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SF Protest Against Twitter Blocking of Tweets To Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning

sm_twitter-censorship.jpg
Date:
Monday, July 08, 2019
Time:
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Event Type:
Protest
Organizer/Author:
Bay Action To Free Julian Assange
Location Details:
Twitter World HQ 1355 Market St #900, San Francisco, CA 94103

7/8/19 SF Protest At Twitter-Stop Blocking Tweets To Free Julian Assange & Chelsea Manning

Where: Twitter World HQ 1355 Market St #900, San Francisco, CA 94103

When: Monday July 8th 2019 4:00 PM

What: Protest Against Twitter Blocking Of Tweets To Free Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning


Twitter while not banning the racist reactionary lies of Trump has blocked the tweets of activists who are fighting for the freedom of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning.
This rally will protest the banning of Free Julian Assange sites and othe sites critical of US and Israeli actions. The collusion and collaboration of the owners of Twitter with the same US intellligence agencies that
have been involved in the very crimes that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks has exposed is not surprising. The real criminals of US war crimes in Iraq and the crimes of Hillary Clinton in overthrowing the Honduran goverment
are unprosecuted but the whisltelbowers Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are imprisoned.


Sponsored by
Bay Action To Free Julian Assange
Https://bayaction2freeassange.org
Endorsed by
United Public Worker For Action
http://www.upwa.info

https://classconscious.org/2019/06/29/protest-at-twitter-hq-july-8th-against-censorship-of-pro-assange-accounts/

Protest at Twitter HQ called to demand end to censorship of pro-Assange accounts

June 29, 2019 News

In response to the June 18th suspension of the Twitter accounts of classconscious.org (@classconscious1) and PhillipAdams (@Phillip Adams64) on June 18th, the Bay Area Free Assange Committee has announced a protest at Twitter HQ in San Francisco on Monday July 8th at 4PM. The protest demands an end to the censorship and the increasing move to censor pro-Assange accounts and protests on Twitter and Facebook.

As Julian languishes in Belmarsh Prison, the US Government and other governments conspiring to persecute him are well aware of the growing support for him around the world. It is in this context that moves are being made to sabotage the growth of this global movement.

On June 18th, the Twitter accounts of Phillip Adams (@PhillipAdams64) and classconscious.org (@ClassConscious1) were suspended without warning or justification.

The account of Phillip Adams had just tweeted that the change.org petition he began and manages had reached 150,000 signatures. This petition has become a powerful representation of the mass support for Assange.

The suspension of the classconscious.org Twitter account came hours after it had tweeted out numerous tweets linking to its article covering the global solidarity protests occurring between the 12th and 14th June – called out by classconscious.org to coincide with Assange’s most recent extradition hearing in London. The photo in these tweets shows the unprovoked, violent police arrests of two peaceful Assange demonstrators at the Melbourne June 14th protest outside the UK consulate. This intensified repression of the Assange/Manning campaign in real life is being mirrored online.

Classconscious.org after appealing their suspension was informed they had repeatedly broken Twitter’s rules but were not told which rules were broken and no specific tweets were referred to. This is a complete abrogation of due process. Phillip Adams is yet to receive any communication from Twitter justifying his suspensions.

Subsequent to these suspensions, other incidents of Twitter censorship include the suppressing of the sharing of tweets promoting the #Candles4Assange international actions to mark Julian Assanges 48th Birthday on 3rd July. Facebook also recently suppressed an advertisement for a public meeting of the PES, Socialist Equality Party in France. Other pro-Assange accounts report their follower list being purged by Twitter.

A line must therefore be drawn in the sand. We cannot allow pro-Assange Twitter accounts to be picked off a few at a time. If the banning of the classconscious.org and Phillip Adams’ accounts on the same day is part of an escalating purge of pro-Assange accounts by Twitter, then it poses an existential threat to this international campaign. It is not hard to imagine if these suspensions are allowed to stand, that, in the future crucial months of the battle to save the lives of Assange and Manning, more will soon follow. This targeted censorship will inevitably ensnare higher profile accounts, even @Wikileaks itself.

Just last week the high profile account of award winning US journalist Barrett Brown, and his associated organisation Pursuance, were suspended by Twitter. Barrett served time for his role in helping to publish information on the Stratfor leaks, (published on Wikileaks) which shed light on the way private security firms work with government to repress dissent. Twitter suspended Brown after he was reported by a far-right account which targetted Brown for exposing the role of private firms in the atrocities being committed in US migrant concentration camps and by ICE.

Brown was also accused of breaking Twitter’s rules, but they reversed the decision after a public outcry. The whole episode demonstrates how the seemingly neutral rules of Twitter are applied selectively and highly politically to remove high profile left-wing voices from the public sphere.

Free speech is needed to win this free speech campaign! We cannot allow such censorship to become the “new normal”. It must be politically confronted at every turn and exposed. Solidarity must be shown to all targets of this censorship by the broader campaign defending Assange.

So much of the international campaign to free Assange and Manning is organised online and via social media and, therefore, crucial to the task of building the global protests that will be necessary to free them both. However, the close cooperation, indeed the integration, of the corporate social media giants (Facebook, Google and Twitter) with the US military/intelligence complex poses a direct threat to the efforts to free Assange and Manning, and to free speech in general.

UPDATE JULY 1ST – @PhillipAdams64 account has been restored – @classconsious1 still suspended – Read full details here

Classconsciuos.org calls on all defenders of Free Speech to endorse and support the protest of the Bay Area Free Assange Committee (BAFAC). Please send statements of endorsements to BAFAC via their Facebook or Twitter page.

Individuals and organisations can also add their name to the Open Letter published by classconcsious.org to demand the reinstatements of @classconcsious1 and @PhillipAdams64 and all censorship of pro-Assange activity on social media.

REINSTATE CENSORED ACCOUNTS!

END CENSORSHIP ON SOCIAL MEDIA OF THE FREE ASSANGE CAMPAIGN

PROTEST AT TWITTER HQ

WHEN: JULY 8TH AT 4 PM

WHERE: Twitter HQ – 1355 Market St #900, San Francisco, CA 94103

Organised by Bay Area Free Assange Committee


Added to the calendar on Sun, Jul 7, 2019 11:10AM
§Stop Blocking Of Sites Supporting Julian Assange &. Chelsea Manning
by Bay Action To Free Julian Assange
sm_withbayaction.jpg
Twitter has been blocking sites that are supporting the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
§WikiLeaks Exposed Hillary Clinton's Crimes
by Bay Action To Free Julian Assange
clinton_wikileaks.jpeg
WikiLeaks exposed Hillary Clinton's crimes and now Twitter is blocking sites of those who are for the freedom of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning
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