A new lawsuit brought by a Wisconsin family claims police in their town violated their daughter’s First Amendment rights when they ordered her to remove three Instagram posts that described her experience battling COVID-19 symptoms.
Twitter Removes More InfoWars-Affiliated Accounts
Among those suspended include InfoWars personality Owen Shroyer, who had recently used Twitter to promote a rally in Austin, Texas against the state’s stay-at-home order. Shroyer has used his accounts to discredit reports that hospitals are overwhelmed by coronavirus patients, though his account was not removed for this reason.
Appeals Court Rejects Request to Review Trump Twitter Case
"The critical question in this case is not the nature of the Account when it was set up a decade ago. The critical question for First Amendment purposes is how the President uses the Account in his capacity as President," Judge Barrington Parker wrote.
Hartford Police Lieutenant Sues to Unmask Anonymous Commenters
According to the complaint, some of the site’s commenters include police officers who have used the blog’s comments section to defame the lieutenant.
Babson College Fires Professor For Joke He Made on Private Facebook Account
Asheen Phansey was fired on Thursday for a satirical Facebook post he made about President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb 52 sites “important to Iran & Iranian culture.”
CNN Settles Defamation Suit With Family of Covington Catholic Teen
The family of Nicholas Sandman sued CNN back in March 2019 for $275 million over their reporting of a viral encounter between the Covington teen and an indigenous activist. Among other things, the lawsuit claimed CNN targeted Sandmann because he was a supporter of President Donald Trump.
While requests to remove threatening comments in defamation cases are not unheard of, this order stood out because it required the defendants to delete not only their own posts but also the comments made by third parties.
Media Law Expert George Freeman Talks About the Internet, Political Polarization, and Defamation Law
The libel of laws haven't changed and Trump is not going to change them, but he has created an environment where attacking the press has become commonplace, not only by him, but by many of his followers and supporters.