A recent study concluded that use of social media by jurors is infrequent with the implication that the practice is not a growing problem, but Eric P. Robinson, writing for the Citizen Media Law Center, says that the study takes a far too optimistic stance on the issue.

Given the rampant use of the social media by the general public supplying the juror pools and the difficulty of detecting its use by jurors, Robinson argues that the study’s findings are dubious. -db

From a commentary for the Citizen Media Law Center, February 6, 2012 by Eric P. Robinson.

Full story

A Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge torched Norman Chad, an ESPN poker commentator for tweeting during trial.

The judge said Chad made a mockery of the justice system when he tweeted, “I was selected for the jury. I asked the judge if we could go straight to jury deliberations but was denied, plus gagged and bounded.” -db

From the Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2012, storified by Kimi Yoshino.

Full story

A federal judge ruled that Republican presidential contender Ron Paul could not force YouTube and Twitter to provide the identities of whoever uploaded videos with a spoof of Ron Paul bashing former candidate Jon Huntsman for being a Chinese agent.

It is unusual for a candidate to sue in these matters given the courts’ tolerance of robust give and take in presidential campaigns, writes Jeff Roberts in paidContent. -db

From a commentary in paidContent, January 26, 2012, by Jeff Roberts.

Full story

After Twitter announced last week they would engage in country-specific censorship, EFF’s Eva Galperin says there are ways to fight the plan including checking to see if Twitter makes use of the Chilling Effects Project which publishes a country’s censorship orders and puts it in an archive.

Galperin also says that a user can circumvent the censorship by changing the country listed in their profile. -db

From a commentary for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 27, 2012, by Eva Galperin.

Full story

To cries of protest, Twitter announced last week that it will take a country’s laws and culture into account in conducting country-specific censorship.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is also the second largest shareholder in News Corp., recently invested $300 million in Twitter. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, January 27, 2012, by Adam Klasfeld.

Full story

The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are set to file an appeal concerning the U.S. government’s attempts to obtain Twitter records in their investigation of WikiLeaks.

The ACLU and EFF are seeking to prevent the government from sealing records of their efforts to obtain private information of Internet users without a warrant. -db

From a press release by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 20, 2012.

Full release

As the social media becomes a useful tool for teachers to contact students about work or to help reluctant or shy students, abuses have surfaced with teachers making inappropriate contact leading in some cases to sexual abuse.

Citing free speech issues, a Missouri judge recently threw out a new law banning contact on the social media between teachers and students, but the need for boundaries remains as school districts struggle to balance free speech and student safety. -db

From The New York Times, December 17, 2011, by Jennifer Preston.

Full story

A Kansas high school student refused to accede to a demand from her prinicpal to apologize to Governor Sam Brownback for a derogatory tweet made during his speech. The Governor had ratted her out to the principal.

After the Governor apologized for telling on her, the student raised the ante by saying the apology was inadequate. -db

From a commentary in the Newser, November 29, 2011, by Mary Papenfuss.

Full story

With the Chinese government employing more than 50,000 censors to monitor the Internet for politically deviant opinion, bloggers are using humor and satire to get their message across before the censors close in.

There is always a strong element of fear and uncertainty for the bloggers as they never know where the line is between the acceptable satire and a criminal offense. -db

From a feature in The New York Times Magazine, October 26, 2011, by Brook Larmer.

Full story

When a Los Angeles police detective posted a photo of a murder victim on Twitter, questions arose about the propriety of the post and the policeman’s free speech rights. Even though the Los Angeles Police Department does not have a policy on the use of social media, they asked the detective to forego posting details about his investigations. -db

From a commentary for Suffolk Media Law, October 22, 2011, by Brian Lynch.

Full story

Panelists at the U.S. Institute of Peace addressed the role of social media in recent uprisings in the Arab world with some saying that the use of social media was part of a power shift from nation states to smaller groups.

Others said the information about the social media is still too mixed and scattered to draw any firm conclusions. -db

From NextGov, September 16, 2011, by Joseph Marks.

Full story

Two Mexican citizens were arrested in Veracruz for  reporting on Twitter something they heard,  that a drug gang had attacked a primary school and conducted a kidnapping. It turns out that the report was untrue and caused a panic and over twenty car accidents as parents rushed to get their kids out of class.

The government blamed the two for causing the panic and charged them with terrorism that carries a sentence of two to 30 years. As Arthur Bright points out in a commentary for the Citizen Media Law Project, criminalizing citizen reports on the social media is not a wise thing to do especially in a country that suffers from lawlessness and a dearth of accurate reporting. -db

From a commentary for the Citizen Media Law Project, September 8, 2011 by Arthur Bright.

Full story

Writing in ZDNet, Sam Diaz says that Google, Facebook and Twitter have the information that could enable them with the help of the analysis of real journalists to identify which blog sites, tweets and news outlets should be labeled “journalism.” Diaz says “news” is different from “journalism” and the latter must be identified and labeled as such because of its value. “Journalism is about fairness, accuracy, objectivity and responsible reporting, as well as values, standards and ethics,” says Diaz.

From a commentary in ZDNet, September 6, 2011, by Sam Diaz.

Full story

Twitter is refusing to shut down rioters’ accounts amid reports that the British government going online to identify those inciting violence and disorder in London.

A Twitter spokesperson said, “Some tweets may facilitate positive change in a repressed country, some make us laugh, some make us think, some downright anger a vast majority of users. We don’t always agree with the things people choose to tweet, but we keep the information flowing irrespective of any view we may have about the content.” -db

From the Daily Mail, August 10, 2011, by Chris Greenwood and Tim Shipman.

Full story

Contrary to common-held belief that Tweets are ephemeral and not subject to libel law, statements on Twitter are fair game for libel suits say legal experts. So far there have been few suits, but as public use and awareness of Twitter increases, libel cases are expected to increase.

So far observers could only come up with one case of Twitter defamation and the press. “Earlier this year, NBA referee Bill Spooner sued the AP after sportswriter Jon Krawczynski tweeted that Spooner was calling fouls to compensate for bad calls. Spooner, who considered the tweet defamatory, asked the court for more than $75,000 in damages and requested a court order to delete the tweet. AP Spokesman Paul Colford said only, the ‘case is in litigation,’” writes Mallary Jean Tenore for The Poynter Institute.

From a commentary for The Poynter Institute, August 8, 2011, by Mallary Jean Tenore.

Full story

The Electric Freedom Foundation issued a press release arguing that using the federal anti-stalking law to prosecute people for criticizing public figures on Twitter threatens First Amendment rights to online free speech.

The  federal law was  enacted to criminalize traveling across state lines for the purpose of stalking but now is being to stifle speech. The release reads: “In 2005, the law was modified to make the ‘intentional infliction of emotional distress’ by the use of ‘any interactive computer service’ a crime. In this case [the indictment of the man on Twitter], the government has presented the novel and dangerous theory that the use of a public communication service like Twitter to criticize a well-known individual can result in criminal liability based on the personal sensibilities of the person being criticized.” -db

From a press release from the Electric Freedom Foundation, July 29, 2011.

Full release

Chinese censors are failing to contain the flood of online messages about the wreck of a high-speed train outside Wenzhou that killed 40 people and injured 191. Messages total 26 million.

Citizens began the posts right after the accident and in many instances foiled the manipulations of government officials. In Wenzhou, officials ordered lawyers not to accept cases from families of victims without permission. After this came to light on the internet, they were forced to withdraw the order and apologize. Railway workers who had buried the first car of the oncoming train were forced to unearth it and take it to Wenzhou for an analysis. -db

From The New York Times, July 28, 2011, by Michael Wines and Sharon LaFraniere with additional reporting by Jonathan Ansfield and research from Adam Century, Li Mia, Li Bibo and Edy Yin.

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A Pittsburgh Steeler football player Rashard Mendenhall  filed a $1 million freedom of speech lawsuit against Hanes underwear which dropped his endorsement contract in reaction to his controversial comments on Twitter. One of the Tweets in dispute was his objection to people celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. “What kind of person celebrates death? It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak. We’ve only heard one side,” tweeted Mendenhall.

Hanes claims the tweets were a violation of an agreement preventing Mendenhall from actions that would bring him “into public disrepute, contempt scandal or ridicule, or tending to shock, insult or offend a majority of the consuming public.” -db

From a commentary in the Hollywood Reporter, July 25, 2011, by Eriq Gardner.

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President Barack Obama will hold a Twitter town hall at 2 p.m. EST on July 6 by answering questions on his Twitter account submitted by Twitter users.

From The Washington Post, July 1, 2011, by Hayley Tsukayama.

Full story

Writing for GigaOM, Mathew Ingram argues that a journalism professor was wrong to claim that traditional news stories on events such as the Missouri tornado are unnecessary as Twitter carries the necessary information.

Ingram says that the sheer volume of information coming from such sources as Twitter makes it even more important for journalists to add context and background. The journalism professor said that his views were mischaracterized and that he was only saying that in some cases articles would not be necessary, but, if done right, articles add needed perspective. -db

From a commentary in GigaOM, May 29. 2011, by Mathew Ingram.

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Writing for the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, Tim Carmody describes current sports reporting on the internet as innovative and exciting. He notes a number of recent aggregations, blogs and other presentations including the literary that allow the reader faster, more convenient access and promise an even richer involvement in the sports scene.

Carmody writes about the changes, “As Rob Neyer wrote when he moved from ESPN to SB Nation, the new ethos in sports journalism, as elsewhere, seems to be breaking down the distinction between “us” and “them.” And this is a distinction that you can interpret much more broadly than one between writers and readers, pros and amateurs, sportswriting and non-sports writing. When the walls tumble, they tumble everywhere. My bet is that this will be good for everyone — not just sports fans, sportswriters, and smart media companies, but everyone looking for new ways to read and write smart material on the web.” -db

From a commentary the Nieman Journalism Lab, May 23, 2011, by Tim Carmody

Full story

A British soccer star obtained a court order forbidding the traditional news media from publishing details of his alleged affair with a “Big Brother” contestant, but the effect 0f the injunction waxed small in the wake of some 75,00o weekend postings about the affair on the social media.

The judge stubbornly reaffirmed the need for the injunction to protect the soccer player’s privacy, but the prime minister said in light of what happened in this case that the parliament might need to reconsider the law on super-injunctions. -db

From The New York Times, May 23, 2011, by Sarah Lyall.

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As one journalist described it, he has “a personalized wire service” of over 2,000 sources on Twitter who provide him with tips and on-location news reports. While this sort of access is of inestimable value, it present immense difficulties as well.

Writing in GigaOM, Mathew Ingram says that with gathering so much information on the fly, reporters have to work harder than ever to separate fact from rumor and verify the credibility of sources, some anonymous. -db

From a commentary in GigaOM, May. 17, 2011, by Mathew Ingram.

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In GigaOM, Mathew Ingram says the Pakistan computer programmer in Abbottabad who live-tweeted the U.S. raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound deserves the label of “citizen journalist.”

As mainstream journalists have done in reporting live events, the man answered questions, sought and shared news reports, traded what he knew with others to find out what was happening, and shared information and analyzed it. Ingram says critics who try to consign people like the programmer to the sidelines are ignoring the reality of their achievements. -db

From a commentary in GigaOM, May 5, 2011, by Mathew Ingram.

Full story

Twitter carried reports of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound and his death before it was reported by cable news and print media. A Pakistani who says he is an IT professional and coffee shop owner tweeted the attack live.

The Twitter phenomenon has prompted concerns that sensitive information such as the plans for the raid on bin Laden would appear online, but so far there have been no reports of a U.S. military operation compromised by leaks on the social media. -db

From NextGov, May 2, 2011, by Joseph Marks.

Full story

The website Storify that allows users to accumulate information from the social media to build stories is now available to the public. Users can combine content with commentary and also add their own text.

Reporters have used the tool to report on the Middle East uprisings and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford. -db

From the ReadWriteWeb, April 25, 2011, by Audrey Watters.

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Following Twitter’s example, Facebook has plans to help journalists use the network to greater advantage.
It wants to provide more information on its service to make it more than just a social site.

Facebook has launched a page that will be a resource for journalists with “best practices” showing how reporters have used Facebook effectively in reporting a story. It also wants to show how to increase audience participation in news content through open-graph plugins and “like” buttons. -db

From a commentary in GigaOM, April 5, 2011, by Mathew Ingram.

Full story

Writing in Benzinga, Laura Hlebasko assesses the role of microblogging on Twitter and Tumbir in creating news. She quotes observers who say traditional blogging is challenged by microblogging that makes news more personal and immediate. But traditional news outlets still have a vital role in synthesizing information and interpreting events.

And primary sources are still key to news. Hlebasko quotes FOX Business Network anchor Brian Sullivan, “Ultimately, even with all this new technology, real honest to goodness relationships and reporting still matter the most. Real news can only come from the people who make it.” -db

From a commentary in Benzinga, April 4, 2011, by Laura Hlebasko.

Full story

Social media sites are struggling to achieve the right balance in remaining neutral during the Middle East
and North Africa uprisings and allowing freedom of expression. A recent case in which Flickr removed photos of officers from Egypt’s state security force demonstrated the difficulties.

Is it feasible in some instances to remain neutral when people could be in danger from a posting? Ebele Okobi-Harris, the director of the business and human rights program at Yahoo, which owns Flickr says, “Does a company take responsibility for the content?” What if someone wanted to post photos of doctors who do abortions?

From The New York Times, March 27, 2011, by Jennifer Preston.

Full Story

A federal judge ordered Twitter to release records of three of its users in a U.S. government investigation of WikiLeaks.

In an article in PC Magazine, Chloe Albanesius quotes Elecronic Frontier Foundation legal director Cindy Cohn on the implications of the order, “We’re disappointed that the court did not recognize that people using digital tools deserve basic privacy and that the government should be required to meet a high standard before it demands private information about you from the online services you use, be they Twitter, Facebook, Gmail or Skype.” -db

From PC Magazine, March 11, 2011, by Chloe Albanesius.

Full Story

Texas Governor Rick Perry has blocked Dallas News’ Tom Benning from access to his Twitter account along with two other Texas journalists.

In AllTwitter, Lauren Dugan notes that to get to the Twitter account, the blocked journalists can simply use someone else’s account. But Twitter users are upset that Perry is violating Twitter’s open spirit. -db

From a commentary in AllTwitter, February 28, 2011, by Lauren Dugan.

Full Story

Los Angeles Times
January 29, 2011

With a few phone calls to the likes of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, the Egyptian government  stymied the social media, effectively limiting its role in organizing the demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak. -db

Wired
Commentary
January 14, 2011
By Nate Anderson of Ars Technica

Citizens are using the social media in quest to oust the corrupt government in Tunisia, and the government is fighting back, blocking websites and using the Internet to identify activists. -db

Courthousehouse News Service
January 12, 2011
By Chie Akiba

A California court will hear some spirited argument in the upcoming defamation trial of Courtney Love for an online message calling a fashion designer an “asswipe nasty lying hosebag thief.” Love’s attorneys will argue that the message was protected opinion and also true in its essence and therefore not libelous. -db

Wired
Analysis
January 11, 2011
By Ryan Singel

Writing in Wired, Ryan Singel said Twitter made a wise move that upheld the First Amendment after receiving a federal government subpoena for records of a number of people connected to WikiLeaks. Twitter went to court to get the gag order lifted then informed the people their data was under subpoena allowing them to contest the order. -db

Hackers have disrupted the Web sites and services of a number of companies including MasterCard, Visa and PayPal for withdrawing services in support of WikiLeaks. -db

New York Times
December 8, 2010
By Ashlee Vance and Miguel Helft

A hacking free-for-all has exploded on the Web, and Facebook and Twitter are stuck in the middle.

On Wednesday, anonymous hackers took aim at companies perceived to have harmed WikiLeaks after its release of a flood of confidential diplomatic documents. MasterCard, Visa and PayPal, which had cut off people’s ability to donate money to WikiLeaks, were hit by attacks that tried to block access to the companies’ Web sites and services.

To organize their efforts, the hackers have turned to sites like Facebook and Twitter. That has drawn these Web giants into the fray and created a precarious situation for them.

Both Facebook and Twitter — but particularly Twitter — have received praise in recent years as outlets for free speech. Governments trying to control the flow of information have found it difficult to block people from voicing their concerns or setting up meetings through the sites.

At the same time, both Facebook and Twitter have corporate aspirations that hinge on their ability to serve as ad platforms for other companies. This leaves them with tough public relations and business decisions around how they should handle situations as politically charged as the WikiLeaks developments.

Some internet experts say the situation highlights the complexities of free speech issues on the Internet, as grassroots Web companies evolve and take central control over what their users can make public. Clay Shirky, who studies the Internet and teaches at New York University, said that although the Web is the new public sphere, it is actually “a corporate sphere that tolerates public speech.”

Marcia Hofmann, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, “Any Internet user who cares about free speech or has a controversial or unpopular message should be concerned about the fact that intermediaries might not let them express it.”

She added, “Your free speech rights are only as strong as the weakest intermediary.”

The problem came into relief on Wednesday, through an effort called Operation Payback, organized by a group calling itself Anonymous. The group spent much of the day posting notes on Facebook and Twitter that told followers which companies to single out and that documented hacking successes.

But Facebook banned one of the group’s pages, saying that using the site to organize hacking attacks like that violated its terms of use. The group went on Twitter to complain.

A Facebook spokesman issued a statement saying that the company was “sensitive to content that includes pornography, bullying, hate speech, and threats of violence” and would “take action on content that we find or that’s reported to us that promotes unlawful activity.”

In an interview Wednesday morning, Joe Sullivan, Facebook’s chief security officer, addressed WikiLeaks’s own presence on the site. He said the company had not received any official requests to disable pages or accounts associated with the WikiLeaks organization.

Facebook generally resists requests by governments or advocacy groups to take down material if that content is not illegal or does not violate Facebook’s terms of service, which prohibit attacks on individuals or incitements to violence.

“Facebook is a place where people come to talk about all sorts of things, including controversial topics,” Mr. Sullivan said. It was not clear whether anyone had asked Facebook to take down the Operation Payback page.

Twitter allowed the Operation Payback account to stay active most of Wednesday. But the group’s account was disabled late in the day, after it posted a link to a file that provided thousands of consumer credit card numbers, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.

A Twitter spokesman declined to discuss the details of the situation. “We don’t comment about the specific actions we take around user accounts,” he said.

The company is not overly concerned about hackers’ attacking Twitter’s site, he said, explaining that it faces security issues all the time and has technology to deal with the situation.

Twitter is in a particularly delicate situation because its founders have celebrated their service’s role in political protest and free speech. They have not been shy about trying to capitalize on the good will engendered by playing that role.

WikiLeaks’s own Twitter account remains active, and it is the group’s main channel for reaching supporters and the media.

Last week, Amazon.com fell into a similar position when it decided to stop storing files for WikiLeaks. Advocates of WikiLeaks complained that Amazon.com was bowing to political pressure to cut the organization from its Web services. An Amazon.com spokesman said the company was simply banning an organization that had violated its terms of service by trying to distribute documents it did not own.

The last week has given rise to a hacking war in which groups have blocked access to WikiLeaks’s Web sites by bombarding them with requests.

And now the WikiLeaks supporters have responded in kind, flying the freedom of speech banner as the motivation for their actions.

Claire Cain Miller contributed reporting.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company     FAC Content Use Policy

Some Florida teachers are suing their district in state court on the grounds that a proposed Manatee school district policy violates their free speech rights by prohibiting social media postings of negative comments or photos about the district, employees or students from home or work computers. -db

Bradenton Herald
November 13, 2010
By Richard Dymond

MANATEE, Florida — The teachers union in Manatee County filed a lawsuit Friday challenging the constitutionality of a proposed Manatee school district policy governing how teachers use Facebook and other social networking websites.

The lawsuit by the Manatee Education Association asserts that the policy would violate teachers’ freedom of speech rights.

The action comes 45 days after the school district came up with a proposed policy that would prohibit teachers from posting negative statements or photos about the district, employees or students from their home or work computers on sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The policy would also require teachers to get written permission from parents if they want to communicate with students on those websites, or by personal e-mail.

At the time, school board chairwoman Jane Pfeilsticker voiced concern about the district infringing on First Amendment rights, stating, “This is pretty untested water and I would love to see how other districts have dealt with this without any freedom of speech issues arriving in a lawsuit.”

In the 18-page suit, filed in the 12th Judicial Circuit Court, the Manatee Education Association and its president, Pat Barber, allege that proposed policy 4.7, “prohibits speech on matters of public concert in a manner which violates the First Amendment, United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 4, Florida Constitution.”

When he discovered the district had been sued by the teachers union Friday, school board attorney John Bowen said he was disappointed.

“I am disappointed this wasn’t handled in a manner that would not have involved spending the public’s money on litigation,” Bowen said.

Bowen also called the teachers union action “premature.”

The union in October filed a complaint with the state claiming the proposed policy violates a teacher’s right to privacy and speech. The state has not issued a ruling on the complaint.

The union had asked the state Division of Administrative Hearings’ judicial board to rule against the proposed policy.

School board members were slated to vote on the policy proposal Oct. 25, but it was pulled from the school board agenda after the union approached the state for a ruling.

“Challenging the constitutionality of this doesn’t make sense when we don’t know what the final form of the rule will take,” Bowen said. “I think it is extremely premature.”

A call to Barber was not returned by press time.

Bowen said the school district will petition to move the case to federal court since it is involves the U.S. Constitution.

Bowen said he stands behind earlier statements that he made that restricting teacher’s use of the social media does not violate their rights, but only reminds them they are bound to a code of ethics.

“The school board’s position on this is that we are not changing anything,” Bowen said. “What we are saying to teachers is that when they communicate, in whatever manner, from a conversation on the street, on the beach, in a classroom, or in a chat room, they are bound by the a code of ethics built around the principles of the teaching profession.”

Copyright 2010 Bradenton.com     FAC Content Use Policy

Public and private universities are increasingly limiting players’ use of social media that one expert says constitutes in most cases illegal prior restraint and a violation of their free speech rights. -db

Citizen Media Law Center
Commentary
November 9, 2010
By Eric P. Robinson

An exercise we did Friday at University of Nevada, Reno’s High School Journalism Day raised an interesting legal question: can a public university restrict its students’ use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter?

It turns out that a number of public and private universities — including Boise State, Indiana University, New Mexico State, Texas Tech, the University of Miami (private), and the University of North Carolina — have followed the lead of the National Football League, which imposes limits on players’ use of social media. The NFL prohibits players from using social media during games (and has attempted to extend this to others at the game).

But the schools have gone further: Boise State banned players from using any social media during the season, while New Mexico State barred Twitter during the season. Meanwhile, the University of Miami, UNC, and Texas Tech all required football players to cancel their Twitter accounts entirely. And Indiana University indefinitely suspended a player from the football team after he sent Tweets criticizing the school’s coaching staff.

As private organizations, legally the NFL and the University of Miami can impose whatever restrictions they want on players. But the situation is more complicated for the public universities. As government entities, their ability to limit speech — including the speech via Twitter of football players — is limited by the First Amendment.

The U.S. Supreme Court famously declared in 1969 that “[neither] students [n]or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969), and that high school authorities could limit speech only when they foresee “substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities.” Id. at 514. In more recent cases, the Court has found a number of circumstances in which the possibility of such disruption allowed high school administrators to restrict speech, including a profanity-laden student speech (Bethel Sch. Dist. No. 403 v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675 (1986)) and a banner referencing drug use (Morse v. Frederick, 551 U.S. 393 (2007)).

The court has also held that “educators do not offend the First Amendment by exercising editorial control over the style and content of student speech in school-sponsored expressive activities [such as a school-sponsored newspaper] so long as their actions are reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns.” Hazelwood Sch. Dist. v. Kuhlmeier, 484 U.S. 260, 273 (1988). The court added that students would have more freedom in publications that have served as “public forums.” Id. at 267.

All of these cases involved high school students; for college students, the courts have been more protective of First Amendment rights. Thus a college’s refusal to give a particular student group the same recognition it gave to other groups was held to violate the First Amendment, when the college’s refusal was based on a generalized fear of disruption (Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169 (1972)) or when the college refused to recognize or provide funds to religious groups while doing so for secular groups (Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263 (1981); Rosenberger v. Rector of the Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819 (1995)). While most of these cases involved on-campus speech, some lower courts, and the Supreme Court in Morse, applied these rules to off-campus speech with a possible impact on campus.

Generally, public schools can limit students’ speech only if the limitations are content-neutral, further an important government interest, and are “narrowly tailored” to further that interest. U.S. v. O’Brien, 391 U.S. 367 (1968). In most of the cases, the cited governmental interest is the school’s interest in ensuring a safe, non-disruptive educational environment.

Some courts have held that, in the context of a school athletic team, this interest includes the ability to punish insubordination amongst team members. Thus both the Sixth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit have upheld the removal of public school athletes who created and signed petitions expressing general lack of confidence in their coaches. See Lowery v. Euverard, 497 F.3d 584 (6th Cir. 2007), reh’g and reh’g en banc denied (6th Cir. Feb. 1, 2008), cert. denied, 129 S.Ct. 159, 172 L.Ed.2d 42 (U.S. Oct. 6, 2008); Wildman ex rel. Wildman v. Marshalltown Sch. Dist., 249 F.3d 768 (8th Cir. 2001).

But the Ninth Circuit found that a petition by athletes complaining of physical and psychologically intimidation by their coach was protected by the First Amendment. Pinard v. Clatskanie Sch. Dist. 6J, 467 F.3d 755, 768 (9th Cir. 2006). And in Seamons v. Snow, 206 F.3d 1021 (10th Cir. 2000), the court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of First Amendment claims brought against a coach who allegedly removed a student who refused to apologize for complaining to school authorities and the police about a hazing incident.

The rule emerging from these cases seems to be that public schools can reprimand student athletes for insubordinately expressing dissatisfaction with their coaches, while they cannot punish athletes for serious — and specific — allegations. The Indiana University suspension, resulting from Tweets critical of the coaches, would probably be upheld under this rule.

But it would be difficult for the blanket rules imposed by the other schools on use of social media by football players — a total ban on Twitter or on all social media, applying either during the season, or at all times — to withstand First Amendment scrutiny. Schools may penalize students for specific Tweets or posts that are likely to lead “substantial disruption of or material interference” with the team and its activities, but cannot impose a prior restraint on athletes in mere anticipation of such a comment.

For failing to go through the First Amendment goalposts, the public colleges’ policies limiting athletes’ use of social networking sites should be sacked.

Eric P. Robinson is Deputy Director of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Courts and Media at the University of Nevada, Reno. He was previously a Staff Attorney at the Media Law Resource Center.

Copyright 2010 Citizen Media Law Center     FAC Content Use Policy

Tweets were 54 percent against Senator Harry Reid and only 12 percent against his opponent, tea party hopeful Sharron Angle, but Reid still won the Nevada senate race by four or five percentage points. -db

Los Angeles Times
Commentary
November 3, 2010
By Patrick Goldstein

There’s nothing quite as much fun as watching the election returns on CNN, whose newsroom, packed with all sorts of goofy push-button video monitors and high-tech gadgetry, looks like it could double as the set for the next “Star Trek” movie. I guess all that technology didn’t entirely go to waste, as CNN proved during its coverage of the high-stakes Nevada Senate battle between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and “tea party” insurgent Sharron Angle.

It was an ugly race, with each side slinging mud left and right. In the end, Reid won surprisingly handily, perhaps thanks to a host of Angle whoppers, including an interview she did in June in which she said that if she were counseling a 13-year-old rape victim who was considering an abortion, she would tell her that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” But CNN came up with the most fascinating social media take on the race, illustrating the fluctuating opinions that voters had of each candidate through the number of tweets sent that registered support of or opposition to each candidate.

As you can see from this interactive chart, CNN found nearly 572,000 tweets involving the two candidates. As it turned out, Reid was hardly a Twitter favorite; 54% of the tweets were anti-Reid while only 12% were anti-Angle, while Angle edged out Reid among favorable tweets, 11% to 8%. You can play around with the chart yourself to get an overview how many tweets were sent during each week of the campaign.

But one big question remains, which CNN didn’t seem prepared to answer: Why did Reid win the most votes if he got so thoroughly trounced in the Twitter race? Does that mean that candidates such as Angle, who was clearly propelled by passionate “tea party” supporters, were natural magnets for Twitter-friendly voters? Were Reid voters more comfortable with old-media habits? Did “tea party” supporters simply send out far more tweets, drowning Reid in negative messages? Or, ahem, is Twitter just not an especially reliable indicator of what people are going to do once they enter the voting booth?

It would be interesting to see the Twitter traffic for a separate race, such as the Jerry Brown versus Meg Whitman gubernatorial contest in California, to see if the patterns of support were any different. But my own takeaway here is that Twitter may be a great way for a community of like-minded people to stay in touch — like Justin Bieber fans — but so far it doesn’t seem to be a particularly useful barometer for more complex, important decisions, such as political voting patterns.

It’s a conclusion that Malcolm Gladwell arrived at in a recent piece he did in the New Yorker, which demolished a lot of myths about Twitter’s supposed impact on social revolutions in Moldova and Iran. It turns out that what got Harry Reid re-elected was party discipline and get-out-the-vote strategy, two things that existed long, long before anyone was making inflated claims about the so-called Twitter Revolution.

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Google has 15 days to reveal the identity of a person who posted comments calling a Columbia MBA graduate a “whore,” “a shank,” and “an old hag.” -db

New York Daily News
October 15, 2010
By Jose Martinez

Columbia MBA graduate Carla Franklin went after Google in August in an attempt to unmask her online tormentor, who slimed her under three aliases on its video-sharing site.

The order gives Google 15 days to reveal any information it has on who posted the comments to YouTube videos that featured Franklin.

It came a day after a Broadway star went after Twitter in court to find out who’s been lying online about him catching crabs from an “Avenue Q” cast member.

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