Free Speech
Hillsdale College Revokes Curriculum License to "Classical" School Over Its Objections to Michelangelo's David
"This drama around teaching Michelangelo's 'David' sculpture, one of the most important works of art in existence, has become ... a parody of ... the actual aims of classical education."
Communications Can Be Defamatory Even If Readers Realize There's a Considerable Risk of Error
And AI programs' "tendency [to, among other things, produce untruthful content] can be particularly harmful as models become increasingly convincing and believable, leading to overreliance on them by users. Counterintuitively, hallucinations can become more dangerous as models become more truthful, as users build trust in the model when it provides truthful information in areas where they have some familiarity."
Don Blankenship Loses Libel Lawsuit Against Donald Trump, Jr., Who Called Blankenship a "Felon"
Coal baron and later Senate candidate Blankenship had been convicted of a misdemeanor, and served a year in prison for it; a federal judge has concluded that Blankenship hadn't introduced enough evidence that Trump, Jr. knew that he had erred in calling Blankenship a "felon."
Can Governmental Defendants Use Anti-SLAPP Statutes When They're Sued Based on Their Speech?
No, said the Florida Court of Appeal, interpreting the Florida statute; the California Supreme Court, interpreting the California statute, had held otherwise.
Court Rejects Idea Theft / "Hot News" Claim by Occasional Fox Guest Against Fox
Bonus: Calling someone a "nut" isn't libel.
Sotomayor Grills Government Lawyer Over Law 'Criminalizing Words Related to Immigration'
The Supreme Court justice seemed willing to invalidate the federal law on First Amendment grounds.
Banning TikTok Is a Power the Federal Government Doesn't Deserve
Today, TikTok. Tomorrow, who knows?
Now Is the Best Time To Embrace Artificial Intelligence
Which sentence in this podcast was generated using A.I.?
Agatha Christie Books Get Woke Makeover, Join Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming
Books by the acclaimed mystery author have been edited, ostensibly to comport with modern sensibilities.
Large Libel Models: An AI Company's Noting That Its Output "May [Be] Erroneous]" Doesn't Preclude Libel Liability
[An excerpt from my forthcoming article on "Large Libel Models? Liability for AI Outputs."]
This College President Knows the First Amendment Protects the Drag Show He Canceled. He Just Doesn't Care.
"I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it," he wrote.
Charter School Principal "Forced to Resign" Allegedly Because 6th-Grade Students Were Shown Michelangelo's David
[UPDATE: I've added excerpts from a Slate interview with the school's Board Chair, who ended up commenting on the story after all; his view is that the firing stemmed only from the failure to alert parents to the upcoming material.]
Congress Asks Is TikTok Really 'An Extension of' the Chinese Communist Party?
TikTok's CEO served as little more than a punching bag for lawmakers with a dizzying array of big tech grievances.
No Temporary Restraining Order Against Critic of Israeli Muslim Institution,
who allegedly accused it of being an agent of the Israeli government and "refer[red] to individuals associated with the Academy as pigs and use[d] porcine imagery to insult those individuals."
A Thursday Bonus Reason Roundtable! Live From Reason Weekend in California
Plus: did the editors sing Happy Birthday to Adam Smith?
A Thursday Bonus Reason Roundtable! Live From Reason Weekend in California
Plus: did the editors sing Happy Birthday to Adam Smith?
TikTok Is Too Popular To Ban
Plus: Police sue Afroman for using footage from raid, California bill could ban popular junk foods, and more...
Law Restricting Pharmacist Speech About Ivermectin and Hydroxycholoroquine Likely Violates the First Amendment
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against the enforcement of the law.
Correction re: ChatGPT-4 Erroneously Reporting Supposed Crimes and Misconduct, Complete with Made-Up Quotes?
My Friday post erroneously stated that I got the bogus results from ChatGPT-4; it turns out they were from ChatGPT-3.5—but ChatGPT-4 does also yield similarly made-up results.
The Crusade Against 'Malinformation' Explicitly Targets Inconvenient Truths
The legal challenge to censorship by proxy highlights covert government manipulation of online speech.
Ninth Circuit Strikes Down Ban on Landlords' Inquiring About Prospective Tenants' Criminal History, But …
upholds the ban on landlords' taking adverse action based on that information.
