Posted on 04/27/2022 11:58:42 AM PDT by Red Badger
I don't care what is the opinions of courts. They lost credibility a long time ago. I am only concerned with real world truth, not made up nonsense from the Judiciary.
You and I may disagree with the courts’ decisions, but that does not change the legal status of Twitter or YouTube or, to bring things closer to home, Free Republic.
Free Republic is a club. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and so forth are mass communications systems used by the public.
I disagree. The intent of the First Amendment is that speech be not censored. The danger and threat it poses is just as serious if done by "private" corporations as it is if done by government.
The First Amendment applies to any entity capable of censoring public speech.
The case law on this is remarkably consistent and goes back to the early 19th Century.
Back on the courts again I see. I am reminded of what President Jackson said.
"The court has made it's opinion, now let it enforce it."
And then he ignored the court completely.
“Free Republic is a club”
FR is a privately owned forum, as are Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Your assertion that they are something different doesn’t make it so. Again, the First Amendment protects individuals from *government* censorship, not private censorship.
Comparing a lightning bug to lightning.
Free Republic is a small dedicated club. It does not have millions of users and It doesn't have hundreds of thousands of users.
Twitter, Youtube, Instagram all have millions of users and are defacto public communications systems. They are digital commons used by the public and they must be made to respect the rights of the public.
Your assertion that they are something different doesn’t make it so.
No it doesn't, but the fact that it *IS* so, makes it so.
Again, the First Amendment protects individuals from *government* censorship, not private censorship.
It protects against censorship of the public. Efforts to restrict it to government are wrongheaded and ignore the intent of the framers in creating it.
“It protects against censorship of the public. Efforts to restrict it to government are wrongheaded and ignore the intent of the framers in creating it.”
The First Amendment “protects against censorship of the public” *by the government* (Congress, originally and, via the Fourteenth Amendment, the individual states). Interestingly, James Madison thought that violations of the “natural rights” of the people were more likely to be committed by the states, not the federal government. He was unsuccessful, though, in getting his more expansive language circumventing abridgements of free speech by state legislatures as well as Congress adopted by those who revised his initial drafts. In no case did Madison envision Constitutional restrictions on *private* “censorship.”
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