Posted on 05/05/2020 11:35:22 PM PDT by Olog-hai
Facebook says it has removed several groups, accounts and pages linked to QAnon, taking action for the first time against the far-right U.S. conspiracy theory circulated among supporters of President Donald Trump.
The social-media giant made the announcement Tuesday as part of its monthly briefing on “coordinated inauthentic behavior” on its platforms. That’s Facebook’s term for fake accounts run with the intent of disrupting politics elections and society.
In addition to the QAnon accounts, Facebook also removed accounts linked to VDARE, a U.S. website known for posting anti-immigration content, as well as accounts in Russia, Iran, Mauritania, Myanmar and the country of Georgia. […]
Facebook says it found the QAnon activity as part of its investigations into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior ahead of the 2020 presidential election. …
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
.
Time to BOYCOTT nazi-esque censoring Facebook.
Them and anyone who does business with them.
I think so.
.
VDare is one of the all-time greats, and Peter Brimelow a patriot. Disgusting.
Right. Facebook should not have censored the Qtards. That only serves to give them credibility. Whenever I bother to look at a Q thread here at Free Republic, all I ever see is a bunch of chit chatting like old ladies at a quilting bee.
They’ve never had anything of substance and value to discuss; so Facebook should have ignored them. They’re harmless.
I’m no fan of Q-kookery, but banning fan-fiction from the internet is a scary leap from freedom...
They are free to with their own company as they choose. The First Amendment applies only to the government.
I was looking at David Wood yesterday, and he outlined the difference between a platform and a publisher, albeit in the context of Youtube. FB is not a publisher FWICS; there is a difference, and the First Amendment absolutely does apply.
One famous legend suggests that, as a young woman, Virginia Dare became romantically entangled with an Indian sorcerer who transformed her into a white doe. …This sounds like the legend of Sadhbh, Fionn Mac Cumhail’s wife, who was also under the spell of a druid whose advances she spurned and also was transformed into a deer by a druidic spell.
If you’re referring to Zuckerberg, he seemed to have no problem having a homosexual male as a dormitory roommate. I’ve always wondered about that.
The irony surrounding Copernicus and later Galileo is that Ecclesiastes 1:5 does not definitively state that the sun orbits the earth; the word translated “rise” actually means to shoot forth rays, and the word translated “go down” merely means to go.
(dons flame retardant underwear)Shocking but true, the First Amendment is overrated. Why?
Because the actual law of rights in America is Common Law. Recall that the Constitution as ratified in 1788 had no bill of rights. Why? Because the Constitution was not intended to affect any common law rights - and the nature of common law is that it wasn’t, isn’t, and never will be “enumerated” comprehensively in any one place.
Common Law is a bunch of court precedents, and court precedents grow organically.
Thus, the Federalists’ aversion to enumerating a bill of rights. But they had to agree to create one by amendment to the Constitution in order to get it ratified. The Ninth Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.basically reprises the Federalist argument that enumeration of all rights was a fool’s errand. What is most clear in the first and second amendments is true of the all eight enumerating rights - they weren’t there to break new ground, but to mollify apprehension about existing rights being modified. Those eight amendments “enumerate” the rights which tyrants had historically abused.But those enumerated rights are clearly not designed to compromise any other right(s) by stealth, as the Antifederalists feared. Look at the Second Amendment. It speaks of “the” RKBA - but doesn’t define it. But “the” (existing) RKBA never included the right to commit assault with a gun. Let alone murder anyone.
Likewise the First Amendment speaks of “the” freedom of the press - but laws against pornography and libel limited freedom of the press at the time. Which is why Justice Brennan’s claim (in NY Times v. Sullivan that
". . . libel can claim no talismanic immunity from constitutional limitations. It must be measured by standards that satisfy the First Amendment”is fatuous. The First Amendment did not touch libel or pornography law. You have to actually confront Common Law to really know what the Bill of Rights actually means in any specific case. Certainly WRT 1A and 2A.
In America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat …The 1936 USSR constitution was commissioned by Stalin, and he always bragged “We do not have freedom of speech for the bourgeoisie”, so all “freedom of speech” in his dictatorship is freedom of the speech he approved of.
— The Principles of Communism
In conformity with the interests of the working people, and in order to strengthen the socialist system, the citizens of the USSR are guaranteed by law:These civil rights are ensured by placing at the disposal of the working people and their organizations printing presses, stocks of paper, public buildings, the streets, communications facilities and other material requisites for the exercise of these rights.
- freedom of speech;
- freedom of the press;
- freedom of assembly, including the holding of mass meetings;
- freedom of street processions and demonstrations.
— 1936 USSR constitution, Article 125
No sir, the Constitution applies ONLY to the Federal government. YOU are not controlled by the Constitution, nor are the owners of any company.
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.There is far more than that establishing Constitutional supremacy. States that make laws in defiance of the Constitution are in rebellion, particularly when those laws are socialistic (see the Guarantee Clause of Article 4 Section 4 in particular).
— Article 6, second paragraph
in particular).The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government
I agree. People who do agree, tho, are pretty thin on the ground, unfortunately.
Clearly, since - as I indicated - its “justification” is fatuous.The fact that it was a unanimous ruling with enthusiastic concurrences regretting it didn’t go further tells you all you need to know about the Warren Court.
Mr. Sullivan was a Democrat - a southern Democrat. The Warren Court was liberal. Its decision in Sullivan was nominally apolitical - but it was more like “bipartisan" between liberal Democrats and liberal Republicans.
The planted axiom in Sullivan is that “the press” is an amorphous category of actors independent of each other and of political party. In fact of course, all major journalists are, quite literally and openly, associated. The wire services - plural tho they be - constitute virtual meetings of their members/subscribers. As Adam Smith claimed in Wealth of Nations (1776),
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.such meetings - conducted not sporadically but continually over many generations - must have resulted, long since, in "a conspiracy against the public.”That conspiracy must, in the nature of journalism, operate in plain sight. I compare it to the NY Yankees and the Boston Red Socks. They compete fiercely within a context which they jointly and cooperatively created. The rules and the umpires and all that. Journalists may compete, but the context in which they are embedded serves them all, and disserves the public. Journalism profits from crisis - and so does government. For society, OTOH, crises are - well, crises. “The public interest” and “interesting the public” are in that sense opposites. And
SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins.government and society are opposites as well.Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness;Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one . . .the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices.
The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions.
The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest . . . — Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)Cooperatively, journalists promote journalism with the claim that “journalists are objective.” This is inherently false because objectivity is a (laudable) goal, not a state of being. Actually attempting to be objective is a counterintuitive exercise in which you assume that you are not objective, and attempt to see why that is so. Joining a mutual admiration society which will claim objectivity for you (and you for it) is the very opposite of actually trying to be objective. Instead, joining a mutual admiration society suppresses independent thought. A member of such a society must go along assiduously in order to get along. A journalist who questions the objectivity of the herd will be expelled with the universal declaration that he “is not a journalist, not objective.”
The “journalism is objective” con redefines “objective” to mean “going along with the journalism cartel.” It also redefines “liberal” and “progressive” - indeed, any political term with a positive connotation - to mean exactly the same thing. The term “objective” differs only in its usage - it is always applied to journalists and it is never applied to anyone else meeting the definition. “Liberal” (etc) on the other hand, is never applied to a journalist. Any “liberal” can get a job as a journalist and thereby be considered “objective” - but of course, he will no longer be called “liberal.”
“Conservatives” (you know, the people who believe in progress of, by, and for society) get libeled continually, and “liberals” do not get libeled. At all. The Sullivan decision is inhibits suits for libel, and is “fair” politically in the same way that a law against sleeping under bridges affects both rich and poor.
Overturn Sullivan - and rule the AP (et al) in violation of Sherman - and let the fur fly!
The raison d'être of the wire services was to conserve expensive telegraphy bandwidth in the dissemination of the news. In 2020 “expensive" telegraphy bandwidth is dirt cheap. Their “conspiracy against the public” is utterly unjustified.
Did you ever hear of any individual being hauled into the courts for violating the Constitutional rights of another? NO! That doesn't happen.
You are in desperate need of some study.
The phrase “supreme law of the land” is unambiguous; there is no such thing as a non-binding law. Violating a federal law has nothing to do with your red herring “violating someone else’s Constitutional rights”. And the existence of a supreme federal law does not nullify state laws that are in the intended spirit of the union of the states anyhow. So with all due respect, you are not making sense.
You seem to image that "Supreme Law of the Land" makes the Bill of Rights into laws. Such is not the case. They govern ONLY the government.
The First Amendment starts out "Congress shall make no law...". Nowhere in the Bill of Rights is there wording that applies those rules to the People.
Do YOU have to listen to a Jehovah's Witness standing on your front porch? No. Same goes for Mormon missionaries.
Freedom of speech really only means one thing: You can speak against the government without fear of arrest. It means that the government MUST listen to your grievances in duly constituted courts.It does not mean that you can go anywhere and demand an arbitrary audience.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.