Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by halfjoking » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:08 PM UTC

kayodelycaon wrote: post #90

RobotToaster wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a myth that it's illegal to yell fire in a crowded theatre, https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

It's not illegal to yell "fire", but you can bet you're getting charged for manslaughter if someone dies as a result. This isn't far fetched, many people have gotten crushed or trampled in a panic and died as a result.

The CDC yelled "VACCINATE YOUNG PEOPLE" using fraudulent data.

https://twitter.com/kevinnbass/status/1674920880219234304

I agree they should be charged with manslaughter for all the blood clots, heart disease and cancers they caused among young people.

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

#262

Post by GeekyBear » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

curiousllama wrote: post #251

GeekyBear wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s not so cut and dry, because believers in free speech can believe that the federal government and its employees should also be free to speak. If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment. Nobody is saying that government officials can't engage in other kinds of speech that don't violate th…

> If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment "Censor" is doing a lot of work here. It's important for the government to engage in public speech that may lead another person to self-censor. E.g., a press release saying "FYI: publishing your how-to-build-a-nuke guide is gonna help crazy people b…

> So the gov can def say things that would lead to self-censorship. They just can't be dicks about it.

The government is going to have a hard time claiming they didn't engage in coercion when they've been actively threatening to yank the Section 230 protections of the Communications Decency Act if the platforms don't step up the censorship.

>You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them.

Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-ex...

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

#263

Post by curiousllama » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:11 PM UTC

adfhbaidnioni wrote: post #257

halfjoking wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government can say whatever they want in press conferences or through their social media. Both the government and their employees have as much free speech as they want - and not only that but they spent billions of dollars for advocacy groups especially during covid. (which we know now was used to promote fraudulent science) The injunction says the government can't urge, pressure or encourage censorship. (yes eve…

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…

I post on Twitter "I'm gonna beat up anyone who disagrees with the CDC about vaccines!"

CDC views my post

Now, the CDC can't say anything about vaccines, because they know it'll be violently enforced.

The CDC ceases to exist because of my legal jiu jitsu

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

#264

Post by brasic » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

meragrin_ wrote: post #238

brasic wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I linked that in my original comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36616058

Perhaps read(or reread) it? There is literally nothing in there which "bans any and all communication among millions of citizens".

The targets of the injunction are the following agencies. The wording makes clear that all members of said agencies are in scope of the injunction:

HHS: 80,000

NIAID: 18,000

CDC: 11,000

Census Bureau: 5,000

FBI: 40,000 (double counted under DOJ)

DOJ: 115,000

CISA: 3000

DHS: 260,000

State Department: 14,000

Among the actions prohibited are communicating with "social media companies", defined in the injunction as including:

"Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat,TikTok, Sina Weibo, QQ, Telegram, Snapchat, Kuaishou, Qzone, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, Discord, Twitch, Tumblr, Mastodon, and like companies."

That list, especially given the "like companies" part, includes easily several million people.

Also "Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group".

What makes a group "like" those orgs?

The prohibited topics and purposes of communication are incredibly vague, basically anything contrary to "protected free speech", which has no definition in the injunction and is famously tricky to define in US law.

This amounts to a blanket ban from where I'm sitting.

If I were a low level staffer at DHS this would arguably prohibit me from expressing opinions on this matter to a friend or spouse working at a social media company, for fear of, for example, "encouraging reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech". The fact that that example is silly is precisely my point. Injunctions must be narrowly tailored to address the specific conduct at issue. This is so broad as to make a joke of the process and in doing so harms the free speech and rule of law that are at issue in this case.

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

#265

Post by curiousllama » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

I love HN legal threads because engineers have great (logical) legal analysis, but with a terrible (practical) understanding of the law. And every so often a someone with legal training chimes in like "wtf guys"

It's like watching a good software engineer try to build a circuit board without google: I see how you got there, but damn, that's... not gonna work great.

Idk the law either, though, so I can't judge

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

#266

Post by Clubber » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:18 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #218

Clubber wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All judges are picked for their political bias, that's how it works. Democrats pick judges who are more left leaning, conservatives pick justices that are more right leaning. To pretend it's just one way is incorrect.

...and before Trump both Republicans and Democrats when picking their nominees would pick a candidate that leaned their way and that the the other side could agree was well qualified and experienced enough to do the job well even if they didn't like the candidates politics.

In October, the American Bar Association rated Barrett "well qualified" for the Supreme Court opening, its highest rating.[115] The ABA confines its evaluation to the qualities of "integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament

The ABA rated her as well qualified. I'm doing to defer to them. I do understand your point that she had never had a judgeship before her appeals appointment in 2017, of which she served a little over 3 years in that position.

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

#267

Post by GeekyBear » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #255

GeekyBear wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Politicians demand censorship all the time, as is their right. Sorry, but that just won't fly. > A federal appeals court in Manhattan says President Trump cannot block critics from his Twitter account, calling it "unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination." In a 29-page ruling on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decision that found that Trump v…

Blocking isn't censorship; it does not prevent you from speaking. Blocking wasn't permissible because it restricted access by citizens to official announcements; it's like banning someone from coming to a town hall meeting or visiting Congress's website.

> Blocking isn't censorship

Trump was blocking those who replied to his comments with takes that were critical of himself or of his policies.

He was silencing critics.

It wasn't allowed.

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

#268

Post by snowwrestler » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:20 PM UTC

GeekyBear wrote: post #247

snowwrestler wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demands are free speech, even if unreasonable. The First Amendment constrains the application of the power of law, like prosecution and imprisonment. Which is not what happened in these cases.

> Demands are free speech When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech. If you recall, Trump wasn't allowed to block citizens who were critical of him on Twitter for the same reason. > In a 29-page ruling on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decision that found that Trump violat…

> When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech.

In other words, you’re happy to censor speech you disagree with, while waving the flag of free speech.

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

#269

Post by ch4s3 » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:21 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #260

ch4s3 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm quite aware of that, and you'll notice if you read my comment again that I specifically said "are special cases that don't qualify for protection", not that they should be a crime. Civil cases are actually a great way to address defamation.

That's the thing, though - they are still "protected speech" under 1A. That's why laws banning it get struck down.

If you're going to lawyer every word here, I'll be more precise. I mean immune from legal redress, not "protected" per 1a. Dealing with defamation via civil suit is perfectly consistent with a free speech absolutist position, which is my original point.

This is an incredibly tedious exchange, it seems like you're going to pains to find the least charitable interpretation of what I'm saying.

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

#270

Post by Clubber » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 3:23 PM UTC

hospitalJail wrote: post #123

Clubber wrote: post #2

Good news, now if we can just get rid of all the domestic spying and police overreach, we might resemble a semblance of a free society rather than an analog of it.

Given Apple and Google have the ability to record every word you say(maybe not store it for 300M people, but they can certainly filter it for specific words that could begin recording once triggered... "Hey Google/Siri/Alexa/Cortana"), the issue is that we don't want the US government doing it, but private companies can? Heck if you buy any IOT device with a mic, you should give up any idea you have privacy. I'm over…

>Given Apple and Google have the ability to record every word you say(maybe not store it for 300M people, but they can certainly filter it for specific words that could begin recording once triggered... "Hey Google/Siri/Alexa/Cortana"), the issue is that we don't want the US government doing it, but private companies can? Heck if you buy any IOT device with a mic, you should give up any idea you have privacy.

Isn't all that optional though? If I don't use gmail or apple's services, I'm essentially opting out. Also to this sibling reply, when was the last time Apple broke down someone's door, threatened to kill them, threw them on the ground, beat them up and tased them?

>If you are asking if we should spend less on spying, sure, but that could be my ignorant teens when I was an anarchist talking.

You're deeming the desire for privacy as anarchism? What a warped sense of perspective that is. When I was in my teens, we actually had privacy, because that time period was before 9/11. Perhaps you're just accustomed to being spied on and you're experiencing Stockholm syndrome.