Posted on 10/31/2019 6:59:32 AM PDT by ritpg
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Also Spreech Zarathustra?
You’re surprised?
I’d start by writing my congress critter. Or calling their office for guidance.
I suggest you save your time and energy, not to mention that many "conservatives" side with Facebook's censorship.
> how to report Facebook to the federal government for violations of First Amendment rights <
That’s not possible. The 1A was set up to protect you from government infringement on free speech. It does not apply to private companies at all.
However, there might be other avenues worth exploring. Facebook is so big that it is approaching the status of a public utility monopoly. So maybe you can argue your case on that basis. I just don’t think you can use the 1A.
You’re just now figuring that out?
You have a weird idea about how things work...
Print out a copy of the First Amendement.
Read the First Amendment.
Underline each mention of Facebook in the First Amendment.
Sent that printed page to The Supreme Court explaining how Facebook is violating your First Amendment Rights.
Facebook and other huge internet agencies have become important means of world-wide communication, and they should be required to allow unfettered freedom of speech, just as a telephone company is. They should not be allowed to censor anything.
Of course their first argument is that they are a private company and can do as they please, but so are telephone companies, which cannot censor speech.
The second argument is that they cannot allow dangerous speech. They will cite terrorist organizations, using social media to arrange dangerous plots. Such organizations could do the same on telephone companies. The solution is to monitor them and use such monitoring to gather intelligence.
Furthermore, allowing such social media outlets to ban "hate speech" is giving them carte blanche to ban anything they decide is "hate speech" and also to use their powerful communications networks for their own brand of political propaganda, which they do and which is very dangerous.
The real reason they have not come under regulation is because they strongly favor and support the Democrat Party, and Democrat politicians have no intention of allowing anything to interfere with such powerful pro-Democrat support and propaganda.
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/filing-informal-complaint
Be very concise and yet detailed in your descriptions of things, and don’t forget to describe any kind of harm to you or your rights.
Really? Name 3 then. What some conservatives do argue is that it is a private site and therefore can control content, which is in my opinion horsehockey too.
You post nonsense in a condescending manner. That’s a bad look.
I got kicked off of Facebook for holding conservative views. I’ve been taking this up with Facebook and also reporting it to various members of Congress for the past few months. I don’t have any specific advice for you. I hope you fight them. We should not just roll over and let unaccountable leftist monopolies dominate political discourse.
I don’t thing that link is appropriate for reporting political bias and censorship by Facebook.
I bet if that FCC link was used, you’d at least get a reply suggesting another FCC link or another agency.
I used to believe that. Now I absolutely reject that argument. When all major communications systems are in the hands of "private" corporations, there is no other possible course than to enforce the first amendment on these quasi-governmental organizations.
The intent of the first amendment was that speech be not censored. At the time, the only entity thought capable of doing such a thing was the government.
Things have changed, and now "private" corporations can create the effect of speech censorship from which the Government is banned by the first amendment.
In fact, if private corporations are allowed to censor speech, it becomes a system of government censorship of speech by back door pressure on the corporations. We see China already doing this with google, facebook, the NBA, and other organizations.
If private censorship of large communications systems are allowed, we will get defacto government censorship.
The intent of the founders is clear that speech shall not be censored, and so i'm going to "interpret" the first amendment to apply to any entity that is capable of censoring speech, and I do not give a sh*t who owns the means of censorship.
Private censorship of speech should not more be allowed than private armies. It is against the interest of the public and of the nation to allow mass communications censorship regardless of how it is accomplished.
> Things have changed... <
Yes, but the Constitution has not. As a conservative, I believe in taking the Constitution exactly as it was written. It is not some “living document” subject to reinterpretation. And the 1A is quite clear. It applies to government attempts at censorship only.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Freeper ritpg has a legitimate complaint. It would be like if the major TV networks all decided not to run any GOP campaign ads anymore. That would be wrong. But it would not be a violation of the 1A. Another law would have to be cited. Perhaps some sort of fair access law.
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