Posted on 01/15/2021 5:33:02 AM PST by Kaslin
It wasn't just Donald Trump's detractors who felt a sudden sense of relief when they heard that Twitter was blocking his feed after the storming of the Capitol and the disruption of the reading of the Electoral College results on Jan. 6. While President Trump's exact words to the crowd on the Ellipse didn't constitute a criminal incitement, they were uttered with a reckless disregard for the possibility that they'd provoke violence, which any reasonable person could find impeachable.
But a moment's reflection should have left any believer in free speech feeling queasy about a private firm censoring the president of the United States and preventing him from effectively communicating with citizens over a chosen medium of universal reach. And especially queasy, since a large body of opinion sees this suppression of free speech by Big Tech monopolies not as a one-time exception but as the new rule.
Oliver Darcy of CNN wants the network's cable rivals to be held "responsible for the lies they peddle." Law professors are surprisingly open to speech suppression, as Thomas Edsall reports in his New York Times blog: Yale's Robert Post laments that "the formation of public opinion is out of control"; the University of California, Irvine's Rick Hasen laments, "a market failure when it comes to reliable information voters need"; Columbia University's Tim Wu suggests "the weaponization of speech" makes the First Amendment jurisprudence "increasingly obsolete."
Democratic worthies have been singing the same tune. Michelle Obama took the lead in urging the permanent ban on Donald Trump, which Twitter promptly promulgated.
2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang called for cable news channels to be required to air competing views. The deputy communications director of President-elect Joe Biden's campaign, Bill Russo, apparently wants Facebook to censor "misleading" information.
The law professors leave details about who would "control" information and decide what is "reliable information" ambiguous. But Democrats obviously expect the decisions to be made by folks on their side of the political divide.
The speech restrictions and speech suppression by Twitter, Facebook, Apple and Google, as well as the latter two platforms' expulsion of Twitter competitor Parler from their clouds, are all intended to benefit the political left and penalize the political right. These firms come as close as nongovernment actors could to canceling, if not criminalizing, at least certain strands of conservatism.
Many, perhaps most, Americans think it's legal and praiseworthy to suppress "hate speech." But hate speech, unless it directly and explicitly incites violence, is protected by the First Amendment under longstanding Supreme Court precedent. Europeans, as Harvard law professor Noah Feldman points out, are comfortable banning "hate speech," and it's understandable that post-World War II Germany banned Nazi writing and images.
So it's interesting that German Chancellor Angela Merkel, no pal of Donald Trump, called Twitter's permanent ban of Trump "problematic." And that President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of Mexico, where the dominant TV network, Grupo Televisa, slavishly toed the government line for years, criticized Facebook's blocking of the outgoing American president. Or that Portuguese political analyst Bruno Macaes tweeted, "Time to start a debate in Europe on whether we want to stay tightly connected to a US internet where repression of speech will keep growing."
"Yesterday," wrote The American Conservative's Rod Dreher late last week, "I predicted that the Left and the liberal Establishment would use the failed Beer Belly Putsch as an opportunity to begin to implement the rudiments of a social credit system, and to otherwise marginalize and suppress right-of-center discourse and people. Well, here we go." The reference is to China's system of surveillance and supervision, which uses consumer data, facial recognition, artificial intelligence and GPS tracking to identify regime critics and deny them access to everything from airline seats to bank credit. You don't have to surf very long on your device to find self-described liberals calling for some such restrictions on Trump supporters. Or for major corporation CEOs delighted to go along.
Are such fears exaggerated? Big Tech assures us it stands for free expression. "Access to information and freedom of expression, including the public conversation on Twitter, is never more important than during democratic processes, particularly elections," Twitter tweeted this week. But that was about providing information about an election in Uganda. In the United States, not so much. Twitter joined other Big Tech firms in effectively suppressing the New York Post's now-validated stories about Hunter Biden's dodgy business dealings.
Big Tech suppression of speech, at one party's urging but not government order, technically doesn't violate the First Amendment. But, as CNN commentator Mary Katharine Ham tweets, "It feels creepy & authoritarian." It threatens to be the most effective speech suppression here since Democratic postmasters in the antebellum South deep-sixed anti-slavery material. That speech suppression didn't ultimately prevail. How long the speech suppression by Big Tech and its liberal friends will prevail is unclear.
Originally, the First Amendment just said “CONGRESS shall make no law”. But that got extended out and people understand that your state and local government also cannot limit speech or religion. Fine.
I really think we need to reach an understanding where NO ONE can restrict your speech as long as you aren’t issuing threats. Of course, in the current climate saying, “I support President Trump” is seen by some as a threat and an incitement to violence, but we need to get over that.
I think Facebook and Twitter ought to face steep fines every time they block a post.
An impeachment with no committe, no cross examination of witnesses will not have the sticking power of a mere postage stamp. No due process...No impeachment.
Instead the alleged impeachm3ent becmes a mere Bill of Attainder, prohibited by the Constitution.
This is all mere theater.
Let them have it.
There will be no lasting applause and certainly no curtain call.
Alinsky method cannot rule our country, It can tear us apart, And that is the reason we have 20,000 troops in Washington as theater stage props, It makes the myth more real. Mythical impeachment...mythical bogey man?
Americans are far smarter than that, as these psychopomps will soon discover . Civil Disobedience for four years will slake their thirst for power and empty their sordid Alinsky theater attempting Shakespearean rhapsody..
Bull$hit! The "exact words" specifically included "peacefully and patriotically" when calling for demonstrators to "let their voice be heard".
That is a FAR CRY from the explicit calls for violence from many of the democrats now screaming so loud about President Trump.
I never though Michael Barone was stupid. I'm doubting my prior judgment now.
You really think that civil disobedience is going to be tolorated? It will be called sedition. They stile this country whole. THEY make the rules.
You really think that civil disobedience is going to be tolorated? It will be called sedition. They stile this country whole. THEY make the rules.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Civil disobedience is never tolerated.
Thats what makes it work.
Read up on Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, the writings of Ghandis Satyagraha Movement and the writings of Nartin Luther King.
We have to know what we will be about.
Those words are so inaccurate and untrue that this writer cannot be taken seriously!
Trump's exact words were not yet completed (his speech was still in progress) when the blm/antifa thugs, posing as Trump supporters, were invited into the capitol building by the capitol police!!! It was a planned, most likely a 'wag-the-dog', event...
Freedom of the press is limited to those that own one.
That would change FR. FR blocks DU trolls. We want to protect private forums from unwanted speech.
But at the same time, once a company hits a critical mass, has little meaningful competition, then monopoly rules should start to apply.
Drawing a distinction between the two is not easy.
We're now at a point where tech titans in conjunction with the democratic party have been allowed to effectively silence the President of the United States. If that doesn't scare you then I don't know what will. It won't happen under a Biden Justice Department, but these companies are effectively monopolies acting in unison and need to be broken up like Standard Oil or AT&T.
Soon social media will be controlled like utilities. They need to enjoy their little spree while it lasts.
Barone is just lying now. I used to have respect for him.
Used to.
Yeah, I knew Nartin.
He had a brother whose name began with ‘M’.
We made him go out for pizza.
Thananks for correcting my spelling Neuropod.
DeTrumpification
“While President Trump’s exact words to the crowd on the Ellipse didn’t constitute a criminal incitement, they were uttered with a reckless disregard for the possibility that they’d provoke violence, which any reasonable person could find impeachable.”
B$!
I stopped reading at that DNC/ABCNNBCBS talking point!
Barone follows the typical Rino pattern. First grovel and denounce the conservative object of leftist scorn, then say what you want to say. I’m tired of it.
“Read up on Thoreau’s essay on Civil Disobedience, the writings of Ghandis Satyagraha Movement and the writings of Nartin Luther King.”
We will not be dealing, in our civil disobedience, with the authorities that the three above were. We will be dealing with thugs who have displaced western thought and liberalisim. We are dealing basically with NAZIs.
We are dealing basically with NAZIs.>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Then it will be civil disobedience with options.
The options were pioneered by the Fr3ench Resistance during WWII. And Francis Marion, one of our nations founders will be a guide.He was nnown by the nomenclature; “ The Swampfox.”
But it starts with civil disobedience. You see it in Congress with Louis Gomert refusing to walk trough a metal detector. It will spread.
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