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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

#401

Post by evandale »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #314
brasic wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

lol I gotta say I've been trying to read the defenders of this and take them seriously but your incredulity matches mine...

.. and people are replying to you and _still_ defending the government and think they should have unilateral power over their people

I'm kind of speechless about how many people think this ruling is a bad thing.. like who in the hell out there believes the government should have OPINIONS? Can one of you reply to me?

It's as stupid of a concept as a corporation having an opinion.. opinions are reserved for PEOPLE and I have no idea how you could come up with an argument to change my mind on that.

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

#402

Post by TurkishPoptart »

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 list of individuals who work for the government are "hereby enjoined and restrained from taking the following actions a to social-media companies:....

(3)urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner social-media companies to change their guidelines for removing, deleting, suppressing, or reducing content containing protected free speech; (4) emailing, calling, sending letters, texting, or engaging in any communication of any kind with social-media companies urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech;"

Yes, this is a victory for free speech. The aforementioned government officials don't need free speech; we, the taxpayers, do. The government officials have proven they cannot be trusted due to their maligning interests to collude with Big Tech to shill for Big Pharma products. I'm so grateful for some of these federal judges.

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

#403

Post by stale2002 »

engineer_22 wrote: post #227
dogleash wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

-> There is legal precedent regarding chilling effects and government action. Please provide citation, I'd like to know more -> If you're not American you can't be expected to know that level of detail. If you are American, your highschool civics teacher was terrible. Please be kind, or avoid discussing politics. There are other opinions than our own, and though we may disagree we need to respect each other, I hope a…

It is a pretty well covered topic.

You can get an overview here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect#:~:text=A%20....

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

#404

Post by jp191919 »

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…

An interesting site if you are concerned about media bias- https://www.allsides.com/media-bias

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

#405

Post by stcroixx »

lancesells wrote: post #375
stcroixx wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree for the most part, but the only thing that keeps me wholesale from this is the idea that all social media posts are US citizens. What if, and I'm not suggesting it is, 100% of the posts in question where from foreign actors looking to disrupt the US? Is the government in no way allowed to step in? Is that even censorship?

In my view that's to be expected and I'd want no intervention from the government at all. I would view that as censorship. Gov. is not there to decide for me which ideas are disruptive, I don't want them or anyone in that role. To those in power, any dissent could be spun as disruption to their agenda.

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

#406

Post by ignoreCJR »

radlad wrote: post #390
ignoreCJR wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

"leans far to the right" is not the same as "is far right" > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

[flagged]

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

#407

Post by dragonwriter »

joshuamorton wrote: post #400
GeekyBear wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

That's not what the ruling said. Trumps actions weren't impermissible censorship, they were impermissible for other reasons. You can't just assume a court ruling was done for the reason you believe.

> Trumps actions weren't impermissible censorship, they were impermissible for other reasons.

They were impermissible as viewpoint-based censorship of a designated public forum in violation of the First Amendment, you are wrong that it was “for other reasons”.

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

#408

Post by DannyBee »

commandlinefan wrote: post #159
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…

> Why defend them? Because a depressingly large percentage of people would actually like to see the first amendment overturned.

Or, you know, because this is just a preliminary injunction, not a decision on the merits and evidence?

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

#409

Post by ahallock »

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…

Usually this happens due to political ideology. People will condone things that benefit their tribe.

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

#410

Post by stuckinhell »

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…

Because its okay when their side does it. Human nature at it's worst.
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