331–340 of 783 posts
(Incidentally, the Ars Technica favicon looks very similar to the ACLU's.)
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…
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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.
> If anything this example shows the exact opposite with Flaherty sending indignant anger in the other direction. I don’t see how you got there. I see literal demands for action in the tone of someone giving orders to a subordinate.
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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…
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…
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I don't know that former government officials are the same level of problem that demands from (then) current government officials are. For example: > We released a list of 354 names Maine Senate Angus King wanted taken down for reasons like “Rand Paul visit excitement,” “followed by [former Republican opponent Eric] Brakey,” and my personal favorite, “mentions immigration.” For balance we also released a letter from…
Doesn't the First Amendment protect the right to say "I think this should be taken down"? (Side note: The Angus King stuff is a misrepresentation. The screenshots are from a spreadsheet - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS1PbfNEqDCK... - in which a column indicates how the account first came to the King campaign's attention, not the reason they think they warranted action.)
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…
It doesn’t work. In the time it takes to refute one lie with facts and data, the world has moved on and uncountable additional lies have been spread in the meantime.
Besides which. Both the people that produce the lies, and their supporters, are well aware of the fact that it’s not true. They just choose to ignore that. And any facts and data you are able to compile, will fall on deaf ears.
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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.
I don't see why one's judgment of the situation should depend on whether the government was successful in intimidating Facebook. What matters is that they tried.
The judge literally cited Biden saying, "they're killing people" as coercion, which is a bald-faced lie.
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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…
Free speech for citizens is important to me and I'm on no political side. This seems like a great thing to me. I don't want the government doing what they're been doing or doing it again in the future, regardless of who that government is. Ideally, these losers would have enough morals to police themselves or not do this in the first place, but here we are. Might not be a perfect ruling, but in spirit it's against go…
Likewise if the communique takes place via a memo.
You have a right to communicate what you please you don't have a right to have your thoughts carried by a particular site any more than you have a right to have them posted in the New York Times or relayed on Fox News.
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Is anyone on the right arguing for any speech restriction? Yes. Restrictions on what teachers are allowed to teach are restrictions on freedom of speech. Restrictions on non-sexual drag performances are restrictions of freedom of speech. Bans on calling for boycotts of Israeli goods and services are restrictions of the freedom of speech.
The restrictions on teachers you speak of are in their functions as employees of the state while performing their duties on the job on the employer's time. Employers setting limits on the conduct of employees on the job is generally not a freedom of speech, or first amendment issue. That goes double when we are talking about public employees whose conduct is directly the function of law.
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> Why defend them? Because a depressingly large percentage of people would actually like to see the first amendment overturned.
It's become quite rare for me to see people who defend speech they don't agree with, and rarer still any speech they find repugnant. It isn't liberty vs authority anymore; it's just team red and team blue. One might be wrong-er than the other but neither think people they hate should be able to open their mouths in anything but agreement.