#trump + #freedom-of-speech

On Friday this week the FTC’s open comment period regarding its “Policy Statement Addressing AI Accuracy” will close, which means that a bunch of very smart, very busy people are wasting a ton of time this week writing up comments that will mostly be ignored by the FTC — but still matter for the record. The whole thing is so ridiculous that a former FTC lawyer has sarcastically requested that the FTC publish a quarterly “schedule of values” so AI companies at least know which ideologies they’re required to support to keep Donald Trump happy.

It’s an unconstitutional sham from an FTC whose chairman, Andrew Ferguson, quite openly sees his job as putting his thumb on the scale of speech to favor the MAGA worldview. Ferguson has been doing this since the very start of his tenure and it doesn’t appear to be slowing down now.

Not to mention that this sets precedent for future administrations to use this power to determine what is biased.

Yet, that’s exactly what this proposed FTC policy is setting up: if AI tools don’t produce properly MAGA-fied outputs, the FTC might go after them, claiming that the outputs are not in line with “consumers’ expectations” (as determined by the MAGA FTC) and thus, “unfair and deceptive.”

The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate those who speak out against Israeli rights abuses.

Albanese is not alone in facing economic penalties for her work. Since taking office for a second term, Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces.

On May 13, US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W Bush, ruled in favour of the Albanese family’s lawsuit, granting a temporary injunction against the sanctions.

Leon found that the Trump administration had used the penalties to curtail Albanese’s constitutionally protected speech. He also stated that Albanese could not be blamed for the ICC’s actions.

“It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions,” Leon wrote. “They are nothing more than her opinion.”

As a result of the ruling, Albanese was removed from the sanctions list this month.

But the Trump administration appealed Leon’s order. It also said it would restore her to the sanctions list as soon as it was able, though it is unclear what prompted Wednesday’s change.

To some "free speech" means you're free to say only what they want you to say.

The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers “censorship” of Americans’ speech.

First Amendment experts criticized the memo’s guidance as itself a potential violation of free speech rights.

“People who study misinformation and work on content-moderation teams aren’t engaged in ‘censorship’— they’re engaged in activities that the First Amendment was designed to protect. This policy is incoherent and unconstitutional,” said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney and legislative advisor at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, in a statement.

Even as the administration has targeted those it claims are engaged in censoring Americans, it has also tightened its own scrutiny of visa applicants’ online speech.

On Wednesday, the State Department announced it would require H-1B visa applicants and their dependents to set their social media profiles to “public” so they can be reviewed by U.S. officials.

While his higher profile targets have gotten all the attention, the Associated Press has a very good story you should read about Carr’s efforts to bully a Bay Area radio station (KCBS) after it accurately informed locals about the goonish behavior of masked ICE agents.

Carr opened a fake investigation into the network last February, claiming the station had violated ambiguous public interest standards. The fake inquiries were tethered to a right wing antisemitic propaganda campaign attempting to link George Soros to these stations despite Soros’ limited investment involvement being both irrelevant and three or four layers deep.

As our already struggling, highly consolidated, and under-funded media outlets tend to do, KCBS immediately folded under federal existential threat, just as Carr hoped:

“KCBS demoted a well-liked anchor and dialed back on political programming, people said. For months, reporters were dissuaded from pursuing political or controversial topics and instead encouraged to focus on human interest stories, according to the current and former staffers.”

When staffers did try to cover more political fare, they say the tone was heavily scrutinized and the content was watered down to a bland gruel to avoid upsetting Republicans:

“Doug Sovern, a veteran political journalist at the station, said he was sidelined after Carr announced his investigation.

“‘Chilling effect’ does not begin to describe the neutering of our political coverage,” said Sovern, who retired in April. He said his retirement was not related to the controversy.”

As Carr was distracted by his other extremist projects, like failing to censor Kimmel, some of the scrutiny eased and the station regained the confidence to at least report on things like the No Kings protest. But the bullying appears to have had its intended effect. At one point, a KCBS reporter says he was denied the opportunity to interview Katie Porter because management felt it would upset Donald Trump:

Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon, under a 17-page memo distributed Friday that steps up media restrictions imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump.

“Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified,” the directive states. The signature form includes an array of security requirements for credentialed media at the Pentagon.

Advocates for press freedoms denounced the non-disclosure requirement as an assault on independent journalism. The new Pentagon restrictions arrive as Trump expands threats, lawsuits and government pressure as he remakes the American media landscape.