Below is a slightly augmented version of my column in the Hill on the latest release of the Twitter files, confirming long-denied use of shadow banning and other techniques to suppress conservative and dissenting viewpoints.
Here is the column:
“We don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire.” That line from a third tranche of company documents released by Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, captures the social media giant’s censorship culture. Its humorless, officious tenor is all too common with state censors throughout history. Censorship creates an insatiable appetite for more censorship, where even jokes become intolerable.
Censorship apologists are running out of room for evasion. They first insisted that Twitter was not censoring disfavored views and then said that claims of secret throttling or shadow banning were “conspiracy theories.” They then insisted that there was no evidence of meetings with the FBI or other agencies.
These latest Twitter files shatter all of these past spins. This includes confirmation of “shadow banning” and other suppression techniques despite denials by former CEO Jack Dorsey under oath before Congress and public denials by top corporate executives.
The legal ramifications will become clearer as more information emerges. Yet, a far more significant problem already is confirmed in these files: the existential threat of corporate censors to free speech.
In the new material released late Friday, journalist Matt Taibbi confirmed that Twitter executives met weekly with FBI, Homeland Security and national intelligence officials to discuss “disinformation” they felt should be removed from the site. Those discussions apparently included the Hunter Biden laptop story.
You don’t need a state ministry of information if the media voluntarily maintains official narratives and suppresses dissenting views. And what emerges from these files is the notion of an effective state media in America — an alliance of media, business and political figures who act, not out of government compulsion, but out of personal conviction.
The notion of a privately-run state media is reinforced by the response to these disturbing disclosures — a virtual news blackout, with most major media offering little coverage of the disclosures. Just as Twitter suppressed dissenting or opposing views in a myriad of ways, many in the media are minimizing coverage of this scandal.
To use a favorite term of Twitter executives found in these files, the media “amplifies” certain narratives or views while “deamplifying” stories that contradict those accounts.
Some of these files reflect specific subjects or measures long pushed by powerful politicians to get private companies to do indirectly what they themselves are barred from doing under the First Amendment.
In a Senate hearing where Dorsey apologized for blocking the Hunter Biden laptop story, for example, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) was more concerned about Twitter “backsliding or retrenching” on censorship and warned that Congress would not tolerate any reduction of “robust content modification.” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) reminded Dorsey that he expected censorship of misinformation on climate change as well as other areas.
Others, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called on social media companies to use enlightened algorithms to protect people from their own bad reading choices. As shown in the recent Twitter releases, these algorithms manipulate what someone sees in searches or trending stories.
What these files suggest is an utter license to control political speech on social media platforms. Twitter executives often sound like overlords determining what the public should be allowed to read or say. This is hardly surprising, given the constant stroking by many politicians and pundits who say they are saving democracy by limiting free speech.
In speaking to media figures in April, former President Barack Obama called upon “our better angels” to shape voters’ opinions. Similarly, President Joe Biden has said social media editors are vital to protecting citizens from their own misguided values or assumptions. Without enlightened editors, he asked, “How do people know the truth?”
Such comments show total contempt for the ability of people to make up their own minds on subjects ranging from elections to vaccinations.
Yet social media executives readily embraced their role in framing “the truth.” Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal pledged to “focus less on thinking about free speech” and more on “who can be heard.” While some of us denounced his anti-free-speech agenda, others rose in defense of Twitter maintaining one of the largest censorship systems in history.
Now, these Twitter files show precisely what it means to manipulate “who can be heard” — a process that went beyond controversial suspensions of users to include a broader, secret effort to suppress disfavored viewpoints. The new documents show Twitter using blacklists and “visibility filters” to interfere with user searches or to shadow-ban individuals and prevent their tweets from trending. The new material also indicates that “visibility filtering” was directed at various Republican campaigns, throttling or reducing candidates’ visibility before the 2020 election.
Most striking in the latest documents is how Twitter censors knowingly discarded even their own policies to hamper then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. In one tweet, Trump referenced a mail-in voting problem in Ohio that was found to be true. Nevertheless, Twitter executives were praised for their speed to impose “visibility filters” so the tweet could not be “replied to, shared, or liked,” and the staff received a censorship “attaboy”: “VERY WELL DONE ON SPEED.”
There was even a long debate over whether to censor a joke about mail-in voting by former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-Ark.) because Twitter staff insisted they “don’t make exceptions for jokes or satire.” After all, the censors noted, a joke “could still mislead people” — the same logic that appeared to be the basis for suspending conservative satirical site The Babylon Bee. The only reason Huckabee’s joke wasn’t censored was a concern that “we’ve poked enough bears.”
Of course, Twitter long ago exceeded its bear-poking quota with the public.
A record number of users are signing up with Twitter and a recent poll shows a majority of Americans supporting his efforts to restore transparency and free speech on the site.
Thus, Musk seems to be forcing a reckoning that few in Washington relish — and one which the media can’t continue to ignore, given an expected investigation by a Republican-controlled House. Political and media figures will be forced to dispense with any pretense of support for free speech in defending censorship, election manipulation, blacklisting and shadow banning.
Twitter’s former executives were correct about one thing: There is nothing humorous about any of this — if you value free speech.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
“Such comments show total contempt for the ability of people to make up their own minds on subjects ranging from elections to vaccinations.” What else could we expect from an ideology that profers the notion that blacks are incapable of obtaining ID’s for voting or that a certain class of people can only survive with a guaranteed income from the government. These are despots of the worst kind, despots who understand that they can only maintain power over an uneducated and bullied populace with no concept of individual self will. These are your prog/left democrats and the smart ones are fleeing that party like rats from a sinking ship.
Jonathan: Some on this blog reacted negatively to my previous comment. Specifically, about Jack Sweeney who created a bot to track Musk’s private jet (@elonjet). Some think Musk has a right to ban such a bot because of the “stalking” problem. No quarrel with that view, except for the richest guy in the world why doesn’t he have at least two jets flying around at the same time to defeat the whole purpose of Sweeney’s bot? I know, not practical. But others who parody Musk on his platform have been banned. I wouldn’t call that parody “stalking”.
Now Anonymous (the insane) tries to rationalize Musk’s banning tendency by quoting the Maestro: “Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach. Negativity should & will get less reach than positivity”. Now there is a hole big enough to drive a Mac truck through! Who gets to define “negativity”? Well, the Maestro himself. He has shown already that any criticism of him is treated as “negativity” and either out right banned and put some where that other Twitter users cannot see it. And the reverse applies. “Positivity” in the form of fawning praise of Musk’s views and comments will be given more prominence. But that defeats the whole purpose of “free speech” and an open forum. In your “Civility Rule” you say “we do not ban people simply because we disagree with them”. But isn’t what Musk is doing a direct contradiction of your first principle?
Finally, you claim in your column “a recent poll shows a majority of Americans supporting his [Musk’s] efforts to restore transparency and free speech”. Never mind you don’t cite the poll which you usually do when it supports your position. But it appears those who gathered in SF for the Dave Chapelle show last night were not included in the poll. Musk made an unannounced visit on the stage and was loudly booed. One person, James Yu, who was at the show later tweeted: “Was at the Dave Chapelle show at SF tonight, and who comes out but Elon Musk! A good 80% of the stadium boos. 18 K people and he withers. Like absolutely turns into a corncob…I actually felt bad for him”. Another attendee tweeted that she thinks thousands of the recently fired Twitter workers were in the crowd–invited with free tickets by Chapelle! It appears the latter tweet was given a “positivity” rating and not shadow banned..
I was there. It was a mix of many cheers and some on the top section loudly booing…and Chapelle called them out for it. You’ve been fed propaganda; the video going around was selectively edited. Par.
Dennis McIntyre, first you say you have no quarrel with the view that Musk should not be stalked and then you say he should have two jets to travel on so the stalker wouldn’t know which jet he was on. Then you point out that Musk was booed by an audience in San Francisco. Somehow you think that this occurrence reflects what the people of the nation think about Elon Musk. One anecdotal occurrence proves nothing. However, your post demonstrates the logical processing which you have displayed many times in your postings in the past. The question that should come to mind is why did Dave Chapelle have Elon on the stage? Maybe it’s because they both say what the want to say and tell the woke like you to go to hell. Dave Chapelle new that having Musk on stage would get your panties in a twist. You fell for it. Mission accomplished.
“Some on this blog . . .”
A long-winded comment that amounts to: I’m an Apologist for government censors and dishonest corporate executives. Deflection is my favored trick for masking those apologies.
If I may I would like to present a hypothetical. Let’s suppose that Fauci would have admitted that gain of function research was going on in a lab in Wuhan and that a lab leak could be the possible source of the pandemic? How much additional lead time would scientists have had to study the virus and come up with a vaccine sooner? If a vaccine would have been discovered sooner how many millions of lives might have been saved around the world? Now we know that there were millions of dollars in grants that went to the wuhan lab and that Dr. Fauci was instrumental in obtaining those grants. Perhaps if Fauci would have admitted the possibility of a lab leak many lives would have been saved. Instead Fauci did a CYA moment. It would be hard to prosecute him for his malfeasance but never the less the results of his actions lay lying in their graves.
‘Quaerendo Invenietis’ may apply to the released correspondence from Twitter, if you’re so inclined.
If not, we could use a Physics term to measure the harm that Twitter and others have done to America: “Entropic” (used as an adjective) the measure of disintegration, degradation or disorder of our social fabric. The overly self-important numskulls and their ideas of a perfect society must be thrown into Histories waste basket.
I’ll end with a few lines from President Theodore Roosevelt’s speech at The Sorbonne in Paris 1910 in support of Mr. Musk: “…who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat…”.
Not that long ago, real Americans (of both parties) were concerned about despotic leaders attempting to take our rights away. We labeled some communist nations as the “Evil Empire” for practicing censorship and punishing free speech.
Today way too many Americans are now demanding our government leaders take away our free speech rights. We aren’t fighting arbitrary censorship, we are supporting it.
Democrats aren’t safe either. Consider how you would write a censorship rule. The same rules that censor Trump supporters could be used to censor rap music, video games, movies, tee shirts, etc. You can’t write a law that only applies to Republicans.
Do Americans really want to defer their personal choices to bureaucratic censors? Democrats won’t like that either.
The old saying that “empires either end with a bang or whimper”. Americans voluntarily surrendering our rights is the “whimper” version for cowards. Americans are better than this!
Thank you Darren for cleaning up the blog.
Appreciate it.
So a doctor who worried about the effect of the lockdown on children and tried to say so on Twitter was banned from posting by the all knowing wokesters who controlled what you can see or hear. I provide a link from a source that is considered to be prominently leftist. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/18/younger-children-most-affected-by-covid-lockdowns-new-research-finds. Thank you Twitter for helping the little kids out.
Let me ask you to please recall that Twitter blocked anything contrary to the Biden Administration on Covid and the Covid vaccine. The Government required that those in the military get the vaccination. Now the House of Representatives has voted to drop the vaccination mandate for the military. Why you might ask? Because recruitment is falling to dangerous levels. Fortunately, House Republicans have made repealing the 2021 mandate for service members a condition for signing on to the Pentagon’s $847 billion National Defense Authorization Act. To their credit, Democrats agreed to add language rescinding the mandate, and the full House approved the measure Thursday, 350-80. The Senate is expected to follow suit. Thanks Twitter and Thanks Joe for being so concerned with the defense of our nation.
In his treatise “On liberty”, John Locke told us that the only way we can know the truth of a subject is by hearing what is said about it by persons of every opinion, and considering all the ways it can be looked at by every character of mind. “No wise man”, he said, “ever acquired his wisdom in any mode but this; nor is it in the nature of human intellect to become wise in any other manner.”
Let us hope the New Twitter enables our knowledge and wisdom in a much better way and to a much greater extent than has the Old Twitter.
John Stuart Mill rather than John Locke.
My apologies. I could not help but note the correction.
Thank you. I often quote one while thinking of the other.
In the United States there is a political party that is helping the Russians. Here’s some evidence that illustrates my point. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/12/12/viktor-bout-merchant-of-death-00073422. This guy was in important point man for the Russians around the world. Thanks Joe for helping him out.
ATS, I got your number and you know it. I have proven your spiteful deletions in the past. I have proven who you are. I have identified your pretend friends and other aliases such as the green anonymous and Johnathan. Yes, rarely I err on short comments (mostly Bug’s) because there aren’t enough words, but overall I have been on target.
You can’t stand the fact that people can see how much you post and when you post. You will convince no-one as you are recognized as a liar.
You err all the time.
Prove it!
Take note how right now you are feeding out of my hand.
Apparently this is an inconsequential story because it’s not being covered by newspapers or TV. Surely if it were important it would merit coverage. It will be interesting to see what they do when there are hearings next month in Congress. The WSJ has had a few editorials about it but no news articles, which is a pretty strange editorial policy on its own. What’s particularly funny is that the media used to cover anything Elon did like white on rice; now, silence.
“This case is dismissed for lack of Jurisdiction.”
What was your point?
Of course MSM not going to cover it. They do not want to bring attention to the American people of the level of shaddow bans and black lists.
Almost, but not quite the same as when MSM blackout the NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop story.
One example of ideology distorting history is the holocaust. The Supreme Court Justice overseeing the Nuremberg trials concluded that Germany legal system based on “positivism” led to “I was just following orders, ie. the Law. I’m probably wrong but I believe the legal systems are based on Historicalism , Naturlism, and POSITIVISM. If you do a internet search, the phony sciences (political, social,,etc.) bury this conclusion with their jibber jabber. It took me reading the Nuremberg trial transcripts before discovering POSITIVISM.
Jonathan: it’s getting hard to convince us with a straight face that Elon Musk is committed to “free speech” on Twitter. Exhibit 1: Musk yesterday called for Dr. Fauci to be criminally prosecuted because Musk has a disagreement over how the good Doctor handled the Covid-19 pandemic. When you want the criminal justice system to silence Dr. Fauci that goes way beyond shadow banning or censorship! But Marjorie Taylor Greene has endorsed your call to prosecute Dr. Fauci. At the annual gala of the Young Republican Club in Manhattan Greene boasted that if she had been in charge of the insurrection on Jan. 6 it would have succeeded: “If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed”. Whoa! DOJ, are paying attention?
But getting back to Musk’s wanting to put Dr. Fauci in prison. Early during Covid-19, Musk had a lot of questionable advice to offer about how to handle the pandemic. He called CDC and Dr. Fauci’s recommendations “dumb”. On March 19, 2020 Musk tweeted that Covid-19 would be over in a few weeks. He also said: “Kids are essentially immune”. Musk was wrong. Dr. Fauci was right.
And Musk is no stranger to using shadow banning and outright censorship on his platform. One user has been tracking Musk’s private jet. It seems Jack Sweeney, the creator of the bot tracking Musk’s jet, was told by a whistleblower inside Twitter has banned Sweeney’s bot. Sweeney has a screenshot that shows Ella Irwin, VP at Twitter’s Trust and Safety, requested the ban on 12/10: “Team please apply heavy VF [visibility filtering] to @elonjet immediately”. Musk is doing exactly what you complained about under previous management.
Shadow banning may or may not remain a concern, but the fact is the New Twitter is markedly different from the Old Twitter when its taken into consideration just how troubled the Deep State has become with the whole changeover.
I am trying to understand how taking away the right to stalk someone is a problem. Like it or not that is an actual safety issue for someone who has received death threats from a head of state from a sovereign nation.
Hi Carole, Happy Holidays. You have my amazing Mom’s name, or at least profilename, btw. I’m going to try to reply in earnest here bc it seems like you are really asking a question you want an answer to, so in good faith, I shall try, if you’ll allow me:
Yes, of course, actually “stalking somebody” and terrorizing them is terrible. Indeed, doing so is not protected Speech under our Constitution, and we even have laws thankfully in many states now making such horrible behavior a crime.
But, here’s the problem: Who decides what behavior or words, etc. actually = Stalking? – I mean I think most of us would think we would know it if we saw a clear case of it…right?
That was my first reaction….and is many people’s, but let’s test that theory.
Example 1: Guy keeps harassing eg a girl online, then proves he has her address & says in online tweets and that he will be “coming by when she leasts expects it”.
– That repeated pattern, those clearly worded “threats” – that sounds terrible. I know many women would feel terrorized in that case. Feels like it should be illegal. Yes?
Example 2: Same facts, except the potential “Stalker” is a very attractive woman who says the exact same thing to a guy online. But in this particular hypothetical, the guy doesn’t feel threatened. He’s single, flattered, and maybe even wants Ms. Beautiful to swing on by; anytime is aok w him!
Example 3: Now, what if in the same hypothetical, it’s the same pretty woman doing the exact same speech, except the guy recipient here is a successful executive with a family, he’s loyal to his husband, has zero interest in this women, thinks she looks cray cray, and bc he was years ago almost killed by a jilted boyfriend, he freaks out and gets so worried for his family’s safety that he moves them to another country?
3 exact same behaviors and speech…but we have sometimes different speakers…yet always different listeners bc every person is unique w unique experiences. And the result..is that some fear is created in some cases, sheer terror is even created in others, but there’s definitely others who either aren’t affected much or at all, or who may even react in surprising ways!
So, what do we do? Thankfully, our Founding Fathers were on to this conundrum, albeit in a much different world of local town squares, actual soap boxes., and a pretty insecure & Nasty British King who didn’t take kindly to anyone saying anything against him…even if they were months by boat and an ocean away! King was so used to the world of regular overthrows, assassination attempts, rebels, etc…I mean I’d probably also be paranoid in his weird pointy shoes, too! But today, we see the new British King..doing absolutely nothing but probably writing a Christmas card to his son Harry as I type, when that son just said some pretty nasty stuff about King Dad and his family..as recently as this morning!
Our amazing Founding Fathers recognized the potential for all of those variables in the abstract. They couldnt predict the future, of course. But, they were very learned men who knew a whole lot about the past…and they knew well the terror, destruction, danger & even eventual anarchy that frequently resulted when a society either silences a speaker…or blindly, arbitrarily or subjectively holds them responsible for a listeners actions and reactions.
Our Courts thankfully know this, too. So they’ve basically developed tests that have to be applied bf the Govt is allowed to limit anyone’s speech,…and, thankfully, hurt or scared feelings simply arent enough to qualify.
And thats very important! Why? …..BECAUSE OF THE SLIPPERY SLOPE!
– Sure, probably many more than not might feel scared and some even terrorized from the speech consistent throughout my examples. But, if we allow feelings to define what speech is ok and what isn’t, where do we stop? And even worse, where would we have even started? Years ago, alot of people did not feel comfortable hearing anyone even speak of gay people. Many others, even a sad majority, said they found it abominable and the like, an affront to their very existence even, to see a mixed race couple together.
– If feelings got to decide what speech is allowed and what isn’t…this country would be a terrible, gross place today bc I would never want to live in that world.
Thus, allowing for speech that may upset feelings & may even scare people is very important to helping us evolve as a free society. And, it is also how we protect ourselves, too; bc if you silence scary people…they usually dont go away,…we just cant hear them coming anymore! We feel pain not bc some skyGod wants to torture us, but bc, whether by his or her or whatever grace or not, science has evolved animals and mammals to be able to feel pain as a warning signal. If we shut off the signal, we get eaten if we’re a field rabbit…or eg, we get burned by fire, so to speak, if we’re people!
OldTwitter’s problem: they clearly worked in concert w State or Fed officials in order to effectively silence speakers illegally. They thought they were King! They will argue they were just trying to stop scary speech, but they are not the arbiters of that under 1A. If they never colluded w Officials (aka the proverbial King), then that’s different. But, once they did, and once they started censoring people on the regular, our Laws view them as an agent of those Officials, and so they must abide by 1A and apply the same legal tests and standards as our Courts in order to ensure that only unprotected speech is limited, and even then, narrowly so..
The Twitterfiles downloaded so far clearly showed that OldTwitter did anything but. They will argue semantics and Section 230 and all kinds of stuff…but, for our purposes, it’s most important they were finally stopped, that sunlight is starting to be brought to the truth, …and that we see the small bit of justice that it is to know that Yoel, Vajaya and others will be bogged down for years with many lawyers and potential liabilities (civil and possibly even criminal) hanging over their head. And that’s a start….The world needs that. This was definitely a crime scene.
Hope this at least just got you thinking, even if you disagree. Apologies if my examples seem trite, btw!
Good comment. Follow up question, if I may, what are your thoughts on subjects unrelated to traditional 3 R’s being taught to minors in K-12 schools as related to who decides what can be said to whom?
Harm to kids. The rare case of the utterance itself is enough, as the exception. Just like Carole’s Head of State Terror speech hypo, which I should have also commented on; ie rare speech that so clearly can cause harm merely by their utterances are not fully protected as they de facto satisfy the basic tests. Head of State owns an army, they do his bidding, and so if he’s known for actually killing or physically harming or jailing people etc when he targets them, then he needs to be watched, and possibly have narrowly tailored reins placed on his ability to be heard depending on what he says, how often or loudly, etc. – But Trump being mean…definitely does not meet that test; no matter how much anyone hates him or how many false headlines implied otw, there is literally zero factual evidence that he was some kind of Tyrannical Terror Head of State vs all our past Presidents, especially. Thinking or saying that he wanted to be, doesn’t make it so.
Same kind of limited utterance exception for anything about sex in K-3. I dont want a world where we normalize and think it’s OK to utter anything sexual to small children..and they are far too young to even comprehend logically the arguments about biology vs gender, etc. These arent fully formed brains, yet, and they require extra protection. Recall back to those years yourself…Kids get traumatized and scared even by thinking in terms of their own changing body parts, even how digestion works! Now we want them to learn about others actually or imaginatively changing before or after the natural changing? NO, just NO. And I am pro trans, to each his own. But, keep anything about sex and bodies away from young kids aside the from the very few basics they need at that age to function and feel safe. ….Study after study after study has shown that constant exposure does not normalize this in small kids heads. They literally cannot understand these things like older teens and adults can. That they seem to respond w kindness or even acceptance bc they’re told they should, is not accurate indication of what’s actually going on in that small, underdeveloped brain, and we know that from almost a century of studying traumatized children. My BFF growing up and to this day is one from the foster system, and they’re a teacher of special needs kids now, and adamantly opposed to the latest K-3 sex or gender exposure ideology.
Hope that feeds your thoughts for a moment. Happy to hear yours. I am an open mind despite how I may come across in the written word while dictating over a sandwich as all my interior doors are being replaced today in the background..Lord help me!
Agree with your perspective. Would only add that while we’re forcing minors to accept there’s eighty-seven genders and WPB, “white people bad”, if they just ‘feel’ like it, and letting them argue what the meaning of ‘is’ is, the rest of the is world giggling their proverbial backsides off and plotting our demise via superior math, science, logic, reason, and problem-solving skills. Can you imagine the Chinese invading the US mainland shouting, “Surrender now!” and “We’re here to forcibly take your transgenders!”, speaking in English because no one here would understand Mandarin? Neither can I. Yet that seems to be the focus of the US Education system starting in Grade 4 continuing through completion of a PhD with no parent being allowed to question it.
Happy Holidays to you and yours as well. I agree with your description of different feelings, thoughts and behavior interacting via different contexts. Basic cognitive psych concepts. In each case, the ‘victim’ determines if there is a threat and some victims are more reasonable than others. However, wouldn’t it be more like offering to give the location in an online forum of a govt witness in protective custody? Sort of like doxxing with a mobile address to people who are looking to kill? If the victim here knows (not feels) that they are at risk because they have been threatened with death, couldn’t they keep the information from being divulged?
Again, really looking to understand this.
Hi again, Carole. I think you’re right about the victim being able, or sb able, to keep their deets from being published in some cases. I think that gets at least some protection under Privacy laws. The TOS, what the potential victim agreed to data-share-wise when she signed up, the State involved, etc,…these are all factors to be taken into account there in light of Fed Privacy laws. The issue of Privacy and the Internet is pretty brand new; it’s a bit of the Wild Wild West still, as you probably know already. It is evolving slowly though, for example I thought revenge porn is now illegal in some cases and places, no?
But, if a person seriously feels threatened, and truly has received a pattern or direct, clear, threatening speech (and/or online behavior), then they should, yes, go to (dare I say it) the FBI, who have departments that can look into this, even work with the site or carrier, etc. to remove or hide certain private info…if they find the standards under whatever applicable laws, of course, have been met. Local police are also an excellent avenue if FBI worries are an issue and a protective LEO intermediary is sought; I’m sure they can figure out jurisdiction, etc., without us, of course/or I hope!
BUT, what the FBI can’t do legally and should never be doing..is instead: working w the internet company to silence the potential perpetrator just bc someone feels threatened by mere speech. Now, if it is known the guy has a history of actually harming others physically..and/or a history of breaking laws as adjudicated by the Courts, then we move closer to your very good Terrorist Head of State example, I think. – Speaking of: I didnt complete my comment to you above w thoughts on that specific example. Someone else raised similar notion re sex gender stuff in schools; at what age or when if ever is it protected speech or not, etc., and I responded to them including your Head of State example. I assume you meant eg like the Head of the Taliban or Iran,…but for anyone thinking Trump, I threw my 2 cents in there, too, bc…you just know it’s coming.
Have a look if you get a chance, and let me know if that was any better. And apologies that I’m starting to devolve into abbreviations, etc. I start off w good intentions, but then life steps in. Thanx.
Let’s read Dennis’ opening again: “Musk yesterday called for Dr. Fauci to be criminally prosecuted because Musk has a disagreement over how the good Doctor handled the Covid-19 pandemic. When you want the criminal justice system to silence Dr. Fauci that goes way beyond shadow banning or censorship!”
In other words: If you believe someone possibly murdered millions (either directly or indirectly) and that there’s ample evidence + support/voices already out in the public sphere to at least investigate/prosecute it, and you say so, too, Dennis believes that is somehow NOT free speech & that you should either not be allowed to call out for an investigation or prosecution of a potential crime, or that you should be silenced or cancelled somehow if you do.
Well, if you’re Elon Musk, that is.
BUT, if you’re Dennis, well apparently that’s a completely different story. As Dennis says directly after that little gem: he believes however, that it’s Ok for him to publicly call out here, for MTG (who hasn’t been accused of murdering anyone, as far as Im aware) to be investigated, prosecuted (& probably jailed, if Dennis had his way)…. for nothing more than her constitutionally-protected speech:
“But Marjorie Taylor Greene has endorsed your call to prosecute Dr. Fauci. At the annual gala of the Young Republican Club in Manhattan Greene boasted that if she had been in charge of the insurrection on Jan. 6 it would have succeeded: ‘If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, we would’ve been armed”. Whoa! DOJ, are paying attention?’”
And the piece de resistance? Dennis tags the DOJ in calling, on social media, for prosecution of his political opponents, for protected speech that he disagrees with! [I note that Musk, btw, did not tag LEO, of course]
GAME. SET. MATCH.
There isn’t evidence that Fauci murdered anyone.
There isnt any evidence Trump incited violence.
Just an FYI to SAVE. When one has to call their own win, they didn’t. This is from someone who rarely agrees with Dennis, but I am always opposed to compensatory dick swinging.
Dont have a dick, but I know one when I see one!
Denis McIntyre. So if someone stalks Pelosi’s husband it’s the crime of the century but you have no problem with someone stalking Musk. Twitter should not help stalkers but they had no problem with Maxine Waters encouraging the stalking of Republicans. Maybe if someone like you is encouraging stalking you should be considered as aiding and abetting the stalker. It is obvious that in your book some stalking is better than other stalking.
Touche! Dennis = Elon = You = Me; none of us has a greater right than the other to speak AND TO BE HEARD when 1A joins the party. That is where I think Dennis’ ideology probably veers from the Law. Thank god for our laws, then!
For years now the Let has been beating the drum of Evil Corporations this and Evil Corporations that. Little did we know it was all a giant false flag because they are all on the same team from the get go.
“Now, these Twitter files show precisely what it means to manipulate “who can be heard” — a process that went beyond controversial suspensions of users to include a broader, secret effort to suppress disfavored viewpoints.”
But there’s nothing secretive about it. Twitter is totally up front in the Terms of Service that they do this, and users agree to it.
Musk ALSO does this and is up front about it:
“New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach. Negative/hate tweets will be max deboosted & demonetized, so no ads or other revenue to Twitter. You won’t find the tweet unless you specifically seek it out, which is no different from rest of Internet.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673339826212864
“Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom of reach. Negativity should & will get less reach than positivity.”
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1598752139278532610
Freedom of speech is not the right to a megaphone, much less a right to Twitter’s megaphone.
“confirming long-denied use of shadow banning”
That’s false. Turley continues to misuse the term shadow banning. Twitter deamplifies some speech but does not shadow ban.
“Twitter is totally up front in the Terms of Service that they do this . . .”
*That* is a lie — a lie that sneakily turns on the unclear pronoun reference: “this.” (And, no. I have no desire to debate those who are chronically evasive, or to fall through your trapdoor.)
We’re in a world where people are awarded PhDs for pure garbage that add nothing of value to society, it’s understandable why they feel superior. It’s a vicious cycle that must be destroyed at the root. But as their world caves in they’ll continue to be the pretentious pricks that only biological stupidity can explain.
Two thumbs up for that! 👍👍
(OT)
Judge Cannon has dismissed Trump’s Mar-a-Lago case.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64911367/199/trump-v-united-states/
Not on topic, but let me be the one to bite here so everyone else can focus the issue at hand:
Judge had no choice but to Dismiss after the Appellate Decisions; that’s how our Courts work. What you may not have been told is that many of the same issues, defenses, etc. will still be decided in the Courts later & much more in-depth, ….after any indictment…if there is one. = Basically, Trump “lost” here regarding a process & timing issue; the Courts essentially found it inappropriate to parcel out an exception for a FPOTUS from the timing of pre- vs post-indictment norms.
What does this mean for Trump? Even though much of the country (indeed, the world) can see that the DOJ/FBI/Natl Archives/etc are in process of acting questionably & possibly even corruptly here (or, at a minimum, contrary to their historic policies & practices), only if & after Trump is actually indicted can Trump then go after them for it, in the Courts. – At that time, there will be hearing after hearing after hearing, for everything from conflicts of interest/political prosecution/abuse of office/govt malfeasance to privileges/illegal search warrants/other constitutional issues or violations by Biden’s FEDs/etc. This is because: in the US, all that stuff normally gets arbitrated (dealt with by the Courts, in detail) post-indictment, and not before.
Ironically, the much bigger impact of these investigative stage Court decisions will actually end up hurting Team Biden the most!
– Trump’s going to get a much bigger bite of the Apple to go after DOJ/FBI corruption/malfeasance/etc here if he ever gets indicted. And, if history + statistics are any indication, Trump may then rise from the ashes for the umpty-ninth time, as the Left makes him a victim of their targeted corruption, again, and asTrump gains even more support for it.
– But, Team Biden will now have to hand over those 150 Hunter Biden suspicious activity reports; If Trump cant get shielded from investigations as a FPOTUS, then Hunter certainly cant as a FVPOTUS’ son (that is the capacity GOP are aiming to go after Joe over, to start with – ie what he did when he was VP.)
– And, bc the DEMS did their partisan & hasty impeachments sans normal rules, and also dragged in a POTUS’ Family..and even just raided a FFLOTUS’ closet, Team Biden now also wont be able to argue that eg, a current POTUS should be shielded from Partisan investigations into his Family, etc.. especially where issues of current POTUS Privileges aren’t at play.
– Worse yet for Team Biden…is what happens when Desantis (or even Trump) takes over in 24: Rest assured that whatever Team Biden crimes & abuses aren’t fully investigated AND prosecuted bf then, we can expect even bigger FED raids + a much wider net on Biden as FPOTUS bc, end of day, Trump isn’t the one who committed the real crimes here, and everyone in DC knows it! – Also, Hunter’s Laptop + 6 years of Trump being the most investigated human in history has corroborated it.
You didnt really think all those Trump-appointed/GOP Appellate judges forgot to consider the long-term view here, did you? That was newby Judge Cannon’s mistake…and the DOJs!!!
“What you may not have been told is that many of the same issues, defenses, etc. will still be decided in the Courts later & much more in-depth, ….after any indictment…if there is one.”
No, different issues will be decided then. What was being decided now was (a) did Cannon have jurisdiction over this case (the 11th Circuit ruled that she did not, and Trump did not appeal for either an en banc rehearing or to SCOTUS), and (b) whether the DOJ could use all but a small number of privileged items in their investigation (they can). The investigation is not the trial.
“in the US, all that stuff normally gets arbitrated (dealt with by the Courts, in detail) post-indictment, and not before.”
Right! Whether they can be used in a trial is distinct issue that will be decided later if he’s indicted.
“the much bigger impact of these investigative stage Court decisions will actually end up hurting Team Biden the most!”
A matter of opinion. My opinion about it is different than yours. Time will tell.
And if Biden or HB have broken the law, I want them prosecuted too. I don’t want them above the law, just like I don’t want Trump above the law.
Or Hillary.
Her too. Trump’s kids too. I don’t want anyone to be above the law.
ATS, you missed most of what Upside said. You should respond to his post line by line and then you will learn you cannot defend most of what you say.
As a strictly legal matter, I agree, those were the Court’s key findings. But I do think that lens misses the forest through the trees here:
Why did Trump file this case? ….What did his voluminous public filings focus on…ad nauseum?
He even got a respectable recenty-seated judge in Florida to agree w him & passionately side w him bc she was so incensed at seeing just some of the corruption accusations and even a bit of the known defenses, etc laid out early in writing like that!
– – – PR, my good friend. You don’t wait until you’re indicted to let the world know you think you’re innocent & that the Prosecution is crooked! I’m a registered Independent who voted Trump in 2020 bc his policies were gold for a majority of this country, in my view. But, im also from NY originally…And everyone who grew up there in eg the 90s and zeros knows that the real estate business at that level is as swampy as DC. – – – Trump is actually learning that, too, and finally at least trying to play their game! (Old dogs, and all that!)
Yes, only innocent people invest in PR.
The irony is, although the liberal elite believe they are the superior race, reading their posts on Twitter proves otherwise, and the long list of remarks correcting their errors demonstrate who really has the intelligence in this country. Academia is full of liberal freaks who follow silly ideological trends believing they are serious theories. Democratic politicians call for violations of the Constitution almost on a daily basis (how smart is that?). Liberal journalists are probably the worst of the lot. They publish rants, thinking they’re being insightful, and get lost in the weeds because everything beyond the bumper sticker phase is completely lost on these mental midgets. It’s hard to be a serious journalist when all your talking points are predigested and fed to you. Bottom line: the left isn’t nearly as smart as it thinks, and the evidence is overwhelming.
Censors are like alcoholics. Once they start, they cannot stop. And the more they censor, the more powerful they feel. The more powerful they feel, the more power they want. They cannot admit that they have a problem. Candidates for public office should be forced to divulge their position on this issue and then their voting should be followed closely. Trust but verify.