[ecshafer]

The only congressman who would actually support the EFF in digital rights is Massie, a republican.

Reading their post they throw out every progressive buzz word for the omnicause, they are clearly aligning themselves with the progressive wing of the Democrats. The wing which is ironically some of the most anti-free speech in all of American politics.

[_bohm]

The current administration’s curtailments of free speech go far above and beyond anything progressives would ever propose to do.

[barry-cotter]

What’s the point of lying this blatantly? You don’t believe it and neither does anyone else; who’s it for?

[_bohm]

It's a completely defensible statement and I believe it fully.

[barry-cotter]

> In Joe Biden’s presidency, two great forces pushed the information state to the limits of its power. The first came from the administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The second came from its decision to use the arsenal of counterinsurgency against American citizens accused of domestic extremism. Both relied on the vast public-private apparatus of censorship and surveillance, originally built to combat foreign disinformation, to wage political battles at home.

[…]

> Back in 2017, two academics affiliated with Harvard had created a novel category to describe speech that was factually true, but undermined official interests. They called it malinformation and defined it as speech “based on reality, used to inflict harm on a person, organization or country”. Could constitutionally protected criticism of the US government be classified as malinformation? Only the information regulators could say for sure since all power rested in the authority to define the terms. The government seized the opportunity. In the very first month of the Biden administration, CISA rewrote its mission from focusing on foreign disinformation “to focus on general MDM”, an acronym for misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation — a three-part classification developed by the 2017 Harvard paper that coined “malinformation”. The machinery of the information state had completed its inward turn. Rather than defensively protecting critical infrastructure from outside attack, the agency would now “be responsive to current events” inside the US.

https://unherd.com/2026/04/how-censorship-seized-america/?ed...

[_bohm]

(a) The Biden/Harris administration was not one that I would consider Progressive, and I really have no interest in defending them broadly speaking

(b) I am quite aware of the actions and events described in the article you link, and do not approve of them. Even so, I think there is a legitimate question as to whether or not these actions constituted violations of the first amendment, at least legally if not in spirit. This is quite unlike the current administration's blatant violations which include:

(c) Jailing and attempting to deport people for political speech, attempting to revoke funding from universities that allow certain protests (freedom of assembly), defunding PBS and NPR on the basis of political viewpoints expressed, suing many other news outlets for unflattering coverage and threatening to revoke licenses via FCC. The list goes on. Also, Twitter is now owned by an honorary member of the Trump cabinet, and if you don't think he's putting his finger on the scale, boy do I have a bridge to sell you.

[tovej]

How is that a false statement?

Just as an example, the Trump admin pulled funding from research units that used the words "gender" or "climate change".

Yes, it was comically inept, but it was also legitimately harmful to free speech.

And how about ICE recording the faces of people who attend the no kings protests in order to antagonize them?

[barry-cotter]

Trump being a censorship happy abuser of power in no way detracts from Obama and Biden being cut from the same cloth.

[tovej]

Obama or Biden did nothing even close

[0dayz]

Nothing said here is of substance and instead mere projection of speculation.

If they came out openly as gay as an organization but kept their current stated goal of digital freedom, they still would be a digital rights organization I do not see what driveling about supposed progressive politics makes fighting for digital rights bad.

[kelipso]

An organization aligning itself with progressives means they will only support a certain set of digital rights that align with progressive politics and not others.

I guess you can still call yourself a digital rights organization if you want by you won’t be seen as legitimate by both sides of the aisle.

[0dayz]

Which digital rights are exempt if you are subscribing to the "progressive" side of politics?

And even if true how does that make it suddenly an organization one shouldn't support?

Is saving one of two arms better than saving none because you can't save the other?

[guelo]

This is a lie, certain powerful elements of the right wing are much more anti free speech.

[tovej]

Who?