This is very disturbing. I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around how any American, and highly-educated and intelligent ones at that, can actually think that this is a good idea.
The only thing more disturbing is the almost total lack of outrage coming from elected Democrats. It is hard to not come to the conclusion that this is apparently exactly what they want…
Missing from the evil actors are the Mob of influence peddling attorneys and lawfirms selling services disguised as legal. Leading the pack Louie Freeh who among other things engineered the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor using Joe Biden’s influence after negotiating a contract with the head of Burisima in response to his email stating that he needed to buy the Biden influence. It’s all in the Marco Polo collection of Hunter Biden related emails. Freeh responds with a vaguely worded agreement and is asked to confirm that despite the wording it is to deliver the Biden influence. Shortly thereafter we see Joe , who can’t help himself, “spiking the ball in the endzone” as he brags that that HE got the prosecutor fired. Hunter becomes a Burisima Board member. The “Election Integrity Project” was tasked to prevent this story from gaining a foothold and to attack the truth
Have you read Stanford's Amicus Brief in rebuttal?
Twitter is a private entity. Stanford is a private entity. They are free to work together. Stanford may in fact contact the government if they want to - they are free to do so. The SIO is not a "front". It is what it is and it's working with the goverment. This is commonplace, especially for health initiatives.
Now, we may be alarmed that the government, a university, and a private tech company are aligned in promoting a narrative. But all it means is that the means the mainstream is mainstreaming.
People criticizing the mainstream don't have a right to access Twitter. THAT's the problem. We have a constitutional right to voice our disagreement, but we don't have a constitutional right to a specific platform that is owned by a private individual that can do as they like with that product, and conduct business with anyone they want or don't want.
I agree there's a big problem here - Big Tech has made it so the political views of Big Tech are the most amplified views which are actually not the views of the MAJORITY of the country's citizens - but it's not an unconstituational one.
The temptation to win, profit, gain & enrich oneself, by ANY means, is a temptation for anyone, especially when you’re working in an environment where it has become the norm. This is one of the reasons corrupt people like to corrupt others. Implicate everyone, make them all guilty, so you don’t feel so bad about yourself.
The Twitter Files "investigation" (now the X Files?) and this investigation found molehills, and let us know about them. That's good. But they claim those molehills are mountains. That's bad.
The government is budding in on content moderation by social media companies where it shouldn't, true. But the courts should let minor problems like this go. De minimis non curat judex.
I’m a student who has recently come back from a solo trip to front line Ukraine. I’ve just published a new piece on my experiences and thought readers here may appreciate it. Please do see what you think. https://irongoose.substack.com/
Interesting, but not earthshaking. The government also has the right to participate in the marketplace of ideas. I think that was all they did here. All censoring was done by the social media companies, and they made the choice to censor.
Bullshit. Our tax dollars were used to do the work of setting up the overt suppression of the First Amendment. Biden doesn't get off scott free. In fact he should be impeached for high crime against the Republic.
What JS is saying is that the Government (or government actors) have the right to use taxpayer funds and the punitive power of the government to suppress the freedom of the press which is a foundational Constitutional right. Perhaps he needs to take a break and read 1984 that foresaw a government managing information and communication but did not foresee that it could be done electronically.
Lies we were told and which the “Election Integrity Project “ protected and advanced
Russian Dossier was real
Hunter computer was Russian disinformation
Joe Biden was not receiving bribes
Covid did not come from the Wuhan lab
US did not fun gain of function research at the Wuhan lab
Of course, government personnel have a right to free speech. But they have an obligation to reveal how they use contractors to influence and pressure social media companies. Section 230, which protects social media from taking responsibility for content, could go away if the government decided. But you're right, the companies did the censoring, and waste pick-up customers in New Jersey loyally pay only one company.
Not at all. I'm a lawyer working on a case against one of the social media companies. I think the cases against the government are weak and the supreme court will shoot them down.
Our legal system is far from perfect and on every contentious issue you will find inconsistency and conflict. Just look at what the courts have said about abortion. There are conservative judges, liberal judges, and judges in between, and that shows through in their judgments. But I think the state action doctrine is fairly well-defined, though sometimes (as you say) applied inconsistently.
The supreme court has decided to hear what was called Missouri v. Biden and which will be heard at the supreme court as Murthy v. Missouri. There were at least 5 votes to stay the injunction as imposed by the circuit court (and probably 6 votes, since only 3 justices dissented). Voting to stay the injunction means that a justice thought the injunction was causing the government irreparable harm. To me that says the supreme court will vote in favor of the government.
I'm not defending so-called Big Tech. In fact, I have thought seriously about filing a lawsuit against one or more social media platform companies for banning posters for their viewpoints even though not prohibited by the platform's content moderation policies. As the First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies, my argument involve obligations of fairness and good faith under contract and consumer protection law.
I'm not defending the government either. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have stretched executive power well beyond its breaking point. I would love to see executive power reined in, and the current supreme court seems poised to at least partially pull back on the reins.
But to suggest that the social media companies are state rather than private actors is (to me) an untenable argument. The social media companies voluntarily adopted content moderation policies that blocked and banned conservatives during the Trump administration. They even banned Donald Trump. How were they coerced into doing that?
Private companies only become state actors when they coerced, that is, when the government forces a private company to take an action against their will. Persuasion and leaning on is not force. "Slippery slope" arguments never get any weight from me. You have to draw a line somewhere, and the supreme court and the circuit courts have done a fair job of drawing that line. The government has stayed on the safe side of the line.
Thank you for your comments. I agree with you on the principles, but disagree on the facts.
Here's the facts as I see them. The social media companies have long had content moderation policies addressing medical misinformation and other topics. They adopted those policies themselves. The policies have a liberal slant, but that's because the executives at the social media companies have a liberal slant. In fact, most of the top people who set the content moderation policies at these companies worked in liberal governments.
The government did not force the social media companies to adopt these policies. The argument in Murthy v. Missouri was that the government gave the social media companies specific examples of cases where the government thought the policies were being violated. The government then asked, sometimes strongly, that the social media companies take action under their own policies.
The social media companies made the decision whether to take action or not. In the case of the FBI, only about half of the targeted accounts were banned, yet the government did nothing about the ones that weren't. The idea that the government was forcing the social media companies to violate people's rights to free speech just isn't supported by the facts.
Could I as a lawyer make a case along the lines you suggest? Sure. But it wouldn't be an honest case. It would be like the cases being brought against Donald Trump -- the two impeachments, the civil suit in New York, and the four criminal indictments. These cases point out molehills, but the courts shouldn't worry about molehills, only mountains. De minimis non curat lex.
I'm a lawyer long interested in these cases. I've written briefs and articles on state action. While that doesn't make my views right, they are based on a deep knowledge of the issues involved.
There it is again. The banality of evil.
Monsters viewing themselves as good little soldiers.
F#&&ing shitheads are everywhere.
time for another Nuremberg trial for those that participated in this
The DIRT is showing strongly now!!
Thanks for exposing this!
This is very disturbing. I just have a hard time wrapping my brain around how any American, and highly-educated and intelligent ones at that, can actually think that this is a good idea.
The only thing more disturbing is the almost total lack of outrage coming from elected Democrats. It is hard to not come to the conclusion that this is apparently exactly what they want…
Missing from the evil actors are the Mob of influence peddling attorneys and lawfirms selling services disguised as legal. Leading the pack Louie Freeh who among other things engineered the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor using Joe Biden’s influence after negotiating a contract with the head of Burisima in response to his email stating that he needed to buy the Biden influence. It’s all in the Marco Polo collection of Hunter Biden related emails. Freeh responds with a vaguely worded agreement and is asked to confirm that despite the wording it is to deliver the Biden influence. Shortly thereafter we see Joe , who can’t help himself, “spiking the ball in the endzone” as he brags that that HE got the prosecutor fired. Hunter becomes a Burisima Board member. The “Election Integrity Project” was tasked to prevent this story from gaining a foothold and to attack the truth
Thank you for keeping us updated. This is evil. As Dr. Malone says, “truth is like a lion.......”
You can shove your krispy cream up your fucking ass cause I ain't vaxing your bio-weapon. Pfizer genociding mother fucks. lol
Man after my own heart! 😅
so important. thank you for documenting this.
Have you read Stanford's Amicus Brief in rebuttal?
Twitter is a private entity. Stanford is a private entity. They are free to work together. Stanford may in fact contact the government if they want to - they are free to do so. The SIO is not a "front". It is what it is and it's working with the goverment. This is commonplace, especially for health initiatives.
Now, we may be alarmed that the government, a university, and a private tech company are aligned in promoting a narrative. But all it means is that the means the mainstream is mainstreaming.
People criticizing the mainstream don't have a right to access Twitter. THAT's the problem. We have a constitutional right to voice our disagreement, but we don't have a constitutional right to a specific platform that is owned by a private individual that can do as they like with that product, and conduct business with anyone they want or don't want.
I agree there's a big problem here - Big Tech has made it so the political views of Big Tech are the most amplified views which are actually not the views of the MAJORITY of the country's citizens - but it's not an unconstituational one.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-411/294255/20231226143930837_Murthy%20v.%20Missouri%20--%20SCOTUS%20Amicus%20FINAL.pdf
The temptation to win, profit, gain & enrich oneself, by ANY means, is a temptation for anyone, especially when you’re working in an environment where it has become the norm. This is one of the reasons corrupt people like to corrupt others. Implicate everyone, make them all guilty, so you don’t feel so bad about yourself.
The Twitter Files "investigation" (now the X Files?) and this investigation found molehills, and let us know about them. That's good. But they claim those molehills are mountains. That's bad.
The government is budding in on content moderation by social media companies where it shouldn't, true. But the courts should let minor problems like this go. De minimis non curat judex.
This is earthquake-level info. This is a smoking gun.
I’m a student who has recently come back from a solo trip to front line Ukraine. I’ve just published a new piece on my experiences and thought readers here may appreciate it. Please do see what you think. https://irongoose.substack.com/
Big pharma gets a cover-up for its human subjects experiment.
In the Day tapes, the idea was that the takeover would be best accomplished by targeting port cities on the coast and working slowly to the interior.
San Francisco, Seattle and New York City selected here, like there wasn't anyone on the interior.
Interesting, but not earthshaking. The government also has the right to participate in the marketplace of ideas. I think that was all they did here. All censoring was done by the social media companies, and they made the choice to censor.
Bullshit. Our tax dollars were used to do the work of setting up the overt suppression of the First Amendment. Biden doesn't get off scott free. In fact he should be impeached for high crime against the Republic.
What JS is saying is that the Government (or government actors) have the right to use taxpayer funds and the punitive power of the government to suppress the freedom of the press which is a foundational Constitutional right. Perhaps he needs to take a break and read 1984 that foresaw a government managing information and communication but did not foresee that it could be done electronically.
Lies we were told and which the “Election Integrity Project “ protected and advanced
Russian Dossier was real
Hunter computer was Russian disinformation
Joe Biden was not receiving bribes
Covid did not come from the Wuhan lab
US did not fun gain of function research at the Wuhan lab
Of course, government personnel have a right to free speech. But they have an obligation to reveal how they use contractors to influence and pressure social media companies. Section 230, which protects social media from taking responsibility for content, could go away if the government decided. But you're right, the companies did the censoring, and waste pick-up customers in New Jersey loyally pay only one company.
You’re joking, right?
Not at all. I'm a lawyer working on a case against one of the social media companies. I think the cases against the government are weak and the supreme court will shoot them down.
Our legal system is far from perfect and on every contentious issue you will find inconsistency and conflict. Just look at what the courts have said about abortion. There are conservative judges, liberal judges, and judges in between, and that shows through in their judgments. But I think the state action doctrine is fairly well-defined, though sometimes (as you say) applied inconsistently.
The supreme court has decided to hear what was called Missouri v. Biden and which will be heard at the supreme court as Murthy v. Missouri. There were at least 5 votes to stay the injunction as imposed by the circuit court (and probably 6 votes, since only 3 justices dissented). Voting to stay the injunction means that a justice thought the injunction was causing the government irreparable harm. To me that says the supreme court will vote in favor of the government.
I'm not defending so-called Big Tech. In fact, I have thought seriously about filing a lawsuit against one or more social media platform companies for banning posters for their viewpoints even though not prohibited by the platform's content moderation policies. As the First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies, my argument involve obligations of fairness and good faith under contract and consumer protection law.
I'm not defending the government either. Both the Biden and Trump administrations have stretched executive power well beyond its breaking point. I would love to see executive power reined in, and the current supreme court seems poised to at least partially pull back on the reins.
But to suggest that the social media companies are state rather than private actors is (to me) an untenable argument. The social media companies voluntarily adopted content moderation policies that blocked and banned conservatives during the Trump administration. They even banned Donald Trump. How were they coerced into doing that?
Private companies only become state actors when they coerced, that is, when the government forces a private company to take an action against their will. Persuasion and leaning on is not force. "Slippery slope" arguments never get any weight from me. You have to draw a line somewhere, and the supreme court and the circuit courts have done a fair job of drawing that line. The government has stayed on the safe side of the line.
Thank you for your comments. I agree with you on the principles, but disagree on the facts.
Here's the facts as I see them. The social media companies have long had content moderation policies addressing medical misinformation and other topics. They adopted those policies themselves. The policies have a liberal slant, but that's because the executives at the social media companies have a liberal slant. In fact, most of the top people who set the content moderation policies at these companies worked in liberal governments.
The government did not force the social media companies to adopt these policies. The argument in Murthy v. Missouri was that the government gave the social media companies specific examples of cases where the government thought the policies were being violated. The government then asked, sometimes strongly, that the social media companies take action under their own policies.
The social media companies made the decision whether to take action or not. In the case of the FBI, only about half of the targeted accounts were banned, yet the government did nothing about the ones that weren't. The idea that the government was forcing the social media companies to violate people's rights to free speech just isn't supported by the facts.
Could I as a lawyer make a case along the lines you suggest? Sure. But it wouldn't be an honest case. It would be like the cases being brought against Donald Trump -- the two impeachments, the civil suit in New York, and the four criminal indictments. These cases point out molehills, but the courts shouldn't worry about molehills, only mountains. De minimis non curat lex.
I'm a lawyer long interested in these cases. I've written briefs and articles on state action. While that doesn't make my views right, they are based on a deep knowledge of the issues involved.
B0t? Not.