House Republicans turned off the feed to C-SPAN to block the public from direct access to the Democrat’s sit-in over gun legislation. The action obscured the public’s view of words and actions by House members on a crucial issues now under consideration.” Shutting off the cameras sends a terrible message to other countries with new, struggling democracies that you cannot trust your people to evaluate the actions of their government. Instead, it shows that even in the Land of the Free, censorship is utilized to minimize the voice of the opposition,” wrote Melissa Yeager for the Sunlight Foundation, June 22, 2016.
C-SPAN struck back by picking up Periscope live connections from Democratic House members and conveying them to its viewers. (Slate, June 22, 2016, by Josh Voorhees and Elliot Hannon)
With news of the sit-in cascading over the social media, the protest “sparked the hashtag #NoBillNoBreak which resulted in thousands of tweets supporting the protest.” (The Wrap, June 23, 2016, by Brian Flood)