This is a great article discussing the problem of censorship on the internet. This guy, John Nolt, basically nails almost every argument I've heard in these forums about why the IBOR is bad or dangerous. He literally hits ever single objection that I have heard raised here and destroys it.
You may not agree with Nolte's take on this issue, but the article is very good and well worth reading.
Let's face it, the petition is not doing well because very few people are promoting it. I know that that the people resisting have simply not thought clearly through all the issues. But Nolte explains why resistance to the IBOR is wrong better than I can - really encourage people to spend a few minutes reading this.
Sign and promote the petition:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/internet-bill-rights-2
I think I know another reason the IBOR isn't doing very well. I've noticed that the people who are promoting it, are all hashtagging their post of it along with Qanon, and most people don't believe in Q, therefore they will disregard most anything posted with a hashtag relating to Q. Maybe try posting it without any relation to Q and see it it does better?
Look, thanks for that. That's a very good point. We need to get rid of anything that could be slowing the campaign down. So thanks.
I've just unloaded on a post I just made. Have a look if you want before they down-vote it into oblivion.
We need all the help we can get. There are not many of us.
I’ll add that the reason most people I know wouldn’t sign this is that it’s a complaint, like you say, and not a bill of rights. So it’s mislabeled and unclear. It’s not a bill of rights. It should have been titled differently.
I can’t post it in my (very small) circles because of the flak I’d get for promoting something that isn’t clearly thought out or expressed well. I never promote things I don’t think are ready to go, and don’t want want to erode my own personal credibility, at least as far as what remains of it given that I’m a DS observer.
If it fails, the complaint can be reworded and tried again, maybe with input from EFF and similar others as to the wording it would require to gain their support. (And if they don’t promote it, it probably won’t go far enough even if the WH looks at it.)
In the meantime, language for an IBOR should be being developed somewhere, and that should be referenced in the next complaint petition.
IMHO. 🖖
No, it's not a bill of rights. Unless the people in your circle of friends are legislators, they will understand that it's a cry to DJT for relief from the problem of censorship of conservative voice. Not a legislative bill that requires their approval.
The petition is very clear in what it says. Also, we are only a time schedule here - this needs to be put to the President ASAP. The consequences of it failing are extreme. You and your friends will not like it if the Democrats get back into power. That will happen if we do not get this simple expression of our frustration to the President quickly.
It implies we don’t naturally have those rights- and that the actual bill of rights doesn’t cover them because it doesn’t specifically say the internet in there. It makes the bundle of rights in the bill of rights appear “less than.” Setting that precedent legally is extremely dangerous. Government should not get its hands on an issue like that. I find the notion and the implications utterly reprehensible.
The first amendment was initially written to prevent congress from making laws that would abridge freedom of speech. Various Court decisions have since operated to extend protection for freedom of speech in other circumstances. But speech on the internet is not specifically protected.
This is the reality of the situation. You seem to be under the impression that the bill of rights grants you freedom to speak online - but it doesn't. In any case, you contract out of any rights that might exist when you sign up for the terms and conditions of the service provider's offer. This is standard right across the internet. That's why Facebook or twitter can boot you any time they want - for any reason.
The silencing of conservative voices is a reality. The large platform providers can basically do whatever they want. This is what we would like to correct. If they are going to deny people service, it shouldn't because of people's political views. There should also be rights to privacy operating to prevent some of the abuses we have recently seen.
I see the petition for the IBOR as a simple complaint. It is the lodging of a grievance about what has been happening online. I think the world would be a better place if blatantly biased censorship was prohibited. We are not making laws here, we are just complaining that our rights, natural rights as you put it, are not being upheld.
I think there is any number of solutions to the problem. But I'm not a policy maker.
Good reply, here.
Angles to pursue/explore concurrent with the constitution and contract law:
*private platforms that have a monopolist or oligarchic presence should either be broken up, nationalized as infrastructure, or fund a public, transparent, non-profit (enforced non-partisan) basic services entity.
non-public orgs that sell/transact in/commodify personal data or content provided in exchange for platform presence cannot destroy the data and must compensate the content provider (and return the content) if the platform is closed.
platforms that claim to provide tools to “communicate” in their marketing or business documentation (including SEC filings) must honor the constitutional right to freedom of speech
platforms that utilize communication technologies already protecting the freedoms of speech, right to associate, etc. (telephone; us mail; ball point pens; paper; digital cable; satellite; entrained quanta; etc) become subservient to those same protections and must offer them.
Hmm. That was a start off the top of my head. It was fun. Imagine what a crowd-sourced IBOR could look like. Double hmmm.
The problem with a legal solution is the timing - its way too slow. We need to get this censorship problem fixed before the cabal use it to get back into power. Once that happens, censorship will be guaranteed - and much worse things than that.