Letter: Middletown Elected Officials Censoring & Blocking Residents On Social Media

The expressed opinions or views of this letter does not necessarily represent the opinion of the MiddletownMike blog. 

Dear Editor,

I would like to call your attention to abuse of social media by Middletown Township Committee Members. When social media platforms are used for Township business, or under the banner of the Township Committee, then it is highly inappropriate to censor and block residents from commenting and engaging in dialogue.

I believe Township residents should be aware that Middletown Township elected officials are censoring first amendment rights and that this practice is not permitted. There have been numerous rulings on this issue at a federal and state level; residents should engage with the NJ State League of Municipalities as referenced below to review the bulletin published by them in the last month; and should report abuse of social media by elected officials at all levels to the contact provided.

https://www.njslom.org/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=141

Kind regards

Pauline Hynes
Middletown, NJ

Top Internet Sites Join Largest Online Protest Ever in Opposition to Pending Internet Censorship Legislation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT
Tiffiniy Cheng, Holmes Wilson
press@fightforthefuture.org
Phone: (508) 474-5248


The internet is currently engaged in the largest ever online protest in opposition to internet censorship legislation moving in Congress, PIPA and SOPA.

Three top-ten sites in the U.S. -- Google.com, Craigslist.org, and en.wikipedia.org -- have blacked out all or part of their sites in protest of the bill.

As of 10 a.m. ET, eleven top 100 U.S. sites are participating in the strike (site rankings are from Alexa.com). Wordpress alone powers 16 percent of the top 1 million sites globally, and all of those sites are being blacked out.

More than 62,000 sites have signed up to join at sopastrike.com. The exact number of sites that are participating is unknown at this point, but we believe 10,000 to be a conservative estimate.

The protest is in response to legislation (S.968) scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Jan. 24th that would give the government and corporations new powers to block access to entire websites because of a single link in violation of copyright law. The website takedowns would effectively censor hosts of legal, constitutionally-protected speech, and the bill is considered to be in violation of the First Amendment by several prominent constitutional scholars.

Ultimately, the fight against these bills is about more than web censorship. It is a fundamental struggle about who has power in modern society -- the people with the means to communicate freely or the governments and corporations that want to lock down control. Today's action, and the corresponding drop-off in congressional support for these bills, is a raw display of power for the people at large.


About Fight for the Future

Fight for the Future is a new non-profit organization that works to defend online rights and personal freedoms. Fight for the Future organized American Censorship Day on November 16, 2011, the largest online protest in the past 5 years, with more than 4 million people contacting Congress and companies like Tumblr and Mozilla taking unprecedented steps to drive users to contact Congress.

fightforthefuture.org
americancensorship.org
sopastrike.com