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Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

arstechnica.com

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Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#551

Post by chipsa »

ceejayoz wrote: post #516
chipsa wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elected officials are not government employees. It is not, in fact, turtles all the way down. They may be paid by the government, but the government does not dictate when they get hired and fired. It's possible that someone may be both an elected official and a government employee, but that's fairly rare (something like: Congressman and member of the military reserve, in which case they're only a government employee…

> Elected officials are not government employees. The First Amendment distinction here being what, exactly? The President can chant "lock her up" but it's a violation if their FBI director does it?

Elected officials set policies. Government employees implement those broad policies into action. You can change the policies your representative is pushing by changing the representative. I'm a little unclear on where exactly the FBI director falls (because he's appointed to his job with the advice and consent of the Senate, which makes a difference for these things, maybe). A FBI field office head chanting "locker up" in a press conference would be violation though, yes.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#552

Post by AbrahamParangi »

staticman2 wrote: post #474
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t give a rat’s ass about the free speech rights of the government . Why on earth would I? The government is already massively constrained in what it can say and that’s entirely appropriate because the purpose of free speech is to protect the right of the weak to speak even when the strong disagree with them. You may disagree with the ruling but if you’re on the side of free speech, you should definitely cheer i…

" I don’t give a rat’s ass about the free speech rights of the government...the purpose of free speech is to protect the right of the weak to speak even when the strong disagree with them." That doesn't sound right to me. You basically just argued "The purpose of a right to free speech is to protect the right of free speech." It's circular reasoning. Why should free speech be a right? Out of curiosity I pulled up an…

I think you misunderstand what I'm saying.

The spirit of free speech is to protect saying things that are either unpopular or inconvenient to the powerful. Speech that is popular or convenient to the powerful needs no such protection! Even in the most repressive states you can still praise the party or the dear leader.

The truths that we need free speech to find are not the congenial truths, but the inconvenient ones.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#553

Post by adfhbaidnioni »

halfjoking wrote: post #321
adfhbaidnioni wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This judge thinks that merely publishing information that other people believe constitutes censorship. >Various social-media platforms changed their content-moderation policies to require suppression of content that was deemed false by CDC and led to vaccine hesitancy. The CDC became the “determiner of truth” for social-media platforms, deciding whether COVID-19 statements made on social media were true or false. And…

That is not anywhere in the injunction. You are taking a statement about the climate created by overreaching government demands out of context. When a government repeatedly makes authoritarian demands, it causes widespread suppression outside the scope of the initial demands. But that has nothing to do with the specifics of the injunction. Once again people should read it, and decide if anything in the injunction res…

[flagged]

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#554

Post by aksss »

brasic wrote: post #280
adfhbaidnioni wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This judge thinks that merely publishing information that other people believe constitutes censorship. >Various social-media platforms changed their content-moderation policies to require suppression of content that was deemed false by CDC and led to vaccine hesitancy. The CDC became the “determiner of truth” for social-media platforms, deciding whether COVID-19 statements made on social media were true or false. And…

Thank you. The real issue here is a small number of companies have become the defacto gatekeepers of a large amount of public discourse. That’s a major problem that this debate is just a symptom of.

It would be harder for the government to censor speech if their were more diverse venues for speech, yes.

But the real issue - the matter before the Court - is whether the government is abusing its power by directing the venues to stifle one type of speech and promote another. An injunction is issued when a judge deems the plaintiff likely to succeed on the merits, and the harm inflicted by the defendant’s actions in the meantime to not be redressable.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#555

Post by tdehnel »

michaelmrose wrote: post #328
phpisthebest wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Free speech cuts both ways. You have completely miss understood the purpose of the Constitution and the 1st amendment, the Constitution is the States and the People limiting the power and role of the federal government. The 1st amendment DOES NOT bestow or grant the US Government any freedom of speech, in fact it specifically limits the US Governments freedom / power in many ways by baring it from actions and activ…

We are all "the people" even when acting in our official capacity as government employees. It also doesn't bestow shit. It says our rights are self evident and forbids the government, which includes the judiciary, from stomping on them.

You're really mixed up here. This is the text of the 1st Amendment:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

When a person who works for the government is acting in their official capacity, they are the government. In that case the 1st Amendment prohibits them from abridging a private citizen's freedom of speech.

When that same person is acting as a private citizen, they are protected from their speech being abridged by the government.

People at work in their government jobs, using government equipment and email addresses, with government signatures are 100% the government, not private citizens.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#556

Post by leereeves »

rewmie wrote: post #544
leereeves wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see why there needs to be any coercion. The offense here is not against the social networks, it's against the people whose speech was suppressed. Whether that suppression was done with threats, requests, subtle hints, or an automated system, if the government's intent was to suppress speech, the means employed make no difference. Edit: imagine an extreme case in which a social network independently created an…

> I don't see why there needs to be any coercion. If there is no coercion then your complain boils down to others not sharing your opinion, both in the way they don't reverberate your personal opinion and in the way they express opinions you don't agree with. That's kind of the opposite thing you claim you're trying to achieve.

My complaint is about the government removing speech from social networks, even if they did so with just a wink and a hint.

And I don't understand the argument that the social networks' willingness to cooperate makes the government's actions more acceptable.

That's a bit like allowing the government to confiscate property without a trial, if the bank is cooperative.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#557

Post by AbrahamParangi »

jonny_eh wrote: post #486
staticman2 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" I don’t give a rat’s ass about the free speech rights of the government...the purpose of free speech is to protect the right of the weak to speak even when the strong disagree with them." That doesn't sound right to me. You basically just argued "The purpose of a right to free speech is to protect the right of free speech." It's circular reasoning. Why should free speech be a right? Out of curiosity I pulled up an…

It's also not free speech if it's only for some. The government is a very important player in our society, we depend on them being able to speak freely!

I just don't understand how you can think this. If I profess my religion in a private capacity, that's a rightful exercise of my freedom of speech and religion.

If I profess those same beliefs while acting in a public capacity I am infringing on the rights of others by favoring or creating the impression of favoring a particular religion.

You individually have freedom of association. If you don't like gay people, or Vietnamese people, or MAGA republicans - ultimately nobody can make you be friends with them in your private life. However, acting in an official capacity you're absolutely obliged to be neutral.

The government very rightly has restrictions on how partial it can be as it is the arbiter of our society.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#558

Post by tdehnel »

jasonlotito wrote: post #523
efitz wrote: post #131

This thread baffles me. There are a lot of replies that either didn’t read the article (or even the headline) that seem to be government apologists, or arguing that a particular email isn’t coercive enough, etc. A court found that the government abused its power and infringes on people’s first amendment rights by using its intimidation power to coerce social media to censor free speech of citizens. Freedom of speech…

[flagged]

So much writing. So little explanation of your view or specific critique of the person you're responding to. You could have just typed "Wrong. Do your research."

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#559

Post by Clubber »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #471
stale2002 wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so then we can agree that the gov definitely is engaging in illegal violations of first amendment rights! Looks like you agree with the judge here from the article.

Looks like you've still failed to articulate the credible implied threat Facebook felt from the Biden administration's requests, or how that ties in with the GOP-controlled senate bringing the CEOs before them: did they do that because the Biden administration ordered them to, as a result of Facebook ignoring one of the requests? It's a laughably bipartisan conspiracy theory, and thus nobody would actually feel threa…

It's been articulated, you just choose to ignore it.

Re: Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

#560

Post by ROTMetro »

efitz wrote: post #131

This thread baffles me. There are a lot of replies that either didn’t read the article (or even the headline) that seem to be government apologists, or arguing that a particular email isn’t coercive enough, etc. A court found that the government abused its power and infringes on people’s first amendment rights by using its intimidation power to coerce social media to censor free speech of citizens. Freedom of speech…

Now do this for everything. Don't allow the government to 'request' the information they have on you. You want information, get a warrant. The two must go together. Either it's coercion by the government to ask a corporation to do XZY or it's not.
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