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

#321

Post by halfjoking » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:25 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…

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 restricts legitimate government free speech. (it doesn’t)

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

#322

Post by shadowgovt » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

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.

And "people believe what they see on Twitter" isn't a problem the court can fix.

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

#323

Post by AbrahamParangi » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #212

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…

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. The legal theory at stake here is that all government speech is inherently coercive. But this is not necessarily true, or aligned with free speech as a principle of society. Any time someone says “we must protect free speech by legally enjoining the following people from sp…

Hiding regulatory threats behind “simple, optional requests” is so far beyond the pale that I can’t imagine letting them get away with it. Especially when the counter argument is that the government has inalienable rights to free speech. The federal government is not some downtrodden dissident in need of protecting.

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

#324

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

kyrra wrote: post #311

lordfrito wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, a WSJ article suggested the point is that discovery needs to occur here before a judgment is made. [1] Judge Doughty could have dismissed the case without an opportunity for discovery, as another judge did in another NCLA case, Changizi v. HHS, involving the same sort of censorship. Judge Doughty understood, however, that a largely secret censorship system can’t be evaluated under the First Amendment until afte…

While I agree here, I want to add a caveat that the linked article is technically a "commentary" pieces, not a news-side piece (aka: it's published on the opinion pages). But even given that, the opinion pages of the WSJ is just as fact-filled as the news side, but just highlights that the person writing it may not be a disinterested party. The Opinion Pages of the WSJ also tend to lean more conservative, while the n…

> The Opinion Pages of the WSJ also tend to lean more conservative, while the news side leans liberal.

As with most News Corp outlets, the news side of the WSJ leans pretty far to the right (it did so even before it was a News Corp outlet, though not as much), it only seems “liberal” by comparison with its own opinion section.

That said, unlike, say, Fox News, the WSJ news side at least makes an effort to adhere to traditional journalistic norms, its right wing bias is more evident in agenda-setting (story selection, devotion of space, and placement/promotion), and less in commentary and outright fabrications in “news” content.

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

#325

Post by klyrs » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:28 PM UTC

traviswingo wrote: post #315

There’s a difference between freedom of speech and education. The government did a bad thing. Anyone should be allowed to speak their piece. We need more people to speak up when those speaking the loudest are wrong, uneducated, and unqualified to speak on the topic they’re preaching. I get the incentive here, but it’s not the governments place to decide what we do and don’t say. Society as a whole needs to be better…

> We need more people to speak up when those speaking the loudest are wrong, uneducated, and unqualified to speak on the topic they’re preaching.

How, though? It takes a lot more work to develop an educated opinion than an uneducated one. There will always be more educated speakers than uneducated speakers. And do you really think that, during a pandemic, the best use of an epidemiologist's time is wading into the trenches and fighting every single case of "wrong on the internet"?

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

#326

Post by chipsa » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:29 PM UTC

snowwrestler wrote: post #212

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…

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. The legal theory at stake here is that all government speech is inherently coercive. But this is not necessarily true, or aligned with free speech as a principle of society. Any time someone says “we must protect free speech by legally enjoining the following people from sp…

The government does not have a "right" to speech, because the government doesn't have rights. Employees for the government generally have the right to speak, unless they are speaking for the government. If they are speaking for the government, that is not their speech, but rather is government speech.

Government speech isn't inherently coercive, but government speech telling one party to muzzle another, or else, is coercive.

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

#327

Post by patapong » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #91

doitLP wrote: post #20

> Doughty said that one Flaherty [White House director of digital strategy] message in February 2021 accused Facebook "of causing 'political violence' by failing to censor false COVID-19 claims." Flaherty also wrote in a July 2021 email to Facebook, "Are you guys fucking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today." Sure sounds like a relationship where the power only goes one direction and th…

But Flaherty specifically didn’t get what he wanted (that’s why he was mad!) so I think it’s misleading to say the power only goes from government to Facebook. If anything this example shows the exact opposite with Flaherty sending indignant anger in the other direction.

In my opinion thr government should not even try to influence public speech, irrespective of whether it succeeds or not.

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

#328

Post by michaelmrose » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #300

brasic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a blatantly illegal prior restraint on speech, completely at odds with the values the plaintiffs and judge claim to hold. Free speech cuts both ways. If you’re pleased when a judge bans any and all communication among millions of citizens, you don’t actually value the first amendment, you’re just cheering a partisan victory.

>>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.

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

#329

Post by elishah » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

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…

> Freedom of speech is literally the first thing in the Bill of Rights.

Not necessarily talking about this injunction in particular, but I would like to address this argument. Yes, freedom of speech is very clearly expressed in the Constitution. But there are limits and exceptions to every right in the Constitution, certainly including speech.

There are many things that are indisputably "speech" and yet are also illegal: fraud, extortion, libel, slander, perjury, threats, impersonating a doctor or law enforcement officer, etc.

I think it would be difficult to make a case that our society would be better off if we defined free speech in so broad and absolutist a sense as to permit all of these. So our evaluation of any particular issue must be more complex than "it's speech, therefore it is always automatically okay."

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

#330

Post by lelanthran » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

brasic wrote: post #167

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…

Read the entire injunction. It’s only seven pages. Then tell me with a straight face that you think it’s a good thing for free speech. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.18... It amounts to “no one from these 8 government agencies may communicate with anyone working at these three non profits, 20 social media companies or any similar organization” I’m not defending the behavior alleged here but…

> A supporter of free speech should be horrified by this ruling. If you’re not, imagine an injunction of similar scope where the political sides were reversed.

Governments don't get free speech. They get all sorts of restrictions on them that citizens don't.