5 Years After the Backpage Shutdown, Sex Workers—and Free Speech—Are Still Suffering
As former Backpage execs await their August trial, the shutdown is still worsening the lives it was supposed to improve.
Free Speech
Connecticut S. Ct. Sharply Limits State's "Racial Ridicule" Law
Prosecutors and police had read the law, which restricts "advertisements," as broadly banning racial slurs; the Connecticut court read it, as written, to restrict only commercial advertisements.
Is Telling Someone To 'Die' on Facebook Protected by the First Amendment?
A Colorado man was convicted under an anti-stalking law for sending hostile messages online.
A TikTok Ban Would Set a Dangerous Precedent. Live With Taylor Lorenz and Peter Van Valkenburgh
Join Reason on YouTube and Facebook Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern for a discussion about Congress' attempt to ban TikTok with the RESTRICT Act.
Divorced Father Inflicted "Mental Injury" on 12-Year-Old Son By Religious Criticisms of Son's Felt Homosexuality
The Appellate Court of Maryland just upheld the lower court's finding, and related protective order.
Plaintiff, Who Had Published an Article Describing Herself as Escort, Sues Newspaper for Calling Her an Escort
Plaintiff "asserts that her published work and other accounts describing life as an escort were part of an effort to build a career in writing and were entirely fictional. As for the websites and other internet advertisements cited by defendants, she claims that they were produced for the purpose of satisfying Medium’s 'fact-checking' requirements and possibly promoting a future fictional web series on the topic."
Apocalypse Tomorrow: Trump's Looming Indictment
Plus: the terrible case for pausing A.I. innovation
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.
