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TikTok ban weakens First Amendment
The Supreme Court today upheld the federal law passed last year to ban TikTok, accepting the government’s arguments that national security threats posed by the foreign ownership of TikTok’s parent company justify the ban.
This is despite U.S. officials acknowledging they have no actual evidence China is using TikTok to spy on Americans, and lawmakers having admitted the real reason for the ban is that they didn’t like what people were saying on TikTok, particularly about the Israel-Gaza war.
Seth Stern, advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), said that the Court’s opinion “practically begs foreign governments to ban American apps for the same reasons America banned TikTok. If we don’t like China’s practices on surveillance and censorship we should stop adopting them back home.” Read our full statement on the ruling.
Biden must pardon Julian Assange
President Joe Biden was repeatedly warned that prosecuting WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange under the Espionage Act posed an existential threat to investigative reporting by criminalizing routine journalistic conduct that the First Amendment has long protected.
Unfortunately, he ignored those warnings and on Monday a new anti-press president will have the opportunity to take advantage of his mistake. We led a coalition of press freedom and civil liberties organizations in urging him to use his pardon power to lessen the damage to press freedom caused by Assange’s 2024 conviction pursuant to a plea deal. Read more here.
Reporter removals a microcosm of Biden administration’s press hypocrisy
Biden’s farewell address emphasized the importance of the free press. That’s nice. But then the next day, two journalists who asked questions about the Israel-Gaza war were removed — one forcibly — from his secretary of state’s parting press conference.
We said in our statement that Biden “handed Trump a gift by normalizing punishing journalists for asking questions officials don’t like,” regardless of whether the reporters breached decorum by not waiting for the Q&A period to ask their questions. “Biden officials have been ducking hard questions about their support for the Israel-Gaza war for over a year. Do they expect journalists to just accept their gibberish answers and thank them?” Read more here.
Investigating the Haditha massacre
In 2005, U.S. Marines slaughtered 25 Iraqi citizens in Haditha, Iraq, and injured others. The New Yorker used Freedom of Information Act requests to discover evidence of the war crimes.
We hosted an X Space conversation this week with New Yorker journalist Parker Yesko to discuss her reporting on the massacre. Yesko was part of the investigative team that uncovered photos of the carnage that the military tried to bury and other records that helped them build a database of 781 possible war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reporting takes on renewed significance in light of Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense. Hegseth has called service members accused of war crimes “heroes” and lobbied President-elect Trump for leniency in their cases. Listen to the conversation here (or if you’d rather not use X, press play below).
Ask us anything
Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted two “ask me anything” boards on Reddit this week to help prepare both ourselves and everyone else for Trump 2.0.
First, Advocacy Director Seth Stern fielded questions about the threat Trump poses to press freedom. Then, Stephanie Sugars, senior reporter for our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, discussed the Tracker’s plans to monitor Trump’s anti-press rhetoric online.
What we’re reading
New bill would seal unproven complaints against officers (City & State New York). Limiting transparency about complaints against police is a recipe for sweeping bad behavior and biased investigation and complaint resolution processes under the rug.
Kansas House speaker bans reporters from chamber floor, doesn’t say why (Kansas Reflector). Reporters in Kansas should take this as an invitation to figure out what this guy has to hide that makes him hate the free press so much.
Outgoing FCC chair rejects TV bias complaints that ‘curtail press freedom’ (The Guardian). Good for the FCC for finally dismissing these complaints. But it won’t stop incoming FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s efforts to turn the agency into a censorship machine focused on serving the interests of the new administration.
Biden administration looks for ways to keep TikTok available in the U.S. (NBC News). What Joe Biden might be thinking: “Oops, my censorial political stunt actually became law. Now what?”
All the president’s invective (U.S. Press Freedom Tracker). As Donald Trump returns to the White House, FPF has resumed its tracking of his anti-press rhetoric online, focusing on his new platform of choice: Truth Social.
Check out our other newsletters
If you haven’t yet, subscribe to FPF’s other newsletters, including “The Classifieds,” our new newsletter on overclassification and more from Lauren Harper, our Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy.
