Internet Bill of Rights

Milo Yiannopolus, Roger Stone, Paul Nehlen, Jared Taylor, Baked Alaska, Ricky Vaughn, and thousands of supposed “Russian bots” are just a few of those Twitter has permanently banned, seemingly for expressing unpopular political viewpoints.  Wikipedia chronicles the various prominent accounts Twitter has banned and suspended.  Nearly all belong to right wingers.  Internet viewpoint discrimination goes beyond Twitter. YouTube (Google) routinely deletes accounts and videos of right wingers, particularly in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting.  The problem of Internet censorship is also not isolated to social media.  Most notably, after featuring a joke about the woman who died at the Charlottesville protests, Andrew Anglin’s popular site The Daily Stormer has had to jump from host to host, prompting concerns among civil libertarians.  Once a last refuge for free speech, the Internet has become increasingly less so.  Perhaps we have reached the breaking point.  Is it time to adopt an Internet Bill of Rights to protect our God-given right of free speech on the web?

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Trump NFL Comments Spark First Amendment Quandary

Credit: Jim Rogash/Getty Images

Ever since the NFL season started, there’s been constant discussion about  the decision of certain players not to stand during the national anthem and presentation of the flag before games.  This talk reached a fever pitch last week after President Trump, during an Alabama rally, referred to the players who refuse to stand as “son[s] of bitch[es].”  Detractors of the president and supporters of the players protesting the anthem are attempting to frame national discourse over the issue as a matter of the First Amendment.  They, of course, are correct, but perhaps not in the way they might expect.

Speech Ban Imminent

BDS supporters

Earlier this month, civil liberties advocate and journalist Glenn Greenwald (along with Ryan Grimm of The Intercept) wrote an article warning about a bill before Congress with potentially dire consequences for free speech.  If passed, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, S.720, would make it illegal for Americans to engage in organized boycotts against the state of Israel.  Participation in such activity could lead to a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.  Unfortunately, the bill is very likely to pass.

Free Speech Is the “House Nigger” of the Corporate World

Bill Maher recently received criticism for referring to himself as a “house nigger.”

In America, free speech is a sacred right.  That is, until it threatens corporate interests.  We’ve seen the scenario repeated.  Someone says something offensive.  Interest groups become aware and threaten sponsors of the speaker’s platform with boycott.  Sponsors relent to protect their corporate image, and, ultimately, the speaker loses the platform.

The New PC Culture

Image: Michael Shirey

Donald Trump’s election as President was, in part, a reaction to PC culture; a culture which regards the utterance of certain speech as worse than the offense of violent crimes. Unfortunately, the election of Trump has not eliminated this culture.  Instead, it has evolved. Some of those who spoke out against PC culture before Trump’s election now enforce their own version of it.  Take a look at a couple recent examples:

Supreme Court Vacancy Threatens Liberty

Antonin Scalia

Earlier this month, a new threat to liberty emerged as originalist Justice Antonin Scalia died in Texas, vacating his seat on the Supreme Court. On that day, the stakes of the 2016 presidential election grew exponentially.  Now, whoever gets elected will either maintain the status quo in the Court or create a new, more dangerous majority.

Gary Johnson Is Not the Free Speech Candidate

Gary Johnson

This past week, shortly after he announced he was mounting a second run for the presidency, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party’s 2012 presidential nominee, shocked libertarians with his declaration (to at least three news sources) that the face covering worn by many Muslim women, the burqa, should be banned from public places.  Though Johnson later retracted the comment (after much condemnation from libertarians), it provides evidence that his instincts on free expression, particularly of unpopular views, swing statist rather than libertarian.

Interview with American Freedom Party Presidential Nominee Bob Whitaker

 

From American Third Party Report

In an American Third Party Report exclusive, Bob Whitaker, the 2016 presidential nominee of the American Freedom Party, answers questions about his background, political views, and presidential campaign.  Below is the transcript and audio of the interview.

 

Republican Presidential Candidate Mark Everson Challenges Debate Exclusion

Originally published at Wikinews

Republican presidential candidate Mark Everson, former commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), filed a complaint on Monday with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to challenge his exclusion from Thursday’s first Fox News Republican Party presidential debate. Everson argues his exclusion violates Title 11 of the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations in that debate hosts must not “structure the debates to promote or advance one candidate over another”, and must “use pre-established objective criteria to determine which candidates may participate in a debate.”