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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

#671

Post by firstlink »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #352
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…

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” Except that it doesn't say that. It's quite clear that such communication is still perfectly fine when it's for normal gov't operations; I'll quote it below[1]. The folks objecting to this don't make much sense to me. The injunction forbids the g…

> The folks objecting to this don't make much sense to me. The injunction forbids the gov't from doing the things that the plaintiff complains about. If the gov't isn't currently misbehaving, then the injunction is a No-Op: the government's claimed current state of doing nothing wrong will just continue as is (putatively) already is.

The argument being pushed is "The government didn't do those things and it's a good thing that it did." Makes perfect sense to me, in the correct context about the ideology of those pushing it.

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

#672

Post by unyttigfjelltol »

DannyBee wrote: post #578
ndr wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition" https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.18...

I'm not sure what you think this changes about what I said. It's literally not a merits decision. There are even plenty of times they get issued and dissolved days later.

"Temporary restraining orders" (TROs) are extremely preliminary. This is not a TRO.

This is a "preliminary injunction" (PI). A PI is a different phase of the case. Granting a PI is extremely an significant and consequential action by the judge. Think about it this way-- if the judge is right and conservative voices were suppressed-- the PI has the potential to change the political landscape in which the legal challenge occurs. So, in addition to the judge signaling that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in getting permanent relief, in the meantime the judge also is tipping the playing field in their favor to undo the irremediable harms that are the subject of the litigation.

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

#673

Post by nobody9999 »

curiousllama wrote: post #251
GeekyBear wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment. Nobody is saying that government officials can't engage in other kinds of speech that don't violate th…

> If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment "Censor" is doing a lot of work here. It's important for the government to engage in public speech that may lead another person to self-censor. E.g., a press release saying "FYI: publishing your how-to-build-a-nuke guide is gonna help crazy people b…

>If gov speech is inherently coercive, then the gov is NOT allowed to make that request. (which feels dumb to me) In reality, it's more likely a court would hold they can say that; they just can't imprison the publisher (or audit their taxes more aggressively) as a result.

Governments absolutely can be coercive, but that doesn't mean all government speech is coercive.

Claiming (you're not, just expanding on your point) that government speech is inherently coercive is ridiculous on its face.

My local government sends me a "voter guide" a couple months before every election. By that logic, that means the government is coercing me to vote.

CISA[0] sends me multiple emails a day telling me to apply patches or mitigations to address vulnerabilities/security issues.

CISA is a government agency. By that logic, by doing the above, they are coercing me to manage my private property to their whim.

The CIA is a government agency. Their "World Fact Book"[1] argues against travel to certain destinations. By that logic, they're coercing people to only travel where the CIA wants you to travel.

There are hundreds (thousands?) of other examples of government speech that isn't coercive. Was there coercion WRT communications between the government and social media companies? I have no idea as I don't know all the facts of the case. And neither does anyone posting in this thread.

If the government was coercive, then let's (metaphorically) put them up against the wall to be shot. If not, then let's do it for real. /s

[0] https://www.cisa.gov/

[1] https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/

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

#674

Post by aksss »

shadowgovt wrote: post #597
aksss wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the Court is not muzzling the government in the sense of prohibiting their public message. The court is enjoining their method of influencing public debate - that they were/are preventing what you say from being published based on its content. Prohibiting unlawful orders is not an abridgment of an authority’s “free speech”.

Nothing the government was doing is preventing what I say from being published based on its content because (a) I left Twitter ages ago (on account of it being a hole) and (b) I have no right to post on Twitter in the first place.

I'm not sure why this needs to be said, but "you" in this context is conceptually an abstraction of the private citizen. Maybe @shadowgovt the individual never says a word that the establishment would disapprove of, but don't count on that always being the case, and certainly don't expect others to fall in line in that regard. Is it your opinion that the government should have such power - specifically to, without officially commandeering/nationalizing the companies, to direct them to censor disfavored non-criminal speech?

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

#675

Post by shadowgovt »

aksss wrote: post #674
shadowgovt wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing the government was doing is preventing what I say from being published based on its content because (a) I left Twitter ages ago (on account of it being a hole) and (b) I have no right to post on Twitter in the first place.

I'm not sure why this needs to be said, but "you" in this context is conceptually an abstraction of the private citizen. Maybe @shadowgovt the individual never says a word that the establishment would disapprove of, but don't count on that always being the case, and certainly don't expect others to fall in line in that regard. Is it your opinion that the government should have such power - specifically to, without of…

I personally believe the government can certainly pass information on to private corporations and then the private corporations can then choose what to do.

Whether the situation went past that is what this court case would be about, and nothing has been decided on that topic yet.

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

#676

Post by nobody9999 »

brightlancer wrote: post #661
npunt wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI the purpose of an entire branch of government (judiciary) is to have opinions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_opinion

Judicial opinions != Personal opinions It ain't the same ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same freakin' sport. Equating the two is like equating a sea sponge and a dish sponge. "Well, they're both sponges!"

>Equating the two is like equating a sea sponge and a dish sponge. "Well, they're both sponges!"

Actually, they can[0] be. In fact, I use sea sponges as dish sponges every single day.

[0] https://www.naturalbathbody.com/natural-sea-sponges/

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

#677

Post by krapp »

ajkjk wrote: post #521
krapp wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you've seen enough threads derail, go unhinged and burst into flames at the mere mention of his name, it makes sense.

Seems like "TFG" made it kinda derail here instead.

You're damned if you do here, and damned if you don't.

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

#678

Post by tdehnel »

staticman2 wrote: post #579
tdehnel wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a constitutional perspective (which is the perspective Supreme Court Justices swear to have), the ability of the government to limit speech is not allowed. Full stop. Sources below. First Amendment to the Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peace…

"From a constitutional perspective (which is the perspective Supreme Court Justices swear to have), the ability of the government to limit speech is not allowed. Full stop. Sources below." The Supreme court has never said anything like what you just typed in 200+ years of american history. Do you type this every day, constantly knashing you teeth at the existence of trade secret laws, copyright laws, libel laws, and…

Wow what a jerk. I'm going off the Constitutional Oath, which all judges take. Obviously they use judicial discretion but be charitable for a second and at least try to understand my point, which is that deviating from what the Constitution says is the very rare exception, not the rule.

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

#679

Post by tdehnel »

michaelmrose wrote: post #619
tdehnel wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really mixed up here. This is the text of the 1st Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." When a person who works for the government is acting in their official capaci…

They don't cease to be people nor to have rights. How did you think all those cases go where a government employee sues the government for infringing on your rights. Judge: Sorry you aren't a person again until you clock out neeeext!.

That is a logically different scenario from a government employee (acting in their official capacity) infringing the rights of a private citizen.

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

#680

Post by p_j_w »

didntcheck wrote: post #665
p_j_w wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Is a demand not still inappropriate even if it's correctly rebuffed? If I ask for someone to violate policy at work and they refuse, I can still expect I might be investigated on the basis of the attempt I mean, sure, in terms of jurisprudence here the lack of actual tort may indeed mean that there is no legal outcome, but evidence a desire to do something is a pretty good justification for investigating if there wer…

Maybe, but calling them a subordinate is still misleading as fuck.
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