Comments on: Paging Eugene Volokh: The First Amendment in Kentucky http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/06/paging_eugene_v.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:44:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Paul Gowder http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2006/06/paging_eugene_v.html/comment-page-1#comment-58214 Paul Gowder Thu, 22 Jun 2006 06:31:12 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2006/06/paging-eugene-volokh-the-first-amendment-in-kentucky.html#comment-58214 I assume that the basic Pickering balancing applies to government worker free speech claims on the listening end as it does on the reading end. (Anyone know differently?) That being the case, I'd suggest that the government's productivity interest in stifling blog-browsing is stronger than stifling newspaper/political website/whatever browsing. Blog reading, as everyone reading this comment knows, tends to get a bit addictive and time-consuming. Clicking from blog to blog to blog, getting into discussions in the comments, etc., probably eats a lot more productive government time than reading the local headlines. I assume that the basic Pickering balancing applies to government worker free speech claims on the listening end as it does on the reading end. (Anyone know differently?)

That being the case, I’d suggest that the government’s productivity interest in stifling blog-browsing is stronger than stifling newspaper/political website/whatever browsing. Blog reading, as everyone reading this comment knows, tends to get a bit addictive and time-consuming. Clicking from blog to blog to blog, getting into discussions in the comments, etc., probably eats a lot more productive government time than reading the local headlines.

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