After the election, liberal pundits and media have attempted to rally the public in a shift from X to Bluesky, a smaller site that is viewed as a safe space for the left. I have been critical of the move as a retreat deeper into the liberal echo chamber after an election that showed how out-of-touch many of these writers were with the majority of voters. They would be better served engaging with a broader swath of public opinion. Today, one of the top Bluesky officials embraced Canadian-style speech controls and rejected more robust views of free speech as the model for the site. Bluesky has long been criticized as a site built on the concept of “safe spaces” in higher education for those triggered by opposing views. Many of those leaving Twitter long for the “good ole days” of when all social media platforms engaged in extensive censorship to exclude or marginalize opposing voices. This week, Aaron Rodericks, the head of trust and safety at Bluesky, confirmed the worst fears of the site. Bluesky has been hammered with complaints from conservatives and libertarians that they have been subject to not only death threats on the site but also blocked from posting. Some have demanded even more aggressive measures to block or suppress conservative or libertarian views deemed threatening or demeaning. Liberal pundits have heralded the site as allowing them to “breathe again” without hearing the type of opposing views allowed on X.
Rodericks espoused the type of anti-free speech rationalizations that are addressed in my recent book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” He insisted that there are alternative views of free speech than the type of “absolutism” supported by figures like myself.
Rodericks juxtaposed what he called “free speech absolutism” against the more enlightened Canadian model, adding, “I think it just comes down to philosophies of free speech.”
He explained:
“Being Canadian shapes a lot of my perspective. There’s enough of the American perspective in the world on a day-to-day basis. For example, in the Canadian constitution… you have rights and freedoms, but they’re not unequivocal.”
It was a chilling reference for many in the free speech community since free speech is in a free fall in Canada. As we have previously discussed, there has been a steady criminalization of speech, including even jokes and religious speech, in Canada. The country has eviscerated the right to free speech and association.
Yet, that is apparently the model for Bluesky. Rodericks repeats the doublespeak of the anti-free speech movement in claiming that he just wants to create a space where all are welcomed but excluding those who are not welcomed:
“I’m glad that [critics] consider it a safe space and ideally it can be a safe space for them as well. The whole point of Bluesky is for it to be safe and welcoming to all users. I think the issue is some people are defining their identity by opposition to others and how well they can harass others and deny their existence. Bluesky may not be the right place for them.”
Not surprisingly, Rodericks used to work at trust and safety for Twitter before he was fired by Elon Musk. He has also sued Musk over a tweet. At issue is Musk’s response to the criticism of his firing Rodericks’s team by noting, “Oh you mean the ‘Election Integrity’ Team that was undermining election integrity? Yeah, they’re gone.” That would seem clearly protected opinion under the First Amendment, but, of course, for the former censors of Twitter, it should not be allowed.
We have previously discussed the censorship standards at Twitter. For example, former Twitter executive Anika Collier Navaroli testified on what she repeatedly called the “nuanced” standard used by her and her staff on censorship. Toward the end of the hearing, she was asked about that standard by Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury (D., NM). Her answer captured precisely why Twitter’s censorship system proved a nightmare for free expression.
Navaroli then testified how she felt that there should have been much more censorship and how she fought with the company to remove more material that she and her staff considered “dog whistles” and “coded” messaging. She said that they balanced free speech against safety and explained that they sought a different approach:
“Instead of asking just free speech versus safety to say free speech for whom and public safety for whom. So whose free expression are we protecting at the expense of whose safety and whose safety are we willing to allow to go the winds so that people can speak freely.”
Rep. Stansbury responded by saying “Exactly.”
The statement was reminiscent of that of former CEO Parag Agrawal. After taking over as CEO, Agrawal pledged to regulate content as “reflective of things that we believe lead to a healthier public conversation.” Agrawal said the company would “focus less on thinking about free speech” because “speech is easy on the internet. Most people can speak. Where our role is particularly emphasized is who can be heard.”
The same standard seems to be at play at Bluesky as controversial figures like Rodericks decide which views are deemed harassing or amount to a denial of the existence of others. They will be shown, Canadian style, why “Bluesky may not be the right place for them.”
In part one of this investigation into how Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign is deceptively manipulating online platforms, it was revealed that the campaign is operating a Discord server that directs hordes of volunteers to use their social media accounts to deceptively push election propaganda. The goal is to artificially manufacture consensus by making pro-Kamala Harris messages on social media appear more popular than they are, and it is often done in violation of the Terms of Service of the social media platforms. In more extreme cases, they are encouraging people to skirt election laws and using these “astroturfing” campaigns to spread disinformation they think will help win the upcoming election.
Yesterday’s report documented how the Harris-Walz campaign has seen great success in manipulating Reddit’s algorithm, but that isn’t the only social media site they’re manipulating. The campaign has also been targeting Elon Musk’s X, perhaps the most influential site for political news. One particular goal, according to a user of the Harris-Walz campaign Discord server, is to get campaign volunteers to swarm the site and “block [community notes] we don’t like.”
Prior to Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the site’s management was known for capriciously removing information and regularly banning users in a way that employed a double standard that heavily disfavored conservative opinion. Musk, a major free speech advocate, sought to institute a more neutral way to deal with misleading tweets, and the “Community Notes” system was born.
Select users who signed up for the program could propose notes to be added to tweets showing that the information was wrong, misleading, or required important context. Other users can then read the proposed notes and vote on whether they are accurate or needed, and if the proposed notes get enough favorable votes, they get appended to the post permanently.
Despite this, virtually none of the false and misleading tweets from Kamala Harris’ campaign have Community Notes appended to them. One likely explanation for this discrepancy is that the Harris campaign is directing volunteers on its Discord server to vote down Community Notes even when those notes accurately say the campaign is being deceptive.
In the “twitter-community-notes” channel found on the Harris-Walz Discord, paid Democrat staffers are also writing dubious Community Notes on X to undermine GOP and Trump messaging. They then encourage volunteers to rate them positively.
Unsurprisingly, these notes are often filled with half-truths, misleading information, or lies, such as explaining how Joe Biden’s son’s brain tumor must have been due to his service in Iraq.
The Harris-Walz server even has a “Twitter (X) Community Notes Training” module, which describes how users can quickly bump up their Community Notes “Rating Impact,” which allows them to write their own Community Notes with a high enough status. They also describe “problems” with Community Notes, such as Joe Biden being tagged in “inaccurate Community Notes,” and how users can rate them negatively.
Since X’s Community Notes upvoting system is designed to mitigate political bias far better than Reddit’s, the Harris-Walz campaign’s attempt to manipulate Community Notes on X hasn’t been as successful.
One Harris-Walz Discord user lengthily expressed his frustrations at the bias mitigation system used by Community Notes (CNs), which was implemented to prevent user manipulation:
While their attempts to abuse Community Notes on X were largely ineffective, it is still a gross violation of X’s Terms of Service, which prohibits artificially amplifying information.
Other Astroturfing Operations
The Harris-Walz Discord server provides access to an app called “Reach” which gives its users access to a database of “entertaining” Harris-Walz campaign content.
X has also introduced “Radar,” a feature that lets users see post volumes on specific topics. Using messaging guidance from three Reach posts, I found evidence of hundreds of astroturfing profiles for the Harris campaign on X. The same search was done on Google with one of the images, suggesting broader reach. While the Google data is larger, it is also likely incomplete while the X data is complete. The scale of this operation continues to grow.
Users can connect their own personal social media accounts to the Reach app, so they can easily repost memes, videos, and other content that promotes the ideals of the Harris-Walz campaign.
While topics relating to current events routinely trend on Reddit and X, other platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, gear themselves towards entertaining content. To target these platforms, the campaign is also using Reach. Unfortunately for them, the content they provide pretty much resembles your liberal aunt’s Facebook timeline.
To people who have spent years online learning the nuances of meme culture, this is fundamentally repulsive. It embodies the inauthentic nature of the modern internet, which has seemingly replaced the “old net” in the last two decades.
Not only do they love flamboyant actors masquerading as American “men,” they also enjoyed actively promoting it during a football game, boosting their post with unrelated hashtags that happened to be trending at the time. This is yet another shady tactic used to bump up social media posts inauthentically, shamelessly employed by official Harris-Walz volunteers.
But at this late stage in the campaign, it would appear spreading inauthentic content and deceptive messages is all the Harris campaign can do.
The author runs the popular Twitter account @reddit_lies.
AMERICA. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE DNC WANTS HERE. THEY MUST BE STOPPED!
A voter asks Kamala Harris about how she got nominated without earning a single vote, and pushing Biden aside so close the election. pic.twitter.com/2ae6nKeoW2
NY States Appeals Court, appellate court, overturned Leticia James $450 million fraud case agains Donald J Trump. Leaving the AG Defense team begging in their closing statements NOT to be sanctioned pic.twitter.com/BW5TtvYoAb
🚨#BREAKING: Dozens of people are actively looting and breaking into a cargo train ⁰⁰📌#Chicago | #illinois⁰⁰At this time, an estimated 50 to 150 people or more are actively looting and breaking into a cargo train on the west side of Chicago, Illinois. Police have been… pic.twitter.com/SwDIOnSE90
Brazil has not just banned X (formerly Twitter) from the entire country, but citizens will now be fined $9000 a day (more than the average salary in the country) for using VPNs to access the platform. X is the main source of news for Brazilians, who will now be left with government-approved sources or face financial ruin in seeking unfettered information.
The Guardian is reporting that the confiscatory fines are part of a comprehensive crackdown on efforts to get news through X, including ordering all Apple stores to remove X from new phones. The move puts Brazil with China in the effort to create a wall of censorship between citizens and unregulated information. For the anti-free speech movement, Brazil is a key testing ground for where the movement is heading next. European censors are arresting CEOs like Pavel Durov while threatening Elon Musk.
However, it is Brazil that foreshadows the brave new world of censorship where entire nations will block access to sites committed to free speech values or unfettered news. If successful, the Brazilian model is likely to be replicated by other countries.
The reason is that censorship is not working. As discussed in my book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” we have never seen the current alliance of government, corporate, academic, and media interest against free speech. Yet, citizens are not buying it. Despite unrelenting attacks and demonizing media coverage, citizens are still using X and resisting censorship. That was certainly the case in Brazil where citizens preferred X to regulated news sources. The solution is now to threaten citizens with utter ruin if they seek unfettered news.
The question is whether Brazil’s leftist government can get away with this. The conflict began with demands to censor supporters of the conservative former president Jair Bolsonaro. When X refused the sweeping demands for censorship, including the demand to name a legal representative who could be arrested for refusing to censor users, the courts moved toward this national ban.
The man behind the effort is Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has aggressively used censorship to combat anything that he or the government deems “fake news” or disinformation. With Socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, they are the dream team of the anti-free speech movement.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded to the ban with a posting declaring “Obrigado Brasil!” or “Thanks, Brazil!” Ironically, he did so on X.
Ellison previously praised the virulently anti-free speech group Antifa and promised that it would “strike fear in the heart” of Donald Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. It is at its base a movement at war with free speech, defining the right itself as a tool of oppression. That purpose is evident in what is called the “bible” of the Antifa movement: Rutgers Professor Mark Bray’s Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook.
Bray emphasizes the struggle of the movement against free speech: “At the heart of the anti-fascist outlook is a rejection of the classical liberal phrase that says, ‘I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’” Bray admits that “most Americans in Antifa have been anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists… From that standpoint, ‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
The question is whether Brazil will become a nightmare for free speech around the world as other nations seek to force citizens to read and hear news from approved, state-monitored sites.
A.F. Branco Cartoon—Kamala and her media hacks blasted the Trump interview on X (Twitter) hosted by Elon Musk. By any sensible standards, this would be considered a great discussion covering many complex topics that American voters are interested in and concerned about, while Kamala seems to be afraid to go anywhere near an interview.
Team Trump Responds with Brutal Roast of Phony Kamala Harris After Her Campaign Throws Tantrum Over Epic Elon Musk Interview
By Cullen Linebarger – August
As Jim Hoft previously reported, President Trump held a groundbreaking interview with X Owner and legendary tech mogul Elon Musk on Monday, and the results were staggering. The incredible success came despite a mysterious delay caused by a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack that delayed the interview for nearly an hour. Several powerful forces likely sought to stop the dynamic duo from joining forces for this historic conversation. Phony Kamala Harris’s campaign was ENRAGED over the fact Trump was allowed to speak uncensored for two hours before 72 million viewers and sent this whiny message to their supporters while the interview was ongoing. READ MORE…
A.F. Branco has taken his two greatest passions (art and politics) and translated them into cartoons that have been popular all over the country in various news outlets, including NewsMax, Fox News, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and “The Washington Post.” He has been recognized by such personalities as Rep. Devin Nunes, Dinesh D’Souza, James Woods, Chris Salcedo, Sarah Palin, Larry Elder, Lars Larson, Rush Limbaugh, and President Trump.
Australian broadcaster, Alan Jones, wipes the floor with a panel of smug climate zealots:
"CO2 is 0.04% of the atmosphere, and human beings are responsible for 3% of that 0.04%… It's like saying: 'There's a granule of sugar on the Harbour Bridge. Clean the bridge up, it's… pic.twitter.com/ETtjmjpIcF
A left-wing dark money group masquerading as a Midwestern newspaper selectively clipped the announcement speech for a Wisconsin Senate candidate to frame the businessman as a heartless, clueless elite.
Eric Hovde launched his campaign to unseat Democrat incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin Tuesday. Heartland Signal, a political newspaper based in Chicago, published a 44-second segment from Hovde’s speech when he addressed the crisis on the U.S. southern border.
“It’s not just a humanitarian crisis for our country,” Hovde said. “But do you know how many lives are lost on that journey to get here? How many people’s life savings have been wiped out by the human trafficking cartels? And they’ve lost 100,000 children that they can’t account for.”
“Let me assure you,” Hovde added, “more than a few of them have ended up being sexually trafficked. I know this all too well. My brother and I have homes all over the world, and we have three in Central America that deal with issues like this.”
Heartland Signal, a leftist digital website backed by Democrat donors, posted the clip on X with the caption, “Hovde says he understands the tragedy of children being trafficked through Central America because he owns three homes there.”
Announcing his bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Wisconsin, Republican Eric Hovde says he understands the tragedy of children being trafficked through Central America because he owns three homes there. pic.twitter.com/LsQhPWvpAc
The post received more than 383,000 views before a community note was attached to offer accurate context.
“‘Hovde Homes’ are shelters the Hovde Foundation has built around the world to support children – including those who have been trafficked,” the note reads. “They are not residential homes as this post suggests.”
The Midwestern news group published a follow-up post offering the right context. That post, however, received a fraction of the views of its misleading post.
Misleading tweet: 383,000 views Devastating correction: 4,800 views They do it on purpose. pic.twitter.com/1noKDDLksr
Heartland Signal was recently purchased by Future Now Action, a left-wing activist group. Hovde faces four GOP opponents in the Wisconsin Republican Senate primary that concludes Aug. 13 to challenge the two-term Democrat incumbent elected in 2012. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the state’s other U.S. senator, narrowly captured a third term two years ago by roughly 27,000 votes in the hotly contested swing state that dramatically expanded mail-in voting in 2020.
Immigration is a top issue going into the 2024 election, with Democrats on defense after spending four years turning control of the U.S. border over to international criminal cartels. Last week, House Republicans formally impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for dereliction of his constitutional duties.
On Tuesday, more than a dozen conservatives in the upper chamber penned a letter to demand that GOP Senate chief Mitch McConnell prepare for the Mayorkas impeachment trial.
“It is imperative that the Senate Republican conference prepare to fully engage our Constitutional duty and hold a trial,” they wrote.
The Republican Senate leader faced humiliation this month following the defeat of a border amnesty and mass migration bill.
Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.
Special Counsel Jack Smith hunted information on X users who liked or retweeted posts published by former President Donald Trump, according to redacted search warrants and other documents released Monday.
According to the heavily redacted document issued to then-Twitter in January, the court ordered the social media giant to forfeit a bevy of information regarding Trump’s account, including “advertising information, including advertising IDs, ad activity, and ad topic preferences,” as well as IP addresses “used to create, login, and use the account” and privacy and account settings.
The warrant also demanded information such as Trump’s search history, direct messages, and “content of all tweets created, drafted, favorited/liked, or retweeted” by his account from October 2020 to January 2021.
Though the warrant was first covered in August, it was again released as part of a court order after numerous media organizations filed to obtain the document to shed light on the Smith-led special counsel’s “investigation into Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol,” according to the New York Post. Smith previously indicted Trump in August on several bogus charges related to the former president’s challenging of the 2020 election results in the lead-up to Jan. 6, 2021.
But it wasn’t just Trump’s Twitter account that Smith and his cronies were targeting. The special counsel’s warrant also sought data on Twitter users who interacted with the former president’s account. Among the information Smith sought was a list of every user Trump “followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” during the aforementioned timeframe. Smith similarly demanded that Twitter, which has since rebranded as X, fork over a list of users who took any of the same actions with Trump’s account.
Smith and his team went even further, seeking to acquire data on Twitter users who engaged with Trump’s tweets in the months leading up to Jan. 6, 2021. This included “all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by [Trump], as well as all tweets that include the username associated with [Trump’s account] (i.e. ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).”
According to the Post, Smith’s warrant was issued to then-Twitter “along with a nondisclosure order, instructing the company not to notify Trump about the search.” Twitter initially bucked Smith’s demand, arguing that to forfeit such information to the government constituted a violation of the First Amendment. The social media giant ultimately complied with the warrant but was fined $350,000 for failing to meet the special counsel’s demands by deadline.
In the heavily redacted court filing opposing Twitter’s legal attempts to notify Trump of the search, Smith baselessly claimed that telling the former president about the unprecedented seizure “would result in a statutorily cognizable harm,” as Trump is “a sophisticated actor with an expansive platform.”
“The [Non-Disclosure Order] was granted based on facts showing that notifying the former president would result in destruction of or tampering with evidence, intimidation of potential witnesses, or other serious jeopardy to an investigation or delaying of trial,” said the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Nearly every other word listed under “The Non-Disclosure Order” section of the filing is redacted.
Smith’s seizure of Trump’s personal social media information and those who engaged with the then-president’s posts isn’t all that surprising given the special counsel’s weaponization of the government against Trump thus far. In addition to indicting Trump, Smith filed a motion in September to institute a gag order on the 45th president, effectively stifling his First Amendment right to criticize the very government attempting to silence him. That gag order was ultimately approved by D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a left-wing Obama appointee with a track record of highly partisan court rulings.
Trump’s legal team has since appealed the order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and has threatened to take the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court given the “unconstitutional” nature of the mandate.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
The Muslim Brotherhood has been working to destroy the United States from within for DECADES, this is their secret written plan exposed. pic.twitter.com/2bodbC4vcg
An American mom whose child is being held hostage in Gaza by Palestinian terrorists delivered the most caustic speech. It hurts but you need to put yourself through it.pic.twitter.com/NqWWSiHKAB
I’ve never in my life been in such a huge crowd. The #MarchForIsrael rally today was incredible. Singing. Dancing. Prayers. Inspiration. There was no violence. No vandalism. No destruction. Just a real, raw, peaceful, gathering. #BringThemHome ❤️🙏🏻 pic.twitter.com/CiL36UDpZ2
🔥🚨HIDDEN HISTORY: On December 1, 1963 Malcolm X gave a speech called “God’s Judgement of White America.” where he identified the ‘White Liberal’ as the most ‘dangerous’ and ‘deceitful’ thing in the Western Hemisphere.
REPORT: The San Francisco homeless population has "miraculously" gone missing as President Biden & Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in the liberal city.
Remarkable!
The typical drug addicts & homeless who wander the city like zombies have disappeared as 20,000… pic.twitter.com/2iDpl4FHCG
In memoriam: On November 10 Amanda Blackburn, who was 3 mths pregnant, was at home w/ her sleeping son when a group of 3 men who were burglarizing houses arrived at Amanda's home. Larry Taylor shot Amanda twice in the upper body & then in the head. She was found by her husband. pic.twitter.com/SHrPSUjYhx
SEE IT: Just last July, @SpeakerJohnson said, "The evidence now shows that the first family is hopelessly corrupt. The facts are truly ALARMING." Now, he's singing a different song. WATCH pic.twitter.com/t4gkVEvrQF
Every Person In America Needs To Watch This Video ‼️ On The Record Testimonies That Our Elections Are Being Stolen. Two Affidavits Provided To Congress “Work to change the results of the United States election” Audio Evidence Acquired From Inside The CIA & State Department
Palestinian grandmother on Hamas TV says Jihad against Jews is the top priority of the Palestinian people. She is ready to sacrifice all her 17 children and 65 grandchildren as martyrs for the cause of killing Jews and taking over Jewish land. pic.twitter.com/JgoITt3Hl8
Insurrection: Hamas supporters occupied Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s Capitol office longer than the J6 protesters – are any of them in jail? pic.twitter.com/AtEW3LToJa
I've deployed 3 times to the war zones in the Middle East/Africa. I know how serious the threat from Islamist jihadists is. The Dem elite not only don’t care, they’ve become apologists for Islamist jihadists. They leave our borders open which we know are being exploited by these… pic.twitter.com/86hlE6cHFv
Must see: This is how Hamas places its ammunition and rockets inside schools 👇
It's not that they don't care about their children; they intentionally do want those children to get killed, to blame Israel 🤯 pic.twitter.com/BYWPyZvkPL
VICE just ran this piece celebrating a 6-year-old drag queen. His parents claim he knew since he was 4 that he wanted to do this adult themed entertainment.
He was taught as a toddler to dress up as a girl and perform provocatively for adults as they hand him cash tips. pic.twitter.com/bDhKZGeQID
BREAKING: Arrests have been made in a high-profile s*x ring that involved government contractors, professors, military officers, executives at pharmaceutical companies and more.
Will they be protected like Jeffrey Epstein's clients?
🔥🚨EXCLUSIVE: On June 6, 2023, Diana Álvarez Ramíre uploaded this video of this secret tunnel under her hotel room through her closet. Many viewers claim that it could have been used for spying or human trafficking.
🔥🚨EXCLUSIVE: On June 11, 2022, this man uploaded this video of a secret underground tunnel inside his Miami Days Inn hotel room to TikTok.
On July 12, 2023 it was announced that several hotels were being sued for their connections to human trafficking. Days inn was one of… pic.twitter.com/nHuBoIKl5v
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) November 5, 2023
Important video on the history of the people you know as “Palestinians” being kicked out of Arabic nations.
Democrats have slowly changed what we consider normal in America. They have allowed for those that would need mental help to roam free under the disguise of being ‘bold’ and ‘different’ Democrats created the ideology that being different is independence. There is power in having… pic.twitter.com/Gok6Hk35qK
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) October 26, 2023
The 1978 blizzard put the kibosh on “global warming,” so the climate scammers came up with “climate change.” That way, whatever way the wind blows, they’re always right! It’s like when the vax fanatics all started getting COVID: “Well, it would’ve been worse without the vaccine!” https://t.co/Mjjs8cxDXK
"Mom, this was $70 and you didn't even get anything"
"Before Covid my grocery bill was $350 per month, now it's $600 per month"
🔊 … 🤨
"They are inflating all of the prices and paying us poverty wages" "We cannot even afford to live in this country. We cannot even afford to… pic.twitter.com/ProA3yJEsq
Democrats have slowly changed what we consider normal in America. They have allowed for those that would need mental help to roam free under the disguise of being ‘bold’ and ‘different’ Democrats created the ideology that being different is independence. There is power in having… pic.twitter.com/Gok6Hk35qK
— Dom Lucre | Breaker of Narratives (@dom_lucre) October 26, 2023
Thank you Sydney, Australia for this beautiful tribute to bring our hostages home 💔 pic.twitter.com/27OEpzBBfs
JUST IN: Hedge fund billionaire Leon Cooperman thinks college students have “s**t for brains” and is done donating to Columbia University after the school failed to fire a professor who called the Hamas attacks “awesome”
A woman in England was interrogated before being issued a penalty for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. Thought crimes will now get you punished in England pic.twitter.com/szq6ehephM
This is a great list.If the democrats dislike him, I am for him. America First Candidate! Thanks, Matt, for the information! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/uNRiLBmVRy
Why children can’t consent to puberty blockers in under 30 seconds!
Kids that choose 2 Oreos over $10,000 and still believe in the tooth fairy are being told they are able to make the lifelong decision to take chemical castration drugs.
Megan Rapinoe is gay & married to a Jewish woman. Yet she’s raising money for Palestine after the Hamas terror attack. Does she realize the people in Gaza would murder her for being gay and married to a Jew? Next level athlete stupidity: pic.twitter.com/tohhxWE4cB
🚨NEWS ALERT: An internal memo from federal officials warns that members of terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are likely crossing into the U.S. through Biden’s wide-open southern border ⚠️
Biden paid for his $3 million beach house in CASH. No mortgage. No loan. Cash. How did the poorest man in Washington get so rich? pic.twitter.com/yHmDYs4ZQ4
⚡️THE PEACE MAKER A President with the People, for the People. ▪️No Wars ▪️Booming Economy He EXPOSED them all, now they are coming after him and We the People!#TrumpGirlOnFire 🔥 pic.twitter.com/R8i8W0JPvo
"I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership and I know them very well. They don't care for the Palestinian people. They are using the Palestinian cause only to achieve their goals, transforming the Middle East and the world into an Islamic state." pic.twitter.com/xUstyYCsf2
— Yasmine Mohammed 🦋 ياسمين محمد (@YasMohammedxx) October 20, 2023
Hey @ucdavis, do you think it’s appropriate that one of your faculty advisors, @jemmaisOKeh, is publicly threatening to murder Jews at their homes and their children at their schools? pic.twitter.com/xAx97LHYbr
To the presidents of @Columbia, @nyuniversity, @Harvard and other universities who have stood SILENT as terror supporters have marched through campus and celebrated raping women, executing children and kidnapping grandmothers, you are cowards.
Great question, Lu. How many Biden supporters are willing to answer the call? You voted for Biden. You should go first. Belly up. #facts101pic.twitter.com/yiRU6RSNct
At a Palestine rally at @UNC, radical left students threaten a man who they perceive to be an Israel supporter. Campus police lead the man away, apparently for his own safety. The leftist rally was promoted with a flyer featuring a Hamas terrorist. pic.twitter.com/8r2iB9Pq3Z
We will not allow terrorists to prevent Floridians from going about their daily lives or exercising their freedom to worship.
FHP and FDLE will continue providing increased security, and I expect universities to fully enforce all antisemitism laws on campus. https://t.co/ezfPmkM9Ml
AOC is a sickening Marxist antisemite who hates America and Israel, and I am fed up with her BS, the media promoting her, and ashamed that this two-faced hater is anywhere near the floor of the House of Representatives. You think my words are tough? Well, go back and look at…
It's noteworthy that not a single Arab country has offered to accept Gaza Palestinians. Not one. And they are silent about Egypt keeping closed the main passageway for the Gaza Palestinians to leave Gaza, because Egypt doesn't want Gaza Palestinians coming into their country.…
Ep. 30 What's happening at the southern border isn’t just an invasion, but a crime. The politicians and NGOs responsible for it are criminals, who should be punished accordingly. pic.twitter.com/cbkTSUyogC
NEW: Harvard students are freaking out after a truck is driving around the school, displaying names of students who allegedly signed a letter blaming Israel for Hamas’ terror attacks.
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This is the most disturbing video you will see all day. Director of education for HiTops, an LGBTQ+ nonprofit focused on bringing queer theory and gender ideology into schools, says that the most critical time to get in the classroom are grades 5-8, to “catch kids when they’re… pic.twitter.com/TUxFPrzhn7
This is a man wearing high heels and a diaper in the food court at the U of A.
A freshman girl on campus reached out and told me that this man had been walking into several girl’s dorm rooms unannounced the first two weeks of school.
On Thursday afternoon, three Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals judges heard Biden administration arguments to let government keep pressuring social media monopolies to ban ideas they don’t like from the internet. On July 4, a lower court had ordered the Biden administration to cease what it called “arguably … the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” The Fifth Circuit paused that injunction on July 14 and heard oral arguments against it on Aug. 10 in Missouri v. Biden.
In this major case likely to hit the U.S. Supreme Court, the Biden administration is fighting to stop American citizens from sharing messages government officials don’t like. This case uncovered reams of White House and other high-level officials threatening internet monopolies with the end of their entire business model if they didn’t ban speech by Democrats’ political opponents.
“It’s far beyond the scope of what people realize,” says a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Zhonette Brown, of the public interest firm New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA).
Internal documents Twitter divulged under new owner Elon Musk provided more proof that social media monopolies are silencing Americans from Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to millions of non-famous citizens at the behest of government pressure. Here are some key takeaways from Thursday’s oral arguments and earlier revelations from this massive First Amendment case.
1. By the Government’s Own Definition, It’s Censoring
Key to Thursday’s arguments was the question of coercion: Did government demands of internet monopolies equal coercion, or were those merely officials advocating for their views?
“If the government was doing something like that in a coercive manner, then that could be the subject of a proper injunction,” Department of Justice lawyer Daniel Bentele Hahs Tenny told the court in his opening remarks. “The problem is that what you would have to do is say, ‘Here is what the government is doing that’s coercive, and I’m enjoining that.’”
Judge Don Willett responded: “How do you define coercive?”
Tenny: “I don’t think there’s too much disagreement on this point. Coercive is where a reasonable person would construe it to be backed by a threat of government action against a party if it didn’t comply.”
That’s exactly what the government did, the voluminous documents already discovered in this case show. In just one of the examples, Meta executive Nick Clegg, a former high-ranking U.K. official, told his bosses Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg: “We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more COVID-19 vaccine discouraging content” (emphasis original).
Clegg also characterized to colleagues an interaction with Andy Slavitt, a White House Covid adviser, this way: “[H]e was outraged – not too strong a word to describe his reaction – that we did not remove this post” of a meme about trial lawyers getting 10 years of vaccine-injured clients from government mandates.
2. Government Officials Treated Internet Monopolies Like Their Subordinates
The Fifth Circuit panel demonstrated familiarity with the numerous examples of this kind of government behavior, such as this email exchange between White House digital director Rob Flaherty and Facebook, in which Flaherty swears at Facebook engineers, “Are you guys f-cking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.”
“What appears to be in the record are these irate messages from time to time from high-ranking government officials that say, “You didn’t do this yet,’” Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod told Tenny. “And that’s my toning down the language. … So it’s like, ‘Jump!’ and, ‘How high?’”
The judges also noted the White House publicly threatened the business model of all online communications monopolies through potentially revoking Section 230 and launching antitrust lawsuits. The lawsuit documentation shows leading Democrats making the same public threats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and multiple U.S. senators.
Joe Biden even threatenedto hold Zuckerberg criminally liable for not running Facebook the way Biden wanted. In office, Biden also famously accused Facebook of “killing people” by not doing enough to spread the administration’s message and suppress opposing messages. FBI agent Elvis Chan‘s deposition in this case noted federal officials showed adverse legislation to social media monopolies’ leaders as examples of what the government would do to them if they didn’t ban Americans’ speech.
“It’s not like, ‘We think this would be a good public policy and we want to explain to you why that would be a good policy,” Elrod said. “There seems to be some very close relationship that they’re having these — ‘This isn’t being done fast enough’ you know, like it’s a supervisor complaining about a worker.”
3. Judges Likened Government Behavior to Mobsters
Tenny claimed there was no “or else” explaining what the government “would do” if the internet monopolies didn’t obey, so there was no government coercion present.
“This is an analogy, probably an inapt analogy, so if you’ll excuse me — like if somebody is in these movies we see with the mob or something. They don’t spell out things but they have these ongoing relationships and they never actually say, ‘Go do this or else you’re going to have this consequence,’ but everybody just knows,” Elrod replied. “And I’m certainly not equating the federal government with anybody in illegal organized crime, but there are certain relationships that people know things without always saying the ‘Or else.’”
Willett followed that up by commenting the case documentation makes it look like the government is “relying on a fairly unsubtle kind of strong-arming and veiled or not so veiled threats. ‘That’s a really nice social media platform you got there, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’”
4. Censorship Is Election Interference
The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, John Sauer, initiated this case as Louisiana’s solicitor general. In representing state government interests to the judges, he noted that elected officials have to pay attention to what their constituents are saying online, or they won’t have a good read on what voters what them to do in office.
“We’ve gotta be able to craft messages and know what policies we’re adopting to be responsive to our citizens,” he summarized from statements submitted to the court from multiple state officials. “…Going back to 1863, as everyone knows, going back to the Federalist number 56 where [Bill of Rights author James] Madison said it, everyone knows state legislators have a sovereign interest in knowing what their constituents think and feel, and that’s directly impacted.”
When the federal government silences some Americans’ views online, Sauer said, it makes it harder for elected representatives to actually represent them. Two of the state injuries the plaintiffs assert against the federal government’s censorship are “Interference with our ability to hear our constituents’ voices on social media” and “interference with our ability to have a fair and unbiased process for our people to organize and petition the government for grievances.”
Court documents also revealed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal agency, set up a private entity to ban and throttle election-related online speech Democrats dislike. Much of the information choked by this algorithmic censorship operation is true, such as the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s laptop, investigations and members of Congress have noted.
“They invented a whole new word, ‘mal-information,’ to justify going after the censorship of true speech and ideas,” Sauer said last month in a public discussion of the case that YouTube banned.
5. Democrats Want Free Speech for Themselves While Banning It for Their Enemies
The oral arguments also got into the FBI’s 2020 election interference in telling online monopolies that The New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop was foreign disinformation. Tenny claimed the FBI refused to comment on the laptop because it was a pending investigation.
Yet the FBI and other federal intelligence agencies actually did comment on the laptop by calling it “foreign disinformation,” both privately to the internet monopolies and publicly. This was false, and the FBI knew it. The lower court ruled this deception constituted coercion because it caused people to act on false information.
As Ben Weingarten notes, these lies and FBI-demanded online content bans to protect them benefitted Joe Biden in the 2020 election:
According to Elvis Chan (pdf), an FBI official leading engagement with the social media platforms, while the bureau didn’t explicitly ask the companies to change their hacked material policies, it did frequently follow up to ask whether they had changed said policies, as the FBI wanted to know how they would treat such materials.
The judges almost broached an important question: If the First Amendment protects the FBI’s lies that Hunter Biden’s laptop was disinformation, for which not one federal employee has been disciplined, how can it allow for criminalizing the same behavior by average Americans by labeling their views “disinformation” and “mal-information”?
6. Today’s Internet Is Still Massively Rigged
Taibbi also noted that court documents show the Biden administration got mad enough to fire the F-bomb at social media companies when the algorithmic censorship they demand affected Biden’s Instagram account. Instagram instantly fixed the issue for the White House, but not for non-powerful Americans.
It’s clear from the case documents and other disclosures such as the “Twitter Files” and “Facebook Files” that the algorithms controlling what Americans see online are now deeply, massively rigged. That rigging is multilayered. It includes all this government coercion of entities including Apple, Google, LinkedIn, Meta, Snapchat, Tiktok, and Twitter going back to at least 2017, as well as pressure operations from corporate media and internal employee groups.
Beyond algorithm changes, social media monopolies have also changed their terms of service in response to government demands, the NCLA attorneys noted last month. So government control of public discourse will continue even if the Fifth Circuit reinstates the injunction.
Tenny told the Fifth Circuit the Covid-era censorship that ignited this case is over because the government currently deems Covid not an emergency. In court, Sauer cited YouTube banning two weeks ago a video of attorneys discussing this case as more proof this massive censorship persists. He also cited court documents showing Americans still can’t post social media messages about censored topics.
“Attorneys present gave estimates ranging from a few weeks to two months for the panel to rule” on whether to reinstate an injunction against more of this government behavior, reported Taibbi, who attended the oral arguments in New Orleans, Louisiana. The previous injunction includes exceptions for crimes such as sex trafficking.
“The government wants to be doing something that it shouldn’t be doing, and they really, really want to be doing it,” said NCLA attorney John Vecchione in the discussion YouTube banned.
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her latest ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” An 18-year education and politics reporter, Joy has testified before nearly two dozen legislatures on education policy and appeared on major media from Fox News to Ben Shapiro to Dennis Prager. Joy is a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs who identifies as native American and gender natural. Her several books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association
American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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American Family Association (AFA), a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in 1977 by Donald E. Wildmon, who was the pastor of First United Methodist Church in Southaven, Mississippi, at the time. Since 1977, AFA has been on the frontlines of Ame
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