Animal Care Services Supressed Opposition to Euthanasia Policies
They hid over 400 comments critical of their policies.
Censorship of online speech is nothing new, especially for those who questioned lockdowns during the COVID-19 era. Usually censorship of individuals is executed directly by social media companies like Facebook, Instagram, or even YouTube.
But in this case, an actual government agency is censoring citizens. These citizens are critical of the agency's policies on euthanizing animals.
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When the public heard of San Antonio Animal Care Services (SAACS) euthanasia policies, citizens took to Facebook to express their dissatisfaction.
Starting in May of this year, SAACS began hiding and censoring those negative comments like the ones below:
ACS appears to be enthusiastic about its policy about dogs and cats, puppies and kittens, getting promptly “put down” as a way of handling abandoned pets. Naturally, not everyone agreed. But ACS just removed those comments as well.
At this point, the issue became the right to freedom of expression, and, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said, that there were some 400 comments hidden by ACS, 80% of which were critical of the organization’s practices.
FIRE then sent a letter to SAACS informing them of their violation of free speech and their duty as a government agency including warning them from restricting constitutionally protected speech.
FIRE also informed SAACS that they could not simply apply “rules” or “policy” about what they allowed on their page.
The letter from FIRE is actually pretty strong and provides a great guideline for others to use when government agencies begin censorship of their comments. Especially on Facebook.
You can read FIRE’s entire letter here:
While there are instances where domestic pet euthanasia is the best and most humane option, the real crime is censorship to prevent discussion about it.
Unfortunately, most of the laws that restrict government from doing these things have no penalty clause so local and state agencies just violate them with impunity. The legislators do this by design and with intention. They put penalties in laws that restrict private citizens, and omit penalties from laws that restrict government.
Years ago I fought the City of Grapevine over its "no pit bull adoption to the public" policy. It was in clear violation of the Texas law forbidding breed specific policies but the animal services admin and police chief didn't care because there are (to this day) no penalties for violating that law.
I even wrote a draft bill with appropriate penalties and presented it to Giovani Capriglioni, who brushed it off.
He did make a call on my behalf and helped put a stop to the Grapevine infractions, but he refused to consider putting teeth into the law to stop other local governments continuing to ignore it.
We are a throw away society and the least among us are those who suffer the most. One app that totally censors any negative commentary from being posted is the Nextdoor APP that people so often use to post lost and/or found pets. The total irresponsibility of people and their pet care shown on a daily basis on the Nextdoor pages is mind boggling. I have to wonder if they are as careless with their children as they are with their pet companions. Any comments that don't commiserate with the person who got careless with their pet and lost it gets their accnt disabled. You are only allowed to post pablum and desist from stating the obvious like we have coyotes, bobcats, owls and other predating animals who might make a meal out of their pet. Heaven forbid that a person is made to feel bad in any way or take responsibility for their pets. The admins on that sight currently have my accnt disabled for referring to them as Nextdoor Nannies. Go figure.