It’s time for some basic education on what censorship means again.
News came out yesterday (24 Jan) that the EPA had received a directive to cease using its Twitter accounts.
Censorship! Well, no. That is not censorship. It’s more like risk management. The government is legally accountable for everything that goes out on those Twitter feeds. They are well within their rights to set a policy for how they are used. The government would also be within their rights to fire people for misusing those Twitter accounts. It’s probably one of the few things you could do to actually get fired from a government job. (Hey-oh!)
If you are truly, sincerely worried about government censorship, and not just trying to stir everyone up into a panic over nothing for the hits or retweets or ratings or whatever, here are some things to look for:
Look to see if federal authorities arrest any of these people who tweeted embarrassing things on government accounts. Even worse, look to see if federal authorities arrest people tweeting from their personal accounts.
Look to see if Congress introduces any laws restricting what you can say on social media or wherever. Observe who sponsors such legislation. Do not vote for them in their next election.
Look to see if the government starts invoking the Espionage Act of 1917 against people or journalists who say embarrassing things. It was passed back in World War I when patriotic ferver was a lot higher than it is now. Recently it has only been invoked in cases of government employees or contractors leaking classified data which might hurt the military. Yes, America’s cool dad, Barack Obama, invoked the Espionage Act of 1917. If Trump truly wants to be a dick, he might consider using it for other purposes.
Regarding this tweet:
If Chicago doesn't fix the horrible "carnage" going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2017
“Send the Feds in” in a tweet is not the same thing as invoking martial law, a concept I saw quite often in various retweets.
In other news, don’t be so quick to accept that @AltNatParkSer or any other “alt” government Twitter account is real. My theory is it’s all the same guy who wrote all the fake Trump news.
Please stop calling the normal operation of American democracy (i.e. criticizing the government) a “resistance.” It’s childish. We are not living in German-occupied France.
P.S. You might want to check your local state legislatures. I was surprised yesterday to learn that Virginia had a bill under consideration that would increase punishments for protesters who were arrested. It failed. I didn’t even know about it until I read that it failed.
