Tesla Takedown Organizers Letter: “Democrats, don’t kill the tools we need to organize!”
Dear Senator Durbin and Democratic Leaders,
As the decentralized organizers of some of the nearly 300 Tesla Takedown protests in the US on March 29, we are writing to tell you to leave Section 230 alone.
Without this law to protect our online speech and communities from censorship, we would never have been able to coordinate our movement on such a scale. Instead, the social media platforms we used to share information would have deplatformed us, for fear of being sued by Elon Musk or his supporters. And the web hosting companies and tools we relied on to allow anyone anywhere to create their own protest would have taken us offline. Being able to organize online together is a source of our strength and resilience. Don’t destroy it.
Big Tech will survive 230 changes just fine, but the spaces we use for organizing won’t. In fact, people like Mark Zuckerberg want to mess with Section 230 in order to kill competition. Without the first amendment of the Internet, their competitors like Bluesky and Reddit will either have to bend the knee to the Trump administration and delete people and posts as he sees fit—or else, allow violent threats and intimidation against activists like us to rain down with no repercussions.
Please focus on fighting the encroachment of fascism and tech billionaires into our democracy instead of kneecapping the movement to hold them accountable.
Sincerely,
New Jersey organizer Adam Sheridan
Utah organizer Anne Findlay
Colorado organizer J. Mark Tebben
Oregon organizer C. Fry
California organizer Dave Widaman
Texas organizer Stephanie Frizzell
Florida organizer Jen Cousins
Washington organizer Darla Murphy
Colorado organizer Vivian Schmidt
Wisconsin organizer Barb Coyle
Illinois organizer Connie James-Jenkin
California organizer lgb
California organizer Joel Lava
New York organizer Carol Vinzant
Florida organizer Damani Hosey
New Jersey organizer Ann F.
New Jersey organizer Natasha Purdum
Florida organizer C E
California organizer Mary B.
Florida organizer Leo H
Washington organizer Carlo Voli
Pennsylvania organizer Morgan Boyer
California organizer Lara Starr
New Jersey organizer K. Connelly
Iowa organizer Joe Wallace
Texas organizer Paul V
Oregon organizer Rachael R.
California organizer Patty Hoyt
California organizer Katherine Anne Roark-Schwartz
California organizer RM
California organizer JG
California organizer Lynsey E.
Nevada organizer Annie Morrison
Florida organizer Tina S
California organizer Katherine Naff
Michigan organizer Pete H
California organizer Don H
California organizer DlGC
Virginia organizer LA
Michigan organizer WW
California organizer Christopher Bessenecker
Ohio organizer Jan K
Texas organizer Reece A
North Carolina organizer David F
Texas organizer AJ V.
Washington organizer Dani Bea
Ohio organizer Tracey Evans
Wisconsin organizer Pat Calchina
Wisconsin organizer John B
Minnesota organizer KB Linner
Texas organizer Tracy Adams
New York organizer Catherine T.
Washington organizer Evan Sutton
Massachusetts organizer Janet E
Virginia organizer Anne Carr
Virginia organizer Patricia Farmer
Maryland organizer LND
Virginia organizer Marilynn A
Minnesota organizer Bill J
California organizer Misty O