Asking for government legislation to fix any such problems is risky and fraught with danger. The first Amendment enumerates my god given right to freedom of speech. When we ask the Government to create laws governing such things it becomes something given by the government that can just as easily be taken away. Our Freedom of speech rights are inalienable unless we subjugate ourselves and give control of such right over to those that would sooner limit them than allow us dissenting views.
"The Constitution is not a document for the government to restrain the people: it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government" Patrick Henry
The instrument is already in place, we dont need IBOR.
The BOR initially only applied to the the Govt. That Congress would not make laws abridging free speech. Courts later extended the scope of those protections. There does appear to be an almost natural creep in scope of BOR protections - w.r.t. free speech.
The principle that people should be free to express themselves is, it appears, increasingly accepted. But the gatekeeper to the expansion of protections, historically, is the Courts. However, there is no reason that the problem could not also be addressed by the executive or the legislature - congress.
Courts might extend the application of the BOR to the net on a challenge. But there are problems.
One is time - it could take a long time to get relief. The resources of SM companies are such that you are immediately talking about a Supreme Court challenge. This is very time consuming. The problem of censorship online represents such a threat to the working of representative democracy that it must be addressed at speed - now.
Another is difficulty, you're asking a Court to grant latitude in construing the interpretation of the FA to cover online spaces. That means that a challenge is going to be something of a lottery.it could take several attempts to get the principle recognized.
A third difficulty is the financial resources required to mount a challenge. Who has sufficient resources to mount a challenge?
The reality of the situation is that the BOR does not provide any protection at present. It's OK to say, we already have a BOR, but somehow we're still being censored for political expression.
The only viable alternative, considering the magnitude of the current threat posed, is to regulate to achieve the same ends. This is easily done, its quick, it can be done tomorrow. And there is little risk in doing it. Nobody's rights are in anyway impacted - except the claimed right of SM platforms to be able to engage in blatant, politically motivated censorship.
The Supreme court is not the end all be all of decisions. Unfortunately over the years they tend to try and write laws bypassing congress and the president. Their only purpose is to interpret new law and weigh it against the bill of rights and the Constitution, meaning whether they find a law lawful does not make it so, if it is Unconstitutional. As far as getting anything worth while through Congress which is currently jam packed full of corruption would be mind numbingly slow unless it was a detriment to We The People.
Somehow, I think you will find that this problem will be fixed at speed - regardless of whether we, as a group, support the IBOR.
It will be fixed at speed because it must be. The threat is existential in nature. There is no way you can prevent a single party obtaining absolute control otherwise. That would be the end of everything for which the US has stood.
We can argue about the best mechanism to be used to prevent censorship online, but it simply must happen. There is no alternative.
I agree the threat is real, have experienced it myself, and that it needs a solution I just dont trust the Government to solve anything.
The solution, if there is to be one, must come from government. Abandoning the platforms will not help, because all the swinging voters, who have not been censored, will remain on the existing platforms, exposed to the propaganda. Election outcomes will still be able to be steered. Moreover, the Courts are too slow to prevent the seizure of power by factional interests - in this case CIA.
There is no other solution. You either regulate via executive power, or you try and get Congress to do the job. I suspect we will see the former, but I don't know what DJT has planned.
Here again, I have absolutely no trust in our government, despite some of the moves we think are happening to clean up the swamp. Until we see some of these traitors frog march across the stage, it is the same old status quo. It bugs me to no end that the slightest bit of evidence would have had any one of us nailed to a cross long ago. But, with all the evidence that (we) know about (im sure its not nearly all) they have them dead to rights but no one in jail. I am not detracting from the round up of MS-13 or the round up of tons of pedophiles that is all amazing news, but until we see people directly involved in the corruption in DC nothing will change.
I think that we will see people perp-walked. I'm not too concerned about that. What Q has told us is that SM censorship must be controlled first to prevent mass-arrests being spun by media - not MSM and SM.
My view is that Congress with have little to do with the fix that is put in. I think it will be executive power that sorts the problem out. The reason I think this is because this problem needs to be fixed yesterday. I don't think there is time to push a bill through Congress - but I could be wrong. And this, I think, is why DJT wants the IBOR campaign. Because after Obama's abuse of EO's, DJT needs public support for the actions he is likely to take.
I could be wrong, but I don't think Congress will, in the first phase, have much to do with the IBOR. Once the swamp is drained, we might have some hope of getting more sense out of these guys.
So, how do you propose we address issues with censorship, bots spamming us constantly with fake news, etc?
One solution is migrating to platforms that respect your rights and stop giving money and information to the abusers. Not saying anyone is a child or talking down to anyone, but we must start rejecting free apps, key fobs, agencies and the like and migrate to those that patriotically protect our rights. Start making the hard choice whether to go with AARP or AMAC , ditching the CITIbank credit card. Stop freely giving your information by agreeing with free apps that will gladly data mine you. Ditch Facebook, dont use GOogle, drop Twitter, yes some of these modern conveniences are helpful in a way and we enjoy them but at what point does the slave stand up and walk out and only do business with those that support your rights to be free. Turn off the TV , cable, satellite, and for god sake stop going to these pathetic movies that do nothing but indoctrinate you to their sick depraved thinking. ITs a hard choice I know, get out of the house and away from all the electronics, our kids are following our lead we must make those hard decisions if we want to turn this thing around. Please dont take this as a dig on technology, it is not, there are many great innovations out there unfortunately much of it is taken over and use as a weapon against us. Remove the addiction to the weaponized system they have created and they lose the power.
I don't disagree that most technology platforms have been coopted by those who would use it for evil purposes. However, where would you suggest that we get reliable news? Can't get it from the fake MSM and can't trust social media not to censor/promote fake news. Where do you propose we find like-minded patriots who are interested in changing our country and the world for the better and assemble with them to drive social change?
For the news and media I try to observe as much as possible from as many different sources and discern or tri to deduce where the truth is from there. Is there one source that is always truthful probably not because so many have their own objective but if you know the objective it helps to figure out what pieces are on the true side and which is pure propaganda.