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The U.S. Supreme Court endorses lawsuits against public charges for blocking people on the networks

The Supreme Court of the United States stressed that public officials can be sued in certain circumstances for blocking people critical of them on the networks, although in a different case it also authorized those workers to veto certain people.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett stressed in her letter that public officials who use their personal accounts to issue official statements may not be free to delete comments about those messages or directly block those who criticize them.

“Sometimes the line between private conduct and state action is difficult to draw. (…) When a public office uses social networks, it is definitely necessary to evaluate it closely to categorize it,” the magistrate stressed.

In one of the cases that reached the court, James Freed, manager of the city of Port Huron, in Michigan, used the Facebook page he created when he was at university to communicate with citizens, although he also used it to tell details of his life.

A resident criticized the city’s response to the covid pandemic on that account and Freed blocked him and deleted his comments. In a lower court, the manager had had his decision supported.

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“A public official who does not maintain personal messages in a clearly designated place is exposed to greater potential responsibilities,” said the Supreme Court, who assured that it did not coincide with the resolution of the previous court and authorized the case to continue.

For the Supreme Court, the speeches of government officials may be subject to the scrutiny of the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression, only when they have the authority to speak on behalf of the State and intended to exercise that authority.

A similar case had affected former US President Donald Trump (2017-2021) and current candidate for the presidency for blocking users on X (then Twitter).

A court in New York agreed with him, but by the time the appeal reached the Supreme Court, Trump had already abandoned power and the court dismissed the case in April 2021 considering that it was already something irrelevant.

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International

Deportation flight lands in Venezuela; government denies criminal gang links

A flight carrying 175 Venezuelan migrants deported from the United States arrived in Caracas on Sunday. This marks the third group to return since repatriation flights resumed a week ago, and among them is an alleged member of a criminal organization, according to Venezuelan authorities.

Unlike previous flights operated by the Venezuelan state airline Conviasa, this time, an aircraft from the U.S. airline Eastern landed at Maiquetía Airport, on the outskirts of Caracas, shortly after 2:00 p.m. with the deportees.

Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, who welcomed the returnees at the airport, stated that the 175 repatriated individuals were coming back “after being subjected, like all Venezuelans, to persecution” and dismissed claims that they belonged to the criminal organization El Tren de Aragua.

However, Cabello confirmed that “for the first time in these flights we have been carrying out, someone of significance wanted by Venezuelan justice has arrived, and he is not from El Tren de Aragua.” Instead, he belongs to a gang operating in the state of Trujillo. The minister did not disclose the individual’s identity or provide details on where he would be taken.

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International

Son of journalist José Rubén Zamora condemns father’s return to prison as “illegal”

Guatemalan court decides Wednesday whether to convict journalist José Rubén Zamora

The son of renowned journalist José Rubén Zamora Marroquín, José Carlos Zamora, has denounced as “illegal” the court order that sent his father back to a Guatemalan prison on March 3, after already spending 819 days behind barsover a highly irregular money laundering case.

“My father’s return to prison was based on an arbitrary and illegal ruling. It is also alarming that the judge who had granted him house arrest received threats,” José Carlos Zamora told EFE in an interview on Saturday.

The 67-year-old journalist was sent back to prison inside the Mariscal Zavala military barracks on March 3, when Judge Erick García upheld a Court of Appeals ruling that overturned the house arrest granted to him in October. Zamora had already spent 819 days in prison over an alleged money laundering case.

His son condemned the situation as “unacceptable”, stating that the judge handling the case “cannot do his job in accordance with the law due to threats against his life.”

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International

Miyazaki’s style goes viral with AI but at what cost?

This week, you may have noticed that everything—from historical photos and classic movie scenes to internet memes and recent political moments—has been reimagined on social media as Studio Ghibli-style portraits. The trend quickly went viral thanks to ChatGPT and the latest update of OpenAI’s chatbot, released on Tuesday, March 25.

The newest addition to GPT-4o has allowed users to replicate the distinctive artistic style of the legendary Japanese filmmaker and Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki (My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away). “Today is a great day on the internet,” one user declared while sharing popular memes in Ghibli format.

While the trend has captivated users worldwide, it has also highlighted ethical concerns about AI tools trained on copyrighted creative works—and what this means for the livelihoods of human artists.

Not that this concerns OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, which has actively encouraged the “Ghiblification”experiments. Its CEO, Sam Altman, even changed his profile picture on the social media platform X to a Ghibli-style portrait.

Miyazaki, now 84 years old, is known for his hand-drawn animation approach and whimsical storytelling. He has long expressed skepticism about AI’s role in animation. His past remarks on AI-generated animation have resurfaced and gone viral again, particularly when he once said he was “utterly disgusted” by an AI demonstration.

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