New York Attorney General Letitia James Reverse Course on Attempt to Impose Censorship On Rumble
Jose Nino
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After facing staunch resistance from free speech proponents, New York Attorney General Letitia James has retreated from her efforts to demand that social media platform Rumble, censor speech connected to the Israel-Hamas war.
James’ move comes as a response to the activism of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). The free speech advocacy organization argued that her program blatantly violated the First Amendment and a federal court order halting the enforcement of New York’s Online Hate Speech Law.
On October 12, 2023, James kicked off the attack against free speech, taking on various social media platforms, which includes Rumble, Meta, and Reddit. She was requesting that these platforms provide information on the steps they were taking to restrict the dissemination of “hateful content” with respect to the escalating conflict in Israel and report back on their policies concerning content administration.
The following day, James walked back from her anti-free speech position for FIRE plaintiff Rumble. Christina Maas of Reclaim the Net observed that FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner celebrated this move and even declared that James’ letter “was ill-advised and violated a court order.”
Overall, this should be construed as a small victory against censorship. The fact is the pro-Zionist forces that control US politics know all too well that any semblance of free speech poses a major threat to their pro-Israel narrative. As a result, they will labor assiduously to censor anti-Zionists as much as possible.
Any serious advocate of confronting Zionist influence must support free speech maximalism. It’s the only mechanism that can expose the pernicious anti-American elements that run US foreign policy.
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