Posted on 09/01/2022 3:42:20 PM PDT by DiogenesLamp
Under the First Amendment, the federal government may not police private speech nor pick winners and losers in the marketplace of ideas. But that is precisely what the government has done—and is still doing—on a massive scale not previously divulged. Multiple agencies’ communications demonstrate that the federal government has exerted tremendous pressure on social-media companies—pressure to which companies have repeatedly bowed.
(Excerpt) Read more at nclalegal.org ...
Corporations that carry public speech cannot be allowed to censor it. This must be forbidden. The first amendment must be made to apply to them.
Got another one for you Semimojo.
+1.
As agents of the state, it would indeed be a 1A violation.
Well, how else are they going to bring about their permanent police state they so desperately want?
If the supreme court abolished it’s very own contrived opinion establishing “qualified immunity” the feds could all Personally be sued into Bankruptcy.
they are outsourcing the censorship
they are saving a ton of money by using private parties to silence people
should help the deficit
Twutter is nt really bowing to anything. The FBI is part of Twitter’s founding.
At least you recognize that it doesn’t today. What other parts of the Constitution must we re-write?
I recognize that they are not being forced to comply with it as they should be, and it is just another example where constitutional law is being flouted.
I aim to force them to comply with it.
What other parts of the Constitution must we re-write?
Some weeks ago I saw a meme about someone traveling back in time to 1787 asking the framers to "rewrite the 2nd amendment as if you were talking to a child."
I can see that it would also be good advice to tell them to do the same with the 1rst.
Some people simply cannot grasp the intent or purpose of these amendments.
What’s simpler than “Congress shall make no law…”?
Is it really necessary to explain that the limitation is on the government?
There’s absolutely nothing in the text, legal interpretation or historical implementation of the Constitution to govern what private entities choose to do -or not do - regarding speech.
Is it really necessary to explain that private parties being agents of government makes it the government?
But that’s not your argument. You say all communications companies (well, except for those under some arbitrary size limit and those that you say are a club, etc, etc.) should lose their ability to moderate the content on their sites.
Or are all communications companies government agents?
You are pulling a dishonest thing here. You keep using the word "moderate" which means a very different thing from censor.
What they are doing is censoring. They are not "moderating." They are banning opinions they don't like, and it has not a d@mn thing to do with "moderating" a website, it has only to do with suppressing ideas they don't like.
So how about you stop your dishonest word swapping?
And to answer your question, I am coming around to the belief that when you get to be a certain size, you automatically attract the notice of the government, (or governments) which then forces you to be a proxy.
Or are all communications companies government agents?
It's beginning to look that way.
What do you think content moderation is?
It’s eliminating content you don’t like.
You may not like it because it’s not relevant to the theme of your forum, or you may think it’s spam, or you may think it’s inappropriate for children (who you want to be on your forum), or you may think it’s communist propaganda, or 100 other things. So what? It’s no one else’s business.
Those are all moderation and they’re all censorship by your definition.
But we all know you don’t really mean that, because it’s ludicrous.
What you want is for the government to bar private companies from restricting political speech, and specifically the political speech you disagree with.
And you’re fine with private companies, like Free Republic, restricting political speech because they only restrict the bad stuff.
You squeal when I bring this up but then turn around and demand that all communications companies be subject to government regulation of their speech.
To be clear, all private communications companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Free Republic, Truth Social, Gab, Blogger, and on and on censor speech. It’s perfectly legal and thank God they do because the internet would be an unusable cesspool if they didn’t.
Your notion that the government should prohibit private companies from censoring speech is anti-constitutional and completely at odds with a free society.
If people want to be heard there are countless ways for them to do so. If they need the government to confiscate private property on their behalf maybe their message isn’t as compelling as they thought.
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