Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech May 30, 2025 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Congress Center Square: 'Predatory litigation' draws scrutiny over free speech rights concerns By Casey Harper .....U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., introduced legislation to stop what he calls "predatory litigation financing," but critics on the right are raising concerns about the First Amendment and unintended consequences of the bill... “Predatory litigation financing allows outside funders, including foreign entities, to profit off our legal system, driving up costs and delaying justice,” Tillis said in a statement. “This legislation will bring much-needed transparency and accountability by taxing these profits and deterring abusive practices that undermine the integrity of our courts. Critics of the legislation raised concerns about Americans’ rights to file and support lawsuits when they've been wronged and concerns about limiting Americans’ rights to do so. The proposed legislation also could make it difficult for regular Americans to take on large, well-funded opponents since they can’t afford legal fees that can cost into the millions of dollars… Critics largely agree there is a problem, but they say Tillis’ solution may cause other unforeseen problems. “While we can appreciate the concerns that advocates are trying to address, we have reservations how the current proposals would affect donor privacy, and by extension, First Amendment rights,” the conservative Heartland Impact wrote on X. How a group could prove they are not outside funded in their lawsuit without revealing donors is an interesting question. Boston Globe: Democrats, don’t risk free speech in the name of protecting kids By Caitlin Vogus .....Federal agencies are swiftly transforming into the speech police under President Trump. So why are some Democrats so eager to support the Kids Online Safety Act, a recently reintroduced bill that would authorize the Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission to enforce censorship? Senator Ed Markey voted in favor of KOSA in the last Congress, after it was combined with a children’s online privacy bill he wrote, and Senator Elizabeth Warren has been a cosponsor of KOSA. But times are different now. With federal agencies transformed into tools of Trump’s censorship campaign, KOSA is an even more dangerous bill than it was before. KOSA’s supporters argue that it’s about keeping children under 17 safe from the harms of social media. But at the heart of the bill is something everyone should oppose: empowering the government to decide what speech children should be forbidden from seeing online. Nonpaywalled Version (Option 4) The Courts RealClearPolicy: Section 230 Was Hijacked by Big Tech to Silence You By Maureen Steele .....In 1996, Congress passed a well-meaning law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to help internet platforms grow. It was supposed to protect online forums from liability for what their users said—not give billion-dollar corporations the right to shadow-ban dissidents, rig elections, and coordinate censorship with the federal government. But thanks to a judicial sleight of hand, Section 230 became the sledgehammer Big Tech used to bludgeon the First Amendment into submission. And now—at long last—the Supreme Court may have a chance to fix it. The case to watch is Fyk v. Facebook, and it might be the most important free speech lawsuit you’ve never heard of. So, here’s The Lie That Broke the Internet: New York Times: Santos’s Treasurer Avoids Prison for Her Role in His Schemes By Grace Ashford and Cassidy Jensen .....George Santos’s campaign treasurer and right-hand woman, Nancy Marks, was sentenced to probation on Wednesday for her role in the former congressman’s campaign finance schemes after pleading guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy. Ms. Marks’s admission was crucial in helping federal prosecutors build their case against Mr. Santos, who pleaded guilty last year and admitted to committing identity theft, filing false reports and stealing donors’ money, among other crimes. He was sentenced last month to more than 7 years in prison. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Women-Only Naked Spa Lacks First Amendment Right to Exclude Transgender Patrons with Penises By Eugene Volokh .....From Olympus Spa v. Armstrong, decided today by Ninth Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown, joined by Judge Ronald M. Gould: Trump Administration Politico: Rubio targets foreign nationals who he alleges police Americans’ social media posts By Amanda Friedman, Anthony Adragna and Nahal Toosi .....Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday a new visa restriction policy targeting foreign officials who he says are complicit in censoring what Americans say online. “For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio wrote on X. “Today, I am announcing a new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans. Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.” The Wrap: FCC Commissioner Labels Trump Push to Chill Speech an ‘Administration-Wide Effort’ By Brian Lowry .....Although much of the recent focus regarding the press being under siege has been on President Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, FCC commissioner Anna M. Gomez cited “an administration-wide effort” involving multiple agencies intended “to chill speech” and stifle dissenting voices. Gomez, who will soon be the only Democrat on the commission, made those remarks during a Free Speech forum at Cal State Los Angeles on Wednesday, presented as a “First Amendment tour” by Gomez designed to shine a light on the issue and discuss means and methods to combat those policies. The event was sponsored by the advocacy group Free Press, whose co-CEO, Jessica J. González, described Trump’s “attacks” on free expression and the press as “A clear effort to quash dissent.” She cited the event’s goal as beginning to organize on behalf of protecting speech and “raising our voices together.” Online Speech Platforms New Yorker: Why Good Ideas Die Quietly and Bad Ideas Go Viral By Gideon Lewis-Kraus .....The solution was to limit the presence of these bad actors, to cut off the supply at the source. One obvious flaw in this argument is that “misinformation” was only ever going to be a way to describe ideas you didn’t like. It was a childish fantasy to think that a neutral arbiter might be summoned into being, or that we would all defer to its judgments as a matter of course. The major weakness of this account was that it tended to sidestep the question of demand. Even if many liberals agreed in private that those who believed untrue and harmful things were fundamentally stupid or harmful people, they correctly perceived that this was a gauche thing to say out loud. Instead, they attributed the embrace of such beliefs to “manipulation,” an ill-defined concept that is usually deployed as a euphemism for sorcery. These low-information people were vulnerable to such sorcery because they lacked “media literacy.” What they needed, in other words, was therapeutic treatment with more and better facts. All of this taken together amounted to an incoherent theory of information. On the one hand, facts were neutral things that spoke for themselves. On the other, random pieces of informational flotsam were elevated to the status of genuine facts only once they were vetted by credentialled people with special access to the truth. Nonpaywalled version (Option 5) The Media National Review: There’s No First Amendment Right to Government Money for NPR By Dan McLaughlin .....The other three legal claims, however, assert that Trump is discriminating or retaliating against NPR in violation of the First Amendment. This is nonsense. There is no First Amendment right for media organizations to be on the public payroll in the first place, and anyone who receives government money to deliver a message can constitutionally be required to sing the government’s tune or lose its funding. As Chief Justice William Rehnquist’s opinion for the the Court observed in Rust v. Sullivan (1990), in upholding regulations barring publicly funded family planning funds from being used to promote abortion or make abortion referrals: The States Washington Examiner: The sinister plot to punish political free speech By Hannah Cox .....Donor disclosure laws don’t just affect politically active charities; they also pertain to churches, many of whom have a long history of their own oppression when it comes to their beliefs and free speech. It pertains to donors to LGBT groups who’ve faced marginalization and hate. Clearly donors to causes such as gun rights could anticipate angry mobs coming after their information. Both pro-life and pro-choice advocates have long experienced persecution and even violence. Civil rights organizations such as the ACLU and the NAACP will easily recall the Jim Crow era when their donors faced violence and being blacklisted (resulting in another important case, NAACP v. Alabama). Animal rights organizations, environmental activists, the list goes on and on. To safeguard our own rights, we have to defend the rights of our ideological opponents. And while leftists love to cage these actions as merely “eating the rich” or “fighting the oligarchs,” the truth is these laws apply to all donors, big and small. And smaller donors have far less ability to protect themselves from blowback and violence should it come to that. Since 2022 alone, seven states have passed laws strengthening their protections for donor privacy and free speech (Indiana, Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia, Kansas, New Hampshire, and West Virginia). Good ideas tend to catch fire, so it’s no surprise that both Nevada and North Carolina seem poised to join their ranks. Ed. note: Read People United for Privacy's "Report: 2025 State Threats to Donor Privacy and Nonprofit Advocacy" for more information. Politico: New York City Campaign Finance Board sent 3.5M voter information guides with error By Jason Beeferman .....The New York City Campaign Finance Board sent out over 3.5 million voter guides that incorrectly stated — twice — Mayor Eric Adams would appear on the Democratic primary ballot next month. He is actually skipping his party’s primary to run in November as an independent… The board also told POLITICO it will be fast-tracking additional mailers to all registered Democrats in the city with a corrected list of mayoral primary candidates. It did not provide a cost for the corrective measure… Shapiro also took issue with the voter guide putting a check mark next to Adams’ name. The symbol is meant to indicate to voters “a candidate is participating in NYC’s matching funds program, which helps candidates rely on New York City residents — not special interests — to fund their campaigns,” per the guide. Adams is suing the board for denying him $3.4 million in matching funds, POLITICO reported. “The Campaign Finance Board’s voter guide is incorrect — he is not receiving matching funds,” Shapiro said. “The CFB’s rules unfairly penalize candidates who choose to run outside party lines. We’re challenging this to ensure the system supports participation, not restricts it.” Texas Tribune: Bill limiting protests at public universities approved by Texas House By Jessica Priest .....The Texas House on Wednesday approved a bill that would restrict protesting on college campuses. Republicans who support Senate Bill 2972 say it will prevent disruption and unsafe behavior seen during the pro-Palestinian demonstrations last year. Critics say the measure contradicts previous conservative efforts to protect free speech rights on Texas campuses and is unconstitutional. The measure, which passed 97-39 in a final House vote, would give university systems’ governing boards the power to limit where protests can take place on campus. Under the new legislation, students and staff would not be allowed to use microphones or any other device to amplify sound while protesting during class hours if they are trying to intimidate others or interfere with campus operations, a university employee or a peace officer doing their job. The bill prohibits them from protesting within 300 feet of residences overnight. Students would also be barred from erecting encampments, taking down an institution’s U.S. flag to put up another nation’s or organization’s banner and wearing disguises to avoid being identified while protesting or to intimidate others. Finally, anyone at a campus protest would be required to present a valid ID when asked by a university official. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. Follow the Institute for Free Speech The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW Suite 801 | Washington, DC 20036 US Unsubscribe | Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice