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Notes -
In case you missed the reference
That stops a conviction (maybe). It does less than nothing against a warrant. Moderators here have been Very Concerned about warrants for speech that would easily avoid Brandenberg.
Moderators here, quite properly, have decided that they don't want fedposting on their forum. Even if it wasn't a legal risk to the mods, tolerating fedposting makes the forum less able to fulfil its stated purpose.
That doesn't mean that the mods receiving a warrant for a common or garden fedpost is particularly likely.
Amadan has specifically and repeatedly noted concerns about a possible warrant to Zorba as a major motivating factor. Whether it's "particularly likely" enough for you to let it count, it's clearly enough for an actual person who actually hosting a website to care -- but only for one political allegiance.
Maybe related: the "contact us" page has a warrant canary saying no warrants have yet been received in 2023.
Probably just forgetting to update, it, but you never know.
This isn't the first time it's been noted.
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I don't get it. Is fedposting against the right allowed on this forum?
Nope.
But there's a lot of places it was tolerated, and not only did their management have no concerns about lawfare, more importantly, literally zero have shown up in the news having been hit by or having to resist that lawfare. There's no sequel to ARFCOM; there's no even a sequel to 'Discord Channel Shut Down for making fun of George Floyd'.
This isn't perfect information, just like there are limits to our ability to extrapolate from the lack of Brendan-Eich-facepunching aimed at modern day interleft-battles. It's still information.
I don't really understand what you are trying to say here.
First you say that fedposting is allowed only against figures on the right without lawfare. Then you provide a long post with examples of people saying kirk deserved to be shot and then say that no discord channels were shut down for this sort of behavior.
However, it's quite clear that saying that someone deserved to die is not fedposting. So the connection is unclear to me.
I'm saying that not-left-aligned organizations and groups have to be extremely cautious about tolerating fedposting because they have clear examples of lawfare and other destructive outside forces targeting them, often successfully. Left-aligned organizations don't fear that, and they have gotten away with fedposting without evidence of having to even resist any lawfare, and it cost them zero support among self-described 'normies'.
The moderators here have included far less overt advocacy than "His killer committed a just act." as fedposting.
Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't see that in your post, unless we're counting death celebration as fedposting now.
Do you have an example?
A central one. As a more prospective one, see here.
(edit: improved context on first link to include where it was explicitly called fedposting)
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I'm fully on board with this - I wouldn't accept a small risk of attracting police attention for a fun online hobby either. But that remains a reasonable decision on the part of Zorba even if the risk is very small indeed.
I think it's a perfectly reasonable decision on Zorba's part. I even think it's a perfectly reasonable calculation on the part of progressive-leaning forum.
I'm critiquing the process, not the people reacting to the result.
Zorba never expressed a fear of being served a warrant or asked me to mod fedposters to prevent that from happening. That was me saying "Let's not post things that could result in Zorba being served a warrant," so blame me, not him.
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They came to an agreement about it https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/mycity/norfolk/norfolk-resolves-issue-police-officer-william-kelly-fired-donating-to-rittenhouse-fund/291-045c4a2f-444d-4d1f-9d13-0bb9619b4b90
Clearly whatever the result is, Hogge is fine with it and did not wish to pursue further. I imagine it's probably something like a reinstatement (or promotion?) with a significant pay raise, but who knows. Still, if he wasn't happy with the result he could sue and would likely win so it must be considered good enough for him.
In the US, it absolutely does.
It does a lot against warrants. Blatantly anti first amendment abuse like that is very rare in modern day America, and typically from lower level government officials in smaller towns and cities when they do happen.
The moderators can decide whatever caution level they please, it doesn't mean this properly reflects US law. Also of course, not everyone here is an American and they would have to obey the laws of their own respective country.
Hogge's the lawyer, giving lawyer-speak for 'I can't even say I won'. Kelly got his job back, so he's not complaining and definitely not doing it somewhere where the department could get him fired for doing it, but there's no evidence he's come out of things with a million or even a hundred thousand bucks.
Party presentation rule, anyone?
I would be fascinated to see you explain what procedural protections are present in an ex parte warrant hearing in front of magistrate judges, where police and prosecutors don't even have a duty to present exculpatory evidence. The standard of probable cause means that even a warrant focusing on arguably protected speech is fair game for that 'arguably' result in a search warrant to be evaluated post-ante at trial, and that's before we get to the continuing effort by lower courts to water down Brandenburg.
We don't know the circumstances, but obviously Kelly and his lawyer are fine with the outcome and didn't seek more. If they are fine with it, what's the complaint?
The only real modern example I can think of where blatantly anti first amendment abuse of the criminal justice system happened would be James Comey, who wasn't convicted. It's an incredibly weak indictment that basically every legal expert expects to get thrown out.
We don't know they're fine with it; we just know that they think it's the best strategic choice. Which is probably true, since they don't have a friendly administration on the other side of the lawsuit.
But there's another bit I'll highlight. The time from April 20, 2021 to February 27, 2023. Can you guess whether the college staff was fired for her speech longer, or shorter, than Kelly?
Well they said they are, so absent anything else I don't see why we should not believe them.
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