by Elizabeth Vos, Disobedient Media:

Disobedient Media previously reported the tightening stranglehold of censorship across social media. Unfortunately, events that have taken place since the publication of this writer’s opinion that Julian Assange was the first domino to fall in a series of increasingly draconian censorship measures have far exceeded even this author’s worst expectations.

The crackdown has seen the involvement of organizations that have a documented history of pay to play behaviorand are backed by groups including the Chinese Communist Party in collaboration with Western establishment organizations including NATO. 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.

Before we discuss the details of the latest social media purge, though, we ask: Is the unabashed, coordinated censorship of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms an illegal affront to freedom of speech?

In the case of Twitter, at least, we do appear to have an affirmative answer to the question. As CNBC reported earlier this year, a Federal judge ruled that Donald Trump could not legally block Twitter users. The judgment in effect defined the platform as a “public forum” which may be regulated by government to defend First Amendment-protected free speech. CNBC wrote:

“Judge 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.The social media platform, Buchwald said, is a “designated public forum” from which Trump cannot exclude individual plaintiffs. She rejected an argument by the Justice Department that the president had a right to block Twitter followers because of his “associational freedoms.” [Emphasis added]

Buchwald’s ruling states in part: “Our inquiry into whether the speech at issue is protected by the First Amendment is straightforward. The individual plaintiffs seek to engage in political speech, Stip. 46-52, and such “speech on matters of public concern” “fall within the core of First Amendment protection,” Engquist v. Ore. Dep’t of Agric., 553 U.S. 591, 600… We readily conclude the speech in which individual plaintiffs seek to engage is protected speech.”

Over the months following Buchwald’s decision, we have witnessed the mass-banning of Twitter users who, like those designated to be engaging in political speech regarding Trump, were focused on political issues.

UPDATE on the massive Purge of 800 dissident voices happening in the U.S.

Banned from Facebook yesterday:
-Antimedia
-FreeThoughtProject
-PoliceThePolice
-Minds social media

Suspended from Twitter:
-Antimedia + editors
-FreeThoughtProject + editors
-PoliceThePolice + editors

— Lee Camp [Redacted] (@LeeCamp) 12 October 2018

The focus of the latest Twitter and Facebook purge of domestic, politically oriented content raises the specter of silencing of dissent that, at least in theory, should enjoy First Amendment protection.

Even worse, the banned accounts were often provided with little or no description of their alleged infractions in Twitter’s notice of suspension. Among others, Occupy NZ was given no reason whatsoever for the ban:

Yesterday the @OccupyNZ account was (apparently permanently) suspended. This is the email @TwitterSupport sent about it.

They stated no reason for the suspension, literally leaving the section about why it was suspended, completely blank:

cc @caitoz @ElizabethleaVos @RisePDX pic.twitter.com/8SH972pHpI

— Suzie Dawson (@Suzi3D) 12 October 2018

Read More @ DisobedientMedia.com