Posted on 08/13/2018 11:53:11 AM PDT by yesthatjallen
Twitter is asking an appellate court to immediately review a trial judge's decision allowing white nationalist Jared Taylor to proceed with a lawsuit alleging that he was wrongly banned from the microblogging service.
"Twitter’s decisions on what or whose content to distribute are quintessential editorial judgments protected by the First Amendment," the company writes in legal papers filed this week in California's First Appellate District. "A private-sector communications platform cannot be compelled to disseminate a message it finds objectionable solely because its decision to exclude the message would deprive another of a private platform from which to speak."
The company is seeking to appeal a recent ruling by Judge Harold Kahn in San Francisco, who refused to dismiss Taylor's claims that he was wrongly discriminated against by Twitter based on his political views.
Last December, soon after Twitter announced a crackdown on "violent extremist groups," the company permanently suspended Taylor and his publication, American Renaissance. Two months later, Taylor sued Twitter over the bans. He claimed that the account suspensions violated several California laws, including one dealing with unfair business practices.
Twitter asked Kahn to dismiss the case at an early stage under California's anti-SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) law, which aims to protect free speech about matters of public importance. Twitter argued that its First Amendment right to decide what content to allow on its platform was threatened by Taylor's suit.
Kahn said at the conclusion of a hearing in June that he planned to reject Twitter's bid to dismiss the matter immediately. The company had argued at that hearing that it has the right to suspend accounts for any reason.
During the hearing, Kahn questioned Twitter's lawyer about whether that position was consistent with prior statements by executives who had previously called the company the "free speech wing of the free speech party."
Kahn added that Twitter's position that it can suspend accounts at will may be "unconscionable," or too unfair to be enforceable.
The company is now asking an appellate court to review Kahn's decision, and to stay all proceedings pending appeal.
Twitter specifically argues that its terms -- including its reservation of the right to ban users -- are not unconscionable, given that its service is free.
"Twitter’s ability to provide a communications service for free depends in part on its ability to include in its standardized user agreement 'provisions and protections' such as the one at issue here," the company writes. "Such contract terms eliminate or control costs of doing business that Twitter would otherwise face -- for example, by ensuring that it does not have to litigate every decision it makes about who can use its platform."
The company adds that Taylor and his publication received the "benefit of their bargain."
"They were permitted to use Twitter for years without ever having to pay any fee," the company says, adding that Taylor used the platform to build a business by driving traffic to his sites.
Earlier this year, a different judge -- Kimberly Gaab in Fresno County -- threw out a lawsuit against Twitter by right-wing activist Charles Johnson, who was banned from the service in 2015. Gaab said in a "tentative ruling" that Twitter has the right to decide what speech to allow on its platform.
Twitter's newest filing comes the same week that the company is facing questions about its decision to allow right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to continue using the platform. Other major tech companies, including YouTube, Facebook and Apple, have removed at least some of Jones' material from their platforms over alleged policy violations.
Just bake the damn cake!
At some point a private service becomes a public utility.
This is the same as Ma Bell of the 1960s deciding you don’t get to have a phone line because they don’t like what you say.
Same for fb (unless they put themselves out of business). I deleted my fb account recently. If my family wants to talk to me they can email me. I neer had a twitter account much less all the whateverchats.
Free to speak the Party’s line, nothing more!
“A private-sector communications platform “
Using the internet whose invention and application was paid for by the taxpayers of this great nation.
Th legal risk I see to Twitter and similar outlets here is that each appears to have offered an implicit unilateal contract of essentially being a free speech service but has now chosen to start censoring viewpoints of those who accepted their offer. That’s a lot different than FR or DU where the ideological orientation is totally open and those who disagree can expect to be banned.
So what changed?
Is Twitter saying Mr. Taylor can rejoin Twitter if pays a fee?
When you help facilitate the Arab Spring, you’re no longer private sector.
Sorry, Lefties. Your love of lawyers is about to come back and bit you in the arse.
These media companies cannot simultaneously claim the right to ban anyone for content they disapprove of (which I support), and also claim they are not responsible for what IS posted on their site (bullsh!t to every thinking person).
It has to be one or the other. Either they are a publisher or they are not.
And they have built their very own Catch-22.
“Just bake the damn cake!”
Game
Set
Match
zing. Good point.
"We're just a little old "private" free speech outfit - with more money than Iran."
Call them ‘White Globalist’ please.
Soap box.
Ballot box.
Jury box.
Ammo box.
I wouldn’t wanna limit our options to just the last one.
The problem for Twitter is that a “common carrier” cannot discriminate against content, as it claims the right to do.
This runs directly counter to their assertion of common carrier status as the core reason they should not be held liable for the content provided through the service.
One or the other will give. “Schroedinger’s Common Carrier” is not a business model.
Anyone can buy stock in Twitter, ticker acronym ‘TWTR’. It is a PUBLICLY traded company! Yet they claim they are private? TOTAL BS!!!
Jones and Taylor were on Twitter for awhile and all of a sudden something changed.
What changed?
That ship sailed when a Federal judge determined that President Trump could not block people he disliked from viewing his Tweets or posting replies on his Twitter account. On May 28, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald said in her ruling that Trump is violating the U.S. Constitution by preventing certain Americans from viewing his tweets on @realDonaldTrump.
The social media platform, Buchwald said, is a “designated public forum” from which Trump cannot exclude individual plaintiffs. She rejected an argument by the Justice Department that the president had a right to block Twitter followers because of his “associational freedoms.”
That being the case, I don’t see how Twitter can block or ban anyone they disagree with on political grounds. We are in a new era. Companies like Facebook and Twitter are indeed private companies, but so are restaurants, bars, hotels, etc. The issues obviously touch on free speech, but they also touch on the laws governing public accommodations and how businesses treat customers and patrons they disagree with. Leftists can’t have it both ways — although they will certainly keep trying.
It’s going to take a long time to iron out all the questions and ramifications, but one thing that is simply not going to fly in the long term is the idea that Leftist gatekeepers in these businesses will continue to be allowed to delete, shadowban, or otherwise ignore content and opinions that disagree with their political views.
Twitter and Facebook need to wake up and smell the coffee. If they don’t make changes on their own, President might direct the Federal Communications Commission to arbitrarily impose rules that they won’t like. Alternatively, some court will step up and make them. And the Leftists might want to consider that Conservatives can go forum shopping for sympathetic judges just as easily as they can.
It would seem that the Judge did not buy the frivolous attempt to use anti-SLAPP laws designed to protect free speech laws as a defense against a suit to protect free speech
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