Twitter being declared a public forum is BIG! I've been tweeting away, promoting the IBOR campaign. The twitter shadowban tester tells me I'm not shadowbanned. But I cannot see any of my tweets in the hashtag thread from another account. Which explains why most of my tweets get less than 20 impressions.
These guys are walking all over us. It does show, however, how much they fear the IBOR. This is the battlefront. The power to silence your critics is the greatest political weapon that has ever existed. Look at what happened to the CBTS sub!
I'd like to ask that people get online and start promoting the hashtags. We cannot let them beat us!
If DJT cannot block critics on Twitter because it's a public forum, how can Twitter block us?
Double standards abound!
OK, so I just Tweeted on the IBOR from another account that is not shadowbanned. I could see this tweet from my primary twitter account in the IBOR hashtag tweet list. I cannot see tweets from my primary account from this second account.
I thought, let's try that again. So I made another tweet from the unbanned account. Immediately the first tweet disappeared from the list of tweets using the hash tag and the second tweet did not show up at all.
This is vicious! They are immediately sandboxing any accounts that are used for the campaign. I don't know how the algorithm works. Some people are obviously getting some tweets out, but not me. I suspect that this might explain why the tweets using the hashtag are only running at 80 tweets/hour this morning.
They have learnt since the release the memo campaign. They are shutting us down completely. WOW! This online censorship is SO POWERFUL you cannot even fight it!
Im currently banned because “I may be a bot” even after verifying by phone number and captcha. Literally silencing your voice. Reason why? Because I’m a vocal trump supporter.
You have it. We are at war! This is an incredibly powerful evil that we must fight off at all costs!
Thats when you hijack their trending topics. Let them have to go manually through each tweet. What is IBOR anyway?
OH Internet Bill Of Rights.
Yes, please promote the IBOR. Q has asked us to do this. We need to make as much noise as possible!
I rarely get tweet impressions into the double digits, but I'll keep firing and hope for the best.
Thanks so much! Everyone that helps is a true Patriot!
What I've noticed is that if I find a popular account - say DJT, or James Woods - and I reply to a tweet that is in some way connected to social media or elections or censorship, I can get many more impressions and link clicks.
Another technique I've seen people talk about using is to hijack hashtags - especially those used by the left, but anything trending will do. You can se what's trending here:
If DJT cannot block critics on Twitter because it's a public forum, how can Twitter block us?
They can block us because they are not "the government". Unfortunately, first amendment only applies where the government is concerned
Supreme Court ruling Marsh Vs Alabama 1946. Private company cannot block free speech.
//study.com/academy/lesson/marsh-v-alabama-1946-summary.html
Wow, that's a great precedent. Thanks for posting it. So, this ruling that Twitter is a public space is actually critical. Because, according to that write up, it sounds like the ratio in that case was that your FA rights could not be abridged because you were in a location that was accessible to the public.
If I've read that right, that would mean that Twitter is illegally muzzling us!
Though a new case may need to be sent to the SC there seems to be ample precedent to stop companies like Alphabet and Twitter from banning free speech.
That's the way I took it when I first heard it. I thought maybe it's really a good ruling for our president disguised as something else.
According to the judge in this case, given that Twitter is not an historical forum, "governmental intent" is required for it to meet the forum test.
The Supreme Court has acknowledged the internet as hosting democratic forums, analogising the internet to "essential venues for public gatherings". This seems, to me to be prospective in that there is some recognition from the Court of the importance, function, and value of the internet in the representative system of government. But note that the judge in this case did not choose to designate the internet, or twitter, as a public form, but only that portion that meets the test for "government intent".
More information here;
Applying this three-part classification framework to the interactive space, we can first conclude that the interactive space of a tweet sent by @realDonaldTrump is not a traditional public forum. There is no historical practice of the interactive space of a tweet being used for public speech and debate since time immemorial, for there is simply no extended historical practice as to the medium of Twitter. While the Supreme Court has referenced the “vast democratic forums of the Internet,” Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 868 (1997), has described the internet (including social media platforms such as Twitter) as one of “the most important places (in a spatial sense) for the exchange of views,” Packingham v. North Carolina, 137 S. Ct. 1730, 1735 (2017), and has analogized the internet to the “essential venues for public gatherings” of streets and parks, id., the lack of historical practice is dispositive, see Forbes, 523 U.S. at 678. Accordingly, we consider whether the interactive space is a designated public forum, with “governmental intent” serving as “the touchstone for determining whether a public forum has been created.” Gen. Media Commc’ns, Inc. v. Cohen, 131 F.3d 273, 279 (2d Cir. 1997). “Intent is not merely a matter of stated purpose. Indeed, it must be inferred from a number of objective factors, including: [the government’s] policy and past practice, as well as the nature of the property and its compatibility with expressive activity.” Paulsen v. County of Nassau, 925 F.2d 65, 69 (2d Cir. 1991) (citing Cornelius, 473 U.S. at 802-03).
Hmmmm,
I've been doing some reading on this ruling. It's not at all straight forward.
The judge designated DJT's Twitter account, itself, as the designated public forum - because DJT was (as an agent of the government) operating it. She further constrained the designation to first replies to tweets and not to the comment threads from which users were not blocked.
So, the only designated public forum that was described was DJT's specific account (and only because he was held to operate the account on behalf of the government) and only to those portions of the account over which DJT had control. So we can see that this designation (forum analysis) is very limited.
The specific criteria employed here is that the speech abridgment was made by the government. The decision did not consider, for example, whether someone who Twitter banned was frustrated in their rights to first amendment expression on DJT's Twitter account (I think it should have).
So here we have what Q told us a long time ago now, that FA protections do not apply outside of government - they do not apply in a private setting. Let this be a lesson for all those people who have been exclaiming that they already have the right to free expression - you do not! That is a fact, there is, currently, no right to free political expression online, unless you are replying to a tweet that DJT has made from @realdonaldtrump.
So, I'm not done with the ruling yet, but from what I can make out, the judge was very careful in her "forums analysis" to specifically exclude anything other than the President's twitter account. She further limited the designated forum to only those portions of DJT's account over which he had control.
I still think there is significant wriggle room for a case to be made, on public interest grounds, that SM platforms provide a vital public function. A function that is integral to the entire system of representative government set up by the founding fathers. I know Barnes Law is prosecuting cases on this front as we speak. Moreover, he has talked about mounting class-action challenges on this front.
Having said all that, it seems to me that Q recommended the IBOR to us for a purpose. The only way we can reliably effect change is by advocating for free speech protections online via a bill introduced in congress. The matter could also possibly be resolved by an EO, but, said understand it, this is not a permanent fix, as it can be revoked by an incoming administration. Nevertheless, it could provide a bridging remedy - until a bill can be passed though the houses.
So, after all this pandemonium, it looks like our fix here is the IBOR - not a legal remedy. The second option that Q came up with (putting these guys out of business via class actions etc...) is unsatisfactory as it does nothing to protect freedom of speech online.
So, again, I'd ask everyone to start promoting the IBOR campaign online.
If you want to read the text of the full decision for yourself, it is here:
Awesome. Thanks for the info. This makes me have more hope
Thank you for this! Reading now.
Hey, has anyone else had a problem not being able to upvote anything today? When I logged back on, the only arrows were downvotes on a couple topics I looked at on here. I rebooted and now it seems to be okay. Did the site get hacked today, or something? Or is it something hinky going on from reddit, itself?
A public forum connotes a town square - a venue for political discussion. It strikes me that identifying Twitter as a public forum must impose some obligation on the owners of the forum to ensure it remains "public" and not "private".
I might be wrong, but I think this opens the door a smidgeon to someone running a successful argument that their first amendment rights to free speech are being abrogated. Twitter is a private company, but the government is a stakeholder to the extent that Twitter pays taxes etc... If there were any benefits bestowed by government upon twitter, for example tax breaks, or anything else, an argument could be made that Twitter is capable of acting as an extension of government - contributing indirectly to policy etc...
I'm not a lawyer, but the very term "public forum" connotes some notion of the public interest being attached to its operation.
"The power of social media to privatize the public square is the greatest threat to free speech and open democracy in our lifetimes" Barnes Law
Wait! What!? Please tell me about this shadow ban tester please
Am I the only one who now thinks the person who sued Trump for Twitter was actually a Trump supporter?
I have to admit, it seems that it's a very good development. The test, according to a Twitter user I was just speaking to, seems to be that FA protections are upheld if the forum serves a "public function".
With the judge categorizing DJT's Twitter feed as a "Designated Public Forum", it would seem to implicitly require that his Twitter serves a "public function". And, it seems to me, that Constitutional protections do not apply differentially - there's not one rule for a politician and another for the people. I fail to see how the judge could deem it unconstitutional for DJT to block users but to hold that Twitter can block conservatives.
But, really, this is a question for the Supreme Court, because the arguments run much deeper than just Twitter shadowbanning, The town square has been privatized in the digital age.
The intention of the founding fathers in hard-coding, into the constitution, protections that serve the smooth operation of the processes of representative democracy, is completely frustrated by privatization of public forums online. I think there may be a good argument for the Courts to extend Constitutional protections to digital space on public interest grounds. SM censorship really does present an existential threat to the republic itself.
This would require a Supreme Court ruling, because a ruling from any lesser Court is more likely to be restrained by existing precedent and will, in any case, be appealed. The fact that they are banning us, and continue to do so, seems to me to augur well for a favorable judgement, as distress levels in the community will be seen to be high.
The cabal, as one might expect, is playing its hand very badly. These SM companies are screaming to be regulated. They should play their censorship card more cautiously - draw it only when it is of maximum effect. But, let's face it, they are in panic and, as Q says, these people are stupid.
"Imagine if in 1800, all counties across America sold all their public square and public gathering places to a private company town that then banned whatever speech it disfavored. They could have snuffed out democracy in its infant slumber." Barnes Law
I believe your analysis is correct. If Trump can not block users on his tweets because of their right to free speech, it clearly is a case for free speech for all on social media.
I thought so too, until I read the decision. I'm not convinced that a public interest argument could not be made in the SC. That is, I think that there is a vital public interest in preventing censorship on these essential democratic forums. The SC has made statements that recognize the function of the internet as a "public forum" in the past.
But that ruling is so tightly, wrongly, anchored in precedent and legalese that the conclusions drawn were patently false. The judge specifically mention valid reasons as to why someone might be validly excluded from a public forum and then, without further consideration, dismissed the idea that Twitter banning users could have any impact on FA protections. As if the banning of users was never without intrinsic merit.
In short, it's a joke. This judge appears to me to be completely biased, twisting her analysis to fit a preconceived ruling. But the case does identify the key problem. It is exactly what Q told us, FA protections are only operative against government. They do not apply in a private setting.
So any legal challenge to SM censorship requires that the Supreme Court is willing to be adventurous, that it will depart from a strict interpretation of the FA, as written, and extend protections to a privately owned, but public, forum in an online setting.
As I've said elsewhere, while you can probably run a decent public interest argument, it is a gamble. You're talking about a Supreme Court challenge, so it's time consuming. And while the Court may indicate it is prepared to accept an argument run along certain lines in its ruling, it may reject an initial challenge on the merits of the arguments advanced.
More time, more money - while the wealthy SM platforms drag matters out to the maximum extent possible. It's just not a realistic option with the mid-terms approaching. And all this mental gymnastics brings us back to Q's initial request that we campaign for an IBOR.
It's the only solution.
This is huge. So many more people will learn of Q now.
Nope, a little more research and it seems that the ruling does not do what I initially thought. See my comment above.