Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Blog Post #6

     The voice of dissent, against popular opinion of the public and government is a voice often not mainstreamed in the media or politics. Voices of dissent being inaccessible or almost completely muted has been a prevalent issue throughout the United States' history. 

    Specifically, antiwar voices and groups were majorly censored in the face of the first world war, possibly due to being seen as a threat to nationalism and unity. The First Amendment, promising freedom of speech unless said speech consists of true threats, incitement, and libel, is infringed upon with this censorship. When the Censor Comes - Freedom to Read

    In fact, four cases arguing this went to the Supreme Court in 1919, known as the Quartet of Cases. Consisting of Schenck, Debs, Frohwerk, and Abrams, these four cases all fought censorship being placed upon their antiwar ideas and socialist or communist leanings. Within these cases, they had Holmes' clear and present danger tests performed along with using the definitions of the first amendment and incitement to support their claim that the censorship of their opinions was unconstitutional.

    Though this occurred in 1919 and would thought to be firmly in the past, this is still happening today. History continues to repeat itself with the looming possibility of a war with Russia over the Russia/Ukraine conflict. 

    In my personal experience as a consumer of a variety of news sources on a regular basis, I have yet to come across any information not supporting getting involved in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. However, when looking at The American Conservative or Antiwar news sites, antiwar voices are suddenly much more prevalent. 

TheSocialTalks - How Would an Absolute First Amendment Benefit Modern  Society?    Though it is obvious that all news sources will have inherent bias that will lead to some opinions being displayed more than others, the complete and utter lack of any mention of antiwar ideas is shocking. Reading antiwar articles for the first time since the war in Ukraine started on February 24, 2022, over a year ago, other beliefs in regards to the United State's responsibility or lack thereof on the side lines emerge. 

    With the recent issues of censorship for those with antiwar voices, it can be seen that the fight for protecting Americans' first amendment rights are clearly not over. Having to put in extra effort to seek out obscure websites in order to hear opposing views from the mainstream is alarming and should pose questioning of how diverse our sources of information really are. 

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Blog Post #11

      When listening to the other EOTO presentations, something that stood out to me was the " social credit score ," a method tha...