patrick.net

If the lower courts’ assessment of the voluminous record is correct, this is one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years.
We are obligated to tackle that free speech issue. The Court, however, shirks that duty and thus permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.
That is regrettable.
What the officials did in this case was subtle, but it was no less coercive. And because of the perpetrators’ high positions, it was even more dangerous. It was blatantly unconstitutional, and the country may come to regret the Court’s failure to say so. Officials who read today’s decision will get the message: If a coercive campaign is carried out with enough sophistication, it may get by.
That is not a message this Court should send. ...

What these events show is that top federal officials continuously and persistently hectored Facebook to crack down on what the officials saw as unhelpful social media posts, including not only posts that they thought were false or misleading but also stories that they did not even claim to be literally false, but nevertheless wanted obscured. And Facebook’s reactions to these efforts were not what one would expect from an independent news source or a journalistic entity dedicated to holding the Government accountable for its actions.
Instead, Facebook’s responses resembled that of a subservient entity determined to stay in the good graces of a powerful taskmaster. Facebook told White House officials that it would “work . . . to gain your trust.” When criticized, Facebook representatives whimpered that they “thought we were doing a better job” but promised to do more going forward. They pleaded to know how they could “get back to a good place” with the White House. And when denounced as “killing people,” Facebook responded by expressing a desire to “work together collaboratively” with its accuser.
The picture is clear.

Censored Audio Emerges

The recent coverage by 7News on the experimental mRNA gene vaccines serves as a glaring example of media manipulation aimed at obscuring the truth from the Australian public. This deliberate distortion undermines the legitimate concerns of many Australians who have experienced adverse effects from these vaccines and seeks to suppress the growing awareness among the populace.

In one part of the broadcast segment, 7News selectively presented part of Dr. Robert Booy's statement: "That's great, I'm really pleased for you, but the people who've had COVID, who haven't been vaccinated, get more severe disease, and they're more likely to get long COVID." However, the broadcast conveniently omitted the audience's outraged response, which included shouts of: "Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. That's fucking lies, mate. You should hand your licence back. Snake oil salesman!" This manipulation paints a falsely sanitized narrative, blatantly ignoring the valid discontent and vocal opposition from the public.

Why did they edit out the audience's outraged response? Because, according to the media's playbook, anyone aware of experimental vaccine harms is supposed to be a minuscule, fringe minority. You know, those "absolutely isolated conspiracy theorists" who must be excluded to maintain the illusion of consensus. By sanitizing these reactions, 7News perpetuates the narrative that all dissenters are just a handful of cranks rather than a growing chorus of concerned citizens.

And yet, someone seems to have missed the memo. Just two weeks ago, Rasmussen Polls found that a staggering 33% of people believe the COVID-19 vaccine is "killing large numbers of people." Nearly a quarter of those vaccinated regret their decision, and a third agree with a medical expert's condemnation of the vaccine as deadly. So much for the fringe minority narrative. ...

ANGER IS PALPITABLE FOLLOWING CHANNEL 7’s “COVID Debate”

As dangerous extremists in the alternative media have pointed out, the Powers that Be had a “eureka!” (“Oh, sh*t!”) moment about eight years ago with the Brexit movement.

That’s when our rulers realized this Internet thing would probably be very “dangerous” to their continued rule.

The idea that any person could opine on world events - and this speech might “go viral” - scared the beejeezus out of our real rulers.

I will say it took massive cajones for Deep State generals to decide, “We now need to censor the entire Internet.”

Many people probably thought, “There’s no way our rulers can control virtually all important content on the World-Wide Web.” However, this naive segment of the population was about to learn “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

The “way” was to simply classify certain speech as misinformation, disinformation and, now, mal-information.”

C reported a remarkable development yesterday under the headline, “Meta lifts Trump's Facebook and Instagram restrictions ahead of election.” The sub-headline added, “Meta said Friday it will remove any previously imposed penalties and restrictions on former President Donald Trump’s social media accounts, effective immediately.”

President Trump has been cooling his heels in Facebook jail ever since January 6th, 2021, for spreading misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta denies censoring anybody for their political views, only misinformers, like crazy antivaxxers who claim the covid shots don’t stop transmission. Dummies.

Anyway, the ongoing censorship of the Republican Party’s presidential candidate was the best proof of all that political censorship does exist. But Meta has apparently reconsidered, changed its mind, evolved, or pivoted, whatever you want to call it. And now, having served his three-year digital sentence, Trump is a free man...

At this point, why should President Trump post anything on Facebook? Meaning, who cares. But it’s still an interesting development, coming just before the convention, and amidst the Biden Regime Change sideshow.

I’ll take this as a win. Not because Facebook has finally removed President Trump’s account restrictions, but because Meta acknowledged in its statement a “responsibility to allow political expression.”

Who knew? Meta’s admission of a duty to “allow political expression” is by itself significant progress. They may regret admitting the existence of that duty. We shall see.

Elon Musk has blown the whistle on an alleged plot by unelected European Union (EU) bureaucrats to blackmail his social media platform X into censoring users.

Musk claims eurocrat members of the EU’s European Commission tried to pressure his company into agreeing to an “illegal secret deal” to avoid huge fines.

According to Musk, the EU offered him a deal to avoid the fines by secretly censoring content on X at the behest of Brussels.

Musk says he rejected the deal before exposing it in a post on X.

However, he also accused other social platforms of taking such deals.

The push to censor social media users, on a global scale, is being led by European Commissioner Thierry Breton.

Breton is an unelected bureaucrat who wields significant, unchecked power.

Led by Breton, the European Union moved to make its new Digital Services Act (DSA) felt on Friday.

Breton is accusing Musk-owned X of breaching these EU rules and is threatening huge fines until the company complies with the demands.

German Interior Minister bans AfD-adjacent "right-wing extremist" magazine, raids homes of editorial staff, seizes assets, in the latest effort to defend democracy by abolishing democratic freedoms

Compact was a German magazine founded in 2010 by the former leftist Jürgen Elsässer. With a circulation of 40,000, it was a vocal supporter of the nationalist wing of Alternative für Deutschland. In December 2021, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution declared Compact to be a “confirmed right-wing extremist” publication, and today Nancy Faeser, the Federal Minister of the Interior, banned it outright. Early this morning, police raided Compact editorial offices and also the homes of Elsässer, his employees and shareholders. ...

Faeser claims the authority to ban Compact via Article 9 of our Basic Law and §3 of the Vereinsgesetz, or the German law on associations. Both allow the prohibition of “associations whose purposes or activities … are directed against the constitutional order”; the latter grants the Interior Ministry the authority to decide on such bans and to confiscate the assets of prohibited organisations. This is a well-known tactic for evading our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of the press, and the Interior Ministry has used it before – but, as far as I know, never against a periodical with the reach or political significance of Compact...

German Interior Minister bans AfD-adjacent "right-wing extremist" magazine, raids homes of editorial staff, seizes assets, in the latest effort to defend democracy by abolishing democratic freedoms

California judge says school was justified in punishing 7-year-old who said all lives matter because "she’s too young to have First Amendment rights"

GovTrack deletes 2019 scorecard for Kamala Harris showing she was the most liberal U.S. senator

Kamala Harris was ranked by GovTrack as the most leftist senator in the country in 2019, the year before she became Joe Biden's running mate. That's to the left of Pocahontas, Cory Booker, and even Crazy Bernie.

The key word is that she WAS ranked the farthest left. Suddenly, that ranking has disappeared.

Be careful what you post on Facebook in the UK, because if it's deemed "offensive" the police can just show up at your door and arrest you

Bro, this is like a scene out of Fahrenheit 451 and I'm not even exaggerating. This man made some posts online which were deemed "offensive" by the government, so guess what happened to him?

If you guessed, "The police showed up and arrested him for his offensive Facebook posts," [ding, ding, ding] you're our lucky winner!

I'm arresting you on suspicion of improper use of the electronic communications network under section 127 of the Communications Act ... This is in relation to some comments that you've made on a Facebook page.

Six Christians arrested in Paris for driving around in bus marked "Stop attacks on Christians"

6 Christians arrested for driving a bus around in Paris that read ‘Stop Attacks On Christians' on the side.

According to @CitizenGO, 6 of their team members were forced to spend the night in jail for denouncing the Olympics opening ceremony.

Three women were forced to undress so police could 'look for drugs' according to @CF_Farrow.

The arrests [come] as CitizenGo has gathered 380,000 signatures demanding the International Olympic Committee issue an apology for the opening ceremony.

French authorities reportedly demanded that they remove the messaging from the side of the bus.

Six Christians arrested in Paris for driving around in bus marked "Stop attacks on Christians"

Why is it written in English when they are in France?

11-Year-Old Girl & Woman, 34, Stabbed in London – Citizens Fear Arrest for Commenting

X Stops Operations in Brazil after ‘censorship orders’ from Judge Alexandre de Moraes
Last night, Alexandre de Moraes threatened our legal representative in Brazil with arrest if we do not comply with his censorship orders.

He did so in a secret order, which we share here to expose his actions. Despite our numerous appeals to the Supreme Court not being heard, the Brazilian public not being informed about these orders and our Brazilian staff having no responsibility or control over whether content is blocked on our platform, Moraes has chosen to threaten our staff in Brazil rather than respect the law or due process.

As a result, to protect our staff's safety, we have decided to close our operation in Brazil, effective immediately.

The X service remains available to the people of Brazil. We are deeply saddened that we have been forced to make this decision. The responsibility lies solely with Alexandre de Moraes.

His actions are incompatible with democratic government.

The people of Brazil have a choice to make - democracy, or (Judge) Alexandre de Moraes.