I was shadow banned by Twitter, even after my suspended account was restored. What is it with these people? What are they so afraid of? Things are changing fast under new owner Elon Musk, but using available free tools a few days ago I found my new account @PeterMVanBuren has been electronically censored. Specifically, using […]

God bless Texas. A case the state recently won at the circuit level is almost certainly headed to the Supreme Court. The Texas law, upheld, makes it illegal for social media giants to censor, delete, or otherwise interfere with viewpoints, what is known as content discrimination. If the Supreme Court stands with the circuit court […]

Nothing would be better than for Elon Musk to buy Twitter and then kill it. Take it off line. Delete it. Make it go away. What is the point anymore? Like some aged European monarchy, the service has become too inbred to say anything useful. It consists now as a giant push survey, claiming the […]

After almost a four-year lifetime suspension, Elon Musk let me back on Twitter, with a new account @PeterMVanBuren, and the promise of once again being privy to the world’s opinion. I could again read the “takes” of people smart enough to have a Blue Check (I do not) including those whose points of view I […]

Dear Elon: Big fan. I cheered to finally see an African-American like yourself rising to the top, owning one of America’s largest media companies, Twitter. I’m also a big fan of free speech, which is why I am writing to you to ask that my lifetime ban on Twitter be rescinded. See in August 2018, […]

The interplay between the First Amendment and corporations like Twitter, Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook is the most significant challenge to free speech in our lifetimes. Pretending a corporation with the reach to influence elections is just another place that sells stuff is to pretend the role of debate in a free society is outdated. […]

Twitter and Facebook are the censors the Founders feared when they wrote the First Amendment. In the 18th century, none of those forward-thinking men could have envisioned a day when technology and global corporations would overshadow the power of governments to control information. But that day is here, and @jack and his colleagues are trying […]

  Is America on the edge of a cultural revolution? After the failure to change so many times (say their names for a complete list) is society ready to take action against racism? Or is it just about statues again?   I’m ambivalent about statues being torn down per se, but terrified of the thought […]

  A court just came close to acknowledging the First Amendment applies to social media. But there is still a lot of ground to cover to protect our free speech rights online.   In Davison v Randall, a local government official blocked a constituent from an “official” Facebook page. The court held this to be […]

A leaky little “bird” inside Twitter tells me these are the tweets that got me banned for life. I have no way of verifying this; official Twitter will not respond to my inquiries. I stand accused of dehumanizing several reporters (“targeted abuse”), using words to offend them into silence. It seems now you can judge […]

In the through-the-mirror world we now live in, people who once unambiguously supported free speech now are finding plenty of things they want censored. Chief among those opposing ideas they want silenced are Donald Trump’s. His remarks — from the silly, labeled unpresidential, to the more extreme labeled racist/sexist/misogynist/hateful — have attracted a surprising group […]

Twitter just suspended Alex Jones for a week after he called on millions of people to pick up weapons to attack the press. I am still in the dark about what I said on Twitter that is x Infinity worse, as mine is a permanent suspension. Anyway, I hope with Alex Jones (and me) gone, […]

Banned from Twitter, so I found another platform. I was on Tucker Carlson tonight talking about censorship. Can you hear me @jack? https://youtu.be/lEJLPVPbUlU?t=2198 Related Articles: The Final Durham Report: Democracy’s Horror Show A Spectator Looks at the Durham Report Why Hasn’t the U.S. Arrested WaPo Journalist for Publishing Classified Documents? Jack Teixeira, Leaks, and a […]

When I was in Iran earlier this year, the government there blocked Twitter, deciding for a whole nation what they can not see. In America, Twitter purges users, deciding for a whole nation what they can not see. It matters little whose hand is on the switch, the end result is the same. This is […]

And more here, from Zerohedge… Related Articles: The Final Durham Report: Democracy’s Horror Show A Spectator Looks at the Durham Report Why Hasn’t the U.S. Arrested WaPo Journalist for Publishing Classified Documents? Jack Teixeira, Leaks, and a Matter of Trust I’m Disgusted with the Trump Indictment Clarence Thomas Takes One for the Court Third World […]

In a long-form interview here with veteran journalist Joe Lauria at Consortium News Radio, I try and lay out exactly what happened on Twitter that led to me being banned. Also, more here. Related Articles: The Final Durham Report: Democracy’s Horror Show A Spectator Looks at the Durham Report Why Hasn’t the U.S. Arrested WaPo […]

More than a few people have cited the exchange above as justification for my forever trip down the Memory Hole, my ban from Twitter. I used to be there as @wemeantwell. My bad zombie joke about #MAGA, or anything else I wrote that was flippant, is not writing I’m proud of. But ask yourself if […]

The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity in a memo to the Twitter board of directors questions its decision to suspend the account of one of its members without due process. TO: Twitter Board of Directors FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) SUBJECT: Suspension of VIPS Associate Peter Van Buren’s Twitter Account We at Veteran […]

Some readers are aware I have been permanently suspended from Twitter as @wemeantwell. This followed exchanges with several mainstream journalists over their support for America’s wars and unwillingness to challenge the lies of government. After two days of silence, Twitter sent me an auto-response saying what I wrote “harasses, intimidates, or uses fear to silence […]

Donald Trump discovered the Holy Grail of media relations: the ability with a 140-character tweet to ignore the Fourth Estate. This is brass-knuckled political power that at a minimum pushes the press another circulation drop closer to irrelevancy. Journalists meanwhile mockingly treat Trump’s tweets as examples of his oafishness, just as they did his bombastic stump […]

Did you see what Trump just tweeted out? Buzzfeed’s got it, and some guy over at Daily Kos is totally losing his mind replying. It’s Donald Trump’s Internet, and we’re allowed to watch. And retweet. Trump has done more than become the most prolific social media communicator in political history. He has discovered the Holy […]

Or have they? Twitter claims it does not want intelligence agencies using a Tweet-mining service for surveillance purposes. The company recently restated its “longstanding” policy of preventing a company called Dataminr from selling information to intelligence agencies that want to monitor Tweets. “Dataminr uses public Tweets to sell breaking news alerts to media organizations, corporations […]

Hey everyone, Happy bin Laden Day! It was five years ago May 2 that “we” got bin Laden. How did you celebrate? For the CIA, marking the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden was as simple as fake live tweeting the raid by SEAL Team Six on the Al-Qaeda founder’s compound in Pakistan. […]

So, at the cost of who-knows-how-many of your tax dollars, the State Department, in between deep-sixing Hillary’s old emails, has been fighting ISIS, with The Twitter thingie. See, someone determined that if ISIS could use social media to radicalize young people, with a powerful and persuasive message, well, the old, sad white people at the […]

Let’s enjoy a quick look at what the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is Tweeting. This is called “social media diplomacy” and is designed to “reach out” to “local” people in the host country and make them love America more. State is kinda shy about saying it, but given the world-wide nature of these things, there […]

There is, clearly to at least two or three people in Washington, no greater threat to American safety and security than Cuba. America has had a Cold War hard-on over Cuba for decades, and so spending millions of taxpayer dollars on it, even if it means a lot of that money actually and knowingly gets […]

Foreign Policy features an article, Lost in Cyberspace, commenting on the silly, stupid, restrictive, likely even unconstitutional new rules under review at the State Department to regulate the social media and online activities of its own employees. The majority of these changes are sort of my fault, given my year-long run of writing, blogging and […]

This has to be a sign of the Apocalypse or something worse. Iranian-backed American puppet democratic leader Iraqi strongman Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki now has a Twitter account you can follow at @IDawaParty. The US Embassy in Baghdad, following the Secretary of State’s clarion call into social media, has set up a Twitter account but […]

The latest self-congratulatory social media pablum from the State Department (in the guise of a “new” Brookings Institute report whose data has been peddled before) offers one non-insight, and one quite revealing. The non-insight is over the course of forty dense pages of praise (“At the vanguard of this adaptation is the U.S. State Department,” […]

Taxpayers, a robust group huzzah please! The US Embassy in Baghdad has taken a bold, innovative step towards resolving all problems in Iraq, large and small: The Embassy is now paying someone with your tax dollars to Tweet! Sorry neigh sayers, it is true. We all know that social media is the key to public […]