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Culture, Media and Free Speech
75 posts, newest first (page 3 of 4).
Seven Myths About Cancel Culture, Starting With the One That Says It Isn't RealSeven comforting claims defenders of online mobs rely on, from it does not exist to only the powerful suffer, tested against the record with a verdict on each. Cancel Culture Has No Judge, No Jury and No Statute of LimitationsPublic shaming campaigns punish without the notice, hearing and proportionality the common law built, and those protections exist for good reasons. TikTok v. Garland and the Hard Clash of Free Speech and National SecurityThe Supreme Court unanimously upheld the TikTok divestment law in January 2025, and the case shows where conservatives divide on speech and a foreign adversary. An AI Chatbot Rewrote History in 2024, and That Is a Speech Problem TooGoogle's 2024 Gemini image pause showed that AI carries its builders' values into every answer, which argues for transparency over government rules. Europe's Digital Services Act and the First Amendment, Side by SideEurope and Britain regulate online speech with statutes the First Amendment would not allow, and comparing them shows what American law protects. Misinformation Is Not a Legal Category, and Government Should Stop PretendingGovernment cannot police misinformation because false speech is generally protected, and the narrow exceptions and the record of official error explain why. The Disinformation Governance Board Lasted Four Months, and That Was Too LongA federal board meant to referee disinformation was paused in weeks and dissolved in months, and it shows why government must never referee true speech. The Twitter Files Showed a Process, Not a Plot, and That Is WorseThe released documents showed routine machinery for filtering visibility and handling government contacts, and routine machinery is harder to fix. Publisher or Platform, Eight Myths About Big Tech and the LawEight popular claims about Section 230, the First Amendment and the tech companies, tested against the statute and the cases, with a verdict on each. The 1995 Prodigy Lawsuit That Accidentally Created Section 230Two early rulings punished the online service that tidied up and spared the one that did not, and Congress wrote Section 230 to end that perverse result. Moody v. NetChoice and the Unfinished Question of Who Owns the FeedThe Court treated feed curation as editorial judgment but sent the Texas and Florida laws back, leaving conservatives split on common carriage versus property. NRA v. Vullo and the Unanimous Rule Against Government JawboningNine justices agreed that an official may not use regulatory leverage to make businesses shun a disfavored group, and the rule protects every viewpoint. Murthy v. Missouri Lost on Standing, Yet the Record It Built Still StandsThe Court ruled on who may sue, not on whether federal pressure on platforms is lawful, and the record the case built still matters. Before Cable There Was Human Events, and Before That Almost NothingConservative media began as a few small newsletters and magazines that kept ideas alive while the big outlets looked away, and the line runs to today. Why the Fact-Check Became Its Own Genre and How to Check the CheckersFact-checking grew from a newsroom chore into a branded genre with its own rating scales. Here is how it works and a method for testing any check. Anonymous Sources, Who Gets Them and What a Reader Should DemandAnonymity is sometimes the only way the truth gets out and often a way to avoid accountability. Here are five questions that tell the two apart. Seven Words Reporters Use to Tilt a Story Without Telling a Single LieBias rarely hides in false facts. It hides in seven small words, and here is a substitution test that exposes each one. How to Read a News Story From the Bottom Up and Catch What the Lede HidesA numbered, practical method for reading a news story backwards: sources, verbs, bare numbers, headlines, last words and datelines, with a worked example. The Corrections Page Is the Most Honest Part of the Paper, So Read ItHow corrections, clarifications, editor's notes and retractions differ, why silent edits matter, and how to judge an outlet by how it handles its mistakes. When Dateline Rigged a Pickup Truck to Burn and Then Apologized on AirNBC's 1992 Dateline segment used hidden igniters to help a GM truck burn on camera, then apologized in 1993. Why a staged picture is worse than a wrong fact. The Duke Lacrosse Case and the Rush to a Verdict the Facts Never SupportedIn 2006 a false accusation was treated as proven until North Carolina's attorney general declared three athletes innocent in 2007. The due-process lesson. Richard Jewell and the Trial by Headline of a Security Guard Who Was a HeroA guard who saved lives at the 1996 Olympics was named as the FBI's focus within days. What the Jewell case teaches about leaks, headlines and due process. From Banned Claim to Live Hypothesis, How the Lab-Leak Debate Was FramedNewsrooms say they simply follow the evidence. The lab-leak record shows how a question was labelled a conspiracy theory before the evidence was in. The Laptop Story Twitter Blocked and the Letter That Gave It CoverIn October 2020 Twitter blocked a New York Post story and 51 ex-officials suggested a Russian hand. The record shows why platforms should not edit elections.
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