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Lincoln Caplan, Joel Simon, Nicholas Lemann, Michael Oreskes, and Emily Bell. Photo: Meritxell Roca.

The internet in its halcyon days was lauded as a open space that could promote free speech in the US and worldwide, but it is now a realm that has settled into domination by a few companies. As we enter an age in which the internet is fully integrated into our daily lives, the main channel by which we access information, a reconsideration of the values of the First Amendment is required.

This was the motivation for a symposium on May 1 at Columbia University called Disrupted: Speech and Democracy in the Digital Age. Attended by a mix of legal professionals, academics, and journalists, the message was clear: Legal thinking around the First Amendment must renew itself in the new era. The internet is deeply affecting the shape of public discourse. In turn, how can the values of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly shape and govern the digital space?

This was the first public event hosted by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University (the Tow Center for Digital Journalism was co-sponsor). The Institutewill surely be at the center of this debate for years to come. The First Amendment Institute, now up and running after its inception last year under founding director Jameel Jaffer, will be dedicated to research, education, and litigation pursuing freedom of speech.

Law, by nature, is always catching up to technology. Leslie Kendrick, professor of law at University of Virginia, made the distinction between east coast code and west coast codeeast coast code being the codified legal precepts, and west coast code being, well, all those lines written in computer language. East coast code, she said, is always behind west coast code; west coast code moves fast and is always inventing things the law cannot anticipate.

Legal efforts on behalf of the First Amendment have traditionally focused on the right to say thingsthe right to hand out pamphlets, as Tim Wu, professor of law at Columbia and contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, put it. But almost everyone on stage yesterday agreed that, with the internet, the right to say things is no longer under threat. Instead, there are a host of other threats enabled by the advent of the internet.

Now that anyone can publish freely online, one threat to free speech comes from the ability of companies or social media platforms to control who gets heard; how many readers newspapers reach; and which citizens have a voice in a cluttered online environment of bots and ads. Zeynep Tufekci, writer for the Times and professor of communications at University of North Carolina, wondered whether Twitter users leaving the platform because of harassment might be having their freedom of assembly violated. She also warned of new censorship techniques, in use now in China, which drown out anti-government speech rather than the traditional method of silencing. Teams of social media users linked to government agents pump out celebrity controversies, Tufekci said, at the same time other users are trying to raise the profile of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Such censorship techniques take advantage of the fact that all of us have limited attention. And, as Wu has written extensively on, the entire internet is built so that our attention is the currency. Facebook, in particular, makes money off of being able to keep you on their platform, clicking. And theyve become immensely good at targeting content to you. The data they have on individuals is unprecedented: no longer demographic, but individual and granular. New litigation around the First Amendment must pay attention to this market.

Another threat to freedom of the press is the breakdown of economic models. As Nicholas Lemann, formerly dean of the Journalism School at Columbia, put it, the big story in journalism now is not Trump, but the massive loss of jobs suffered in the past few years. Michael Oreskes, senior vice president and editorial director of NPR (and a CJR board member), emphasized that the greatest loss has been in local papers: Many city halls around the country are no longer covered. While the internet has been very good in making information available globally, local news has suffered because it does not have this universal appeal.

Addressing such questionsthe economic downfall of journalism, the new attention market, a new type of censorshipwill require a more imaginative view of the (quite brief) First Amendment, said Jamal Greene, professor of law at Columbia. Consider, he mused, if we passed a law limiting the number of people you could follow on Twitter to 50. In one sense, such a law would in conflict with the First Amendmentbut in other ways, such a move might promote discussion and deliberation. How we will negotiate such cases will be the work of the coming generation.

The bottom line is that Twitter and Facebook are private companies that have become our primary sites for public discourse. The function of journalismand indeed, the function of democracydepends on upholding the First Amendment to preserve the public sphere.

Watch the full event stream here.

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Legal thinking around First Amendment must evolve in digital age - Columbia Journalism Review

Washington

Well, she did not show up. I am talking about Ann Coulter, the svelte conservative firebrand who was invited to the University of California at Berkeley, to speak and inadvertently to show the assembled coeds how a stylish blonde dresses. But then she was disinvited. Hold on, she was, of a sudden, reinvited but only under certain university conditions. Confusion ensued. Then the speech was lost in the swelling controversy. According to Ann, I looked over my shoulder, and my allies had joined the other team. Her allies presumably were members of the Young Americas Foundation.

Honestly, I cannot imagine the stalwarts of YAF joining with the faculty of U.C. Berkeley in any joint endeavor, but maybe I am wrong. Life on campus has been changing for years. Always things get worse. Once a prof dressed in tweeds; now they dress like little boys.

One thing I know for a certitude neither Ann nor YAF should want anything to do with U.C. Berkeley. In fact, I cannot imagine any intelligent person wanting anything to do with most universities, much less wanting to lecture at one. Why would Ann Coulter want to speak there? Why would any intelligent person want to speak at almost any university in the country?

I have not spoken on a college campus in twenty years. Then the venue was Hillsdale College, a remarkable place, and my date at Hillsdale was the first time I had appeared on a college campus since since the early 1970s (when I spoke at what is called an Ivy League institution, and some fussy dean asked me before leaving campus to sign their guest book. Clandestinely I did. I wrote: Have a nice day, Richard Speck).

Aside from Hillsdale and one or two other colleges nationwide, why would any intelligent person bother? What kind of audience would I be speaking to? The intelligent, intellectually alive, free-thinking students generally agree with me and are in no need of seeing me talk. As for the protesters, the bed-wetters with their illiterate placards and their nonsensical tee shirts, their minds are too cluttered with politically correct gibberish to contemplate anything I might say. Better that they spend their time at the local Rape Awareness Seminar or a Take Back the Night workshop.

The decline began in the late 1960s. Before that college campuses were all pretty much dominated by liberals: Hubert Humphrey Democrats, Great Society enthusiasts, with a few socialists thrown in for a cosmopolitan whiff. Most of the liberals at least conveyed facts and respected those of their students who dissented from their liberal pieties. They believed in the existence of truths, their truths, but they were not so insecure in their truths as to be neurotic about them. Boy, are the profs neurotic today.

Things on campus began to change by the 1970s and 1980s. Then the students who were radicals in the 1960s began to become junior faculty, then senior faculty. Along with them came the feminists, the racialists, the lecturers on even more extreme brands of esotery. The result is that if there is an old-fashioned liberal on campus today that liberal is the campus conservative. The rest are radicals and dispensers of New Age Nonsense.

The climate on campus now is somewhat an admixture of Communist Cuba and kindergarten. One could sense it all coming by reading the radical thinkers whose books were espoused in the 1960s by the New Left students, soon to be junior faculty and now retiring senior faculty after utterly trivializing their institutions. Their sages were goofball Marxists who often ended badly, thinkers like Herbert Marcuse and Theodor Adorno. For Adorno one memorable goofball moment came a few months before he expired at age 65. One moment he was holding forth on dialectical thought before nearly a thousand students in some crummy auditorium. The next he was surrounded by bare breasted maidens showering him in tulips and trying to kiss him. The prof retreated from his dais, retired to his quarters, went into a deep depression. Within months he assumed room temperature.

This mixture of the infantile and the authoritarian is all over college campuses today. Just last month at ivy-covered Wellesley a bull appeared in the student newspaper explaining that hostility may be warranted against those who are given the resources to learn yet refuse to adapt their beliefs. That sounds like what the North Vietnamese called reeducation camp. Ann, give Wellesley a wide berth.

See the original post:
Campus High Jinks and the First Amendment - American Spectator

President Donald Trump's White House drew the ire of groups like Planned Parenthood this year when it tweeted a photo of a meeting on health care between Vice President Mike Pence and more than a dozen male politicians from the House Freedom Caucus. Among the topics that they discussed: Health care reform, including a provision to remove a federal law that requires insurance companies to cover maternity leave and pregnancy care.

"As we speak, politicians in Washington are still doing everything they can to roll back the rights and progress we've fought so hard for over the last century," said Clinton, Trump's Democratic opponent during the presidential campaign. "I mean, could you believe those the photos of groups of men around that conference table deciding to strip away coverage for pregnancy and maternity care?"

Clinton said a bipartisan budget agreement struck earlier this week that didn't strip Planned Parenthood of funding means women "narrowly averted a disaster with the budget," but urged the audience not to think "our fight is over."

"Right now, they're trying to jam through a health care plan that would cost 24 million people their health insurance and gut funding for Planned Parenthood," she said.

Clinton said Tuesday night that despite not getting "the outcome we worked so hard for" she was proud that "66 million people voted for a vision of America that's smart, compassionate, inclusive and big-hearted."

The event was a star-studded affair. Clinton spoke after actress Meryl Streep (she met with Streep earlier in the day, a spokesman said) and producer Shonda Rhimes. Comedian and actress Tina Fey, comedian and actor Ed Helms and top Clinton donor and producer Harvey Weinstein were also in attendance.

While urging action, Clinton also pushed the attendees to try to understand the people who disagree with Planned Parenthood.

"After decades of arguing back and forth, I think it's safe to say that people of goodwill and good faith will continue to view this issue differently," she said. "So, yes, I believe we can and should respect the deeply held beliefs of our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, even when they differ from our own. That's part of what should make America America."

But, Clinton added, activists should "never back down from our commitment to defend the ability of every woman to make these deeply personal decisions for herself."

Planned Parenthood offered Clinton vocal support throughout the 2016 campaign and Clinton thanked them for their backing on Tuesday night. Since Clinton's loss, the organization has drawn the ire of Trump and other Republicans, including in the president's proposed budget, which suggested defunding the women's health organization.

Clinton closed her speech with a reference to "The Handmaid's Tale," a new Hulu show based on the 1985 book by Margaret Atwood where women's rights in a dystopian future erode.

"The show has prompted important conversation about women's rights and autonomy. In 'The Handmaid's Tale,' women's rights are gradually, slowly stripped away. As one character says, 'We didn't look up from our phones until it was too late,'" Clinton said. "It's not too late for us, but we have to encourage the millions of women and men who support Planned Parenthood's mission to keep fighting."

Read more:
Hillary Clinton slams 'groups of men' trying to strip away women's health protections - CNN

Washington Post

Hillary Clinton: 'I am going to publicly request this administration not end our efforts' Washington Post May 2, 2017 1:34 PM EDT - Hillary Clinton was met with applause as she asked the Trump administration to consider women rights a priority. (Women for Women International). May 2, 2017 1:34 PM EDT - Hillary Clinton was met with applause as she asked ...

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Hillary Clinton: 'I am going to publicly request this administration not end our efforts' - Washington Post

Top story: Clinton opens up about election interference

Hello, Warren Murray here with the news at breakfast time.

The woman who would have been president is cranking up her public appearances, telling a panel that she takes absolute personal responsibility for losing the election but it was Russian interference and the FBI chiefs ill-judged intervention that tipped the balance in favour of Donald Trump.

Hillary Clinton said she had been on the way to winning until James Comey wrote his ultimately baseless letter and Wikileaks published confidential Democratic campaign emails that are believed to have come from Russian hacking. Did I make mistakes? Oh my gosh, yes But the reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days, says Clinton.

Pointing out that she won the popular vote receiving 3m more than Trump Clinton says she is now focused on being an activist and part of the resistance against any harmful actions by the Republican president.

Drama at Barclays The banks boss Jes Staley faced censure and had to apologise after hunting down an internal whistleblower and now he is under more pressure. A row with big US client KKR has come to the surface after Staley took his brother-in-laws side in a dispute with the buyout company. It marks the latest occasion on which Staley has been accused of letting personal relationships affect Barclays business. Nils Pratley examines whether Staley should go.

Bloody difficult campaign Jeremy Corbyn is depicted with a bomb labelled MORE DEBT HIGHER TAXES looming behind his head in a Conservative attack ad, which picks up on the Labour leaders pacifism No bombs for our army and what it says is his penchant for more taxes one big bombshell for your family. Labour says it is desperate nonsense, and that all its policies are fully costed and paid for. Theresa May has meanwhile declared herself a bloody difficult woman who wont give Jean-Claude Juncker an easy time when they next sit down together for Brexit talks.

Theres more on the upcoming election in the Snap. Read to the bottom for how to subscribe

Statins and the nocebo effect People who dont know if they are taking a statin or a placebo report no difference in side-effects, a study has found. Researchers determined that symptoms like muscle aches and erectile dysfunction only increased if patients and their doctors were aware that a cholesterollowering drug was being given. Its called the nocebo effect and experts argue that the resulting overblown health warnings mean a safe heart medication with only rare side-effects is being under-used. There are people out there who are dying and they are dying because of a nocebo effect, in my opinion, said Peter Sever from Imperial College London, calling on medicines regulators to tone down their warnings.

Obamacare relapse The Republicans have not cured themselves of the urge to get rid of the affordable health insurance brought in by the previous president. A new repeal bid is under way but the party remains divided, and removing protections for people with pre-existing conditions is a big sticking point. The hard-right Freedom Caucus supports the latest bill but key moderates do not.

After the late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel gave an emotional account of his newborn son Billys congenital heart defect and declared that people should not be denied lifesaving treatment because of money, Barack Obama tweeted: Well said Jimmy. Thats exactly why we fought so hard for the ACA, and why we need to protect it for kids like Billy.

Seeking to control the Islamic world One aspect of the complex tensions between the Middle Easts major powers has been laid bare in an interview with Saudi Arabias deputy crown prince. Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, who is also the defence minister of the Sunni kingdom, made the prospect of any rapprochement with Iran sound far-fetched, condemning its extremist Shia ideology. We know we are a main target of Iran we will work so that it becomes a battle for them in Iran and not in Saudi Arabia, he said. Meanwhile Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had a good phone conversation in which they discussed creating safe zones in Syria to help ends its civil war, according to the White House.

Scarlett Johansson propositioning genuine strangers on the streets of Glasgow, crew pretending to take happy snaps while actually shooting a dark fantasy in Disneyland, and an Oscar-winning expos of the slaughter of dolphins made with cameras hidden in rocks.

Ben Child takes a look at the movies shot in secret because asking permission would only have meant those in authority saying no.

Cristian Ronaldo scored a hat-trick to set Real Madrid on course for a third Champions League final appearance in four years in a performance against city rivals Atltico that made fools out of those who are trying to write him off. The London Stadium is moving closer to hosting two matches over a weekend in the 2019 Cricket World Cup, creating what the ECB hopes will be a festival of cricket. Andy Murray, a fierce anti-drugs campaigner, has said individual events will do what is best for them over any wildcards given out to the returning Maria Sharapova.

Saracens will rest a raft of key players for Saturdays last regular Premiership fixture against table-topping Wasps but insist it will not diminish the clubs chances of retaining their title. Salford are to launch an internal investigation as the winger Justin Carney is banned for eight matches after pleading guilty to a charge of racial abuse. And a New York City man is on a mission to flush the cremated remains of his lifelong friend a plumber down baseball stadium toilets around the US.

Apple reported a drop in iPhone sales that caught the markets off-guard, causing the tech-heavy Nasdaq index in New York to fall. Not to worry though, the companys overall value earlier reached its highest ever level of $776.59bn. It remains the most valuable company in the world.

Not such great news for a more traditional communications business. Fairfax Media is cutting a quarter of editorial staff at its Sydney Morning Herald, Melbourne Age and Australian Financial Review mastheads as it struggles with declining readership.

The pound edged up against the greenback to $1.294 but was flat to the euro at 1.183.

The Suns headline is Quids on the Skids as it reports how thousands of 1 coins have been found to have production defects. Cracked and middle falls out says its subheading, which one could take as an unintended commentary on the UK and Brexit.

The Mirror leads with the story of the topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge and the court case in France involving the magazine that published them in 2012. Its headline: Kate demands 1.3m over topless pics. The Mail continues its investigation into IVF clinics and claims that some are exaggerating the success rate of the treatment to women who are in need.

The Times says Theresa May will be barred from negotiating the terms of Brexit with European leaders directly and instead will be confined to discussing them solely with the EUs chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. The Telegraph leads with a report that the Conservatives will offer diesel drivers compensation to scrap or retrofit their vehicles to cut emissions. The FT says that the EU is upping the Brexit divorce bill to 100bn.

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Read the rest here:
Wednesday briefing: Blame me but also Putin, says Hillary Clinton - The Guardian