censorship

Chris Knight's avatar

Of all things 1984-ish, this story about Nineteen Eighty-Four itself might be the most 1984 in the history of anything.

Image from the motion picture Nineteen Eighty-Four

Out of all the books that have ever been published, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (I prefer to spell it out like that when referring to the book or movie instead of shortening it to its numerical equivalent) is the one screaming most against attaching an advisory before reading.  It doesn’t need anything so ridiculous.  Nineteen Eighty-Four speaks for itself, from the first sentence on through the final four words.
I wonder if people like Dolen Perkins-Valdez have ever bothered to try to understand what Orwell was conveying, what his underlying message was, when he first wrote his classic novel about totalitarianism and absolute control of the human spirit.  Perkins-Valdez is the one who has composed a new foreward to Nineteen Eighty-Four
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Chris Knight's avatar

Regarding Murthy v. Missouri: the Supreme Court decision yesterday about government coercing social media companies to censor users’ activity based on political content.  SCOTUS decided that the plaintiffs had no standing and dismissed the lawsuit.

This seems like a colossal victory for the government and social media companies.  HOWEVER…

The case was *not* dismissed.  Today’s ruling dealt with the temporary injunction in the case, not the case itself.  The case was REMANDED, back down the legal chain.  It could still come before the high court where the plaintiffs can better frame their arguments with solid evidence of coercion and censorship.

I believe that such a thing is not only possible, it is almost guaranteed to happen.

Twitter, or X as it’s called now, is going to be VERY interesting to watch as it pertains to the case.  When Murthy v. Missouri was first filed it was confronting ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Well, it happened.  But from the looks of things I am in plenty of good company.

Last night I made a tweet on Twitter.  The now much-beleagured company that along with Facebook (is that a possible RICO charge?) has been censoring any mention of yesterday’s New York Post story about Joe Biden and his son Hunter and their dealings with Burisma.  Among other things.

There is a photograph of Hunter Biden using a crack pipe.  Or maybe meth.  I don’t know.  Meth would be a lot nastier.  But I know this photo exists.  I know because I have seen it.

So last night I made a Twitter post, along the lines of “the question that should be asked of every journalist, news outlet, and social media giant: Why should we trust you?”

Below that I added: “P.S.: there is a photo of Hunter Biden with a crack pipe.”

I just ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Okay, to be fair, there has not been any formal notification of exile.  But having attempted to make comments with five different browsers and automatically being directed to a Facebook “blue screen of banishment” with each one, it’s safe to say at this point that I am now persona non grata from adding to reader commentary on the News & Record website.  It was discovered two days ago and no correspondence has been returned from their staff about it so, looks like I’ve been dispatched to the hinterlands… or at least those where Greensboro, North Carolina’s “newspaper of record” is concerned.

As for why the banning has taken place: if it was in violation of terms of service, I can’t find a single example.  And I went back through the past few months, from around late spring when I began leaving comments on their published letters, editorials, and some ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

In what might be the most hilarious case of unintended consequences in recent memory, today Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ruled that President Donald Trump was wrong to have blocked users from his Twitter feed… which inadvertently has officially designated Twitter (and by extension Facebook and YouTube and other social media outlets) to be common carriers like the telephone system!


In a 75-page ruling, Judge Buchwald declared that Twitter was a “designated public forum” on which Trump could not discriminate against selected readers by blocking their accounts. “This case requires us to consider whether a public official may, consistent with the First Amendment, ‘block’ a person from his Twitter account in response to the political views that person has expressed, and whether the analysis differs because that public official is the President of the United States,” Buchwald said ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

Early this morning Brian Sapient of the Rational Response Squad posted on the group’s site that YouTube had restored their account.

You might remember a few days ago when I wrote here about how the atheist Rational Response Squad had apparently been targeted by a Christian organization. Creation Science Evangelism Ministries allegedly filed “false DMCA copyright requests” against the Rational Response Squad with YouTube, and YouTube subsequently yanked Rational Response Squad’s account. But as you can see, it is now back up.

In the past few days since posting on this blog that I would “give the Rational Response Squad my full support in this matter”, plenty of e-mail has come into my box about that. A lot of the sentiment is reflected in the comments made on the earlier post. And many people are really, really angry that I took up sides with a group of atheists ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

An item has been placed on the agenda for the August 13th meeting of the Rockingham County Board of Education that, if approved, would limit remarks by private citizens to three minutes or less during public comments portions of the monthly meetings.

The Knight Shift blog received this information from a highly trusted source earlier this evening.

I’ve spent the past good bit of evening trying to find out more about this and I’m going to be making further inquiries come tomorrow morning.

As I’ve come to understand it, here’s what’s going down: at least one and possibly two members of the Board of Education placed this item on the agenda for the next meeting, and it’s quite likely that this is coming as a reaction to what happened at the July 9th meeting. That was when the Board voted to rescind it’s decision in April to implement school ...

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Chris Knight's avatar

If only YouTube had existed in 2000…

In October of 2000 I was a reporter with an independent newspaper. And – through legitimate channels mind ya – I had been given an invitation to attend a rally for George W. Bush during the presidential debate at Wake Forest University. I was hoping to get a chance to ask Bush a few questions: nothing rude mind ya, but I was gonna try to make the most of the opportunity.

Bush staff found out that some “non-corporate” journalists were there and sent Winston-Salem police to track us down. One of them demanded to see my driver’s license and I asked why. About then a Bush staffer with a bullhorn came over and told me that I should do what she says “because whenever someone in a uniform tells you something you’re supposed to obey.”

This guy demanded to see my invitation. He ...

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