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Orson Welles Skips Lunch: Berenson v. Twitter and the Future of Free Speech - Revolver News

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  • May 4, 2023
  • #FreeSpeech #Politics
James R. Lawrence III
@JamesRLawrenceIII
(Author)
www.revolver.news
Read on www.revolver.news
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A recent survey lists 25 of the greatest winning streaks in sports history, including tennis star Rafael Nadal’s 81-match win streak on clay courts, golfer Byron Nelson’s 11-straigh... Show More

A recent survey lists 25 of the greatest winning streaks in sports history, including tennis star Rafael Nadal’s 81-match win streak on clay courts, golfer Byron Nelson’s 11-straight PGA tour wins, and the Atlanta Braves’ 14-consecutive division titles. Atop this list is a winning streak with a deep connection to North Carolina, my home state, and California, the cradle of Big Tech. Starting in 1967, the UCLA Bruins, with Coach John Wooden on the sidelines and legends like Karim Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton on the basketball court, won seven consecutive national championships. In 1974, at the Greensboro Coliseum, which is about eighty miles west of my hometown, the Bruins’ dynasty met its demise, as David Thompson led the North Carolina State Wolfpack past UCLA in double overtime.

Big Tech enjoyed a similar string of success in the courtroom against plaintiffs banned from social media. Litigants from President Trump, to Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to Prager University have watched courts slice, dice, and toss their claims—all before discovery. A recent academic survey of 62 deplatforming cases found that Big Tech won essentially all of them. If you’re keeping score, that’s 0-62—as in 62 losses for users banned from platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, and 62 wins for the companies. Those are what Macaulay called “fearful odds.”

Speaking of long odds, nine years after snapping UCLA’s winning streak, North Carolina State faced top-ranked Houston, a team led by future NBA Hall of Famers Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon, for the national championship. The day of the Wolfpack’s stunning upset, a journalist at The Washington Post wrote that “[t]rees will tap dance, elephants will drive at Indy and Orson Welles will skip lunch before North Carolina State finds a way to beat Houston.” Lorenzo Charles’ last-second dunk created an unforgettable moment, punctuated by Coach Jim Valvano running around the floor in Albuquerque, New Mexico looking for someone to hug.

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Darren J. Beattie 🌐 @DarrenJBeattie · May 5, 2023
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Fantastic guest post by @jlawrencenc telling the tale of a rare and precious victory against Big Tech censorship
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