You can say the #First#Amendment only applies to the #government, not #private entities—which is undeniably true—and therefore #social#media sites have no obligation to provide a platform for speech the owners of the site don’t like. This is a reasonable and defensible position.
Or you can say social media sites are the new #town#squares, and therefore the owners have a moral if not legal obligation to allow anyone to say practically anything using their platforms. You can even point out that the government charters corporations, and is responsible for a lot of #telecom#infrastructure, so by allowing censorship in that particular environment, the government is at least complicit in interfering with free speech rights. This is also a reasonable and defensible position.
Maybe you can even try to find some kind of well-articulated middle ground between these positions, although I have to say I don’t remember ever seeing anyone do so. I think most people do hold opinions somewhere between the two, but they don’t tend to spell it out.
What they do instead is argue either side as it’s convenient, which is irritating as hell. And yes, this is a rare bit of “both sides” on my part. I see a whole lot of leftish folks, who are generally not big fans of corporate power, deploying the first position against right-wing types—while complaining about the arbitrary and often clearly biased way #Facebook et al. censor left-wing statements.
The complaints are justified. Hypocrisy is not.
Just pick a position, be honest with yourself about what that position is, and stick to it. No matter where you fall on this spectrum, you have to be aware that the mechanisms of speech, and by extension the press, have changed dramatically over the last thirty years and will continue to do so. Knowing where you stand is important.
> In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors described Tarrio as a "naturally charismatic leader" and "a savvy propagandist" who used his influence over hundreds of followers to orchestrate an assault on democracy -- for which he was convicted of seditious conspiracy and several other felonies.
> shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Chime in here folks….if Moe is willing to use the Notwithstanding Clause to strip away children’s rights for ideological reasons and to throw red meat to the base….should we expect Pierre and the CPC to do the same with the rights of women?
legitimacy: it sounded like you thought the #Conservatives winning an #election would not be valid, or would be some kind of existential threat that justified some sort of severe action to prevent it from happening. If that's not the case, then I misread your comments.
It's really unfortunate timing here in #Canada that #Trudeau fatigue is crossing over with the rise of religious barbarism in America, aka the blueprint for how our Cons will push it on in on us from the prairies.
I am sorry to you my LGBTQ friends.
Doubly unfortunate that if Trudeau had kept his promises about first past the post this wouldn't be an issue, the shit piece.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones marched his way to the #US#Capitol on #January6 2021, with maga #domestic#terrorists, an unassuming middle-aged man in a red “Trump 2020” hat conspicuously tagged along.
Videos & photographs reviewed by CNN show the man dutifully recording Jones with his phone as the bombastic media personality ascended to the restricted area of the Capitol grounds where mobs of Donald's supporters eventually broke in.
While the man’s actions outside the Capitol that day have drawn little scrutiny, his alleged connections to a plot to overthrow the 2020 election have come into sharp focus: He is attorney Kenneth Chesebro, the architect of the scheme to overthorow 2020 election by using #fake#electors in multiple states.
The big issue is that #Republicans want to make #amendment more difficult before a #ProChoice referendum hits the ballot next fall.
But in case you're fascinated by the legal/logical puzzle of using the amending clause of a constitution to amend the amending clause, I wrote a book about it in 1990.
If we somehow managed to get a #constitutional#amendment through [1] that removed them as head-of-state, there would be many a dry eye here north of the #border.
🧵I know I mostly toot about #Ukraine here, but the #SCOTUS has got me annoyed. More than they usually irritate me. People in my generation (elder #millennial), #GenX'ers, and #Boomers, mostly grew up with a court that's legacy was in many ways progressive. As a result, most folks respected & trusted the SCOTUS as an institution, especially when compared to the other branches of #government. #Watergate, #Clinton's #impeachment, & various #bribery & #misconduct scandals in #congress 1/n
It's not an accident that #reactionary forces in #USPolitics have spent decades and literally billions of dollars for the infrastructure to "recapture" the #Judiciary, especially #SCOTUS. #Liberal's, #Progressive's & esp #Democrats may be spooked by talk of major #reform or #amendment's to the #constitution because they seem #Radical, or somehow undermining the #court as an institution. Well the court is doing a fine job undermining the institution all by itself. 6/n
Enjoying some bedtime hay after a busy day snoopervising BunMum’s annual report work. We can hardly wait until the weekend when we can catch up on Mastodon! 😊❤️ -Skye
The video of folks in #Ukraine getting on their knees as troops pass reminds me that #Republicans want these people dead and gone to please paymaster #Putin, and are holding our #economy hostage in violation of the 14th #amendment because what the #Kremlin wants is more important than what you or I or anyone else wants to these flat-out traitors to our country and humanity itself. Fake patriots. The enemy within.