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Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

arstechnica.com

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

#361

Post by ignoreCJR »

dragonwriter wrote: post #324
kyrra wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

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

#362

Post by echelon »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #356

These are private platforms. They can censor whatever speech they want. They decide whether to listen to big bad government with an axe over its head or simply get their head cut off, right? I mean, they could have just chosen to be crushed with legal battles from the government, right? Free speech and free will in America, right?

I'd rather the platforms be treated as common carriers - unable to censor by themselves. Corporations having the right to censor is no better than the government. It would fix a lot of misalignment in terms of advertiser spend, too.

In a common carrier world, the government censoring private individuals would go against our first amendment rights. Pretty clear cut.

Ideally we eventually reach p2p social networking protocols. I don't want my interest or attention graph dictated or influenced by a third party. I want to be able to (de)weight and (de)prioritize based off of my own personal preferences.

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

#363

Post by cscurmudgeon »

roflyear wrote: post #355
cscurmudgeon wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rights apply to people not the govt lol Edit: Amazing, a perfect factual comment is downvoted.

I'm just saying there are times where you may want the government to be able to express opinions....

Yeah, and no one is preventing that.

There is a diff between opinion and force/blackmail disguised as opinion.

"You have a fine shop here, would be a shame if it burned down".

Syntactically, it is an opinion. But it is not just an opinion if comes from a mobster.

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

#364

Post by uLogMicheal »

roflyear wrote: post #334
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can't think of a scenario where the government should be able to express a thought about something? ;)

The government has plenty of ways to express thoughts. Almost every agency has a podium with a room full of reporters waiting whenever they want to make a statement.

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

#365

Post by themgt »

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…

The American elite's novel definition of "free speech" is that the bedrock foundation is the FBI's freedom to instruct social media conglomerates to delete the speech posted by US citizens and ban their accounts. If the government doesn't even have the freedom to tell trillion dollar companies who should be allowed to voice what opinions, the first amendment is dead paper.

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

#366

Post by ClarityJones »

codetrotter wrote: post #336
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…

> Society as a whole needs to be better at calling out the lies with hard facts and data. 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…

> 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.

Great point, free speech is bad. We should repeal the 1st Amendment. /s

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

#367

Post by p_j_w »

zpeti wrote: post #194
ceejayoz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something tells me the people here arguing that Flaherty wasn't coercive or threatening would be arguing just the opposite if this was the Trump administration. The Trump administration was doing the same thing. https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-tru... > When the White House called up Twitter in the early morning hours of September 9, 2019, officials had what they believed was a serious issue…

I think you’ll find, that except for hardcore trumpists not many on the right support trump doin this.

They never raised a stink, so I have to assume they, at the very least, didn't have a problem with it.

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

#368

Post by robertxlongo »

elishah wrote: post #329
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 ille…

If the government was just trying to police fraud, extortion, etc., then few people would have a problem. However, there is solid evidence that the government worked in secret to censor the speech of a Stanford University professor, physician, and epidemiologist. How is society better off when the government is working is secret to suppress the speech of academics who have opinions that are misaligned with the establishment.

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

#369

Post by Brusco_RF »

roflyear wrote: post #334
AbrahamParangi wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You can't think of a scenario where the government should be able to express a thought about something? ;)

They don't have enough channels to do that? They have to do it via veiled threat to a speech platform to delete users posts?

How can anyone defend this behavior? Just because it's your guy doing it? If Trump was telling Twitter to delete posts that hurt his re-election chances would you feel this same way?

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

#370

Post by p_j_w »

efitz wrote: post #113
afavour wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are they subordinate if they can disobey those order with no reprecussions?
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