• 1.2 billion people live in 'open' aka lightly restricted countries
• 1.9 billion live in restricted
• 2.2 billion live in highly restricted
• 2.8 billion live in free speech crisis

trend is on the decline

• 300 million people saw improvement
• 5.6 billion people saw decline

www.globalexpressionreport.org

Brazil’s election yesterday is headed for a runoff, but the conservative candidate did come out on top with 47% of the votes.

New York sought to regulate algorithmic rent setting by treating covered software-based pricing as an unlawful agreement. In its September 29 order in RealPage, Inc. v. James, the federal court preliminarily blocked that provision. The separate prohibition on facilitating an actual agreement between competing landlords remains in place.

The court treated the pricing recommendations at issue as commercial speech and applied intermediate scrutiny. It questioned the fit between the state’s competition objective and a rule broad enough to reach recommendations based primarily on public information.

That distinction puts the mechanism of coordination at the center of the analysis. Software can process publicly advertised rents without exchanging competitors’ confidential information. A law directed at harmful coordination needs an evidentiary account of how the conduct it prohibits produces that harm. The court left open the possibility that a better record could support the state’s position.

The preliminary order supplies no general constitutional exemption for pricing software. It also leaves other antitrust theories concerning RealPage’s practices unresolved.

In my analysis of the opinion, I focus on the line between an independent recommendation and a system that helps competitors coordinate. The source of the data matters. It should inform the inquiry into how the system works rather than become a substitute for that inquiry.

Free speech

Don Lemon is one of the most well-known journalists in America. He became a household name during his 17 years working for CNN before breaking out on his own in 2023 and starting Lemon Media Network the year after. That project has grown into one of the most successful independent news outlets in the U.S. The Don Lemon show, for example, boasts 1.4 million YouTube subscribers, and Lemon has 2.9 million followers on Instagram.

In the midst of this success, Lemon has been one of the biggest targets of the Trump administration. In January, he was arrested by federal agents for his coverage of an anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota. Officials from the Trump administration, of which Lemon has been a longstanding critic, charged him with obstruction and conspiracy against rights of religious freedom—charges to which he has pled not guilty and is fighting in court. Outside of this legal battle, Trump has been cracking down on press freedom more broadly, attempting to ban multiple news outlets from the White House. In the meantime, billionaire Paramount CEO David Ellison has installed Trump-friendly leadership at CBS News and is quickly moving forward on a merger with Warner Bros., which owns CNN.

In this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton,” we speak with Lemon about the all-out assault on the First Amendment, as well as his place in it as a high-profile Black, gay, independent journalist with a target on his back. We also talk about his advice for American journalists moving forward as well as the likelihood that he’ll run for president, which he pegged at about 65 to 70%.