I made a small donation to the Pacific Legal Foundation. I used paypal and it was very quick and easy.

Your link to R2B Smoke Free doesn't seem to be working.

Flavorah has the best tobaccos, hands down. I don't know how to feel about apparently kinda having the FDA to thank for that.

Actually, it was flavorah that did that. :) Sorry if you wanted to stay anon, boys.

Done. Though I have a bad feeling this is going to go about the same way that the public comments went for net neutrality. The proposed flavor ban is a death sentence for the commercial juice industry and for many people who might otherwise have been able to quit smoking but won't because their only option, unless they discover DIY, will be flavorless juice. Fortunately that ban has nothing to do with DIY, but the U.S. e-juice market will be completely destroyed.

bad bot

Unfortunately, while on some level I would agree with you (obviously I think exploiting or preying upon weak and vulnerable peopleis wrong, bad, and reprehensible) it is precisely that sentiment of getting behind censorship of those who do so that becomes the problem.
It is that which gives them their assumed authority and moral right to do what they're doing. They suppose they are in the right and they are protecting the weak and vulnerable from exploitation. They've fallen prey themselves to the false narrative being pushed by lobbyists and big tobacco companies that vaping companies are putting out wildly unsafe products while claiming they're so much safer than smoking. The narrative that vaping isn't really much, if any, safer than smoking. The narrative that kids vaping has become so much of a problem it will reach epidemic proportions if something isn't done, and that vaping needs to be tightly regulated with an iron fist to protect innocent people from companies putting out poorly designed equipment that's going to kill or maim them, these vapes are a ticking time bomb dont you know! And children are weak and vulnerable, we must protect them, won't someone please think of the children!

The FDA is being used as a tool to inhibit competition, erect barriers to entry that small companies and startups cannot overcome, and limit the vaping market to only those products that big tobacco chooses to put out - crappy devices and prefilled proprietary cartridges to soak consumers for as much money as possible, devices and liquids that will not be designed around harm reduction (they may achieve harm reduction as a side effect, but that will not be the design goal) but rather getting and keeping people hooked and keeping them as a revenue stream.
They will use the marketing to kids schtick against vaping because it worked so well when the states started going after them for marketing to kids. The sick part is that, once they've wiped out the vaping market and locked it down (legally) to only their products, they will still put out flavorings that appeal to kids and they will push the limits on labeling that appeals to kids, and they'll turn around and fight the government on labeling restrictions being an infringement on their rights.
This whole thing is nothing more than big tobacco manipulating anything and anyone they can to try to protect their revenue stream. They know smoking is dying, they are already moving to vaping, but they're late to the game and they know if they don't do something they will lose their revenue because the vaping industry has already established itself without them.

> I can get behind censorship of people and sites who exploit the weak and vulnerable

But then you must both empower and have a sure-fire way to eliminate the power (in the event of abuse) of some specific person or people to decide what concrete examples in the real world fit this description. And furthermore, you must trust the people and mechanisms that exercise it or have any real power to remove it in the first place. I think that's why the first amendment is the first -- no one can be trusted, and it's unlikely that any of that power will ever be removed, if conceded. Authorities will always have the power to extend it based on that as a general principle. And I'm even certain your definition of what is censurable is not the same as anyone next to you, so who would you consider right in holding the power to censor?

Actually pursuing those who commit real harms against others is one thing, but determining who should be simply silenced based on "exploiting the weak and vulnerable"? That's very vague and open to interpretation. And decided by..?

Call it pessimism, but that seems like a deep, dark path that would naturally suppress dissent, and engender conformity to authority, not to mention schismatizing thinking populations.

I don’t know. I think this sub is going to survive, just with unfortunate changes. But backing it up is important just in case. It’s a wake up call that subs can be banned without warning and when they are, everything in them is just, gone. People are working on using bots to gather the data, we don’t have to manually copy paste stuff. Where would we go to repost all that info if the worst were to happen? I don’t know yet.

Just noticed this....

Freedom of speech is guaranteed to all. An audience is guaranteed to none. A means to disseminate one's speech is guaranteed to none. Basically, you can, if you choose, walk into a public place and start shouting just about anything you choose... and there are only a few restrictions on what you can say. But there are still restrictions. For example: inciting a riot; 'hate speech'; speech that would likely cause physical harm to come to someone (the "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater" is the classic example); making physical threats;...there's a few more I'm not remembering. However, publishers (and the owners of websites are classed as publishers) are totally allowed to choose what they will and will not 'publish' (or in this case, allow to be posted) on the grounds that what one will not allow, others somewhere will. Now, if someone could show that all such 'publishers' colluded to prevent some particular legal form of expression from being 'published', that's another issue.