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Facebook is in talks with publishers on news effort to license articles on the platform. In an opinion piece in the Atlantic, NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro points out that news publications large and small failed to contextualize the recent shooting in El Paso as a crime deliberately targeting Latinos. First Amendment and free speech principles present legal hurdles to prosecuting white supremacy. Neo-Nazi publisher of Daily Stormer is ordered to pay $14 million in legal damages to woman whom he trolled repeatedly. Publicly-available list of Trump donors disseminated by Democrats leads to Trump supporters claiming it constitutes harassment and doxxing. (See PEN America’s online harassment manual which provides definitions of these terms.) -Nora Benavidez, Director of U.S. Free Expression Programs

The most pressing threats and notable goings-on in free expression today

U.S.

Facebook Said to Be in Talks With Publishers on News Effort
Facebook is pitching a new media initiative to license articles from some of the largest American news publishers and display that content inside the social network’s mobile app, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions.
NEW YORK TIMES

Opinion: The Media Erased Latinos from the Story
“The attack in El Paso left 22 dead. Most were Latinos, some of whom were Mexican citizens. It followed a sustained and deliberate campaign by the Trump administration to demonize immigrants. Journalists should report on that. We should contextualize it. But that is only the beginning of our work.”
ATLANTIC

Why Free Speech Makes It Difficult to Prosecute White Supremacy in America
The methodical approach by known white supremacy leaders is similar to tactics used by the radical antiabortion movement of the 1990s, which openly planned how to avoid criminal charges that fall under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and maintain First Amendment claims.
WASHINGTON POST

Neo-Nazi Publisher Ordered to Pay $14 Million in Troll Storm Lawsuit
The publisher of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer must pay more than $14 million in damages to Whitefish real estate agent Tanya Gersh for his 2016 trolling campaign on the site. A U.S. District Court judge officially adopted the recommendation from a federal magistrate judge.
MONTANA PUBLIC RADIO

Trump’s Opponents Want to Name His Big Donors. His Supporters Say It’s Harassment.
Calling out the people who fund campaigns is not a new tactic in politics, but the question of how much should be publicly disclosed about those donors has been an issue that Republicans, led by the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, have repeatedly raised in recent years.
NEW YORK TIMES

 
Global

Philippines: U.S. Rights Volunteer Branded ‘Enemy of State’ Shot outside Home
Brandon Lee, an American human rights volunteer tagged an “enemy of the state” on social media in the Philippines, was in a critical condition after suffering cardiac arrests during surgery to remove a bullet from his jaw after the shooting in Ifugao province in the northern Philippines.
GUARDIAN

The Philippines Was a Test of Facebook’s New Approach to Countering Disinformation. Things Got Worse.
The official and unofficial digital campaigns supporting Duterte and the opposition simply adapted to new rules and instituted countermeasures to avoid being flagged by fact-checkers or the platforms. The result was that the use of trolls, false news, misleading memes, etc., was even more widespread in 2019 than in 2016.
BUZZFEED NEWS

Paid ‘News’: China Using Taiwan Media to Win Hearts and Minds on Island
The placement of news stories by companies and special interests is common in Taiwan; however, the commissioning of such stories by China is potentially explosive in Taiwan, which has been increasingly sensitive about mainland efforts to sway popular sentiment amid rising tensions across the strait.
REUTERS

New Zealand Telco Bans 8chan as Chief Censor Calls It Racist Killers’ ‘Platform of Choice’
One of New Zealand’s largest telecommunications providers, Spark, has banned the far-right site 8chan after the country’s chief censor offered his backing for any internet service provider who did so in the wake of the El Paso mass shooting.
GUARDIAN

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