ACLU

• Oakland, California, April 04, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adult ISH , the award-winning advice, culture, and storytelling podcast from YR Media and part of the Radiotopia podcast network from PRX, is launching its 11th season with the first of ten episodes dropping Thursday, April 11, 2024.
• What differences are there as a teen versus when you’re a legal adult?
• “Season 11 is about young people being authentically themselves as they follow their passions.”
  “As YR Media celebrates 30 years of impact – producing audio with aspiring teen and young adult podcasters, journalists, and musicians – I’m excited that Adult ISH will amplify even more of our YR Media students’ voices in this season,” said YR Media CEO Kyra Kyles.
• Learn more about the podcast here and follow along on social media:

• LOS ANGELES, March 14, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Shook, Hardy & Bacon welcomes Partner Alycia Degen to the firm's world-renowned Product Liability Litigation Practice.
• After co-leading a highly-respected product liability and mass tort practice at an AmLaw 10 firm, Degen's move is a natural fit for Shook.
• Recognized as a strategist, Degen serves as lead and coordinating counsel in product liability and class action litigation across a broad array of industries, and focuses on life sciences industries, where Shook excels as a global leader.
• "I've collaborated with Shook attorneys for decades on some of the most complex and high-stakes litigations.

• The Austin Union Manifesto declares: "No mind can grow without some sort of resistance.
• Hagye says, "I was inspired by the storied Oxford Union, which I experienced during my studies at Oxford a few years ago.
• "It's our goal that over time, the Austin Union will -- like Oxford's -- become a fully student-run organization," Hagye added.
• The Austin Union audience can expect a respectful appreciation of opposing views, with enough disagreement to spur continuing discussion of decisions of great importance to all Americans."

• If a school board member has a social media account, would it be wrong for them to block someone and delete their comments?
• That’s a question the Supreme Court has decided to take up after public officials, including two school board members, blocked constituents from seeing their accounts or removed critical comments.
• At stake is what constitutes state action – or action taken in an official governmental capacity – on social media.

The school board case

• Beginning around 2014, two school board candidates in the Poway Unified School District in San Diego created Facebook and Twitter, now X, pages as part of their campaigns for office.
• In 2017, the school board members blocked a couple with children in the district from commenting on their pages.
• In the resulting case, O'Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed that the two school board members violated the Garniers’ First Amendment rights to free speech and expression.

• And third, the board members solicited constituent input about school matters on the social media pages in question.
• This is because at the time the school board members blocked the Garniers, no court had yet established whether the First Amendment applies to public officials’ speech in the context of social media.

Critical comments over COVID-19

• Once in office, he used the page for both personal and professional reasons, posting updates about his family as well as policies he was working to implement.
• During the pandemic, constituent Kevin Lindke posted on Freed’s page, criticizing his handling of the public health crisis.
• Freed deleted Lindke’s comments and blocked him from the page.
• In Lindke v. Freed, the 6th Circuit affirmed that Freed did not violate the First Amendment in deleting and blocking Lindke’s comments.

The future of the cases

• Both cases not only have consequences for citizens’ First Amendment rights but also for social media companies and users.
• The Court may decide whether social media platforms such as Facebook and X can be liable for allowing a public official to block private citizens from commenting on their accounts.
• These cases might also establish rules and standards about how public officials can control their social media accounts and the role of the courts in these disputes.

Charles J. Russo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.