Rumble and Law Professor Sue New York Attorney General to Block Online Hate Speech Law, Calling It a First Amendment ‘Double Whammy’ | Law & Crime

Two days before New York’s online hate speech law is supposed to take effect, the video-sharing website Rumble and a law professor filed a lawsuit against New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) asking a judge to call it vague and unconstitutional.

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a non-profit group better known by its acronym FIRE, filed the 46-page complaint on behalf of three plaintiffs: Rumble, the crowd funding site Locals, and Eugene Volokh, the First Amendment scholar behind the legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

“New York politicians are slapping a speech-police badge on my chest because I run a blog,” Volokh wrote in a statement. “I started the blog to share interesting and important legal stories, not to police readers’ speech at the government’s behest.”

Passed in the wake of a white supremacist’s mass shooting of Black shoppers at a grocery story in Buffalo, New York, the law forces social media networks to publish a policy explaining how they will clamp down on speech perceived to “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence against a group or class of persons” based on race, color, religion, or other protected categories. FIRE notes that those platforms will be required to create a mechanism to report such speech — and must respond to those complaints.

In their complaint, Volokh’s lawyers say that the law “hangs like the Sword of Damocles over a broad swath of online services.”

“In something of a First Amendment ‘double whammy,’ the Online Hate Speech Law burdens the publication of disfavored but protected speech through unconstitutionally compelled speech — forcing online services to single out ‘hate speech’ with a dedicated policy, a mandatory report & response mechanism, and obligatory direct replies to each report,” the professor’s lawyer Darapana M. Sheth writes in the complaint. “If a service refuses, the law threatens New York Attorney General investigations, subpoenas, and daily fines of $1,000 per violation.”

Earlier this week, Buffalo mass shooter Payton Gendron pleaded guilty to all 25 state charges leveled against him for his terrorist attack, which he live-streamed via a GoPro that he wore to the mass slaughter. He disseminated a racist rant before his shooting spree that articulated his motives, like other white supremacists before him in Christchurch, New Zealand, and elsewhere.

The Empire State law had been intended, in part, to keep racially motivated terrorists from having spaces online to spread their ideologies and stop copycat attacks.

But Volokh says that the New York law goes too far, using such broad language that any attorney general can put bloggers at risk of financial ruin, if commenters share opinions that are disfavored by the state.

Under his interpretation of the statute, the professor says that regulators can go after an atheist perceived to have “vilified” organized religion — or comedian John Oliver for his recent segment on HBO’s Last Week Tonight sending up the British monarchy, which could be construed as a “humiliation” of the U.K.

“There can be no reasonable doubt New York will enforce the Online Hate Speech Law to strong-arm online services into censoring protected speech,” the complaint states. “The Attorney General’s intentions, in fact, could not be clearer; as recited, for example, in an October press release, the Attorney General declared that ‘[o]nline platforms should be held accountable for allowing hateful and dangerous content to spread on their platforms’ because an alleged ‘lack of oversight, transparency, and accountability of these platforms allows hateful and extremist views to proliferate online.’”

Rumble, Locals and Volokh want a federal judge to declare the law unconstitutional on its face as “vague” and “overbroad.” They also seek to a declaration that it runs afoul of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a statute that has come under fire by politicians across the political spectrum. . . .

Rumble and Law Professor Sue New York Attorney General to Block Online Hate Speech Law, Calling It a First Amendment ‘Double Whammy’ | Law & Crime

Skip The Scoop | Seek Understanding

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 28, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 13 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 28, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 13 Seconds

Show Me

“In That Rasmussen Poll 41% Of The American People, and All American People, Think He’s (Biden) Illegitimate, He Got In Because Of Massive Fraud. . . I’m Telling You, There’s Going To Be An Earthquake Coming Out Of Arizona (Election Audit).” | Steve Bannon, War Room Pandemic | Video: 48 Minutes 18 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 25 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Saturday Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 29 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 25, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 32 Seconds

Show Me

June 24, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 47 Minutes 55 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 36 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 34 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 24, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

John McAfee on Clinton: The FBI is either incompetent or corrupt in dealing with Hillary’s emails

Show Me

John McAfee, The Big Tech Magnate & Cryptocurrency Advocate, Praised Trump and Exposed Big Media, Big Tech and Hilary Clinton, Found Dead ‘ala Jeffrey Epstein’ In Spanish Prison Cell

Show Me

John McAfee referenced Jeffrey Epstein in suicide tweet last year

Show Me

Antivirus pioneer John McAfee found dead in prison after extradition ruling

Show Me

Founder of Papa John’s Headlines Cryptocurrency Event

Show Me

FLASHBACK: John McAfee Called FBI ‘Corrupt’ Or ‘Incompetent’ Over Hillary’s Emails In 2016 Op-Ed

Show Me

Biden Targets Crypto Tax Evaders in Global Data-Sharing Pitch

Show Me

Hacking group Anonymous issues warning to Elon Musk claiming too much power influence Bitcoin prices

Show Me

Sotheby’s will take cryptocurrency for 100-carat diamond

Show Me

Why China’s kicking out the crypto miners

Show Me

PayPal to Allow Users to Withdraw Cryptocurrency to Third Party Wallets

Show Me

El Salvador Becomes First Country to Adopt Bitcoin as Legal Tender

Show Me

BREAKING: SEC Asks Judge to Quash Deposition from a Former SEC Official in Crypto Case – Former SEC Chairman Clayton Initiated Case Hours Before He Resigned

Show Me

John McAfee In His Own Words On Cryptocurrency and Charges Against Him

Show Me

Letter ‘Q’ Posted to John McAfee’s Instagram Account, Hours After His Death

Show Me

‘Worst Cover Up in Human History’: House Republicans Launch Campaign to Hold CCP Accountable Over Pandemic

Show Me

China Cuts Deal with Hilton to Build Hotel Over Bulldozed Uyghur Mosque

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 30 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 25 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 23, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

June 22, 2021 | Nightly News Rebroadcast | Video: 49 Minutes 47 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 45 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 2 | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 49 Seconds

Show Me

Bannon’s War Room | Evening Edition | Recorded June 22, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 58 Seconds

Show Me

Tucker Carlson AGAIN Slams FBI Over Jan. 6th & Roasts Twitter For Accidentally Confirming His Reporting

Show Me

NTD Business News Rebroadcast | June 21, 2021

Show Me

This Is What Is Meant By Coordination | “Compilation Of States Ordering Premature Stops To Vote Counts In 2020 Presidential Election”

Show Me

Local CBS Anchor Criticizes Network Live on Air Over ‘Discrimination,’ Will Go to Project Veritas

Show Me