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Why we are suing the Administration

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Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#331

Post by smt88 »

kube-system wrote: post #273
smt88 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you're sick of the First Amendment. Private companies have it just like you do. The remedy is to break up the big forums, not to take away the rights of their owners.

If we’re still talking about TikTok here, the concern is that they don’t have the right to free speech — that the rights on their platform is coopted by a government power.

I'm not still talking about TikTok. I support banning Chinese social networks or any network where China has censorship power (either explicit or through back doors).

I was responding narrowly about the idea that "free speech" demands that the US govt can force companies to choose what to publish.

Forcing a company to stop operating here is an entirely different concept.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#332

Post by smt88 »

brandonmenc wrote: post #278
smt88 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you're sick of the First Amendment. Private companies have it just like you do. The remedy is to break up the big forums, not to take away the rights of their owners.

> not to take away the rights of their owners Why not? We have granted ourselves the right to limit the rights of corporations. The individual owners can keep their individual rights.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that corporations have 1st Amendment rights.

You have to remember that "corporation" can mean any group organized for a purpose. It can be Exxon, but it can also be Planned Parenthood or AARP.

People who can't speak loudly enough by themselves have a right to organize into a corporation, pool their money, and speak loudly together.

You can argue that a business should not be both a commercial enterprise and a holder of 1st Amendment rights, but that's not what the law says. And anyway, it would be an impossible line to draw.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#333

Post by jayd16 »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #230
phkahler wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate to say it, but the terrific first amendment in the US only applies to the government. Companies and individuals can kick you out for saying things they dont like. There are laws against certain kinds of discrimination by companies, but those are not the first amendment. Just wanted to clarify that so we dont pretend companies are upholding constitutional rights on a regional basis. They are not accountable to it…

This. The writers of the constitution understood that if you didn't like doing business with a company you could just take your business to their competitor. If you don't like your bridge club or church, pick a different one. But if your government is infringing your rights, it's very difficult for most people to pick a different government.

>The writers of the constitution understood that if you didn't like doing business with a company you could just take your business to their competitor.

Is there actually something in the Federalist Papers talking about free market competition? I'm not aware they considered this at all.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#334

Post by Imnimo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #330
lmkg wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a paradox, though. If we say e.g. YouTube is not allowed to remove content, that's actually a restriction of freedom of speech. In particular, YouTube's freedom of speech. I'm not generally in favor of taking corporate personhood to logical extremes, but I'm kind of OK with companies having values and being able promote those values. Being able to promote some speech over others is part of that. The First Ame…

> There's a paradox, though. If we say e.g. YouTube is not allowed to remove content, that's actually a restriction of freedom of speech. In particular, YouTube's freedom of speech. Putting aside whether or not this is nonsense to begin with, it certainly doesn't apply to China, which is a government. A law requiring companies serving the US market to not comply with censorship by China is restricting what China can…

What's to stop the companies from claiming they just happen to want to remove the speech of their own volition? If the CEO of TikTok says he doesn't want "free Tibet" on his platform because he wants to be on good terms with China, not because China specifically told him to censor it, is that his freedom?

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#335

Post by krapp »

umvi wrote: post #294
dreamcompiler wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. The writers of the constitution understood that if you didn't like doing business with a company you could just take your business to their competitor. If you don't like your bridge club or church, pick a different one. But if your government is infringing your rights, it's very difficult for most people to pick a different government.

What if a Twitter mob follows individuals around and prevents them from finding jobs because of some speech they said earlier?

Employers have the right to hire or not hire whomever they want barring discrimination against protected classes, based on whatever criteria they want to consider relevant. "Person who said a stupid thing on the internet" is not a protected class.

A Twitter mob doesn't have any objective power to prevent anyone from finding employment. They do, however, have free speech rights which include the right to communicate with someone's potential employer and argue that they should not be hired. If literally every employer decides not to hire someone based solely on what that mob says, then (notwithstanding how ridiculous that scenario would be in real life) that's possibly a labor rights issue more than a free speech issue.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#336

Post by jayd16 »

ArchD wrote: post #116
badRNG wrote: post #28

Regardless of what you think about TikTok, the banning of an app in the interest of "national security" is largely unprecedented. The jump from banning Huawei from building critical public infrastructure to banning an app that hasn't even conclusively been proven to behave in any uniquely dangerous ways seems to be an intense, unjustified escalation of this conflict. [1] You may disagree with me on the strict securit…

Are you saying that CPC gets to ban Google, Facebook, Twitter & a ton of other non-Chinese online companies but the US government does not get to ban Chinese online companies, even in the name of fairness both in terms of trade and information flow? Chinese companies have to obey the CPC's orders that infringe users' privacy. Whether or not it is right for a country's government to spy on its citizens, the current ar…

I don't really want to be like China so "but China did it" is not convincing in the slightest.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#337

Post by nemo44x »

meddlepal wrote: post #255
nemo44x wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a feature really. It can be frustrating but the idea is that big changes can be made but not on a whim. There generally has to be compromise. I wouldn’t want to live under a system that can make drastic changes on a whim. The USA is a very multicultural place with many different people with different priorities. We need to find common ground before certain types of things change. This is good even if frustrating…

It was a feature until Congress gave in and allowed the scope and usage of executive orders to grow thus allowing the president to bypass congress in a lot of cases. Now congress basically acts as a defensive block to allow a president to enact laws err executive orders at will. Oops.

Yeah I think it’s time to begin limiting federal power. I feel like a coalition of Democrats and Republicans could come together on this.

Everyone being so occupied with national law is driving us crazy. Time to give more power to states and use a weakened federal government for some general oversight, monetary policy, and foreign affairs.

Decriminalized marijuana has been a good experiment in allowing states to make their own choice based on the cultural and financial needs that are unique to each state.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#338

Post by RandoHolmes »

lmkg wrote: post #292
hatchnyc wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have come to disagree with the sentiment. The constitution prevents congress from restricting free speech because it is a document written about what congress can and cannot do, not because the authors wanted to argue that restricting freedom of speech was a job that should be left to individuals and businesses. It is only in response to someone mistakenly arguing to assert their 1st amendment rights in a context w…

There's a paradox, though. If we say e.g. YouTube is not allowed to remove content, that's actually a restriction of freedom of speech. In particular, YouTube's freedom of speech. I'm not generally in favor of taking corporate personhood to logical extremes, but I'm kind of OK with companies having values and being able promote those values. Being able to promote some speech over others is part of that. The First Ame…

> I'm kind of OK with companies having values and being able promote those values.

As long as those values don't conflict with things like freedom of speech, I agree. But the second they do, there needs to be repercussions.

For example.

I as a consumer want to use Amazon because I've never had a bad experience with them. But I really really really don't want to be complicit in forced child labor because somewhere in their supply line is a company using it.

Think of it like the Overton window. Everything inside the window is fair game, but the second you step outside of that window you pretty much get destroyed or very nearly. Basically put the fear of god in them the same way the IRS puts the fear of god in citizens for not paying taxes.

I'm ok with you valuing your religion or women's rights. I'm not ok with you banning accounts of activists who are critical of the chinese government (zoom).

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#339

Post by president »

sudosysgen wrote: post #259
someonehere wrote: post #234

Radio Free Asia (unsure of legitimacy of this site) has stated China used TikTok data out of the Houston consulate (remember it was shut down by the State Department out of the blue and neighbors were filming the consulate burning documents in the courtyard) to manipulate the BLM protest narrative: https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3876672/posts “The purpose was to “weaponize” big data technology. It delivere…

Radio Free Asia has been founded by the CIA, and is generally considered to be a propaganda rag. Would not use it as a source, and if you can only find RFA as a source and not much else it's probably outright false.

Something can be propaganda but still remain factual. Agree that framing and bias can still be present but you can't just dismiss it as false without overwhelming proof otherwise you're just making a bad faith argument.

Re: Why we are suing the Administration

#340

Post by RandoHolmes »

Imnimo wrote: post #334
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a paradox, though. If we say e.g. YouTube is not allowed to remove content, that's actually a restriction of freedom of speech. In particular, YouTube's freedom of speech. Putting aside whether or not this is nonsense to begin with, it certainly doesn't apply to China, which is a government. A law requiring companies serving the US market to not comply with censorship by China is restricting what China can…

What's to stop the companies from claiming they just happen to want to remove the speech of their own volition? If the CEO of TikTok says he doesn't want "free Tibet" on his platform because he wants to be on good terms with China, not because China specifically told him to censor it, is that his freedom?

actions speak louder than words here.
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