Monday, April 09, 2018
#FREESPEECH IN THE NEWS: APRIL 9, 2018
As the Citadel of Free Speech here in Cleveland, we work to protect and promote the basis of our democracy by sharing related stories, commentary, and opinions on free speech in the 21st century. Here's what's making the news – and what you should know about – in the past week.
1.) This Court Case Is Bad News for Social Media Privacy
The professor behind the privacy controversy on the social media platform Facebook did nothing wrong, according to a judge.
Aleksandr Kogan said to have violated Facebook’s terms of service to gather data, which he sold to Cambridge Analytica. The judge says the professor cannot be prosecuted because his actions don’t violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which doesn’t criminalize his actions.
From a legal standpoint, violatinga termsof service agreement isn’t necessarily a criminal act. A user would only suffer the consequences outlined by a platform, which usually means being prohibited from using the website any longer.
2.) Sorry, burning rubber is not a form of protected speech, police in Maine say
A high school student in Oakland, Maine, broke the law after believing what he read on a satirical news website.
The website, called “New Maine News,” posted a story stated spinning tires was now legal and a form of protected free speech in the state. On his Facebook page, an officer stated he spoke to the student after he deliberately drove to where he could see him and began “burning rubber” with his tires.
In Maine, it is against the law to deliberately spin tires and a citation is issued to those police catch doing so.
The officer says when he stopped the student, he showed him the satire article stating it was legal. Recognizing the website, the officer says he laughed it off and warned him about believing everything he reads.
3.) Does restricting juvenile offenders’ social media use step on free speech?
Juveniles in the court system are often given sentence stipulations that restrict social media use, restrictions some say impede on their first amendment right to free speech.
Opponents say these restrictions overstep the bounds of reasonable punishment.
“The key question here is – Is there a sufficient justification for putting this restriction on defendants?” said University of Chicago law professor Geoffrey Stone, a First Amendment expert. “It’s like saying, ‘We’ll let you out on probation but you can’t go in this neighborhood.’ It’s perfectly sensible that this is what [judges are] trying to do in the complicated world of social media.”
The issue came about after a Wisconsin teen was sentenced to three years of probation and told to not reference gangs, gunsanddrugs on his social media profiles. The restriction was so broad, however, that reposting content denouncing these topics could be considered a violation.
