Ari Cohn

@aricohn

First Amendment & defamation lawyer. Free Speech Counsel @TechFreedom.org (x2) Illini/music junkie/oofnik. “A snarky gay lawyer Jessica Fletcher.” Posts are my own.

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Ari Cohn@aricohn· 1d

Oh boy did you read this city wrong. Keep your overpriced crap in NYC where it belongs, WatchHouse. You can get excellent coffee for not even 25% of that price around here.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 2d

If it was because he's "anti science" why wouldn't they have used one of these categories? You think they're just sending the categories at random? Maybe you really DO believe you have a bridge.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 2d

Just recently I warned (again) that online safety bills like KOSA/KIDS Act (and many others) threaten legitimate, protected discourse on topics like drugs or alcohol. As if to prove my point... platformpolemics.aricohn.com/p/the-kids-a...

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 6d

Today Senate Commerce marks up several Bad Internet Bills, including KOSA - which for years experts have warned violates the 1st Amendment. Instead of fixing the problems, its sponsors denied they exist & tried to disguise them with obfuscatory language My statement: techfreedom.org/kosa-still-v...

KOSA has been an Internet censorship bill from the start.
It imposes what courts have refused—on First Amendment grounds—to impose for
decades: a duty to protect listeners from subjective, unknowable reactions to
constitutionally protected speech.
It creates a "papers please" social media regime where every single social media user
will be forced to identify themselves before speaking on social media, undermining
their constitutional right to read and speak anonymously, and enabling government
retaliation against disfavored ideas and expression.
And it hands the Federal Trade Commission — which has of late granted itself the
authority to enforce what it thinks customers should want rather than protect against
actual deception — a ready-made tool to coerce platforms into removing speech it
dislikes from the Internet.
Despite years of warnings from experts and civil society across the political and
ideological spectrum, KOSA's sponsors have stubbornly refused to acknowledge and
fix these critical First Amendment problems. They have instead attempted to hide
them behind increasingly obfuscatory language. But the First Amendment is not so
easily fooled, and the Commerce Committee must put an end to this constitutional
fiasco once and for all.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 7d

Way ahead of you, in a different way

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 7d

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 13d

You could have said "Donald Trump was doing trigonometry problems in his head for fun" and it would have been more believable than "Donald Trump was reflecting"

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 15d

The dot over the I is Tuesdays, and also July, and occasionally that point on the Bearimy timeline is the time-moment when nothing never occurs.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 16d

Ari Cohn@aricohn· 29d

Me after assembling and installing all of the closet built-ins

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jul 12

And I'm interested in Warren Buffett's bank account

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jul 3

1 best in show, 2 other first place, & 3-for-4 placing the other submissions - not too shabby for a first-timer who learned all of this stuff just by burying himself in information (and our living space in literally 350+ plants) and learning everything he possibly could. I let him buy more plants.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jul 3

That not only won his specific class and section, but also *Best in Show* for the entire arts division. At least 30 people tried to buy them on the spot. And his plant submissions? Of the 6 cultivars, which he developed himself, h entered... 2 won, 2 got second place, and 1 got third place.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jul 3

I give S.O. shit for his Old Lady plant hobby, but I really couldn't be more proud/impressed He just entered his first-ever submissions in The Gesneriad Society's annual convention competition His earrings commemorating the org's 75th anniversary got a perfect score (has never happened before)

Gesnedriad earrings with ribbons on pedestal in cloche

Gold earrings in the shape of flowers from the Primulina genus angled downward, with large oval diamonds at the top near the ear and green/yellow gemstones inside the flower

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 21

Grateful that Six Weeks Ago Me had the foresight to know that Today Me would need a laugh during the move-in

A stack of 4 bankers boxes, the bottom 3 labeled "books" and the top simply bearing a picture of Winifred Sanderson shouting "boooooooook" in Hocus Pocus

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 17

Just an incredible line

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 16

Lol Ken Paxton being so aggressively shitty as an attorney being the final nail in Sorsby's collegiate coffin is such a delightfully fitting ending. Good job, Clearance Bin Chevy Chase sports.yahoo.com/college-foot...

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 14

Wrapped up our three weeks in the Finger Lakes with a visit from some dear friends and managed to only have to drive three cases of wine back to Chicago. High five.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 10

I can't speak to what this particular prof does, but when a professor basically just reads their PowerPoint slides, it's less likely to be "phone addiction" or whatever, and more likely sheer boredom or "why am I even here."

• They can't sit in a seat for 50 minutes. Students routinely get up during a 50
minute class, sometimes just 15 minutes in, and leave the classroom. I'm supposed
to believe that they suddenly, urgently need the toilet, but the reality is that they
are going to look at their phones. They know I'll call them out on it in class, so
instead they walk out. I've even told them to plan ahead and pee before class, like
you tell a small child before a road trip, but it has no effect. They can't make it an
hour without getting their phone fix.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 9

Can't wait to start running Digital Hooch (h/t @taylorlorenz.bsky.social)

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 8

I stand here as living proof that evolution isn't real, apparently

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 5

My neighbors tagging Chef Boyardee on...NextDoor...has me pretty glad to be moving

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 2

3/ Of course, that's the entire context of the quote the reply brief pulls—which judges surely won't gloss over in the way that Bonta tried to. My brief: courtlistener.com/docket/71503... Bonta's reply: courtlistener.com/docket/71503...

distributor counterparts enjoy." AOB at 30. But, putting aside, again,
that that is irrelevant to constitutionally protected deepfakes, it is also
precisely what Congress meant to do. Section 230 creates a uniform body
of law for the Internet to avoid a patchwork of state laws that would
hinder innovation and stifle the Internet's speech-enabling effects. It
'represents the approach of Congress to a problem of national and
international dimension" and reflects "Congress' desire to promote

unfettered speech on the Internet." Zeran, 129 F.3d at 334; see also Est.
of Bride, 112 F.4th at 1176—77. Section 230 preempts "even the will of the
people as expressed in their state legislatures." ld.
The State cites Section 230(e)'s exceptions in an effort to show
Congress did not intend to limit state power to regulate platforms'
distribution of harmful materials online. AOB at 30—31. But Section 230
indicates the opposite by excluding from the broad immunity conferred
only federal criminal law. California's oblique reference to Section
230(e)(5)—added 20 years after Section 230 was initially enacted to
create an exception to preemption for state criminal charges for conduct
that would violate certain federal sex-trafficking statues—demonstrates
the self-defeating nature of the State's argument. Congress added
Section 230(e)(5) because it understood that Section 230 otherwise
preempts state prosecutions, just as it preempts AB 2655.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 2

2/ Section 230 doesn't create a "regulation-free zone," as Bonta disingenuously claims. It creates a unified body of (federal) law for the Internet. Offline distributors being subject to different law is the point! Congress decided the Internet is different and treated it so. In other words,

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 2

1/ I see my brief in Babylon Bee v. Bonta caught the California AG's attention What his reply doesn't grasp: this is the very purpose of Section 230 By creating an exception for federal—but not state—criminal law, Congress established the body of law for online intermediaries

interpretation would cause. Indeed, plaintiffs' amici agree that under the
interpretation plaintiffs have advanced here, the State would be powerless to
regulate any content online including harmful, illegal, or dangerous content such
as child sexual abuse material, advertisements for illegal goods or services, or
blueprints to 3D print deadly military weapons. See Br. of Amici Curiae Found.
for Individual Rights & Expression & TechFreedom at 17 ("Section 230 limits
state regulation of even unprotected, illegal third-party content hosted by
platforms."). Plaintiffs' interpretation of section 230(c)(l) functionally creates a
regulation-free zone online, one far broader than that enjoyed even by brick-and-
mortar distributors such as bookstores. But this Court has been abundantly clear:
Section 230(c)(l)'s "immunity is not limitless." Calise, 103 F.4th at 739. And the

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 2

Famous last words

Ari Cohn@aricohn· Jun 2

Vacation may technically over but we still out here lakeside for a few more weeks and it's gonna be hard to leave.

Ari Cohn@aricohn· May 29

Trump is gonna sacrifice an intern he sexually assaulted to Moloch on an altar made of bibles and these people are gonna be all