211–220 of 598 posts
When a state is against net neutrality, pro super PACs, pro hobby lobby/religious tests in employment, pro book banning in libraries, but wants to regulate social networks because "political freedom", their motivations are a bit suspect.
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Who cares that it’s legal though? You’re on their property, committed to abiding by their terms of service even. If you’re hosting a garden party and one of the guests has become disruptive to everyone else, are you not allowed to demand they cease their behavior or leave your property just because their angry ranting is not illegal speech? You’re totally within your right to say “I’m out, this party sucks anyway, yo…
Do you feel the same way about telephones? How about electricity? Is it out of the realm of possibility that a conscientious electrical supplier might not want to power a racist's computer?
> Is it out of the realm of possibility that a conscientious electrical supplier might not want to power a racist's computer?
Isn’t this the case that these same people are making for why ISPs should NOT be neutral, even though they’re much more like electricity and roads than private garden parties?
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Note that the First Amendment prohibits the government from being able to mandate any moderation guidelines whatsoever, as moderation is inherently a content-based restriction on speech.
My problem is that the government has found a sweet spot where it can regulate speech and surveil without limits through dependent proxies. It has no need to mandate moderation guidelines.
The problem is that no one filing these various cases against social media is properly alleging sufficient facts to suggest government coercion: it's that Twitter (et al.) are state actors because §230, or yappy politician said they should do this [1], or even merely arguing that First Amendment applies to social media absent showing of state actor just because. All of which are stupid arguments so facially wrong that they're not going to survive a motion to dismiss.
[1] While threatening legislation is in fact illegal government coercion, this needs to be understood on the same grounds as true threats: namely, it has to be reasonably believed and understood to be a specific threat, and not hyperbole or puffery or the like. Also, and there are some people who fail to recognize the basic linearity of time, a supposed threat made after the action in question was taken cannot have been a cause of that action.
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To what are you referring?
There is a "satire[1]" meme floating with some disinformation about book bans in Florida. However, the state is second, only behind Texas, in actual book bans[2]. Relatedly, the vague "don't say gay" law has a significant impact on LGBTQ teachers right to free expression -- straight teachers are totally free to talk about their spouses, for example, but gay teachers are not. Quite reminiscent of the "don't ask don't…
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What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans. The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me. Maybe it's just a sign of times changing? Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going surfing with his…
> What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their personal weekend plans. That strikes me as odd. I recall this happening many times. Heck, there were even several pairs of teachers who met at school and got married. One teacher proposed to another teacher during a town parade where many students and teachers were present. It's not like teachers dwel…
Even now, we know very little about the romantic lives of our son's teachers – and I expect our son knows even less than we do. Even when we do know things, it is through gossip among parents, or socialising with teachers – not from teachers telling the children about it in class.
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How would this even work on Reddit? Currently user moderators control all the user made subreddits. If Reddit now has legal liability does Reddit need to moderate All subreddits by themselves? That sounds impossible.
That’s partially true. Reddit assigns moderators to your subreddit as well and if you don’t moderate in a way they like will force you to remove certain moderators or even ban your community.
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> It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship. That’s an easy sign right up until you have to define “political prisoner”. According to some, people convicted of crimes committed during the January 6th insanity are “political prisoners”.
Political prisoners are people imprisoned for their speech and influence. A Jan 6 person could very well be a political prisoner, and since I'm not a Democrat I can't be sure of their collective guilt without actually reading about their cases.
If so, that is the clearest violation of the 1st amendment. A common misunderstanding is that there is no unfettered right to free speech anywhere, anytime, free of any consequence. The 1st amendment only guarantees that the government shall not impose consequences based on speech alone (with the exception of the crowded movie theater example or incitements to imminent violence). That is very different from a movie theater asking someone to leave because they are talking (which the movie theater is perfectly in their right to deny service to anyone)
AFAIK, all Jan 6 convictions have been for trespass, obstruction of government, assault, etc.. If you know of any examples that do not fall into similar categories, that would be extremely interesting.
They're doing it at the wrong layer. Make the internet a common carrier and maybe regulate AWS (etc) to ensure everyone can host their own websites somewhere. How can social media be a common carrier when it cannot be accessed through a common carrier? It feels like we're fighting to have our one sentence displayed among the ads, while giving up the ability to create our own webpages and platforms.
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The first amendment case law recognizes that protection for political speech is the very core of the First Amendment. It’s the whole point. Indeed, prior to the mid-20th century, it was understood that other kinds of expressive speech (pornography, etc.) did not receive as much, if any, protection.
First Amendment case law involves the government. If the government of Florida wants a free for all social media platform, it can create one. If they don’t have the technical aptitude, I’ll gladly accept a multi million dollar contract to lead the creation of one. Leading the development of large scale infrastructure and back end development is kind of mg thing.
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At the same time - this one move might make Florida accidentally the most progressive state in America.
The same Florida that passed a law specifically to punish Disney because they spoke out against the “Don’t Say Gay” law and passed the “Stop Woke” act?