David Greene

@davidgreene

@EFF's Senior Counsel, 1st Amdt prof @ USF, ex-SFSU. NOT any of the other David Greenes, like the ex-NPR host, the ex-UGA QB, or the 1 who directed Grease. Posts r mine only, so hands off.

143 Folgt3.900 Follower2.219 Posts

Bluesky

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David Greene@davidgreene· 15d

Highly recommend reading Manushya Foundation's submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association for the UNGA report on “Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association Youth Activism Report: Gen-Z Activism and the Future of Civic Space”

David Greene@davidgreene· 16d

"The young people who could probably least afford to be cut off from their communities are the ones who tend to be suffering and getting harmed the most by these types of laws" says me in the Journal of Medical Internet Research re social media and chat bot age bans www.jmir.org/2026/1/e107251

screenshot of article in Journal of Medical Internet Research with pull quotation from me: "The young people who could probably least afford to be cut off from their communities are the ones who tend to be suffering and getting harmed the most by these types of laws"

David Greene@davidgreene· 29d

Lots of good stuff int eh ruling, including this quoting Moody's rejection of the "free speech nirvana" as an excuse to regulate private speech and editorial and intermediaries' curatorial decisions

screenshot from ruling: " A second principle is equally settled. The Government may not burden protected speech because it disfavors one side of a public debate. Viewpoint discrimination is “an egregious form of content discrimination,” Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829 (1995), and the First Amendment forbids “the [G]overnment from ‘tilt[ing] public debate in a preferred direction.’” Moody, 603 U.S. at 741 (quoting Sorrell, 564 U.S. at 578–79). The point is not simply that officials may not silence ideas they dislike. It is that they may not use the tools of government to remake the private-speech environment according to their preferred balance of expression. “On the spectrum of dangers to free expression,” the Supreme Court has warned, “there are few greater than allowing the government to change the speech of private actors in order to achieve its own conception of speech nirvana.” Id. at 741–42." with the last two sentences highlighted

David Greene@davidgreene· 29d

Our amicus brief here knightcolumbia.org/documents/dv...

Screenshot of amicus brief: "II.Civil Society Experts Play an Important Role in Promoting Transparency and Integrity in Content Moderation Policiesand PracticesAgainst this backdrop, civil society experts—NGOs, academics, and technical experts—can play an important roleas content moderation watchdogs, publicly monitoring the platforms’ compliance with their own rules, criticizing or praising the platforms as appropriate, and advocatingfor the people who use the platforms to publish and/or receive information. Their work helps hold the platforms accountable andinformsthe public so thepeople using these servicescan better understand a platform’s content moderation practicesand advocate for themselves. Their work often offers“actionable recommendations and granular norms for platforms to uphold human rights standards while balancing competing interests such as freedom of expression and protection from harm.”Nicola Palladino, Dennis Redeker, Edoardo Celeste, The platform governance triangle: Conceptualising the informal regulation of online content,Internet Policy Review 8, 2 (June2019)https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/constitutionalising-global-content-governance.Indeed, asresearcher describesit, civil society has become one of the pillars of platform governance: “Digital civil society groups, academics, and journalists have come to play a vital corporate accountability and watchdog function through their advocacy, research, and investigations into platform practices.”Robert Gorwa, The platform governance triangle: Conceptualising the informal regulation of online content.Internet Policy Review 8, 2 (June2019), "

David Greene@davidgreene· 29d

US govt policy denying visas, even tourist visas, to disinformation researchers, trust & safety professionals and content moderation workers is STAYED on 1st Am grounds. Lots of good stuff in Judge Boasberg's order storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

scfreenshot from Judge Boasberg's order; "As explained below, the record supports CITR’s first theory: the policy is likely viewpoint discriminatory in a substantial share of its applications. As expanded in December and applied since, it does not stop at individuals who use sovereign authority to suppress protected expression in the United States. It reaches private researchers, advocates, nonprofit leaders, and trust-and-safety professionals whose asserted “censorship” consists of studying platforms, reporting on disinformation, petitioning for access to platform data, and urging platforms or advertisers to act on what they find. Because CITR is likely to show that this operation discriminates on the basis of viewpoint, the Court need not decide whether the same course of conduct independently amounts to unconstitutional coercion."

David Greene@davidgreene· Jun 16

Lots of interesting stuff in the complaint Florida filed against TikTok for violating the state's Online Protections of Minors law. www.myfloridalegal.com/sites/defaul... 👀 FL state alleges that, despite the TikTok-ban-forced-sale, there is "no separation between" the New! TikTokUS and ByteDance.

excerpt from Complaint: "There is no separation between and among the ByteDance and TikTok
Defendant entities. ByteDance Ltd. exercises control over TikTok Inc., TikTok Ltd.,
TikTok Pte. Ltd., TikTok U.S. Data Security, and ByteDance Inc., which are its alter
egos. ByteDance Ltd. created TikTok’s algorithm, which still belongs to it.17
ByteDance Ltd. has played “a role in the hiring of key personnel at TikTok.”18 Highlevel
ByteDance Ltd. employees serve in dual roles for ByteDance Ltd. and other"

David Greene@davidgreene· Jun 15

It's for this and other reasons why Dr. Jean Linis-Dinco correctly calls mandated age gates anti-poor and harmful even if seemingly benignly,quaintly, or laughingly ineffectual. www.eff.org/pages/speaki...

Screenshot of excerpt from Speaking Freely interview with Dr. Jean Linis-Dinco in which she says "Friction might be a minor obstacle for a wealthy child with supportive parents, but friction keeps a different child off the internet. A wealthy child might have the technical means to buy a workaround to allow them to have access. There was a story in the news about an influencer family who just moved out of the country because of the age-restricted social media ban. This is the reality—people who have the means to move will move. And those who have no means to move, those who are struggling just to put food on the table—will just stay. This is anti-poor. Age gating is anti-poor."

David Greene@davidgreene· Jun 13

Speaking of signs coming down ... I just came across this photo I made a few years ago. Really really hope we don't get the ghost letters this time

Photo of the Twitter sign partially removed from the former Twitter building shortly after Musk rebranded the site X. You can still see the ghost shadows of the removed TWITT

David Greene@davidgreene· Jun 8

mock t-shirt design reading "So diabolical and so far upstream"

David Greene@davidgreene· May 7

Graduation

David Greene@davidgreene· Apr 6

[SCOTUS citation for this list was the 1941 edition of Zechariah Chafee’s treatise Free Speech in America. But the list there only includes "obscenity, profanity, and gross libels upon individuals'" and the discussion cited is largely critical of limits on freedom of speech.] 16/

page 149 of the 1941 edition of Zechariah Chafee's treatise Freedom of Speech in America which the SCOTUS cited to in Chaplinksy v. NH as the source of its newly announced fighting words doctrine. The relevant line in the treatise, found roughly in the middle of the page, is "the law also punishes a few classes of
words like obscenity, profanity, and gross libels upon individuals,
because the very utterance of such words is considered
to inflict a present injury upon listeners, readers, or those
defamed, or else to render highly probable an immediate breach
of the peace."

David Greene@davidgreene· Apr 6

The Marshal called Chaplinksy “a damned bastard” to which Chaplinsky famously replied: “You are a damned racketeer” and “a damned Fascist and the whole government of Rochester are Fascists or agents of Fascists.” Chaplinsky was then arrested. 7/

Newspaper from April 7, 1940 describing the arrest of Walter Chaplinksy. The headline reads "Member Charged with Use of ffensive Language to Police" and the subheadline reads "Chaplinksy Beaten By Irate Mob"

David Greene@davidgreene· Apr 3

Proud to once again support the law firms standing up for the rule of law and the independence of the legal profession.

cover of amicus brief filed in the consolidate d cases challenging the executive orders punishing law firms that trump does not like. The brief is filed on behalf of several nonprofit legal organizations :AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES
UNION, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, CATO INSTITUTE, ELECTRONIC
FRONTIER FOUNDATION, FOUNDATION FOR INDIVIDUAL
RIGHTS AND EXPRESSION, KNIGHT FIRST AMENDMENT
INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NATIONAL
COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP, REPORTERS
COMMITTEE FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS,
RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE, AND SOCIETY FOR THE
RULE OF LAW

David Greene@davidgreene· Apr 2

For those wondering ... www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/r...

Screenshot of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 25(d): "Public Officers; Death or Separation from Office. An action does not abate when a public officer who is a party in an official capacity dies, resigns, or otherwise ceases to hold office while the action is pending. The officer's successor is automatically substituted as a party. Later proceedings should be in the substituted party's name, but any misnomer not affecting the parties’ substantial rights must be disregarded. The court may order substitution at any time, but the absence of such an order does not affect the substitution."

David Greene@davidgreene· Mar 20

Hey look! The Free-Speechiest-Administration-in-History! wants to ban broadcasters from airing college football games at the same time as the Army-Navy Game! www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

screenshot of executive order: "Section 1. Purpose. For over a century, the Army-Navy Game, known as “America’s Game,” has stood as a symbol of excellence and the American spirit. Now, the recent and potentially ongoing expansion of the College Football Playoffs (CFP) and other postseason college football games threatens to encroach upon the second Saturday in December — a date traditionally reserved exclusively for “America’s Game.” Such scheduling conflicts weaken the national focus on our Military Service Academies and detract from a morale-building event of vital interest to the Department of War. Accordingly, it is the policy of the United States that no college football game, specifically college football’s CFP or other postseason games, be broadcast in a manner that directly conflicts with the Army‑Navy Game. "

David Greene@davidgreene· Mar 19

If Hegseth wants to live in (& even be Secretary of Toxic Masculinity) a Christian nation, he has lots of choices. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christi... He seems to hate the USA, a secular nation, where, you know the First Amendment specifically prohibits the establishment of a national religion.

screenshot of Wikipedia entry on Christian State: "Today, several nations officially identify themselves as Christian states or have state churches. These countries include Argentina, Armenia, Costa Rica, El Salvador,[7] Denmark (incl. Greenland and the Faroes),[8] England,[9] Dominican Republic,[10] Georgia,[11] Greece,[12] Hungary,[13] Iceland,[14] Liechtenstein,[15] Malta,[16] Monaco,[17] Samoa,[18] Serbia,[19] Tonga,[20] Tuvalu,[21] Vatican City,[22] and Zambia.[23] The laws of various Christian countries, such as those of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden require their monarch to be a Christian (usually of a particular denomination, such as Evangelical Lutheranism).[24][25][26] A Christian state stands in contrast to a secular state,[27] an atheist state,[28] or another religious state, such as a Jewish state,[29] or an Islamic state.[30]"

David Greene@davidgreene· Feb 20

But I doubt Carr is really interested in celebrating every aspect of "the American journey." He, like most jingoists, are selective in what they celebrate, in what they consider legitimately part of "our shared history," which stories of unity, perseverance & triumph" get brought to light.

screenshot of FCC new 250 birthday policy

secreenshot of FCC policy's examples of appropriately patriotic segments for broadcasters

David Greene@davidgreene· Feb 20

For years in my First Amendment classes we have discussed a hypothetical about a to what extent a city can control speech in a public park during the city's July 4 event in the park and whether the city can impose pro-America viewpoint criteria on participation in a related essay contest.

David Greene@davidgreene· Feb 20

I was asked for instructions, so: go to Settings, click on Moderation, scroll all the way down past Content Filters to Advanced: Bluesky Moderation Service and click on the purple shield. Lots of settings to personalize there including Rude.

screenshot of Bluesky settings listing Moderation as one of the options

Screenshot of option to click on Advanced: Bluesky Moderation Service

screenshot of a portion of the Bluesky Moderation Services page with Off-Warn-Hide setting options for Intolerance, Threats, Rude, Illicit and Security Concerns

David Greene@davidgreene· Feb 20

@jillian.bsky.social noticed in Bluesky's recent transparency report that they use mostly human moderation to detect "rude" posts. So I went into my settings -- had to go in the advanced moderation settings -- to see that "rude" posts are hidden by default.

screenshot of Bluesky setting to control whether you see "rude" posts, which they define as "Rude or impolite, including crude language and disrespectful comments, without constructive purpose"

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 29

From the AAUP v Rubio trial exhibits ... Motherwell hung vertically?

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 27

Update

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 27

Urban life

Nixle alert about a mountain lion sighting in San Francisco

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 27

Nice to come home to this @tomtomorrow.bsky.social

It’s me holding my just-arrived , personalized copy of Tom Tomorrow’s Our Long National Nightmare

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 26

or me & @evacide.bsky.social 9/22/25 www.eff.org/deeplinks/20... "if the concern had been that TikTok could be a conduit for Chinese government propaganda—a concern the Supreme Court declined to even consider—people can now be concerned that TikTok could be a conduit for U.S. government propaganda"

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 23

And it's not over. It's not just TikTok. The law authorizes the President to designate other foreign-adversary-controlled applications as threats to national security and subject to being banned. www.congress.gov/bill/118th-c... And who is a "foreign adversary" is quite fluid these days.

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 23

Have lots of told-you-sos about the TikTok sale to Trump friends being consummated www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/t... And now these friends get to decide what what posts to take down which surely will be nothing because they think all content moderation is evil.

Excerpt from NYT article explaining that the new owners of TikTok will decide which posts to leave up and which to take down

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 20

and apparently the State Department is afraid to respond to my comment that the travel restrictions and purely vindictive and intended to chill all public opposition

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 20

@technologyreview.com was kind enough to listen to me rant about how the Trump administration and chunks of the US right view freedom of expression as a means to preserve their power and privilege and not as a human right that balances power. www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/19/1...

David Greene@davidgreene· Jan 18

It's even worse than when the State Dept said that Nigeria suspending Twitter had "no place in a democracy" and then the US government went and banned TikTok -- at least with that one there were a few years in between 2021-2025.state.gov/nigerias-twi...