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

#431

Post by judge2020 » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #143

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…

> 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. This is not how a preliminary injunction works. The court has ordered that the governmment stop doing the in-dispute things until the dispute is resolved - in either direction - in court. The standard for such an injunction is n…

In particular, they need to find if there was any actual coercion or threat made by the gov't agencies to remove the speech they asked to. For example, when the FBI was asking Twitter to take down videos (of content that violated Twitter's own TOS), Twitter could've told them to go pound sand. But it would be a different story if the FBI indicated that Twitter "ought to" do it or face increased scrutiny, perhaps.

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

#432

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #421

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans have threatened it as well: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/502... S.5020 - A bill to repeal section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934. Sponsor: Sen. Graham, Lindsey [R-SC] you're now free to respond to the substance of the post you replied to: it was, in fact, a GOP controlled Senate which performed the action in question

Someone asked what the implied threat was to social media companies if they didn't comply with takedown request from the government. I said they (the government) threatened to revoke section 230. Someone replied with "well it was the GOP controlled congress," of which I replied that the Democrats also threatened revoking section 230. Just to back this up, the ACLU also warned against the dismantlement of section 230…

> they (the government)

They here refers to the Biden administration, unless you're alleging the Biden administration conspired with a Republican Congress to coerce social networks into silencing posts that Republicans themselves were in favor of

it's laughable on its face that this is a plausible threat, and the fact that Facebook totally ignored the "demands" when it suited them indicates empirically that there was no such implied threat they felt pressured by

indeed, Facebook, with knowledge of US partisanship, and a hand in increasing it, was best suited to dismiss such a bipartisan conspiracy theory aimed at silencing such speech a Republican Congress would never dream of silencing

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

#433

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:32 PM UTC

roflyear wrote: post #312

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 an interesting discussion: should the government be able to ask private entities to take down content? What if that content puts a family at risk? What if the WH thinks it does, but it isn't obvious to a third party?

What if the party that receives that ask knows that legally they can reject it with a "hah, no" note and the government can't do anything about it? Free speech is thoroughly protected in the US.

Are there any carveouts about how even government employees are private citizens when they don't work in government capacity. Can Amy from the DMV ask to have revenge porn taken down? Can Tim from the IRS tell his wife who works at Twitter that he thinks Elon is a liar and grifter?

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

#434

Post by ironmagma » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:33 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #423

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 freedom of speech isn't absolute, and whether "the government did a bad thing" is the very question being asked, to which reasonable people may disagree. With over a million COVID deaths in the US, there's a very valid question to be raised as to when emergency public health requirements take precedence over a right to spread misinformation/disinformation. Freedom of speech isn't of much use when you're dead.…

It’s been well established by this point that Americans do not believe their government should lie to them and that when it does, it damages the long-term effectiveness of the government at leading the people. This was a short-sighted move that ultimately damaged public health.

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

#435

Post by hoten » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:34 PM UTC

Half the comments here are saber-rattling at the title of the article, without the understanding that the title itself is an egregious mischaracterization. Yeah, the court issued a rule, but the layman's interpretation of "that means they found actual wrong doing" is not correct. It's just a preliminary injunction, apparently based on some flawed misinterpretation of the actual communication that took place [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36619241

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

#436

Post by shkkmo » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

brasic wrote: post #264

meragrin_ wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps read(or reread) it? There is literally nothing in there which "bans any and all communication among millions of citizens".

The targets of the injunction are the following agencies. The wording makes clear that all members of said agencies are in scope of the injunction: HHS: 80,000 NIAID: 18,000 CDC: 11,000 Census Bureau: 5,000 FBI: 40,000 (double counted under DOJ) DOJ: 115,000 CISA: 3000 DHS: 260,000 State Department: 14,000 Among the actions prohibited are communicating with "social media companies", defined in the injunction as inclu…

> The prohibited topics and purposes of communication are incredibly vague, basically anything contrary to "protected free speech", which has no definition in the injunction and is famously tricky to define in US law.

By "incredibly vague" you mean "specified with a detailed 10 point list over 1.5 pages with an additional page of specific exclusions"

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

#437

Post by mrguyorama » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

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.

Horse shit. Even people who swear up and down that they don't like Trump pretend he has done nothing wrong and the only negative press about him is a smear campaign by the wokestream media.

He's very likely going to get the Republican Nomination again.

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

#438

Post by JasonFruit » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

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…

If you think that's "pretty far to the right," I'd wager you haven't met many people on the right or spent much time reading their thought. There's a whole world of interesting political variety on the left, the right, and elsewhere that will never appear in the newspaper.

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

#439

Post by stale2002 » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

duncan-donuts wrote: post #44

safety1st wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, Nazis are really unpopular, so if we have a free market, Nazi hellscapes will be unpopular, too. This is a case where the free market is good at solving a problem, we know this because Nazis have been writing books for nearly a century, yet you probably haven't heard of any of them other than Mein Kampf. Whether we have a free market in social media is up for debate, certainly the dominant platforms enj…

This is the absolute wildest take I’ve seen in a while. How can any sort of free market ideas apply? Fascists operate by force. A tiny minority of fascists can take control over a much larger population through violence. Source: history

> How can any sort of free market ideas apply

Because people who engage in violence can be handled by the legal system and people who are merely engaged in protected speech can be left to do so?

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

#440

Post by Manuel_D » Thu, Jul 06, 2023, 5:36 PM UTC

brasic wrote: post #201

engineer_22 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-> Then tell me with a straight face that you think it’s a good thing for free speech. I'm just curious, can you tell us what you take issue with?

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.

> 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.

Except, that's not what's happening? The judge ordered the government not to contact a handful of companies, because it was coercing them into censoring speech it didn't like. A restraining order on a harasser is not a violation of the first amendment. This ruling is like putting a restraining order on an executive branch that was harassing companies into censoring speech.