Teacher Guide: Disinformation and the First Amendment

Disinformation is more pernicious and widespread today than at any other point in history, largely because of social media and the Internet. For instance, it is now widely known—and verified by the U.S. intelligence community—that Russians interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

Texas’ Social Media Law is Unconstitutional, Federal Court Rules

On December 1st, a federal court in Texas issued a preliminary injunction against Texas’ social media law, HB 20, for violating platforms’ First Amendment right to moderate the third-party content they disseminate. "HB 20 prohibits virtually all content moderation, the very tool that social media platforms employ to make their platforms safe, useful, and enjoyable for users," U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman wrote. 

Supreme Court Will Hear Case About Whether Digital Billboard Ordinance Violates the First Amendment

On June 28th, the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments in a case about whether Austin, Texas’s digital billboard policy violates the First Amendment. In 2017, Reagan National Advertising sued the city of Austin in state district court over a rule that prohibits billboards from being digitized if they appear anywhere other than a business’s property.