Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

Is Insisting Law Students Respect 1st Amendment Akin to ‘McCarthyism’? – Daily Signal

A Bloomberg Law columnist is upset that students at Yale Law School didnt protest the First Amendment and shout down an invited speaker, James Ho, a Trump-appointed judge who sits on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

On March 15, Ho spoke at Yale Law School, and according to Vivia Chens opinion essay, his commentary went uninterrupted by angry student protesters.

Following closely on the heels of another Trump-appointed 5th Circuit judge, Kyle Duncan, being shouted down by Stanford Law students, the fact that Hos speech was able to proceed without inciting mass hysteria should come as a surprise to many, Chen included.

By now, its obvious that college students feel emboldened to shout down speakers with whom they disagree or, as is often the case, threaten violence to prevent said speakers from being a part of the conversation at all.

Chen not only thinks thats acceptable, but apparently feels that not threatening speakers should be cause for concern. She goes a step further to claim that holding disruptive students accountable for their actions constitutes a form of modern-day McCarthyism.

The argument that speech deemed offensive by some should be restricted fails to persuade in court. Precedent establishes that universities have a responsibility to uphold the unfettered expression of ideas on campus on First Amendment groundsand for good reason.

From the countrys revolutionary birth to the social movements that have molded the nation into a fairer and better democracy, the First Amendment lies at the core of episodic events that inform meaningful change.

Allowing hostile audiences to dictate which speech is acceptable fuels a burgeoning cancel culture that is antithetical to the constitutional freedoms that underpin fundamental civil rights. While words carry with them the inevitable capacity to offend, that should be an invitation to productive, respectful, and lively debate, not cause for censorship.

If such speech is so intolerable, the most practical solution for students is to not attend the event.

Another solution to dissuade students from shouting down speech they deem personally offensive would be to penalize them for not only violating the First Amendment, but disregarding university policy.

Rules are the clear standards detailed in university policy that dictate what will and will not be tolerated. The former dean of Berkeley Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky, defends this construct, stating; Colleges and universities must be clear and emphatic that attempting to shut down such events will not be tolerated and those engaging in it face disciplinary action.

Key to that is the commitment to disciplinary action. If students are not in some way held accountable for breaking rules and flouting policy, universities are validating their behavior as acceptable. Faculty should likewise face disciplinary action for encouraging violent and disruptive heckling, as was the case at Stanford last week.

Ho and 11th Circuit Judge Elizabeth Branch vouched their support for holding disruptive students accountable. Acknowledging that many universities have demonstrated an unwillingness to impose any consequences on student disrupters, Ho and Branch suggest that at a minimum they should identify the disrupters so that future employers know who they are hiring.

Thats a wild and lame idea, according to Chen, who argues that, by making that suggestion, Ho and Branch are proposing a form of academic McCarthyism. She goes as far as to draw a parallel between schools holding students accountable for their actions to the FBI creating blacklists.

So, its acceptable to censor individuals when elitists in the media collaborate to do it, but if anyone suggests a consequence for bad behavior that runs counter to exercising restraint and demonstrating the qualities we want in an impartial judicial system, thats a threat to democracy?

Chens assertion that respecting the First Amendment equates to McCarthyism, though absurd, is yet another claim that can only be viewed as disappointing but not surprising.

Setting aside the concept of free speech for a moment, it seems rather harsh to condemn a 20-something to a forever no-fly list for rude behavior, Chen writes.

This no-fly list is simply keeping tabs on disrespectful students who break the rules. It seems reasonable that professionals in the business of upholding the nations laws might want to know which young crusaders for justice dont respect them. Chens arguments leave us to wonder if her real agenda might be to set aside free speech indefinitely, rather than for a moment.

Rude behavior is also apparently defined as treating invited guests with hateful, expletive-laced verbal assaults, damage to property, and threats of physical violence.

At Stanford, student protesters told Duncan they hoped his daughters would be raped. Instead of accepting this behavior as the norm, it would behoove universities to encourage decorum. Universities are failing to prepare their students for the real world by not seizing on these opportunities to teach about the values of professionalism and respect.

The argument that students have a right to shout down speech they deem personally offensive is legally unconvincing and societally harmful. Universities must take every step necessary to aggressively dispel disrupters of the notion that they hold the power of censorship by not giving into the demands of disgruntled students, emphasizing the option of non-attendance, and holding students who violate university policy publicly accountable.

From an ethical and societal perspective, theres a need to uphold our God-given rights as enshrined in the First Amendment. Theres no place these rights should be more valued and sacred than at institutions of higher educationand especially at law schools.

Decorum is not old-fashioned, and universities who fail to teach it are failing their students. No employer wants to hire a loose cannon who disrespects colleagues instead of listening and having honest dialogue. Employers seek professionalism and teamwork, not unprofessional liabilities.

Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please emailletters@DailySignal.comand well consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular We Hear You feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.

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Is Insisting Law Students Respect 1st Amendment Akin to 'McCarthyism'? - Daily Signal

Utah social media law will limit teen use amid mental health crisis – Deseret News

Sitting before a handful of lawmakers, policy experts and stakeholders, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox on Thursday signed into law some of the countrys first and most restrictive social media regulations.

The bills, lawmakers say, are described as tools for parents, giving them greater control over their childrens social media use, while mandating that companies like Meta or TikTok implement and change certain policies aimed at minors. One of the most notable changes is that all Utahns will soon have to show some form of identification to use social media.

Summed up by Cox, the legislation significantly changes the relationship of our children with these very destructive social media apps.

Sponsored by Sen. Mike McKell, R-Spanish Fork, SB152 would enact the Utah Social Media Regulation Act, requiring a social media company to verify the age of a Utah resident before opening an account. For prospective users under 18 years old, the bill directs the social media company to obtain the consent of a parent or guardian before the account is live.

And HB311, sponsored by Rep. Jordan Teuscher, R-South Jordan, prohibits social media companies from using a design or feature that causes a minor to have an addiction to the companys social media platform.

Both bills passed with broad support in the House and Senate.

These are first of their kind bills in the United States. And thats huge that Utah is leading out on this effort, Cox said. We have lots of states that are interested and I know were all having conversations with other governors, other legislators and other states. I suspect that you will see lots of bills like these moving forward.

But the bills have been criticized by First Amendment and online privacy experts, who say its unlikely Utah will be able to enact such regulations without seeing a court challenge.

Conditioning these rights on a parent giving prior consent is a huge First Amendment problem. Minors have First Amendment rights, and they are limited in more circumstances than for adults, but still only in very narrow circumstances, said Ari Cohn, a First Amendment lawyer based in Chicago, noting those circumstances almost entirely revolve around sexually explicit material.

The government is actually saying you have to provide your identity to speak in the first place on social media, Cohn said.

Cohn and Cox previously sparred on Twitter, ironically, with Cohn citing those same First Amendment concerns, and Cox responding: You are wrong and Im excited to prove it.

Gov. Spencer Cox poses for a photo after signing SB152, Social Media Regulation Amendments, at the Capitol in Salt Lake City on Thursday, March 23, 2023.

Kristin Murphy, Deseret News

Titled Social Media Regulation Amendments, SB152 gives social media companies a list of requirements, should a parent consent to their child creating an account. The law instructs companies to:

The law also directs the Utah Division of Consumer Protection to receive and investigate violations of the law, and impose fines and civil penalties up to $2,500 for each violation. The division will also publish an annual report evaluating the liability and enforcement provisions of this chapter, the bill reads.

The law includes a fiscal note of roughly $280,000 in one-time funds and $220,000 in ongoing funds for the division to investigate and enforce violations.

And HB311, titled Social Media Usage Amendments, seeks to curb what Teuscher and other lawmakers say are addictive algorithms that cause kids to go down that rabbit hole where they feel anxious because they dont have their phone next to them.

It permits the Division of Consumer Protection to audit records of a social media company to determine its compliance, and paves the way for a civil penalty of $250,000 for each practice, design, or feature shown to have caused addiction.

Addiction is defined in the bill as use of a social media platform that ... indicates the users substantial preoccupation or obsession with, or the users substantial difficulty to cease or reduce use of, the social media platform; and causes physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material harms to the user.

The bill is expected to cost $181,000 in one-time funds and $220,000 in ongoing funds for enforcement.

The regulations spelled out in both bills will take place on March 1, 2024.

Both Cox, McKell and Teuscher on Thursday pointed to the dire mental health situation for minors, which prompted the legislation.

I had been doing some research on my own, worried about my own kids and the impact that social media was having on them, the impact it was having on me and looking at the research that was out there, said Cox

In general, there is an epidemic of mental health issues plaguing teens a recent Center for Disease Control and Prevention study found that 30% of teenage girls seriously considered attempting suicide, and 50% had sustained periods of loneliness and depression.

I compare social media to something like tobacco because it has a catastrophic impact, and the impact that we see is diminished mental health, and its a huge problem cyber bullying is a huge problem, and when weve got 30% of our girls considering suicide, we should step in, McKell told the Deseret News Thursday.

While there is a bevy of research pointing to a strong link between prolonged social media use and depression, anxiety, loneliness,self-harm, andsuicidal thoughts, that CDC study in particular does not cite social media use, and Cohn said both bills take a a startlingly broad position.

There are so many things that minors do on social media that are entirely non-problematic, he said. And trying to evade the bad things by cutting them off from social media entirely before parent consent is just so wrong that it cant possibly pass constitutional muster.

Cohn says hell be surprised if much time passes before individual companies or trade associations sue the state over the laws. States have tried things like this before, he said.

Cox recently told reporters hes confident the state will prevail in court, echoed by Teuscher on Thursday.

We expect that it will likely be challenged, but we feel really confident that we drafted the bills in such a way that they wont be susceptible to challenges, he said.

Any companies challenging the laws will have years of precedent on their side. In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the internet a free speech zone in Reno v. ACLU. And in 2011, the same court said a California law limiting the sales of violent video games to minors violated the First Amendment in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association.

Cox has previously said prior cases were wrongly decided, and that the internet has evolved since the rulings, though he did not offer specifics.

Is the court really likely to upend decades of precedent? I think thats less likely than the governor would imagine, Cohn said. And I dont think this court will find itself less committed to these basic principles ... Im not seeing a roadmap that if I were Gov. Cox, I would feel supremely confident about.

Cohn isnt alone in his criticism, and Utahs new laws have raised the eyebrows of numerous First Amendment and family advocates.

The bill does not consider childrens and teens rights, or their need for agency and independence, wrote the Family Online Safety Institute.

These bills, while trying to solve a real problem with minors and social media usage, would be an unprecedented intrusion on Utahns rights to privacy and freedom of expression, Americans for Prosperity said in a statement.

If Im a kid feeling really abused in my house, Im feeling rejected because of, say, my gender or sexual identity, and I know that my parent can access (the social media account) at any time by law, I might be less likely to actually engage in the process, and I might feel more alone than ever, Sarah Coyne, a professor in the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, said in a recent radio interview.

When reached for comment, a Meta spokesperson said the company will continue to work with experts, lawmakers and parents on the issues brought up by Utah lawmakers.

We want teens to be safe online. Weve developed more than 30 toolsto support teens and families, including tools that let parents and teens work together to limit the amount of time teens spend on Instagram, and age verification technology that helps teens have age-appropriate experiences. We automatically set teens accounts to private when they join Instagram, and we send notifications encouraging them to take regular breaks. We dont allow content that promotes suicide, self-harm or eating disorders, and of the content we remove or take action on, we identify over 99% of it before its reported to us, the spokesperson said.

Because the bills arent slated to take effect for another year, its likely lawmakers will revisit the issue in the legislatures next general session. Plus, the age verification process, which McKells bill hinges on, still needs to be created by the Division of Consumer Protection and will likely require coordination from social media companies.

Come to the table, work with us, Teuscher said in a message to social media companies. If there are better solutions than what we have in these bills, well implement them. Well pass them at the beginning of next session. But right now the clock is ticking. They understand whats going to happen if they dont take any action.

The question of age verification is another sticking point for First Amendment and privacy experts. McKell on Thursday said it cant be limited to a government form of ID, and that lawmakers and the division are looking for other options.

Cohn says that will have sweeping implications for everyone.

This is not only going to apply to kids. You cant figure out who is a minor or who is not a minor, unless you age verify everyone. So the implications for anonymous speech are huge, too, he said. ... There is a data point somewhere that will exist, that connects you to those posts. There is no more anonymity. And this country was built on anonymous speech.

McKell tried to quell those concerns, telling the Deseret News in this legislation, our consumer privacy laws trump everything. Your privacy will be protected.

Another item that several experts questioned is how to define addictive in Teuschers bill.

Its very difficult to surmise what people mean by addictive when they're talking about social media, said Cohn, noting that the entire premise of a media company is to keep its customers engaged. He likened it to your favorite addicting TV show.

Teuscher said his bill is strictly targeting algorithms, saying theres a big difference between that and just presenting information.

(HB311) allows for these social media companies to report quarterly to the Department of Commerce and have an independent audit that shows that those algorithms haven't been built to cause minors to be addicted to these platforms, he said.

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Utah social media law will limit teen use amid mental health crisis - Deseret News

TikTok and the First Amendment – Just Security

Its unfortunately commonplace around the world for governments to invoke national security as a pretext for denying their citizens access to media. Historically, the United States has been a vocal critic of this practice. During the Cold War, U.S. opposition to restrictions on the international flow of information and ideas helped define the United States as a free society in the eyes of the world. In more recent years, the United States has often condemned governments that deny their citizens access to American social media and messaging platforms.

Against this background, it is disconcerting, at least, to see the U.S. government threatening to ban TikTok, an app used by more than 150 million Americans. Fortunately, the United States has something that many other countries dont: strong constitutional protections for free speech that extend to the right to access social media as well as the right to receive information from abroad. Those protections dont necessarily mean the government wont ultimately be able to ban TikTok. But if its going to shut down a major social media platform, it will have to come up with better reasons than its offered so far.

In an article published by the New York Times this morning, I explain why this is soand why it is an important feature of our system, not a bug, that the government cant interfere with Americans access to social media without carrying a heavy justificatory burden. As I argue:

The First Amendment has so far played only a bit part in the debate about banning TikTok. This may change. If the U.S. government actually tries to shut down this major communications platform, the First Amendment will certainly have something to say about it.

Perhaps the reason First Amendment rights havent received more attention in this debate already is that TikTok is a subsidiary of ByteDance, a Chinese corporation that doesnt have constitutional free speech rights to assert. But setting aside the question of TikToks own rights, the platforms users include more than 150 million Americans, as TikToks chief executivetestifiedat a contentious congressional hearing on Thursday. TikToks American users are indisputably exercising First Amendment rights when they post and consume content on the platform.

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TikTok and the First Amendment - Just Security

Cape May takes steps to head off ‘First Amendment audits’ – Press of Atlantic City

On March 18th in Cape May, participants ran into the Atlantic Ocean for the annual St. Paddy's Day Plunge.

CAPE MAY An ordinance recommended by City Council member Shaine Meier proposes new restrictions on public access to some areas of municipal buildings.

The proposal is not in response to any issue within the city, but rather in preparation for what are known as First Amendment audits, in which activists or self-identified citizen journalists video record interactions in public areas, including in city halls or other public buildings.

In multiple instances, people have posted video of interactions that arise when they take video in public areas, occasionally including confrontations or arguments. There are videos of audits in Vineland City Hall and another in Lower Township, which was posted in December.

That video has been viewed more than 340,000 times, and there is a phone number for Lower Township Hall included in the description. Employees at Township Hall said there was a flood of calls after the video was posted.

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Meier said he wants Cape May to be ready for a similar visit.

The ordinance, which still requires a public hearing and final vote, would add a new section to the city code, municipal buildings, restricted areas to safeguard records. It would prohibit public access to some areas of City Hall and other city buildings, citing the requirement to protect public records under New Jerseys Open Public Records Act.

The ordinance states that city employees cannot be expected to physically intervene to protect records. It lists multiple offices as restricted areas, including exceptions for the lobby and help desk areas. It also calls for signs that identify areas as restricted, stating Authorized employees only.

After the meeting, Meier said the ordinance grew out of concerns brought up through the Joint Insurance Fund, which provides insurance coverage for several communities, including Cape May.

CAPE MAY With a new fire station underway on Franklin Street and a new library due next do

City attorney Christopher Gillin-Schwartz said those who want to access public records are free to fill out a request under the Open Public Records Act, often referred to as OPRA. There are rights of public access, he said, but they are not unlimited.

Although a public building may be a public building, that doesnt mean that its a complete free-for-all, he said. In this room (council chambers), people are free to walk in and if they want to take an iPhone video they can go for it.

Extensive case law has found that people have a right to take video of public meetings, and that there is no legal expectation of privacy in a public place. In the video taken in Vineland, a security guard at City Hall insists he should not be recorded if he does not want to be, but the poster keeps taking video.

SeanPaul Reyes, who posts video to YouTube as Long Island Audit, objected as another guard reached out to grab his phone.

You cannot video tape in here. This is a government building, a security guard states.

Youre in public, that means you have no expectation of privacy, Reyes says in the video.

Lower Township Manager Michael Laffey questions Reyes as he records video in the otherwise empty meeting room at Township Hall.

Who are you here to see? This is a township hall, Laffey says in the video.

ATLANTIC CITY With a crowded agenda and two new members, the Casino Reinvestment Developme

Im not here to see anybody, Reyes responds. He said his reason to visit Township Hall was to take photos and video as an independent journalist. Theres nothing nefarious going on here.

Reyes said he is working on a story but did not give any details on the story or provide identification.

Laffey said he had security concerns and asks him to leave the room.

Contacted on Friday, Laffey said Reyes was wearing a fanny pack and would not answer questions, prompting security concerns. He said since Sept. 11, 2001, all municipal officials have been urged to remain vigilant.

Laffey said Reyes was not confrontational and remained in the building for about 45 minutes.

Were pretty transparent in government. We have nothing to hide, he said. Police officers were in Township Hall for another purpose, and spoke with Reyes.

They just happened to be in the building at the same time. We didnt call the police because he was here, Laffey said.

On the video, one Lower Township officer said there can be trespassing charges on public property.

LOWER TOWNSHIP Nothing good happens after midnight, at least according to Police Chief Kev

Youre making everybody nervous, the officer said.

Anybodys allowed in the building here, Reyes said.

Later in the video, Sgt. Jason Felsing arrives, asking, Are you exercising your First Amendment right?

He suggests he will hang out with Reyes while he takes video and images.

Several of the doors in Lower Township have authorized personnel only signs. Reyes fills out an OPRA request for the names, salaries and email addresses of all township employees for 2022 and then leaves.

The safety directors office of the Municipal Excess Liability Joint Insurance Fund, which can be thought of as a JIF for JIFs, put out a best practices statement in December 2019 for handling First Amendment audits.

It advises to prevent entry to restricted areas, and to instruct employees to remain calm and professional.

In many instances, the auditor will refuse to identify themselves, and may edit the video before posting, the notification warns.

Cape May County Republicans are touting the diversity of their ticket this year, endorsing a

The attitude and demeanor of some of these people can be unnerving, annoying, flippant, aggressive, and on occasion, they may use foul and abusive language, it states. Unfortunately, many of these audits may become confrontational in nature.

Laffey said he plans to arrange a training session with the MEL, open to all county municipalities, with information on how to deal with First Amendment auditors.

In my opinion, they are doing this for a money grab, he said, both seeking donations and potentially seeking financial settlements in cases where they are removed from public buildings or confronted.

In other states, auditors have faced charges, or been detained or assaulted, and even shot. In 2019, a YouTube poster was shot in the leg by a security guard while taking video outside a Los Angeles synagogue, and in other instances, police have drawn their weapons on auditors.

Dekon Fashaw, the Cape May police chief, said his officers have had training from the state Attorney Generals Office in the First Amendment, and in responding to similar audits.

The Long Island Audit is one of multiple audit-oriented channels on YouTube. Some of Reyes videos have received millions of views, and he includes links to GoFundMe pages as well as to his Venmo, PayPal and other accounts seeking donations. He also offers T-shirts and other merchandise.

Reyes did not respond to an emailed request for an interview.

Reyes has faced charges in Maryland, where he recorded a police traffic stop, and in Connecticut, where he was cited on trespassing charges. According to media reports, Reyes has filed a lawsuit against the city of Danbury, Connecticut, alleging his Constitutional rights under the First and Fourth amendments were violated.

Heres an update of the COVID-19 numbers in the state.

In the Maryland instance, he wrote an apology and said his rights were not violated, according to news reports. In the statement, he said the officer who had stopped another driver had said he could record the stop, but told him to do it from a different location.

In an interview posted to YouTube in January, Reyes said he had been convicted of a felony 10 years ago.

The Cape May ordinance still needs a public hearing and final vote before it is official. Those are planned for the April 18 City Council meeting, 5 p.m. at City Hall, 643 Washington St.

Contact Bill Barlow:

609-272-7290

bbarlow@pressofac.com

Twitter @jerseynews_bill

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Cape May takes steps to head off 'First Amendment audits' - Press of Atlantic City

Whoopi Goldberg said the First Amendment ‘doesn’t allow you to … – Poynter

The co-hosts of ABCs The View took up the topic of Fox News coverage during a recent show specifically its coverage of former President Donald Trumps false assertions that the 2020 election was fraudulent and its reports about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Co-host Whoopi Goldbergasked whyFoxs coverage isnt considered tantamount to recruiting and radicalizing.

To me, this should be against the law, Goldberg said March 8. You should not be able to lie to the American people knowingly. And, you know, its one thing if you made a mistake and you didnt know. But weve heard for five or six years now, you know, the media was a lying sack of doo. They were fake news. So how come? What do we do as Americans to say this is not okay?

Another co-host, off-camera, responded, Its the First Amendment.

Goldberg countered, The First Amendment doesnt allow you to willingly lie.

Goldbergs comments came as Dominion Voting Systems issuingFox News for defamation over some of its hosts comments questioning the reliability of Dominion voting machines following the 2020 election.

A reader asked us to look into whether Goldberg was right on the constitutional question. Legal scholars told us that she is mostly off base.

Lies, including knowing ones, do not lose First Amendment protection simply for their untruth, said Howard M. Wasserman, a law professor at Florida International University.

A spokesperson for The View did not respond to PolitiFacts inquiry.

Experts said that for some types of speech, lying is not constitutionally protected, but these are relatively narrow exceptions. Examples include:

Beyond these categories, though, everyday lying has generally been found to be protected by the Constitution.

In the 2012 Supreme Court caseUnited States v. Alvarez, the justices ruled that content-based restrictions on speech are almost always invalid. In Alvarez, the high court struck down a law that had made it a crime to fraudulently claim to have received certain military awards for valor.

Five of the justices agreed that lies about philosophy, religion, history, the social sciences, the arts, and the like are generally protected, said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor.

Volokh said that a separate holding of the Sullivan case was that even deliberate lies, said with actual malice, about the government are constitutionally protected.

State-level laws targeting false political speech have also run into turbulence in the courts. In 2016, an appeals court ruledunconstitutionalan Ohio law that prohibited the dissemination of false information about a political candidate in campaign materials during the campaign season. The decision said that the law amounted to content-based restrictions targeting core political speech that are not narrowly tailored to serve the states admittedly compelling interest in conducting fair elections.

A major reason for protecting lies, experts said, is that the government will not necessarily be an honest judge of what is truth and what is a lie. Volokh said there is continuing concern among jurists about following in the path of the Sedition Act of 1798, a law that banned malicious lies about the government.

The Sedition Act, whichwas allowed to expirein 1801, would be viewed as unconstitutional under modern First Amendment law, Volokh said, because it requires the government to decide whats a lie about it and whats not a decision that will often be made inaccurately and self-servingly.

Wasserman agreed. We do not want to empower the government to decide what is truth, he said. It would be too easy to label certain political opinions or framings as untrue and subject to government silencing.

A broadcaster like Goldberg benefits significantly from protections for lying, Ligon said.

Talk show hosts are often given leeway, consistent with the First Amendment, when it comes to their speech, in part because they are understood to be entertainers, Ligon said.

Ligon said that both Tucker Carlson on the right and Rachel Maddow on the left have successfully defended defamation claims.

In the 2021 caseHerring Networks v. Maddow, a federal appeals court ruled on a defamation claim stemming from a segment Maddow had aired on her MSNBC show. The segment contained the claim that an employee of One America News Network was also being paid by the Russian government to produce government-funded, pro-(Vladimir) Putin propaganda for a Russian government funded propaganda outfit called Sputnik.

The court ruled that the statement was obvious exaggeration, cushioned within an undisputed news story. The ruling went on to say that Maddows statement was well within the bounds of what qualifies as protected speech under the First Amendment. No reasonable viewer could conclude that Maddow implied an assertion of objective fact.

Goldberg said, The First Amendment doesnt allow you to willingly lie.

For the vast majority of speech, the First Amendment considers lies to be protected speech.

There are exceptions to this general rule, but they are limited. In libel and incitement cases, for instance, the judicial bar for proving harm is high, meaning that most types of political speech cannot be challenged successfully in court.

We rate the statement Mostly False.

This fact check was originallypublished by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.

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Whoopi Goldberg said the First Amendment 'doesn't allow you to ... - Poynter