Posted on 02/26/2020 3:40:49 PM PST by semimojo
Are you for or against absolute adherence to Constitutional law if the result is immoral?
You're big into government force.
What about communications companies in the billboard business?
Only when necessary to protect fundamental rights.
What about communications companies in the billboard business?
If they become so monopolized and so broad reaching as to constitute a significant threat to our rights.
But you are asking about an impossibility.
I'm against it and as I said I hope I'd have been resisting slavery back in the day.
Part of our problem may be that I don't consider the First Amendment to be immoral.
Now back to my question. What's your plan to get the federal government to force these companies to carry any ridiculous or disruptive message any yahoo wants to put on their forums?
You mean like Ravelry?
Does it have a million users?
So why aren't you resisting this? You seem to have no clue where this will go.
Part of our problem may be that I don't consider the First Amendment to be immoral.
That's a bait and switch. What is immoral is allowing public speech to be censored through a proxy dodge of the first amendment.
A government pressuring a "private" company which happens to control communications, is still government censorship of speech.
What's your plan to get the federal government to force these companies to carry any ridiculous or disruptive message any yahoo wants to put on their forums?
I consider any concerns in this regard to pale in comparison to the need to maintain the free exchange of ideas among the public.
I'm not even going to look at that as a problem until the actually serious problem is dealt with.
I'll assume it does, which points out how arbitrary your test is.
Even you couldn't believe that Ravelry is "so monopolized and so broad reaching as to constitute a significant threat to our rights".
Hardly a bait and switch. It's been the order of things since the founding and you're the one who wants to upend it.
It isn't a "dodge" to say the 1st A doesn't apply to private businesses. It never has, and do you want to know why?
It's because a private business can't silence you like the government can.
YouTube can't stop you from speaking. The most they can do is deny you the use of their platform if you violate the terms of your contract.
I've said it probably a thousand times but it doesn't seem to sink in.
You have a right to speak, not to have everyone listen.
Not when platforms become utilies.
then they are no longer private sector items.
Youtube, FB, twiter, google are utilites and need to be regulated like utilities.
Hmmm, someone needs to compare this with the 2016 Trump Campaign’s law suit against the NYT.
Seems like there are some similarities.
Youtube, FB, twiter, google are utilites and need to be regulated like utilities***
My thoughts exactly.
They crossed the line into entities that can be regulated like utilities.
And monopolies.
The merging of u tube and google ie alphabet makes them too big to get away with what they do.
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