FreeSpeech and Censorship: Thread

grarpamp grarpamp at gmail.com
Wed Mar 31 11:42:32 PDT 2021


Meanwhile the number of distributed encrypted messaging/social
platforms are growing...


https://jonathanturley.org/2021/03/31/he-who-must-not-be-heard-facebook-removes-trump-interview-by-lara-trump-for-including-the-voice-of-donald-trump/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebook-removes-trump-interview-video-daughter-in-law-lara-trump

Facebook Scrubs Trump Interview With Daughter-In-Law, Threatens New Restrictions

Shares of Twitter are paring earlier gains on Wednesday following a
Fox News report that President Trump is moving ahead with his plans to
launch a rival social media network.

    TWITTER SELLING OFF TRUMP MOVING AHEAD ON SOCIAL MEDIA PLAN

    * * *

    The list of respectable liberals and progressives who have urged
social media giants like Facebook and Twitter to abandon their
prohibition of President Trump includes Bill Gates and Bernie Sanders.

    Yet, instead of letting up, social media companies - goaded by
Democratic lawmakers during the latest in a series of tedious hearings
about "hate speech" (aka speech that liberals find politically
unpalatable) - are doubling down.

    Fox & Friends on Wednesday slammed Facebook after the company
removed an interview with Lara Trump and the former president from
Facebook and Instagram. Lara Trump, who just joined Fox News as a paid
contributor, posted the conversation with her father-in-law to her
social media accounts, only to see it abruptly scrubbed due to the ban
on content from the president.

    F&F host Brian Kilmeade seethed over the removal: "That’s
unbelievable," Brian Kilmeade said. "Do you realize he is the former
president of the United States? You do an interview with him, and it’s
not worthy? It’s not allowed to be on your page? That is incredible."

    His co-host, Ainsley Earhardt, took the complaints a step further:
"if they can pack the courts, make D.C. and Puerto Rico a state, if
they can get all of these illegal immigrants to come in, then they are
hoping they will vote for them eventually."

        "They can cancel Donald Trump on social media, so that he
can’t have a platform and he can’t speak," she continued. "If they can
bash our network, then they are on their way to controlling our
country. And it’s a scary time. It’s a very scary time, and what is
this gonna look like for our kids?"

    According to media reports, none of this should have come as a
surprise: Trump officials were recently sent an email from a Facebook
employee, warning that any content posted on Facebook and Instagram
"in the voice of President Trump is not currently allowed on our
platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking)."

    Here's more on that from Fox News:

        A group of Trump officials were sent an email from a Facebook
employee, warning that any content posted on Facebook and Instagram
"in the voice of President Trump is not currently allowed on our
platforms (including new posts with President Trump speaking)" and
warned that it "will be removed if posted, resulting in additional
limitations on accounts that posted it."

        "This guidance applies to all campaign accounts and Pages,
including Team Trump, other campaign messaging vehicles on our
platforms, and former surrogates," the email, posted on Instagram by
Trump's son, Eric Trump, stated.

    Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley warned in a blog post
that FB's censorship of Trump is "an obvious attack on free speech,
including political speech". He then offered up this comical scenario
to illustrate just how outrageous the ban on Trump can be: "Notably,
he could be talking about the Yankees but the posting would be
censored because the team was discussed in the voice of Donald Trump.
It is not his view but Trump himself that is being canceled by the
company. However, presumably, Lara Trump could sit next to Trump and
have him whisper his views into her ear. She could then give his views
in the voice of Lara rather than Donald Trump."

    Turley then pointed to an exchange between two Democratic senators
and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to further illustrate his point. At one
point, Dem Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked the CEOS "will you commit to
the same kind of robust content modification playbook in this coming
election, including fact checking, labeling, reducing the spread of
misinformation, and other steps, even for politicians in the runoff
elections ahead?"

    The phrase "robust content modification" might have a certain
appeal at a surface level, but beyond that, it's clear what's really
going on: "It is censorship. If our representatives are going to
crackdown on free speech, they should admit to being advocates for
censorship."

    All of this should have implications for tech companies and
protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act -
protections that President Trump sought (unsuccessfully) to remove.

        "Big Tech once fashioned itself as the equivalent of the
telephone company, and thus sought protections as neutral suppliers of
communication forums allowing people to voluntarily associate and
interact. It then started to engage in expanding, conflicting acts of
censorship. Yet, it still wants to remain protected as if it were
neutral despite actively modifying content. We would never tolerate a
telephone company operator cutting into a call to say the company did
not approve of a statement that was just made, or cutting the line for
those who did not voice approved positions."

    Just some food for thought...

    Trump was banned from Facebook, Twitter and other social media
platforms after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riots.


More information about the cypherpunks mailing list