Tag: free speech

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First Amendment rights general freedom social media

Must Known Musk

Elon Musk, hate speech, free speech, X, Twitter

Enthusiasts for prohibiting political dissent must know that the First Amendment protects the right to utter controversial speech.

They must know that there’s no constitutional loophole for speech that they disagree with. 

Another “must know”? That calling the public statements of political opponents “misinformation,” “disinformation,” “hate speech,” etc. is no substitute for open discussion.

They just don’t care. 

They just know that if they keep plugging away, struggling to muzzle the badspeech, they’re more likely to get their way than playing by the rules of free speech and open debate.

Their determination is well shown in a new California law, AB587, passed about a year ago. The law compels social media companies to institute moderation policies to squelch “hate speech,” “extremism,” “disinformation,” “misinformation,” “radicalization,” etc.

Although AB587 is anti-​transparently called a “transparency measure,” main author Assemblyman Jesse Gabriel admits the point: to force social media companies to “moderate or remove hateful or incendiary content on their platforms,” like “hate speech and disinformation.”

Since Elon Musk’s Twitter is affected by the new law, Musk is suing to block it.

According to his lawsuit, AB587 “compels companies like X Corp. [Twitter] to engage in speech against their will, impermissibly interferes with [their] constitutionally protected editorial judgments” and “has both the purpose and likely effect of pressuring companies … to remove, demonetize, or deprioritize constitutionally protected speech that the State deems undesirable or harmful.”

Politically, Mr. Musk has emerged as one of the country’s most frustratingly contradictory figures, often doing great things, sometimes very bad ones. With this lawsuit, even his enemies must know he is in the right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Accountability First Amendment rights government transparency

Overly Broad Stonewalling

United States, censorship, intelligence agency, FBI, CIA, free speech, First Amendment

How specific do requests for records of unconstitutional activity have to be?

In February, the Federal Bureau of Investigation pretended an inability to fulfill America First Legal Foundation’s freedom-​of-​information request for documents about the FBI’s pre-​election efforts to censor Twitter users. The agency declared the request to be “overly broad.”

What’s been “overly broad” is the policy of censorship, disinformation, and more by the Deep State using private partners. Meaning their real problem is doubtless that the requested documents are “overly incriminating,” too unmistakably what AFL wanted.

So the FBI stonewalled. 

And AFL has sued, in its complaint concluding that the agency’s “blanket denial of AFL’s FOIA request is contrary to law and should not stand.”

Thanks to evidence brought to light by other litigation and by Matt Taibbi’s reporting on Twitter’s internal records, none of us is just guessing that the FBI has acted to censor constitutionally protected discourse. We know that the FBI’s National Election Command Post flagged at least 25 Twitter accounts for “misinformation.”

But the only party to the censorship revealing relevant information voluntarily is Twitter itself, thanks to decisions by Twitter’s new management under Elon Musk.

With respect to everybody else colluding to censor social media — the FBI, the DOJ, the White House, Google, Facebook, etc. — looks like it’ll have to be lawsuits every step of the way.

The First Amendment’s stricture upon Congress to “make no law” abridging our “freedom of speech, or of the press,” does not allow the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and other agencies to simply subcontract. Nor are they free to mold public opinion. 

A government-​controlled “press” is not a free press.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights general freedom judiciary

High Court Too Busy

California, gig, contractor, speech, censorship

What is the U.S. SupremeCourt thinking by refusing even to listen to arguments about the effects of California’s AB5 law, which effectively outlaws certain kinds of freelancing and gig work, on the right to speak out and petition in California?

The case is Mobilize the Message, LLC v. Bona. Plaintiffs were challenging the constitutionality of AB5 because it bans independent contractors from doing door-​to-​door canvassing for candidates or initiative campaigns yet allows independent contractors to do the same kind of work if they’re doing it as newspaper carriers or salesmen.

Of course, if AB5 were completely consistent in its assault on independent contractors, that wouldn’t make it any less injurious to political work and freedom of speech. But the separate and unequal provisions of the act do mean that political workers are being forced to abide by different rules than certain nonpolitical contractors.

That’s not right, not just.

As the Institute for Free Speech puts it, “The only distinguishing feature separating the two [kinds of contractors] is the content of the speech they are paid to promote, a distinction that is presumptively unconstitutional under the First Amendment.”

Lead counsel for the plaintiffs, Alan Gura, says that the Court’s decision will “price political speech beyond the reach of many citizens.”

What’s the deal, are the justices too busy? 

We’re all busy. 

On the other hand, they have a job. A lot of folks in California could use one, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment education and schooling First Amendment rights

Trans-​Violent

Riley Gaines, protestors, trans, censorship, free speech

“I applaud the students, staff and faculty who rallied quickly to host alternative inclusive events, protest peacefully and provide one another with support at a difficult moment,” declared San Francisco State University President Lynn Mahoney on Monday.

The “difficult moment” she refers to? A talk on campus by All-​American swimmer Riley Gaines, sponsored by Turning Point USA. Gaines was speaking out against “transgender women” (biological men) competing in women’s sports.

President Mahoney did finally acknowledge that the event was followed by “a disturbance,” which “unfortunately” “delayed the speaker’s departure.”

In fact, Gaines wasn’t able to leave for hours, until nearly midnight … when, as CNN reported, “the San Francisco Police Department sent officers to disperse the crowd.” Gaines says she was “physically assaulted,” “struck twice,” with video confirming a very threatening situation.

“We are reviewing the incident,” Mahoney assured, “and, as always, will learn from the experience.”

No arrests have been made. They should be. That’s the teachable moment we need. 

SFSU’s president did acknowledge that what occurred last week was “deeply traumatic.” But she meant the event itself, which she claimed “advocated for the exclusion of trans people in athletics.” 

That isn’t true. Gaines and many (if not most) folks involved in the controversy simply want collegiate sports separated by biological sex and not by gender identity.

Let’s realize that these Antifa-​esque “trans activists,” the ones who threaten to beat up women, do not speak for all transgendered people — certainly not those I know and love. Their goal is clearly not harmony but the very opposite. 

The solution is simple: Love for trans folks, common sense public policies, and jail for the thug attackers of free speech.

I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights Internet controversy

Court Invokes First Amendment

hate speech, free speech, 1st Amendment

This is where we’re at. We must be in suspense about whether a judge will object when governments act to repress speech in the name of combatting “misinformation,” “disinformation,” or “hate speech.”

Fortunately, Judge Andrew Carter sees the obvious and has blocked a new New York State law to regulate “hateful” online speech. The law was challenged by anti-​censorship video platform Rumble and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Carter says: “The First Amendment protects from state regulation speech that may be deemed ‘hateful,’ and generally disfavors regulation of speech based on its content unless it is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.”

The alleged “compelling governmental interest” exception is vague and not really consistent with the First Amendment. But the judge otherwise makes sense.

Laws like New York’s constitute a cart blanche for government to repress speech — any speech.

Any controversial words can be labeled hateful, misinformative, disinformative. People have been censored for asseverating that there are only two sexes, that the COVID-​19 injections aren’t really vaccines, that the U.S. shouldn’t send more than $100 bazillion to Ukraine, etc.

It’s hatefully misinformative disinformation to proclaim that debates about such questions are impermissible. But people in any case have a right to be wrong; others, the right to refute them.

When the truth is on your side, you have an advantage. But you can’t beam your understanding into the minds of others.

You must be free to speak.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights ideological culture

The California Non-Consensus

censorship, authoritarianism, speech, 1st Amendment

A judge has given California doctors a reprieve from an anti-​medical-​speech law produced by lawmakers and Governor Newsom. The judge has blocked the law until a lawsuit challenging it on First Amendment grounds can be resolved.

AB 2098 says that it “shall constitute unprofessional conduct” for doctors to spread “false or misleading information” about the COVID-​19 virus, how to prevent and treat it, and the efficacy of alleged vaccines. (By using the word “alleged,” I’ve lost my medical license right there.)

What constitutes “misinformation”? 

Government-​empowered medical boards would make these judgments in light of “contemporary scientific consensus.”

Why is “scientific consensus” so sacred? Does it never err? Aren’t facts and logic, which discourse helps to establish and convey, the proper arbiters, not a designated “consensus”? How does one actually arrive at a “scientific consensus” of any legitimate value? By divine revelation?

And if there are doctors, scientists and other researchers who dissent, especially in great number, doesn’t that make “consensus” entirely mythical, non-​existent? The word misapplied? 

Of course, despite the issuance of government-​approved dogmas and revised dogmas about these matters, every aspect of the pandemic has been the subject of intensive investigation and controversy for over three years.

As Judge William Shubb notes, “COVID-​19 is a quickly evolving area of science that in many aspects eludes consensus.”

It’s a shame Shubb couldn’t simply have shut down the law permanently. Do we really need a lengthy legal process while California doctors wait to learn whether they may still fully participate in professional discussions?

But it seems that the agents of repression must have their day in court too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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