For those able and inclined to support First Amendment rights on #GivingTuesday, here are some organizations dedicated to First Amendment rights who would, I’m sure, appreciate any help you can give.
A few points before I start the list, each of these organizations has a different focus, a different mission, a different political view, a different idea of what liberty looks like. I’ll leave it up to you to decide which are best or most deserving.
If you can’t afford to donate money, there are still ways you can help. You could volunteer with these organizations, promote their message online, or explain and advocate for 1A rights to those around you who need to hear it. More ideas from Popehat:
If you want to go small scale but targeted directly against one specific attempt at censorship, @DevinCow and @NunesAlt are still being sued by a member of Congress.
If I left any good organizations out, please post their #GivingTuesday tweet or donation page below for others to see and I’ll try to add more when I find time tomorrow. Unfortunately tweeting doesn’t pay my bills lol
I protect a lot of knowingly false disinformation. So let’s break down @VickerySec’s knowingly false (and protected) disinformation about me, shall we?
A few points:
1. It is true that defamation, fraud, and perjury are all exceptions, for which one element is (more or less) that the speech is knowingly false.
2. But those exceptions all have *additional* elements that must be met for the speech to be unprotected.
3. You therefore can’t extrapolate from these exception that all knowingly false speech is unprotected. For example, if Congress banned oranges, it would be incorrect to say that all fruit is illegal.
I know I say “I don’t protect you from Twitter” a lot, and that a lot of people (idiots, mostly) are bothered by that, but it is said in defense of First Amendment rights.
A few points:
1. I provide accurate statements of the law so people can learn about 1A rights.
2. I do this even when I don’t agree with the way in which someone is using their 1A rights. For example, I inform people that hate speech is protected, even though I don’t agree with the content.
3. This goes for Twitter’s decisions to moderate content, too. It is protected, and I will continue to point that out even if I don’t agree with any particular decision by Twitter.
I’m seeing a lot of these takes so here is a short, oversimplified explanation.
1/5
Two points.
1. I do not protect actual rioting.
2. Today’s decision about Florida’s anti-riot law does not say you have the right to riot.
2/5
The court said that the Florida law defined “riot” in an overly broad way that criminalized protected speech (i.e., speech that is not rioting). The government can’t punish protected speech simply by calling it “rioting.”