I didn’t see anyone say that phone companies and backbone operators should monitor the content of our phone calls, texts, and emails; or that they should be responsible for, say, financial crimes committed using their phone lines. Then we could ask whether the post office should read our letters at the mailing point. They could take classes in finding secret messages hidden in our love letters. We could bring them unsealed to the window.

I think (I may be outdated on this and I’m not an attorney) free speech and press is Constitutionally protected even for anonymous use, but waiting for that to be applied in court could take several years and the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private regulation.

I rely a lot on posting to forums. My own questions may not get frequently asked.

The problems with Facebook may bleed over into this. Bigger providers are bigger targets to a bigger user base composed mainly of computer amateurs who just want everything to work as promised and when the public gets outraged enough then politicians act and so Facebook’s problems (and the difficulty of regulating any foreign nation instead) may cost the rest of us.

For the next kindred issue, letters to Washington are likely more credible, because bots are notoriously not letter-writers and not first class postage-payers. Short and original are fine. Addresses, postal and maybe online, are at https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact and https://www.house.gov/representatives (both as accessed 3-22-18). Calls work if you can make clear that you’re not a bot (your knowledge is a key). Thank-you letters to those (few) who vote the right way, even from out of district, are often especially appreciated by recipients.

-jdw

A perfect summary of how it all works, on this and most other political issues.

“Trying to get various discussions declared illegal under the law!” is a decent working definition of censorship. Censorship is absolutely what this is about. -jdw

If it was just targeting drawings or something equally artistic, I would not be surprised.

However this is targeting things like discussions of sex trafficking online.

Sorry but goes against the First Amendment.

The people on the pro-censorship side are all paid lawyers and lobbyists. The people on the anti-censorship side are volunteers and people like us… you and me. You are absolutely right that they just keep trying hoping to eventually wear us down. They will never stop until the money runs out, and the money will never run out until criticizing a big company is punishable by firing squad. -jdw

and yet they think that if they try again and again, people will slip. well I will spread this and I hope the other of you will to

CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN

Sure, it probably won’t help to contact senators that are already on board with this to let them know you’re opposed, but it definitely won’t hurt. There’s a 2/3rds chance that one of them is up for re-election this year. And if nobody complains, you can bet they’ll use that to claim support. If you’re up for calling them, the EFF has a site for that. -jdw