Articles Tagged with free speech

Last week 16 Pulse shooting survivors filed a federal lawsuit against Facebook, Twitter, and Google claiming they helped spread terrorist propaganda with resulted in the deadly Orlando shooting.Specifically, the lawsuit claims that the major tech companies helped terrorists by "aiding, abetting, and knowingly providing support and resources to ISIS.” Without major social media website such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, plaintiffs argue ISIS would not have become a powerful terrorist organization, and the Pulse attack would not have occurred.

Last August, an alt-right rally called "Unite the Right" took place in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in the death of a woman after a man drove his car into a crowd of counterprotestors. In Sines v. Kessler, Charlottesville residents filed a lawsuit against the co-planners of the rally claiming they conspired to deprive the plaintiffs of their civil rights by encouraging such violence.

In July of last year, the Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia University filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump, among others, claiming that the President's Twitter account constitutes a public forum subject to the First Amendment. The lawsuit alleges that by blocking certain users who are critical of him, President Trump is effectively denying those users access to a public forum in violation of the First Amendment.