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Injunction issued in case about social media pressure from US Government

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

#451

Post by AbrahamParangi »

michaelmrose wrote: post #328
phpisthebest wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Free speech cuts both ways. You have completely miss understood the purpose of the Constitution and the 1st amendment, the Constitution is the States and the People limiting the power and role of the federal government. The 1st amendment DOES NOT bestow or grant the US Government any freedom of speech, in fact it specifically limits the US Governments freedom / power in many ways by baring it from actions and activ…

We are all "the people" even when acting in our official capacity as government employees. It also doesn't bestow shit. It says our rights are self evident and forbids the government, which includes the judiciary, from stomping on them.

Yeah, no this just ain't so. You may in your personal devotion believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. If you say that in your private life, no problem. That's your freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

Now let's say you clock in to your job as Attorney General and you make it known that you think Christianity is the best and other religions are sad and misguided. Then we have a problem.

You have rights as an individual and you have official duties acting as the government but the government does not also receive your rights by proxy.

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

#452

Post by akira2501 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #212
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 not so cut and dry, because believers in free speech can believe that the federal government and its employees should also be free to speak. The legal theory at stake here is that all government speech is inherently coercive. But this is not necessarily true, or aligned with free speech as a principle of society. Any time someone says “we must protect free speech by legally enjoining the following people from sp…

> the federal government and its employees should also be free to speak.

They are. They're not allowed to speak on _behalf_ of the government without limit, though. In this case, it's pretty clear, that's what they did.

They weren't _personally_ reaching out to Twitter as a citizen and asking for posts to be removed. They were asking as _agents_ of the government, through official communications channels established precisely for this purpose, and they did it on taxpayer paid time.

> Any time someone says “we must protect free speech by legally enjoining the following people from speaking,” I am suspicious.

The purpose of their speech is to remove the ability for others to access platforms. They are not making any legal claims or starting any legal cases, they are simply using their power to remove speech from American citizens. They have no _natural right_ to do this.

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

#453

Post by mc32 »

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? ;)

Sure, in addition to all of their organs of dissemination, of which they have plenty of options, they can also have their own Twitter and Facebook accounts.

What they can’t do is ring up Twitter and Facebook and say, hey, that’s misinformation, do something about it. Or have government embeds giving guidance.

That’s hilariously very ayatollesque behavior!

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

#454

Post by mrguyorama »

causi wrote: post #393
Zetice wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What implied threats, what threatening tone? What position of power? If you read the examples cited, nothing even remotely comes close to a layperson interpretation of coercion, and I believe the legal definition is more rigorous, not less.

Therefore, the question is not what decision the social-media company would have made, but whether the Government “so involved itself in the private party’s conduct” that the decision is essentially that of the Government. The government asking them to remove specific posts and accounts and demote others is pretty clearly that.

How so? If someone asks me for something, and I have EXPLICIT LEGAL PROTECTION TO SAY NO, how coercive should that be to me?

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

#455

Post by calgarymicro »

shkkmo wrote: post #446
calgarymicro wrote: post #384

I wanted to point out several factual issues with this ruling, some of which I mentioned yesterday on another post. For starters, the judge severely misquotes an email: >However, various emails show Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits through evidence that the motivation of the NIAID Defendants was a “take down” of protected free speech. Dr. Francis Collins, in an email to Dr. Fauci told Fauci there needed…

> a nationwide injunction restricting the government from nearly all contact with various companies and nonprofits. Good thing that such an injunction was not issued. Given all the emphasis you place on paraphrasing things correctly, this seems to be a pretty egregious misrepresentation of the injunction.

Is it? Reading over pages 4 and 5 of the injunction[0], based on points 4, 5, 9, and 10, it seems government employees are now barred in any way from discussing any social media content or company policy protected by the 1st amendment with the companies or nonprofits.

> (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;

> (5) collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech;

> (9) requesting content reports from social-media companies detailing actions taken to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce content containing protected free speech; and

> (10) notifying social-media companies to Be on The Lookout (“BOLO”) for postings containing protected free speech.

As you'll see from my above post, the judge has a curious idea of what 'inducing' censorship entails (among other things: making public statements that might be heard by Reddit mods, who in turn take it upon themselves to remove links to content).

[0]https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.18...

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

#456

Post by root_axis »

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 quite ironic that you're castigating commenters for not reading the article as you confidently proclaim false information that reading the article would remedy you of.

> 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.

False. I think you should edit your comment to remove the false information or acknowledge that you are wrong.

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

#458

Post by mrguyorama »

GeekyBear wrote: post #253
ceejayoz wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you may want to look into and delete" isn't a demand. Politicians demand censorship all the time, as is their right. They usually don't get what they want, as they don't typically have the right to enforce their desires. For example: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9619449/Rand-Paul-b... > Rand Paul blasted Twitter on Tuesday for not immediately taking down Richard Marx’s tweet from Sunday in which he offer…

> Politicians demand censorship all the time, as is their right. Sorry, but that just won't fly. > A federal appeals court in Manhattan says President Trump cannot block critics from his Twitter account, calling it "unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination." In a 29-page ruling on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decision that found that Trump v…

>Trump may have wanted to silence criticism, but he didn't get away with it, even on his own personal account.

This is a misrepresentation of the facts. Trump was only using his "personal" twitter during his presidency so the court considered it his de-facto presidential account.

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

#459

Post by lern_too_spel »

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…

The platforms had a preexisting way to report ToS violations. The government made statements of fact about posts that violated those ToS. The platforms were free to act or not act on those reports.

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

#460

Post by ziptechnologies »

michaelmrose wrote: post #344
treeman79 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washington is incredibly corrupt. There is no limits to what they will do to stop someone/anyone from trying to drain up the swamp. Was shocking when my messages To friends on Facebook were being blocked. 1984 was meant to be a warning to the masses not a guide on how to oppress people.

You said in your other post that the vaccine was gene therapy and that cheap treatments were effective. I'm presuming you either mean Hydroxychloroquine or horse paste. None of those statements are true and because of them countless people died. The statements are worthy of head shaking now. During the pandemic they constituted shouting fire in a crowded theater. They are fundamentally unworthy of protection.

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