.

Who could possibly want to make such a request? There would be substantial evidence that it is Thomas Goolnik. While Google does not name who specifically made the requests, the fact that every post we’ve ever had mentioning Thomas Goolnik (minus this one… so far) ends up getting delinked in Google provides pretty strong clues that Thomas Goolnik is continuing to use highly questionable RTBF claims to try to delete news coverage of his history and his recent actions.

Once again, if you are a Google RTBF reviewer there is no reason under either the original RTBF rules or the GDPR right to erasure rules that this article should be delinked from anyone’s name, but especially Thomas Goolnik’s. It is about public, relevant, newsworthy information concerning Thomas Goolnik, including his ongoing attempts to use the right to be forgotten to erase a substantial legal settlement he had with the FTC concerning “unfair or deceptive practices” which makes its continued existence very much in the public interest.

And, if you’re Thomas Goolnik reading this: stop it.

Filed Under: europe, free speech, ftc, gdpr, hiding news, news, right to be forgotten, rtbf, thomas goolnik, thomas goolnik thomas goolnik, thomas goolnik thomas goolnik thomas goolnik
Companies: google

Free Law Project Takes A Stand Against Attempt To Use GDPR To Disappear A Public Court Docket

Free Speech

from the good-for-them dept

We recently wrote about how a guy in France, Michael Francois Bujaldon, was using the GDPR to try to delete a public court docket involving a case in which he is a defendant, and has been sued for real estate and securities fraud. As we noted, at least two websites that host public court dockets have felt compelled to either delete or change that particular docket.

Last week, the Free Law Project, who operates the CourtListener website (and runs RECAP — the very useful system that will help automatically free up costly PACER dockets and documents that other RECAP users visit) noted that it, too, had recently received a GDPR demand about a docket (they do not say if it was the same one) and then go into a detailed description of why they are not taking action. The post notes that the general policy of the site has always been that they won’t remove a docket without a court order (though it may remove links from search engines).

More importantly, however, the Free Law Project notes that it is not subject to the GDPR:

As a California public benefit corporation with 501(c)(3) non-profit status in the United States, we categorically reject the notion that we are subject to laws or regulations promulgated by the European Union or its member states.

We collect United States legal materials for a U.S. audience. Our principal place of business, our Executive Director, our board members, our servers, our ISP, and all of our regular activities are located within California. We place no advertisements in European jurisdictions, and have never purposefully directed any of our activities at any European state or its citizens.

This certainly sounds good, though folks in the EU may disagree. The GDPR was written to strike fear into non-EU businesses that they, too, are covered by the law, which raises all sorts of jurisdictional fights. I’ve suggested in the past, and I stand by the idea that sooner or later a GDPR claim is going to come up against the SPEECH Act, which says that foreign judgments that would be found unconstitutional under the First Amendment cannot be enforced in the US. I would imagine trying to delete public dockets might fit that bill, though who knows if anyone’s going to sue the Free Law Project (for the record: I certainly hope no one does).

The Free Law Project then goes even further, noting that even if it was subject to the GDPR (which it is not), it wouldn’t need to remove the content as requested:

First, the GDPR recognizes a right of freedom of expression, and Free Law Project firmly believes that its freedom to speak includes the right to make available these U.S. primary legal materials.

Second, the GDPR also recognizes an exception for archiving purposes in the public interest, for scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes. This is precisely the activity of Free Law Project, which aims to create an archive of U.S. legal materials for the public interest and for scientific, statistical, and historical research purposes.

This also makes sense (and the blog post goes into even more detail). But, again, we’ve already seen at least two other sites feel they were required to act and remove or alter the dockets. So while it’s great that the Free Law Project/CourtListener feels okay in pushing back against this claim, it doesn’t change the fact that these efforts have already been successful. It also doesn’t change the fact that the Free Law Project has to spend a lot of time and effort trying to figure out how it needs to deal with a law in a totally different continent.

We’re going to see many more examples of this sort of thing. I know lots of people cheered on the GDPR, arguing that any law that says it’s to help you protect your data and privacy must be good, but the consequences of this law are incredibly far reaching, and it will be years, if not decades, before people understand just how much damage it has created as well.

Filed Under: dockets, free speech, gdpr, jurisdiction, michael francois bujaldon, pacer, right to be forgotten
Companies: court listener, free law project

Spanish Court Moves Forward With Prosecution Of Man Who Offended A Bunch Of Religious Lawyers

Free Speech

from the priming-itself-for-another-Inquisition dept

Spain’s speech laws continue to be a nightmare. What started out as merely terrible has progressively gotten worse over the years as the government continues to strip protection from speech for the stupidest of reasons. The country’s laws against hate speech have resulted in the prosecution of comedians, artists, and critics of the government. The laws forbidding speech supporting terrorism have seen more of the same locked up as jokes about a politician’s assassination were determined to be promoting an “unhealthy humoristic environment” and “justifying terrorism.”

Yes, the Spanish government gets to decide what’s funny in Spain. It also apparently gets to decide how offended followers of certain faiths will be when dead/imaginary religious figures are disparaged on social media. Thanks to Spain’s insane laws, a complaint from a religious group is enough to get someone arrested.

That someone is an actor and activist who made the mistake of saying nasty things about Jesus and his mom.

A Madrid judge has decided to press ahead with a court case involving Spanish actor and activist Willy Toledo, in which he is accused of offending religious sentiments by insulting God and the Virgin Mary in messages posted on Facebook.

Toledo was arrested on September 13 on orders from the judge, after he failed to appear in court on two prior occasions to answer questions about the case in a preliminary probe. After spending a night in the cells, and then appearing before the judge the next morning, he was released.

Technically, Toledo’s arrest is due to his failure to appear in court. But that “failure” was due to Toledo’s belief he had committed no crime. A legal complaint by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers says otherwise. This complaint was ignored by Toledo, resulting in a failure-to-appear arrest.

Here’s what prompted the Christian Lawyers into action: Toledo’s response to the arrest of three women for staging their own religious procession featuring a giant model of female genitalia. (Language NSFW)

In his comments, Toledo said: “I shit on God and have enough shit left over to shit on the dogma of the holiness and virginity of the Virgin Mary. This country is unbearably shameful. I’m disgusted. Go fuck yourselves. Long live the Insubordinate Pussy.”

The Christian law group said this comment “offended religious sentiment.” Instead of being told to GTFO, the court decided to move forward with the case. Unfortunately for citizens of Spain, this insane-looking legal charge is actually legitimate.

Article 525 of the Spanish Criminal Code sets out monetary fines for those who offend the feelings of the members of a religious confession by “publicly disparaging their dogmas, beliefs, rites or ceremonies.”

Having finally faced a judge (against his will), Toledo is now facing the possibility of being fined for annoying an association of lawyers and disparaging their chosen religious beliefs. The judge says this comment is “potentially offensive,” which seems to be enough to follow through on prosecution. It’s also “devoid of any critical sense,” which means judges in Spain know “legitimate” criticism when they see it.

Toledo won’t have to spend any more time in jail (provided he shows up for future court dates…) but he’ll be out the money spent to defend himself and possibly a whole lot more if the court decides figuratively shitting on religious figures is a criminal violation.

The Christian lawyers believe this is the most righteous outcome. In its statement to El Pais, a spokesperson said Toledo has repeatedly delivered “deliberate and intense attacks” against a concept valued by everyone in this particular law association. How that makes it a crime worth prosecuting is beyond me, but if you’ve got a bunch of terrible laws on the book, they will be used by terrible people to harm their critics.

Filed Under: free speech, jokes, offense, spain, willy toledo

Chinese 'Rage Comic' Site First Victim Of Government's History-Rewriting 'Heroes And Martyrs' Law

Free Speech

from the we'll-tell-you-how-to-remember-us dept

The Chinese government is rewriting history in its own distorted self-image. It wants to distance itself from its unseemly past, so it’s retconning history through selectively-edited educational material and blatant censorship. Sure, the Chinese government has never been shy about its desire to shut up those that don’t agree with it, but a recent “heroes and martyrs” law forbids disparaging long dead political and military figures.

The government alone will decide how much praise must be slathered on designated “heroes and martyrs.” Criticism has been banned, so citizens are at least clear on that aspect. The law went into effect on May 1st, immediately leading to the ban of a Chinese “rage comic” site. This site is the first to be successfully sued under the new law.

The company behind the popular Chinese “rage comics” that were censored earlier this year for defaming a civil war general has been ordered to pay his relatives 100,000 yuan (US$14,500) in compensation.

Ye Ting fought for the Communists in the war and was jailed for five years after being captured by the opposition Nationalists. Soon after his release in 1946 he was killed in a plane crash.

Seven of Ye’s relatives filed a civil lawsuit for defamation against Xian Momo Information Technology in May, soon after it had been ordered to shut down Baozou Manhua, its online platform for rage comics which at the time was the biggest in the country.

Weirdly, the lawsuit centered on a poem written by Ye during his incarceration, which was featured in a video posted to the site spoofing abortion advertisements. According to the court, this “damaged” the reputation of a man who has been dead for 72 years. The law appears to have enacted some sort of hereditary right — not completely unlike our nation’s copyright terms — which allows surviving family members to be legally offended on behalf of their dead relatives.

The court also decided the use of a poem in a spoof ad also harmed society in general, further cementing the ridiculousness of this censorial law and the government enforcing it.

Censorship in China is no laughing matter. The efforts are ridiculous, as are the justifications, but the government is dead serious about rehabilitating its image through direct control of the media, rewritten text books, and litigation. The law is likely to remain on the books forever, retroactively assuring the censors and despots of today’s government will be shiny, happy heroes of the republic for years to come, forcibly respected by the children and grandchildren of today’s silenced critics.

Filed Under: china, free speech, heroes and martyrs, rage comic, ye ting

Another Zombie Bad Idea That Just Won't Die: Copyright Small Claims Court Would Be A Free Speech Disaster

Copyright

from the free-money-for-trolls dept

Going all the way back to 2012, we were highlighting why a copyright “small claims court” might be problematic. It’s been in discussion for a long, long time. There are some legitimate complaints from copyright holders that bringing a federal case is kind of expensive. But that’s because it should be expensive. When Congress got serious about this issue back in 2016, we wrote about how it would be a huge tool for copyright trolls. Earlier this year lawyer Cathy Gellis explained how the law was a total disaster, in that it was built with the assumption that all copyright claims are legitimate ones. But that’s a laughable claim — as copyright lawsuits (and threats of lawsuits) are quite frequently used either to just shake people down for money or as a way of suppressing free speech.

Make it even easier to sue over copyright, and you can bet that it will be used much more often — meaning with significantly more abuse.

We also had a guest post from lawyer Robert S. Schwartz, highlighting a very important point. One of the reasons why, historically, copyright law hasn’t been as big of a concern for suppressing free speech was because of copyright toleration. That is, even though basically everyone infringes on many people’s copyrights every single day, we’ve mostly “tolerated” many infringements, because common sense tells us that the law couldn’t have been meant for such things.

But, as we lower the barriers to filing a copyright lawsuit, we throw this “toleration” out the window, and, with it, we open the floodgates for censorship. Congress is, once again, considering creating a small claims court for copyright, HR 3945, or the CASE Act. The House Judiciary Committee turns copyright and speech into speeding tickets:

…copyright claims should not be bulk-processed like traffic tickets?especially not when statutory damages under the CASE Act are so much higher than in traffic court, requiring no proof of actual harm. And especially not when the case won?t be heard by an actual judge, one whose job description doesn?t place copyright at the center of the legal universe.

During the hearing, proponents of the bill constantly pointed to the bill?s ?opt-out? mechanism as the be-all, end-all answer to this problem. That argument very much misses the point. Proposed changes to CASE would add a second notice to be served to someone being accused of infringement under the new regime. That means the first notice to opt-out would look like spam and the second would like a legal summons, which people don?t traditionally have the option of opting out of.

The average person, faced with being served in the same way they would be for a real lawsuit, is not going to understand that they can opt out of this system. When people have enough trouble understanding how to challenge false DMCA notices, how are they going to know how to respond to a confusing summons from Washington, D.C.?

One of the participants at the hearing, CCIA’s Matt Schruers also highlighted how there’s no clear evidence that there’s some how a true “barrier” to filing copyright lawsuits today:

The idea that copyright plaintiffs are generally underserved by the existing remedies toolbox is somewhat difficult to reconcile with current data about copyright plaintiffs? utilization of the federal court system. As I discussed with the Subcommittee in 2014, the statutory damages system has incentivized plaintiffs to inundate the federal litigation docket with instances of predatory enforcement, often referred to as copyright ?trolling,? similar to the phenomenon of patent trolling. As one news publication noted, ?[t]he existing digital copyright system has also led to claims of abuses, bizarre false positives, political censorship, and even fraud?. Some plaintiff misconduct that I identified in my 2014 testimony has led to criminal convictions.

Since we last discussed copyright remedies four years ago, these cases continue to clog federal courts. In 2014, I discussed the proliferation of multi-defendant John Doe complaints in federal copyright litigation, many of them involving pornography. At that time, recent research from Professor Matthew Sag found that these John Doe cases comprised the majority of copyright cases in over 20% of U.S. federal trial courts, and a third of federal copyright cases involved pornography. Today, the data shows that this problematic trend has continued. A 2018 article co-authored by Prof. Sag finds that John Doe suits by these serial litigants account for nearly half of all copyright cases filed in the U.S. from 2014 to 2016, including around 10,000 lawsuits, implicating hundreds of thousands of defendants,7 some wrongfully accused.

This is potentially a huge deal. While supporters of the bill keep insisting that this won’t have a huge impact, all of the evidence of how copyright law is already abused suggests otherwise. We live in a world where, every new piece of creative work since 1978 automatically gets a copyright. And, just as that was happening, the internet was growing and building a global network of connected computers, which basically are “copying” content all the time. Some of that is clearly unfair to the creators/copyright holders of those works. But much of it is purely innocent and harmless. And we’ve survived in that we let most of that go. But opening up a small claims effort will drastically change the equation, leading to much greater attempts to censor.

Unfortunately, many in Congress don’t seem to realize that this is already happening. As the EFF post notes:

Both some members of the House Judiciary Committee and entertainment industry witnesses during the hearing seem convinced that copyright trolls and the average small user who does not understand this process are ?hypothetical.? Neither of these things is hypothetical. Lawsuits against individual Internet users alleging copyright infringement over BitTorrent networks?one of the most prolific types of copyright trolling?are just under half of all copyright lawsuits in the U.S. The plaintiffs in these cases pursue landlords and nursing home operators, elderly people with little or no knowledge of the Internet, and deployed military personnel. As is often the case in situations like these, the people hurt will not be major companies, but small businesses and individuals.

Copyright has long had an extremely uneasy balance with the First Amendment and free speech. The CASE Act and a small claims court for copyright would completely shift the way that balance works, massively tilting the scales away from free speech.

Filed Under: case act, copyright, copyright trolls, small claims

Giving Cops The Finger Is Protected Speech, Says Another Federal Court

Free Speech

from the learn-faster,-idiots dept

Another federal court has given its official approval of flipping the bird to cops. This isn’t to say it’s a wise idea, just a Constitutional one. Extending the middle finger is protected speech. Detentions or arrests that follow bird-flipping are usually unsupported by any of things officers need to have on hand (probable cause, reasonable suspicion, etc.) to deprive someone of their liberty.

Other cops have argued the hand gesture that pissed them off so much they broke the Constitution is some sort of universal distress signal. The ensuing interaction wasn’t about being offended, but rather their outsized concern someone in the vehicle might be in need of assistance. Courts have found this argument literally unbelievable.

In this case, the cop being sued made no such argument. Instead, Officer Wayne Minard maintained he had probable cause to pull Debra Cruise-Guylas over again because he had only issued a warning about her speeding. The court doesn’t agree with this assessment. It points out Guylas had already been pulled over for speeding. The citation ultimately issued by Officer Minard may have been for impeding traffic, but the purpose of the original stop was fulfilled when the citation was issued. No further violation had occurred when Minard pulled Guylas over a second time. From the decision [PDF]: (h/t Adam Steinbaugh)

The evidence before the Court included a state court record that established the Plaintiff had received and paid a ticket for impeding traffic. […] While Defendant could have, at that time, issued a ticket for speeding, he did not. It was only after the initial stop had been completed, and Plaintiff drove off and “flipped the bird” that Defendant stopped her a second time without any legal justification.

Also, the cop’s lawyer wasn’t much help:

[A]t the September 21, 2018 hearing, Defendant’s counsel conceded: “No doubt the gesture helped — it probably was the foundation for the change of his [Defendant’s] mind” [to implement a second stop] … “I can’t argue around that, your Honor.”

The court notes there’s plenty of precedent on point that says officers can’t detain people for offending them. The lawsuit proceeds and Officer Minard will have to deal with the unpleasant outcome of his idiotic actions.

The Constitution may cover giving officers the finger, but that doesn’t mean officers won’t make you miserable for exercising your First Amendment rights. Sure, you may gain some satisfaction from the courts, but you’ll be out a lot of time and money. This isn’t to say self-censorship is the way to go, but there are real costs attached to exercising your freedoms if you happen to anger the wrong [sigh] “public servant.”

Government employees can violate rights in mere seconds and defend against allegations using someone else’s money. Citizens don’t have that luxury, which is why stupid shit like this continues to happen. A better cop would have let it go, costing no one anything. Officer Minard isn’t one of those cops, and his willingness to abuse the power entrusted to him should be a major concern to his employers.

Filed Under: debra cruise-guylas, first amendment, free speech, police, probable cause, the finger, wayne minard

Twelve Rules For Not Being A Total Free Speech Hypocrite

Free Speech

from the yes,-we-mean--you-peterson dept

I have to say that I’ve never received so many earnest and detailed–but super angry–emails as I did after my article earlier this year calling out Jordan Peterson’s obvious hypocrisy for claiming to fight for free speech, while suing a university for “defamation” over the speech of some of its staff members. So many very, very earnest young men, really, really wanted to debate the finer points of how suing over speech could magically lead to more free speech. Again, to be clear: I thought that what Wilfrid Laurier University did in punishing a teaching assistant for showing a video clip of Peterson was completely asinine and the university and its staff deserved all of the ridicule it got.

The lawsuit, however, was another story altogether. Beyond it being a completely obvious SLAPP suit — using defamation to try to silence someone — there were all sorts of weird conflicts of interest (it was filed by the same lawyer representing the teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd, and as some have pointed out, Shepherd and Peterson are clearly in conflict with one another over this, since it was Shepherd who actually “published” the negative comments about Peterson by posting them in a video). But the key point is that it’s blatant hypocrisy to sue someone for criticizing you while basing a large part of your persona on being about freedom of speech. Indeed, much of Peterson’s claim to fame was in loudly protesting a proposed law in Canada that he claimed would be an attack on his own free speech.

Since then, however, Peterson only seems to be doubling and tripling down on his attacks on free speech. A few weeks ago he filed a second lawsuit against Wilfrid Laurier University arguing (I kid you not) that the University’s own defense to his original lawsuit defamed him again because it claimed that he benefited from the press attention around the controversy (rather than harming him, as required to be defamation). This seems even more ridiculous than his original lawsuit. Canada, like the US, has absolute privilege in judicial proceedings, meaning you can’t claim defamation for things said in the course of ongoing litigation. But, apparently Peterson is going to ignore that.

Then, even more recently, the Cut revealed that Peteron threatened to sue Cornell University professor Kate Manne after she criticized his book in an interview with Vox. Specifically, she called his work misogynistic, which is a clear statement of opinion (and done so based on disclosed facts). But, no matter, she still received a threat letter:

In letters to Manne, Cornell, and Vox, Peterson?s lawyer, Howard Levitt, demanded that all three parties ?immediately retract all of Professor Manne?s defamatory statements, have them immediately removed from the internet, and issue an apology in the same forum to Mr. Peterson. Otherwise, our client will take all steps necessary to protect his professional reputation, including but not limited to initiating legal proceedings against all of you for damages.?

As the Cut article makes clear, these threats are utterly bogus, and appear to be attempts to chill speech that criticizes Peterson. Indeed, the Cut notes that this is all even more ironic, given that Manne actually engages pretty thoughtfully with Peterson’s ideas, rather than dismissing them wholesale as many others have. As Peterson claims to be a supporter of the give and take debate of free speech, it’s blatantly hypocritical of him to then threaten to sue people for fairly tame criticism.

In fact, reading the full threat letter that Peterson’s lawyer sent on his behalf, makes it quite clear just how allergic to “open debate” the apparently “free speech” supporting Peterson appears to be. Multiple statements listed as “defamatory” are so obviously statements of opinion that they include phrases indicating that they are opinion:

• “I also think…”
• “I also suspect…”
• “I believe…”

Manne is clearly expressing her opinions on Peterson’s work. She is critical of Peterson’s ideas, but if you truly believe in the “marketplace of ideas” then you’re supposed to be cool with that — not threaten to sue them.

Also, utterly bizarre is that beyond going after Manne, the letter also threatens to sue the institution where she works, Cornell University (disclosure: also my alma mater) claiming that in Canada “liability can be imputed to employers due to damages caused by their employees and/or officers.” To support this claim, the letter points to John Doe v. Bennett, a Canadian case in which the Roman Catholic Church was found liable for sexual abuse by its clergy. To argue this means a university is somehow liable for defamation because one of its staff members criticized Peterson is quite a stretch.

Oh, and remember, that some of Peterson’s rise to fame was his claim to be taking a principled stand against compelled speech by arguing that a Canadian law would have compelled him to use specific pronouns in addressing people that he felt was a violation of his speech rights. He also has a page on his own website complaining about “perhaps unconstitutional” compelled speech by the Law Society of Upper Canada. And yet, in this letter sent on behalf of free speech warrior Jordan Peterson, his lawyer demands some compelled speech from Manne and Vox in the form of “an apology to Mr. Peterson.” So, apparently taking into consideration a misuse of pronouns in investigating hate crimes (which is actually what the bill Peterson was so upset about was really about) is an unconstitutional form of compelled speech… whereas requiring a public apology for someone being mildly critical of your work is perfectly fine?

To me, that seems like evidence of some fairly blatant hypocrisy, not to mention legal thuggery, which will likely create chilling effects, causing others to shy away from stating their opinions on Peterson’s statements. That may or may not be Peterson’s goal, and at least some of his fans seem to think that silencing criticism is pro-free speech because it allows Peterson’s ideas to spread — but that’s not how it works. Threatening lawsuits and claiming defamation over someone criticizing your ideas is the literal opposite of supporting free speech.

Even if you think it’s cool to create chilling effects for someone who doesn’t want Peterson to speak, you simply are not promoting free speech by silencing critics of free speech. That’s not how it works. At all. Any attempt to completely silence people — even if they’re not fans of your free speech — is still an attempt to stamp out free speech and antithetical to free speech. So, given that so many of Peterson’s avid followers seem to like lists, let’s give you a nice list of twelve rules for not being a total free speech hypocrite:

1. Speak out when you have an opinion on something.
2. Express yourself appropriately when you think someone else is incorrect about something.
3. Recognize that not everyone may agree with your take on things. That’s cool.
4. There may be consequences to your speech. That’s part of free speech.
5. Some of those consequences may involve people calling you nasty names. That’s no fun, but it’s still free speech.
6. Those people are not harming your free speech. They are engaging in it.
7. Don’t sue or threaten to sue those people for defamation. It makes you look like a hypocritical dipshit.
8. Don’t then sue again because of their legal response pushing back on your original defamation lawsuit.
9. Don’t then go screaming at people who call you out as a hypocrite for suing people for criticizing you.
10. Perhaps try a little introspection and recognize that suing people for criticizing you creates massive chilling effects and is entirely counter to free speech.
11. If you’re going to insist that others accept your ideas, maybe recognize that you have to accept others’ ideas, even if you disagree with them.
12. Don’t sue a cat when it hisses at you in the street.

Filed Under: 12 rules, chilling effects, criticism, defamation, free speech, hypocrisy, jordan peterson, kate manne, threats
Companies: cornell university

Pennsylvania Legislator Thinks He Can Ban Teachers From Talking About Politics In The Classroom

Free Speech

from the there's-a-sucker-leaving-office-every-minute dept

A Pennsylvania legislator with little to lose but his remaining reputation has decided to burn that down on his way out of office. State rep Will Tallman wants to exit in a blazing cloud of idiocy and is asking his fellow reps to be as stupid as he is. (h/t Max Kennerly)

On Friday, Tallman sent a memo to the 203-member state House seeking support for a bill he dubbed the “Teacher Code of Ethics,” which legal experts questioned as unconstitutional overreach.

In the memo, Tallman said his bill would forbid public school teachers from endorsing, supporting or opposing candidates or incumbents for local, state and federal offices while in the classroom. On the job, teachers could not discuss enacted or pending legislation, regulations, executive orders or court cases involving any level or branch of government. They could not talk about activities “that hamper or impede” law enforcement actions or military recruiters on campus.

Tallman actually believes children as young as the age of 5 are being “indoctrinated” by teachers with ideological axes to grind. His conclusion appears to be based on things people like him have said in the recent past without offering citations or evidence.

As a member of the House Education Committee, he said, he has received “half a dozen to a dozen” complaints about teachers inserting their political beliefs into non-germane topics. His adult children and grandchildren also complained to him about the same issue, he said.

So, the braintrust behind this assertion includes three missionaries and their children and 6-12 complaints over the past decade. Obviously, the only conclusion to draw is that indoctrination is out of hand and only the powerful velvet fist of government regulation can stop it. If the First Amendment must be destroyed to save the children, it’s a sacrifice Tallman is willing to make on behalf of the few that agree with him and the large majority of non-idiots who don’t.

Everyone who isn’t Tallman has already greeted his proposed legislation with Constitution-based ridicule. The law will never pass. If something goes horribly wrong and the bill does pass, the courts will strike it down immediately.

Tallman believes it won’t. Tallman — again without offering supporting evidence — firmly believes this same sort of unconstitutional garbage is already law elsewhere in the country.

Tallman stood by his bill, saying four other states, which he could not name, have enacted similar legislation, and that it would be up to the courts to determine if the enacted laws and his bill are legal.

Follow-up?

“This will have to play out in court,” he said.

Sorry, but the game goes to The Morning Call.

It already has.

The Morning Call offers far more than cases it can’t name in support of its statement. Readers are given a list of precedential Supreme Court decisions striking down similar unconstitutional restrictions on speech.

The bill has zero chance to survive a Constitutional challenge should it somehow make its way from half-formed brain fart to actual law. No one else in the legislature appears willing to push Tallman’s Folly along, meaning the legislator will have to handle all of his own agitating while short-timing his way through his last few months in office.

Tallman could have exited office gracefully — remembered vaguely as that one guy who did the government thing for nine years. Instead, he chose to be remembered for the hill he chose to retire on — a stupid law so facially unconstitutional it could only have been dreamed up by someone who uses family members as focus groups.

Filed Under: free speech, pennsylvania, politics, schools, will tallman

In Which A Bunch Of Us Try To Explain The 1st Amendment To Jeff Sessions Concerning 'Social Media Bias'

Free Speech

from the you'd-think-he'd-understand-it-already dept

A few weeks back, we did a post trying to explain how the planned meeting between Attorney General Jeff Sessions and a group of state Attorneys General to “discuss” how to deal with the imaginary problem of “political bias” on social media platforms actually represented a serious First Amendment problem. The government simply isn’t allowed to pressure companies into any sort of compelled speech, and yet it appears that’s exactly what these law enforcement officials were trying to do.

Late last week, we signed onto a detailed letter put together by the think tank TechFreedom, explaining why this meeting is so problematic.

We write to express our concern over your plans to convene a meeting of state attorneys general later this month ?to discuss a growing concern that [operators of popular social media services and search engines] may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.? The First Amendment bars the government from attempting to ?correct? the first alleged problem, political bias, including through the antitrust laws, and sharply limits how the antitrust laws can be used against anticompetitive behavior beyond editorial bias. Essentially, antitrust law can prescribe anticompetitive economic conduct but ?cannot be used to require a speaker to include certain material in its speech product.? ? For all these reasons, we are skeptical that there are any grounds for legal action that could arise out of your inquiry.

The letter also highlights why the very idea of a “fairness doctrine” for the internet is Constitutionally impossible, not to mention ridiculous, given that the push for it is coming from the very same Republicans who have spent years falsely “warning” that the Democrats wanted to bring back a “fairness doctrine” for broadcast TV.

A Fairness Doctrine for the Internet Would Be Unconstitutional. The President and top congressional Republicans have talked about the need to ensure the ?fairness? of social media platforms and search engines. Consciously or otherwise, this invokes not antitrust law but the ?Fairness Doctrine? imposed on radio and television broadcasters by the Federal Communications Commission from 1949 until 1987. In theory, the Fairness Doctrine required broadcasters to represent a wide spectrum of opinion on controversial issues of public importance. The Supreme Court upheld this Doctrine in Red Lion (1969) ? but only because it declined to extend the full protection of the First Amendment to broadcasters on the grounds that they received government licenses to use a scarce public resource: the airwaves. Five years later, the Court categorically rejected mandating that newspapers offer a right of reply.

Anything like the Fairness Doctrine would undoubtedly be struck down as unconstitutional if applied to any other media ? whether to Fox News (the cable network) or Internet media….

Ironically, it was conservatives who led the fight to repeal the Fairness Doctrine over four decades ? because it hurt conservatives most: The threat of losing an FCC license discouraged broadcasters from including non-mainstream voices in their coverage and made impossible alternative media offerings with an unabashed conservative ?bias.? Indeed, it was President Reagan?s FCC that repealed the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.

The letter, targeted at Jeff Sessions repeatedly reminds him how such a tool might be used in the other direction as well:

The last thing conservatives should want is a Democratic administration with such arbitrary power (or a Republican administration, for that matter). A Warren administration, say, could use such powers to coerce existing social media sites and search engines to disadvantage conservatives (in the name of neutrality and fairness, and stopping ?fake news,? of course) and also to prohibit the ?Facebook for conservatives? network recently called for by Donald Trump, Jr.

It’s quite incredible that we’re even discussing this. A fairness doctrine doesn’t make any sense, and is broadly unconstitutional for a whole host of reasons. What’s bizarre and troubling is how quickly those who like to wear blue or red uniforms like to rush to it as soon as they feel one area of the media is “biased” against them, not recognizing how it would clearly be used in other areas of the media as well.

While it appears that Sessions’ gathering with Attornerys General will happen, hopefully all it serves to do is remind them all that the First Amendment exists, and that they are Constitutionally prohibited from messing with how online platforms present content.

Filed Under: antitrust, attorneys general, compelled speech, doj, first amendment, free speech, jeff sessions, political bias, search bias, social media, state ags
Companies: facebook, google, twitter, youtube