Mediaboss Marketing

Case 1:21-cv-00858 Document 1 Filed 03/30/21 Page 9 of 40 25. As before, members of far right-wing hate groups appeared at the second Million MAGA March, and Trump followers clashed with D.C. police, at least eight of whom were injured. Four people were stabbed. The police made over thirty arrests including ten arrests for assault on a police officer, eleven arrests for simple assault, one arrest for assault with a deadly weapon, and two arrests for possession of a prohibited weapon. 26. Officials warned Trump that his incendiary rhetoric about the election could cause injury or death, but he persisted. On December 1, 2020, as Trump placed increasing pressure on Georgia election officials to overturn the state's results which favored Joe Biden, one official, Gabriel Sterling, gave a press conference in which he reported on death threats made to Georgia election workers, and addressed Trump, saying, Mr. President, you have not condemned these actions. ... This has to stop. ... Stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone is going to get shot, someone is going to get killed. And it's not right. Despite this, Trump never condemned the threats made against Georgia election officials, and four days before the January 6 insurrection, he implored Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a phone call to throw out enough lawfully cast votes to swing the election in his favor. 27. As his efforts with state officials and in the courts failed, Trump began to focus on January 6, 2021, the date Congress was set to count the state-certified election results. On December 19, 2020, Trump began promoting a January 6 rally to his followers: 9

Follow this link:
James Blassingame and Sidney Hembys Lawsuit Against Donald Trump - The New York Times

A sheriffs deputy who went to law school but remained a cop for another two decades. A prosecutor best known for tackling juvenile offenders. And the guy who literally wrote the book on racketeering cases against mafia goons.

This is the team Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is assembling to investigate Donald Trumpto go after his advisers and their attempts to manipulate election results in Georgia.

In interviews with Willis, her staff, five former members of the team, and several people who interacted with them, The Daily Beast has learned there are now two grand juries underway in Fulton County, and jurors in these secret proceedings will soon be asked to issue subpoenas demanding documents and recordings related to the Trump investigation.

I suspect that's in the very near future, Willis told The Daily Beast.

There are now two grand juries underway in Fulton County, and jurors will soon be asked to issue subpoenas demanding documents and recordings related to the Trump investigation.

Its practically unheard of for a regional prosecutor to target a former U.S. president. But this is Donald Trump. Manhattans district attorney and New York States attorney general have active investigations. And so does the DA of Fulton County, Georgia. The case in Georgia may be the strongest; theres a trove of evidencedocuments, phone calls, witnessesthat Trump personally interfered with and pressured elections officials in Atlanta as they recounted votes.

Trumps now infamous Jan. 2 call, in which he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes, became public on Williss first day in office.

Three cases were referred to her office from the Office of the Secretary of State, she said. The monumental task of conducting this investigation has fallen on the DAs new anti-corruption team, once known as the public integrity unit. Its a small team that traditionally investigates police misconduct and corrupt local government officials. Willis decided to scrap and rebrand the team because of its troubled history, one that has repeatedly drawn rebuke in Atlanta. Over the decades, the team has proved incapable of handling its regular caseload, derailing careers by leaving accused cops stuck at desk assignmentsand forcing impatient families to wait years for basic answers.

With Trump, theyre now faced with the highest of high-profile potential defendantsone with enormous political backing and a legion of followers from whom he can instantly raise millions of dollars for his defense.

That checkered past is why attorneys, like Paul Kish, who have defended public officials targeted by previous iterations of that prosecution unit, had this to say: I think they're so far out of their league it's not even funny.

But its exactly why Willis, driven to run for DA partly by the frustration at the previous ones failure to clamp down on public corruption, quickly made good on her campaign promise to destroy the old version of the team. When first asked about the units past, Willis responded with a sharp one-line email: Public Integrity died on 12/31/2020.

She later told The Daily Beast that she removed all but one member of the previous team: the investigator Raymond Baez, who interviewed to keep his job and said he was deeply incensed at corrupt cops he encountered while growing up in Puerto Rico. It convinced Willis that he deserved to stay on. She even promoted him to assistant chief.

I thought he was a man of integrity, Willis said.

As for the other members of the team? A former cop, Sonya Allen is now the chief senior assistant district attorney. Allen worked at the nearby Cobb County Sheriffs Office for nearly 30 years, rising through the ranks on the narcotics and fugitive units and eventually reaching second highest rank in the department. What sold Willis on her: Allen was the cop who investigated how a man on trial for rape, Brian Nichols, escaped custody and killed the Fulton County Superior Court judge presiding over his case.

Brian Watkins, who was just named deputy of anti-corruption, started out as a prosecutor in the eastern part of the state. He tried fraud and murder cases before switching to private practice for more than a decade, when he defended public officials accused of crimes. He is the only member of the team currently listed on the DAs website. We researched him greatly. He didnt have any blemishes, Willis told us.

Meighan L. Vargas is a former prosecutor who has previously expressed how she loves solving the puzzles that trials present. She spent a few years at a boutique law firm in Atlanta before deciding to return to join this effort.

Another member of the new team is Shannon Trotty, who previously directed the DAs juvenile division. She has a history of showing restraint. When middle schoolers sickened their classmates in 2019 by lacing Valentines Day treats with THCthe main psychoactive ingredient in cannabisTrotty advised against charging them with a crime because no one could prove the students had knowledge and intent.

Willis also pulled a prosecutor from the complex trial division, Sau Chun Chan, who was just admitted to practice law in Georgia two years ago.

Im having to broaden the unit it never looked at election fraud before now, Willis said.

I think they're so far out of their league it's not even funny.

defense attorney Paul Kish

Willis has publicly acknowledged that she also hired John E. Floyd, a nationally-renowned expert on state RICO charges, who is expected to consult this team. Thats relevant, given that her office is looking into the potential use of racketeering charges against Trumps inner circle. Prosecutors would have to prove a pattern of corruptionthe same way they show that mafia bosses direct underlings. Their mission would be to show that Trump and his lieutenants conspired in a criminal enterprise to undermine a legitimate election.

Willis is looking to hire three more lawyers and one more investigator (a position that usually goes to former cops whose job it is to pair up with the prosecutor).

The unique nature of anti-corruption work necessitates hiring prosecutors who do a lot more detective work on their own, said Carranza Pryor, who worked on the previous public integrity team in 2016. Unlike other prosecutors, who typically get handed a police case file detailing homicide or sexual crimes with notes and interviews already conducted, anti-corruption work starts with the attorney.

There's more privacy, secrecy, and isolation because of the sensitivity of the work, Pryor said. There's a lot more time at your desk, a lot more research and review of documents and records. You have more of an opportunity to reflect, take a breath, and be more deliberate than other offices.

In the Trump case, prosecutors will start with damning audio recordings that have already been revealed by The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

Those who know Willis personally do not doubt her ability to handle this case.

She's a great prosecutor. She's a gifted trial attorney. And shes remained an active trial attorney, said Peter Odom, a former prosecutor who tried his first murder case alongside her in 2007.

Its really a leadership question. The biggest challenge to doing a case involving the president and the [Georgia] secretary of state is the glare of the spotlight. Really, it's just another case like any other. It's a conspiracy case. There's plenty of evidence. There's phone calls. Everything is public record. Proving the case is not hard. The hardest part is that the president has almost unlimited resources. He's going to hire the best attorneys. There's going to be a huge procedural battle. Every dotted i and crossed t in the indictment will be attacked.

And thats where this units past could come back to haunt it.

The birth of the public integrity unit was precipitated by failure. It all started when the District Attorney's Office received a case it wasn't able to handle. Michael Hightower, then a promising young Fulton County commissioner, had accepted nearly $25,000 in bribes for helping a businessman win government contracts. Then-DA Paul Howard had key evidence, but he realized his office just wasn't capable of pursuing this kind of basic public corruption case. So instead, he passed it along to federal prosecutors who got the politician convicted.

Howard started the specialized team the very next month, in July 2000, tasking them with investigating public officials and law enforcement. It was a celebrated move by Georgias first elected Black district attorney, as it promised more accountability for police officers who kill without justificationdecades before it became the national zeitgeist it is now.

To lead the team, he hired Stacey K. Hydrick, a prosecutor at the state Attorney General's office who had just taken down two state senators, Ralph Abernathy III and Diana Harvey Johnson. Hydrick immediately set her sights on corruption at the nearby DeKalb County Jail. Two guards were later nailed for taking bribes to let inmates get short vacations outside the facility.

Im having to broaden the unit it never looked at election fraud before now.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis

The public integrity unit was plagued with resource problems from the start. The DAs office, headquartered at the courthouse, was denied the $41,850 it had initially requested to lease an off-site office space so that the unit could be separated from the rest of the DAs office. The idea was to create space in order to further secure its independence as a government watchdog. And when Howard did finally manage to move the team, he placed them at a building across the streetat a sleek new development owned by a corrupt former Congressman. Inevitably, the public integrity unit found itself in the awkward position of investigating its own landlord.

It was not a good experience, and I ended up asking to be taken off the team, said Odom, who was on the team at the time and is now in private practice in Washington, D.C. I didn't feel the unit had anything to do with integrity. And there were certain aspects of the job that required me to do questionable things I wasn't willing to do.

The DA at the time gained a reputation as an indecisive micromanager who held back the team because he repeatedly demanded further investigation on cases that investigators considered clear-cut, according to several former prosecutors on that team. As time went by, the units case backlog grew. By the time Howard was forced out of office last year, there were nearly 125 public corruption cases sitting incomplete, according to the current DA. The unit had 43 pending cases of excessive force by police officers dating back years, and 41 of those had yet to be charged with any crime.

I think it was a lack of strength, if you really want to know the truth, Willis told the Beast. People would investigate and investigate til their wheels spin. And you have to have a lot of courage to make decisions in those cases.

Most past investigations against politicians ended with little fanfare. Former members of the team cited several instances where a person running for local office lied about their home address or a criminal record that would render them ineligible. Prosecutors would avoid trial and just get them to withdraw the paperwork. And no target was ever as powerful as ex-President Trump.

I don't think there's anyone comparable with what the team is faced with now, said Melissa Redmon, who led the team from 2013 to 2019 and left to direct the University of Georgia law schools prosecutorial justice program.

Odom, Redmon, and several other friends of the current district attorney said that she has her work cut out for her. She is simultaneously remaking an entire DAs office that was widely considered broken and ineffectivewhile pursuing what could be the most historic case ever to come out of that office.

Willis told the Beast that she is now utilizing two ongoing grand juries to clear the case backlog, and she has requested additional funding from Fulton County. The new anti-corruption team will be located at a separate office, across the street in the Fulton County Government Center where it has been for years. Behind a single keypad-locked door is a series of narrow halls lined with boxes, filing cabinets, and a windowless conference room, according to those who worked there.

But given the sensitivity of the high-stakes investigation into the powerful billionaire who until recently held the reigns of the federal government, Willis hinted that some extra security precautions have been taken.

Um some investigations occur in separate places. How about that? Willis said.

The new district attorney is also adamant that she will show more decisiveness than her predecessor, which will mean a more effective anti-corruption unit as it considers election fraud, racketeering, and false statement charges against Rudy Giuliani and other members of Team Trump.

My philosophy is just: Were going to call balls and strikes. And it is what it is, Willis said. Were just going to use the law and the facts. Im not going to worry about the politics of that. And I do understand what Im saying. If that means Im only the DA for one term thatll be what God has me do for these four years.

Here is the original post:
The Unlikely Team of Prosecutors Hunting Trump in Georgia - The Daily Beast

Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law, discusses the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The First Amendment Law Clinic is the only program in the country solely dedicated to the protection of student speech and press rights.

In simple terms, what is the First Amendment and what does it do?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to petition. The First Amendment is one of the most important amendments for the protection of democracy.

Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law.

When was it created?

The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights. To protect individual rights, the framers of the U.S. Constitution added 10 amendments to the document in 1791, four years after the Constitution was ratified.

What does the First Amendment say about freedom of speech?

Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in limited circumstances.

President Donald Trump recently was suspended from a number of social media platforms. Is this a violation of his First Amendment rights?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any similar social media platform can censor any persons speech because they are private companies. Censorship is when an entity punishes individuals for their speech or prevents the speech from being expressed. Free speech is the ability to express ones thoughts and opinions without fear of being punished by the government.

The First Amendment protects against the government from censoring speech. None of these social media platforms are part of the government, so President Trump cannot claim his First Amendment rights have been violated.

President Trump was impeached a second time for incitement of insurrection. What is incitement speech?

Incitement speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Incitement speech is when someone encourages lawless action, and that lawless action is imminent and likely. It could be argued that Trump incited the mob violence on Jan. 6 in his summoning and assembling of supporters at the White House rally, his repeated claims that he won the election and his exhorting the crowd to go to the Capitol. Among other things, the president told the crowd, If you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Not long after Trumps speech, members of the crowd converged on the U.S. Capitol, broke through doors and windows, invaded the Senate and House chambers and private offices, and had violent clashes with police resulting in deaths.

What types of speech are not protected under the First Amendment?Types of speech that arent protected include:

Does the First Amendment only protect U.S. citizens?

Theres no citizenship requirement for First Amendment protection. If you are a resident of the United States, you have freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition.

Link:
Ask the expert: The First Amendment and free speech ...

We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit this week dodged a critical constitutional question: whether individuals have a First Amendment right to record on-duty police officers.

EFF had filed an amicus brief in the case, Frasier v. Evans, asking the court to affirm the existence of the right to record the police in the states under the courts jurisdiction (Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Utah, and those portions of the Yellowstone National Park extending into Montana and Idaho).

Frasier had used his tablet to record Denver police officers engaging in what he believed to be excessive force: the officers repeatedly punched a suspect in the face to get drugs out of his mouth as his head bounced off the pavement, and they tripped his pregnant girlfriend. Frasier filed a First Amendment retaliation claim against the officers for detaining and questioning him, searching his tablet, and attempting to delete the video.

In addition to refusing to affirmatively recognize the First Amendment right to record the police, the Tenth Circuit held that even if such a right did exist today, the police officers who sought to intimidate Frasier could not be held liable for violating his constitutional right because they had qualified immunitythat is, because the right to record the police wasnt clearly established in the Tenth Circuit at the time of the incident in August 2014.

The court held not only that the right had not been objectively established in federal case law, but also that it was irrelevant that the officers subjectively knew the right existed based on trainings they received from their own police department. Qualified immunity is a pernicious legal doctrine that often allows culpable government actors to avoid accountability for violations of constitutional rights.

Thus, the police officers who clearly retaliated against Frasier are off the hook, even though the Denver Police Department had been training its officers since February 2007 that individuals have a First Amendment right to record them, and that each of the officers in this case had testified unequivocally that, as of August 2014, they were aware that members of the public had the right to record them.

As we wrote last year in our guide to recording police officers, [r]ecordings of police officers, whether by witnesses to an incident with officers, individuals who are themselves interacting with officers, or by members of the press, are an invaluable tool in the fight for police accountability. Often, its the video alone that leads to disciplinary action, firing, or prosecution of an officer.

This is particularly true in the murder of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Chauvins criminal trial began this week and that Chauvin is being prosecuted at all is in large part due to the brave bystanders who recorded the scene.

Notwithstanding the critical importance of recordings for police accountability, the First Amendment right to record police officers exercising their official duties in public has not been recognized by all federal jurisdictions. Federal appellate courts in the First, Third, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, and Eleventh Circuits have directly upheld this right.

We had hoped that the Tenth Circuit would join this list. Instead, the court stated, because we ultimately determine that any First Amendment right that Mr. Frasier had to record the officers was not clearly established at the time he did so, we see no reason to risk the possibility of glibly announcing new constitutional rights that will have no effect whatsoever on the case.

This statement by the court is surprisingly dismissive given the important role courts play in upholding constitutional rights. Even with the courts holding that the police officers had qualified immunity against Frasiers First Amendment claim, if the court declared that the right to record the police, in fact, exists within the Tenth Circuit, this would unequivocally help to protect the millions of Americans who live within the courts jurisdiction from police misconduct.

But the Tenth Circuit refused to do so, leaving this critical question to another case and another appellate panel.

Although the Tenth Circuit refused to recognize that the right to record the police exists as a matter of constitutional law throughout its jurisdiction, it is comforting that the Colorado Legislature passed two statutes in the wake of the Frasier case.

The first law created a statutory right for civilians to record police officers (Colo. Rev. Stat. 16-3-311). The second created a civil cause of action against police officers who interfere with an individuals lawful attempt to record an incident involving a police officer, or who destroy, damage, or seize a recording or recording device (Colo. Rev. Stat. 13-21-128).

Additionally, the Denver Police Department revised its operations manual to prohibit punching a suspect to get drugs out of his mouth (Sec. 116.06(3)(b)), and to explicitly state that civilians have a right to record the police and that officers may not infringe on this right (Sec. 107.04(3)).

Follow this link:
Tenth Circuit Misses Opportunity to Affirm the First Amendment Right to Record the Police - EFF

Last month, TikTok user @nas.alive asked people to answer the question: Whats one thing that is normal in your country but weird for the rest of the world? It took off. Missing among the videos of bagged milk (Canada), nose-touching (UAE), live fish dwelling in bathtubs (Slovakia), and other global oddities was a primer on the First Amendment (US).

The First Amendment of the US Constitution limits the governmentnot private entitiesfrom restricting free expression. This is why companies like Facebook and Twitter can moderate contentand also why they could suspend then-President Trumps accounts during his last weeks in office. While many Americans applauded this move as an appropriate response to the violent Capitol insurrection, unexpected critics emerged in corners of the globe where the American version of free speech is considered, well, weird.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the move as problematic, saying that lawmakers, rather than social media CEOs, should regulate speechthe exact opposite of what the First Amendment allows. Despite her rocky history with Trump, the EU leader said that his free speech right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislatorsnot according to a decision by the management of social media platforms. Frances Finance Minister also said he was shocked by the decision, which he framed as social media oligarchy regulating speech. Leaders outside of Europe criticized the move as well.

The reaction is notable not only because it reflects an ideological difference in how the regions understand free expression, but also because it occurs during a pivotal moment of change for social media companies. The EU already has placed some regulations on digital platforms, and now it is pushing to broaden those regulations through the Digital Services Act. If First Amendment principles are to survive online, Americans must engage with changes abroad.

A bedrock of American historyand, correspondingly, American constitutional legal doctrineis distrust of the government. Anyone with a basic understanding of American historyor access to Hamiltoncan see why. By contrast, Europeans predominantly understand the role of government as a safety net against corrupt private sector interests. These differences are not merely speculative: Europeans report relatively higher levels of trust in the institutions of government, while Americans trust of government has been in more or less steady decline since 1958.

This may explain why the EU allows for more robust public regulation of the private sector. Take privacy law for example: in 2018, the EU implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which places requirements on companies to protect European residents data. Private companies guilty of violating the GDPR, by, for example, implementing poor data security measures, face fines of up to 4% of their annual global turnover or 20 million Euros, whichever is greater.

The GDPR has had sweeping consequences on a global scale. Most US companies with a European presence have found it most efficient to apply the GDPR requirements across the board to their entire global operations. American internet users now find themselves clicking through cookie consent notices on nearly every website they visit. Scroll up on this very article and you will see a cookie banner; you can thank Europe.

By contrast, privacy laws in the US are piecemeal and industry- or information-specific. For example, HIPAA protects medical information, and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act applies to data held by financial institutions. Unlike the GDPR, the text of these rules focuses on data security rather than abstract principles of individuals privacy rights.

When it comes to privacy, the US approach is to keep the government out of it as much as possible. The EU approach is to ask for government enforcement. In the end, the EU approach is winning: because it is easier for digital platforms to apply a uniform set of rules across their global operations, the strictest rules become the global norm.

While the GDPR imposes privacy rules, a different regulation, the e-Commerce Directive, creates rules for intermediary service providers that host third-party content, such as social media platforms. The 2000 e-Commerce Directive is old enough to drink even in America, so in December, the European Commission proposed an update via the Digital Services Act (DSA).

The proposed DSA is much lengthier than its predecessor, but it preserves key parts of the e-Commerce Directive by providing intermediary liability protection for user-generated content and prohibiting any laws that require platforms to monitor all content.

Its primary goal is to address illegal content, and it does so by laying out due diligence obligations, with the heaviest burdens on Very Large Platforms, those that reach at least 45 million average monthly users. The obligations include systems for reporting illegal content, including use of trusted flaggers, which are entities which have demonstrated particular expertise and competence, whose reports must take priority. Very Large Platforms must take mitigating measures at the organizational level to address illegal content. The DSA also allows users to challenge takedown decisions and encourages transparency about content moderation decisions.

The DSA does not define what is illegalfor that, platforms must look to national laws. Each Member State will create an independent authority called the Digital Services Coordinator to supervise compliance in their territory. Nations that identify a violation of their laws online can use the DSA procedures to send orders to platforms notifying them of the violation.

And although the takedown procedures only apply to illegal content, there are also measures in place to address merely harmful content, such as political disinformation, hoaxes and manipulation during pandemics, harms to vulnerable groups. Very Large Platforms must conduct risk assessments of their vulnerabilities to the spread of such harmful content, and those assessments will be subject to independent audits. Platforms are also encouraged to follow preexisting codes of conduct.

The proposed DSA is similar in some ways to the GDPR. Like the GDPR, it applies to all online platforms that offer their services in the EU, even if they are based in America, and requires non-EU platforms to appoint a legal representative. It also is enforced with fines set forth by each Member State, but the fines are potentially higher, capped at 6% (rather than 4%) of the global turnover of the digital platform. In extreme cases, a court can temporarily suspend the platform.

How would the decision to remove Trumps accounts fare in a world where the DSA is law?

Because the DSA allows Member States to enforce their own national laws on any platform operating anywhere in the EU, and it imposes the heaviest burdens on Very Large Platforms which are mostly US companies like Facebookthe strictest European nations laws could apply even to uniquely American social media controversies.

Germanys controversial NetzDG law is currently one of the most speech-restrictive laws in Europe. It requires that digital platforms censor hate speech and defamatory speech, as defined by the German Criminal Code, and it gives platforms a weekand, sometimes, just a dayto remove problematic content. This is a remarkable contrast to American law when one considers that it takes months or years for American courts trained in resolving legal disputes to determine whether speech is defamatory or notand hate speech is in fact protected under the First Amendment.

Even under NetzDG, the Trump tweets that led to his Twitter suspension may not have been illegal. And while the DSA mandates removal of illegal content, it leaves the question of what to do with merely harmful content up to the platforms. So, even if the DSA is passed, the EU would not require platforms to suspend Trumps account. Nor would it prohibit such a move.

But that could quickly change, as illustrated by a recent development in Poland. In response to the deactivation of Trumps social media accounts, Polish officials announced a new draft law that would make it illegal for platforms to take similar actions. The draft law states that social media companies cannot remove content that is not expressly illegal. Although the law purports to apply only to companies operating in Poland, under the DSA, the law would apply across Europe and, practically speaking, could extend into the US.

If laws like the Polish bill are implemented alongside the DSA, American First Amendment principles could come into direct conflict with the European model of free expression. European governments would not only tell companies what they must remove, but also what they must not remove.

Ask five Americans to explain to a European why the First Amendment is worth protecting, and youll get five different answers. This is not a design flaw, nor a failure of the US education system. Rather, the reasons for the First Amendment are, and have always been, varied and up for debate.

Among the many theories for the First Amendment is the idea of the marketplace of ideas the argument that ideas should be aired freely to allow the public to compare competing ideas, and the truth will prevail. Critics of this theory point out that powerful groupslike Very Large Platformswill have outsized influence in the marketplace. Another criticism of the marketplace theory is that, after 230 years of testing, it simply hasnt proven accurate: if anything, critics say, this model of free speech elevates salacious falsehoods and buries truth.

The European regulatory framework is perhaps a direct response to the perceived failure of the marketplace of ideas. Europeans think the truth needs a boost, and that boost should come from the government. An American may counter that there is no evidence that governments are better than platforms at leveling the playing field in a way that lets truth prevail.

Another theory of the First Amendment is that, in a democracy, government must stay out of speech decisions so that citizens can learn truthful information about their elected officials. Although the DSA is primarily focused on non-political speech, such as terrorist content and child sexual abuse material, it is theoretically problematic, because the rules are set by the very legislators that are under scrutiny.

Another theory is that self-expression has inherent value. Under this theory, the fulfillment of the selfartistically, spiritually, creativelyis only possible where the government is constrained. The DSA, and even the current regulatory framework, is problematic under this theory; these laws can be misapplied in ways that stifle expression. This risk is heightened by the DSAs cross-border reach, because expressive content, such as jokes and art, can take on vastly different meanings across cultures. The New York Times has already documented several instances where satirical content was censored under existing European laws. Because the DSA may result in nation-specific laws applied globally, platforms will have the unenviable job of determining whether a joke in Denmark is a crime in France, and which countrys interpretation prevails.

The challenge for platforms going forward will be complying with these evolving and demanding European regulations. The challenge for US and EU legislators will be harmonizing their free speech principles and addressing dangerous content without Balkanizing the internet. Although both regions value the fundamental right of free expression, European leaders comments on suspending Trumps social media accounts demonstrate that the EUs vision for the internet may be in tension with US First Amendment principles in unexpected ways.

Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today.

Read the rest here:
Is There a First Amendment Right to Tweet? - JSTOR Daily