{"id":39476,"date":"2018-10-21T11:57:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T16:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39476"},"modified":"2018-10-21T11:58:33","modified_gmt":"2018-10-21T16:58:33","slug":"opinion-where-does-the-latest-social-media-purge-leave-the-state-of-social-discourse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=39476","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Where Does The Latest Social Media Purge Leave The State Of Social Discourse?"},"content":{"rendered":"<nav id=\"flash-breadcrumbs\" class=\"breadcrumb-trail breadcrumbs\">\n<div class=\"tg-container\">\n<h3 class=\"trail-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/disobedientmedia.com\/2018\/10\/opinion-where-does-the-latest-social-media-purge-leave-the-state-of-social-discourse\/\">Opinion: Where Does The Latest Social Media Purge Leave The State Of Social Discourse?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/nav>\n<div id=\"content\" class=\"site-content\">\n<div class=\"tg-container\">\n<div id=\"primary\" class=\"content-area\">\n<article id=\"post-13664\" class=\"post-13664 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-american-affairs category-censorship category-social-media category-american-politics tag-atlantic-council tag-censorship tag-dfrlab tag-dissent tag-facebook tag-first-amendment tag-nato tag-twitter\">\n<div class=\"entry-thumbnail\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"attachment-full size-full wp-post-image jetpack-lazy-image--handled\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disobedientmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/french-students-assembly-two.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disobedientmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/french-students-assembly-two.jpg?w=1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disobedientmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/french-students-assembly-two.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disobedientmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/french-students-assembly-two.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" data-lazy-loaded=\"1\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content-block\">\n<header class=\"entry-header\"><\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-meta\"><a href=\"https:\/\/disobedientmedia.com\/2018\/08\/we-told-you-that-once-the-establishment-silenced-assange-the-rest-of-the-media-would-be-next-we-were-right\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Disobedient Media<\/a>\u00a0previously reported the tightening stranglehold of censorship across social media. Unfortunately, events that have taken place since the publication of this writer\u2019s opinion that Julian Assange was the first domino to fall in a series of increasingly draconian censorship measures have far exceeded even this author\u2019s worst expectations.<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>The crackdown has seen the involvement of organizations that have a documented history of <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.is\/RRtZi#selection-1429.147-1437.213\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pay to play behavior<\/a>and are backed by groups including the <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.is\/Jvmkh#selection-1283.141-1283.159\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chinese Communist Party<\/a>\u00a0in collaboration with Western establishment organizations including <a href=\"http:\/\/archive.is\/UbLh3#selection-651.54-651.128\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">NATO<\/a>. In this way, renewed drives for censorship represent a strange new cooperation between transatlantic internationalist groups and China, as the former reacted negatively to the rise of populist and nationalist movements in the West which have disrupted their control.<\/p>\n<p>Before we discuss the details of the latest social media purge, though, we ask:\u00a0<strong>Is the unabashed, coordinated censorship of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms an illegal affront to freedom of speech?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In the case of Twitter, at least, we do appear to have an affirmative answer to the question. As <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180524003241\/https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/05\/23\/trump-cant-block-twitter-followers-federal-judge-says.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CNBC<\/a> reported\u00a0earlier this year,\u00a0a Federal judge ruled that Donald Trump could not legally block Twitter users. The judgment in effect defined the platform as a \u201cpublic forum\u201d which may be regulated by government to defend First Amendment-protected free speech.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180524003241\/https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2018\/05\/23\/trump-cant-block-twitter-followers-federal-judge-says.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CNBC<\/a>\u00a0wrote:<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cJudge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in her ruling that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing certain Americans from viewing his tweets on @realDonaldTrump.<\/em><em><strong>The social media platform, Buchwald said, is a \u201cdesignated public forum\u201d from which Trump cannot exclude individual plaintiffs.<\/strong> She rejected an argument by the Justice Department that the president had a right to block Twitter followers because of his \u201cassociational freedoms.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>[Emphasis added]<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Opinion: Where Does The Latest Social Media Purge Leave The State Of Social Discourse? Disobedient Media\u00a0previously reported the tightening stranglehold of censorship across social media. Unfortunately, events that have taken place since the publication of this writer\u2019s opinion that Julian Assange was the first domino to fall in a series of increasingly draconian censorship measures [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[120,130,15091,7844,18022,2001,553,1169,838,965],"class_list":["post-39476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-censorship","tag-china","tag-disobedient-media","tag-donald-trump","tag-elizabeth-vos","tag-julian-assange","tag-nato","tag-social-media","tag-us-constitution","tag-west"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39476"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39476\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39478,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39476\/revisions\/39478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}