What is spam? Clearly someone who repeatedly sends solicitous messages for their own financial benefit is a spammer. But, is a user who seeks to shed light on fraud in a public forum, addressed to public officials, towards the public welfare, and regarding public infrastructure / disaster readiness a spammer?
The First Amendment lays out several sacrosanct, inalienable relevant positive rights enjoyed by all Americans:
- The right to unabridged freedom of speech;
- The right to freedom of the press;
- The right to petition government for the redress of grievances; and
- The right to peaceable assembly.
There are limitations though. Can one utter fighting words that might imminently breach the peace or shout “fire” in a crowded theater? No. Can one lie, falsely advertise, or commit fraud for their own commercial benefit? No.
First Amendment jurisprudence provides speech which is primarily commercial much less protection than other speech. My speech is honest, truthful, regarding public concerns, motivated by love and my oath to provide for the public welfare and common defense, and addressed to public entities funded by taxpayer funds.
Some have said that I’ve been spamming my concerns about Gotenna and Twilio. I’m not invested in either company or their competitors. My concern and sole motivation is to further the collective public interest in a strong communications infrastructure so that the next time a hurricane or disaster strikes, the people of Puerto Rico, my mother, perhaps your mother, and other Americans will have backup communications options firmly in place to reach out and ask for help. I have no financial interest in this whatsoever.
So far, Gotenna and Twilio have dismissed my concerns, ignored my questions, labelled me a troll, blocked all of my accounts, deleted accounts on their forum and banned them for 1000 years; deleted threads and posts asking earnest questions; gotten my Twitter and Facebook accounts suspended; threatened lawsuits; and offered me a $1000 to be quiet.
Is this the behavior of a company you would trust with your communications and maintaining your privacy?
I have only two asks:
(1) Will Gotenna and/or Twilio put best-efforts to enabling 911 / 112 / 999 access via their sms relay or Emergency SOS features? ALL 78 municipalities of Puerto Rico are ready, willing, and able to receive text 911 messages. FCC has required this since 2014- but still no movement on the part of Gotenna / Twilio.
(2) Will Gotenna and/or PR Reconnects live up to the promises of their fundraiser (fully funded in 2017) to provide an emergency backup communications network of “300” gotenna mesh comms devices to Puerto Rico? Will Gotenna provide the necessary connection to hospitals as called for before next hurricane season?
If either of these are important to you, please kindly ask @gotenna @pr_reconnects @javierMBGJ (Javier Malave) or @twilio (Jeff Lawson) for input on whichever platform you prefer. support@gotenna.com
If you disagree with me or have suggestions on how to better achieve this, please consider letting me know why/how below or sharing your thoughts or advice here or via email privately at catsignal.us@gmail.com
The proof is in the pudding. This clearly is not the 300 gotenna emergency backup communications units that the fundraiser called for and they are not satellite sms backhauled to the local hospitals or policia. Ignoring 911 “Emergency SOS” messages when they could be quite readily delivered to any of the thousands of e911 ng911 text911 or text-to-911 PSAP centers is playing Russian roulette with innocent peoples’ lives with a blindfold on.
Quit the #BirdBoxChallenge ing Gotenna, Twilio, open your eyes. By refusing to allow 911, and discarding emergency SOS messages, you are creating an inherently dangerous situation.
Isn’t it our duty to shed light and to speak truth?
Fully enabled (or half-baked?) 