MANY Red States Now BLOCKED!

[Leather-lee]

3 minutes ago, NEDenver said:

I think it depends on the woman.  Liz Cheney and Sarah Huckabee Sandrrs?  Hate LGBTQ.  Taylor Swift, Cher, Kamala Harris?  No hate.

it probably depends more on church membership than anything, and evangelicals are bleeding members right now.

I'm thinking more of what you Americans would perhaps refer to as small town American mothers and the vast numbers of them who are religious. 

[NEDenver]

4 minutes ago, Leather-lee said:

I'm thinking more of what you Americans would perhaps refer to as small town American mothers and the vast numbers of them who are religious. 

Small town mothers are far fewer in number than city women.

[BootmanLA]

On 9/23/2024 at 7:57 PM, NEDenver said:

Small town mothers are far fewer in number than city women.

Not only that, but while there are undoubtedly lots of "small town mothers" who hate LGBT people, they're vastly outnumbered by the "small town fathers" who do the same. American women in general, even small-town mothers, even in red states, tend to be more liberal on LGBT issues than their male counterparts. Which is why I say it's misogynistic; it's either saying women have more of a responsibility to be pro-LGBT than men do, or else it's ignoring that by far the worst excesses of anti-LGBT hatred come from men. 

And I'd argue that there are certainly small-town mothers in the UK (and elsewhere) who are as adamantly anti-LGBT as any in the US.

[rawTOP]

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

For starters…

• Oklahoma has been added to the block list (their law went into effect November 1st), and…
• If you're using Apple Private Relay you may need to turn it off since it doesn't route through a local IP when you tell it to. (I encounter problems from NYC.)

But neither of those is as important as the update on the Free Speech Coalition lawsuit…

Oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition v Paxton, the Texas age-verification case, have been scheduled to take place on January 15, 2025 before the U.S. Supreme Court. Free Speech Coalition and co-plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP.

What that means is that some time this spring (as late as June) SCOTUS will render a decision which could (best case) invalidate all the laws which are forcing me to implement these blocks. But they could also uphold the law - which is a worst case scenario. We'll know A LOT more end of day on January 15 - after the oral arguments are done. Hopefully the justices' questions and comments will hint which way they're leaning.

While you may be expecting the worst - when it comes to free speech issues - conservatives can surprise you. The core argument is that age verification is highly intrusive and not particularly effective (given VPNs) and there are less intrusive ways that would achieve a result that's as good or better. So fingers crossed.

Either way - I'm beginning to think about a Plan B. With yesterday's election results, communities like this will be under increasing attack.

[PozTalkAuthor]

Eager to know about "plan B" if necessary, I think we should consider Fediverse. Friendica is charmingly interesting, but it has a huge issue: a unique developer working in it! 

What I think after all the tears of this morning even here in Europe... 

Now, more than ever, COMMUNITY matters. We must take initiatives on our own and act together, decreasing divisions between us. Because authoritary governments can BUY the law and turn the world as they want, but only communities know their own needs and only united we can survive. Defeat the dragon is not guaranteed but at least avoid its shots or limit its damages.

[rawTOP]

20 minutes ago, PozTalkAuthor said:

Eager to know about "plan B" if necessary, I think we should consider Fediverse. Friendica is charmingly interesting, but it has a huge issue: a unique developer working in it! 

What I think after all the tears of this morning even here in Europe... 

Now, more than ever, COMMUNITY matters. We must take initiatives on our own and act together, decreasing divisions between us. Because authoritary governments can BUY the law and turn the world as they want, but only communities know their own needs and only united we can survive. Defeat the dragon is not guaranteed but at least avoid its shots or limit its damages.

The Fediverse / ActivityPub / Mastodon won’t work because the content can be blocked by other instances and because the content will be on a server that can be shut down by unfriendly governments. 

Nostr would fix that. Its design is virtually censorship-proof. But adopting it for this community will take thought and energy. 

[PozTalkAuthor]

Heard about nostr, very interesting but I got lost in docs - it'd take years. I'll follow the issue, I suppose it will be a topic this community will deal with in the future

[PozTalkAuthor]

As for "free speech" matter, I'm not surprised about conservatives' caring for it; Musk himself says he battles for "free speech" when he wants to make impossible for X users to block others, but my sensation is that they consider free speech one-way only: you can't create satire on bible or Christian's symbols, you can't talk bad about their politics, Trump himself claims the intention to pursue political opponents and "traitors"... 

But they want to feel free to address anyone as "faggot" or whatever insult, and they block lgbt-related communication, I mention the "don't say gay" Florida law or Utah laws or whatever prevents public availability of books and information. I don't know, and I'll stay tuned for further developments.

[BootmanLA]

On 11/6/2024 at 7:42 AM, rawTOP said:

Oral arguments in Free Speech Coalition v Paxton, the Texas age-verification case, have been scheduled to take place on January 15, 2025 before the U.S. Supreme Court. Free Speech Coalition and co-plaintiffs are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP.

What that means is that some time this spring (as late as June) SCOTUS will render a decision which could (best case) invalidate all the laws which are forcing me to implement these blocks. But they could also uphold the law - which is a worst case scenario. We'll know A LOT more end of day on January 15 - after the oral arguments are done. Hopefully the justices' questions and comments will hint which way they're leaning.

For those following these attacks, a little history and a little procedural background:

Texas passed a law that requires web site operators to confirm the age of visitors to the site as 18 or over, if more than 1/3 of the material on said site is deemed "harmful to minors" under some guidelines issued by the state. How that 1/3 is calculated is kind of unclear (is it number of files? How do videos compare with still images? What about written text? Word count or file count?). In any event:

1. A group representing adult web sites sued to block the law.

2. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law on the basis that it likely violated the First Amendment.

3. The state of Texas appealed that injunction to the Fifth Circuit Court (which overseas federal appeals in TX, LA, and MS).

4. The appellate court held that the proper standard of review of the law was what's called "rational basis" scrutiny - if the state has a legitimate interest in the issue, and there is a rational connection between the goals (ie the interest) and the means (what the law does), then it's constitutional. 

5. The problem is that First Amendment issues are almost invariably subject to a much higher level of scrutiny, called "strict scrutiny". Under that standard of review, required for fundamental constitutional rights (and in certain other cases), a law that interferes with a constitutional right is presumptively unconstitutional, and the state must show two things in order to overcome that presumption: that the state has a compelling interest (not just "any" interest) in the issue, and that the law is narrowly tailored AND is the least restrictive means possible to further that interest.

6. The plaintiffs (the web site operators) have appealed to the Supreme Court, which has agreed to determine the correct level of scrutiny. These are the oral arguments @rawTOP mentioned above, scheduled for January.

7. When the Court hears the case, it could do any of several things:
    -It could uphold the 5th Circuit finding that rational basis is the proper standard (under which the law would continue in effect);

    -It could hold that the proper standard is strict scrutiny, and remand (return) the case back to the 5th Circuit (which would then have further proceedings in accordance with that holding; or

     -Or it could take some other procedural steps (unlikely) that would further stall the case. I say "unlikely" because all indications are that the issue is relatively straightforward to decide.

8. This case concerns Texas, but assuming the Court rules one way or the other, that holding would apply to all similar laws.

9. But even if this case results in the law being permanently enjoined, or even struck down, that doesn't mean it's impossible to craft a notification law that complies with strict scrutiny. It just means that in all other cases, the lower courts would have to use  strict scrutiny review to decide whether such a law violated the First Amendment or not.

Clear? As mud, maybe?

[NEDenver]

Add also, the Fifth Circuit is notoriously cray-cray.  But also, SCOTUS is not particularly rational.  Especially now.

[BootmanLA]

44 minutes ago, NEDenver said:

Add also, the Fifth Circuit is notoriously cray-cray.  But also, SCOTUS is not particularly rational.  Especially now.

This is true. But even this Supreme Court has been reluctant, so far, to upend any significant First Amendment precedents. In the biggest case recently, NetChoice v Paxton (gee, imagine, Ken Paxton as the defendant AGAIN) the Court back in July unanimously vacated a Fifth Circuit cray-cray opinion that allowed Texas to control the moderation actions of sites like Facebook, telling the Fifth Circuit's nutsos (appointed by Reagan, Shrub, and Trump) to start over because they'd fucked up the case so badly. Today the Fifth Circuit returned that case to the district court saying "Ooops, our bad, y'all need to look at this case some more because the record we pretended to uphold isn't really complete enough to judge by."

 

[tattmattpig]

If using a apple product the private relay will allow access most of the time as well

[tbone69rimmer]

VPN companies are about to be making a lot more money.

[ktopper]

I have worried that some kind of free speech crackdown is coming. Neither Federal, State or local governments have any right to suppress speech of any kind. You often hear the counter argument that "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater." That is NOT a free speech issue. The crime is causing a public disturbance or inciting a riot or something along those lines. Just because one uses speech to commit the crime does not mean that the speech itself is illegal. People also use speech to plan murders, bank robberies and such.

This reminds me of the Satanic Panic of the late 80s and early 90s. They were finding witches and warlocks everywhere. The public finally realized it was nothing more than bored teenagers who had raided daddy's liquor cabinet or mommy's pills or had scored a few doobies somewhere and were hanging out in the cemetary burning incense candles and chanting harmless nonsense. But a lot of people had their lives wrecked or went to prison first.

[BootmanLA]

19 hours ago, ktopper said:

I have worried that some kind of free speech crackdown is coming. Neither Federal, State or local governments have any right to suppress speech of any kind.

According to the Supreme Court, that's not the law, at least in the United States. The law is that obscenity, for one thing, is not protected speech at all, despite the fact that it's unquestionably speech of a sort. Other categories of speech that have no protection, or limited protection, include fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and defamation. All of these can be proscribed by government and punished. Some other forms of speech, including false statements, may receive some but not unlimited protection.

19 hours ago, ktopper said:

You often hear the counter argument that "you can't yell fire in a crowded theater." That is NOT a free speech issue. The crime is causing a public disturbance or inciting a riot or something along those lines. Just because one uses speech to commit the crime does not mean that the speech itself is illegal. People also use speech to plan murders, bank robberies and such.

The "crowded theater" line is a throwaway piece of dicta that was not, and is not, what the Supreme Court itself said. And the distinction you're trying to draw misses the point entirely.

What the Court has held (in its most recent case on the issue) is that speech which is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action" and is "likely to incite or produce such action" is not protected.

As for using speech to plan murders, etc.: if the speech is integral to the commission of the crime, then it can be punished, even if the person did NOTHING but speak. For instance, a lookout who only telephones someone "the coast is clear" so that they can commit a robbery can be punished for saying that, because it was integral to the commission of the crime.