If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?

Twitter ^ | 7:24 PM · Dec 2, 2022 | Elon Musk

[Eleutheria5]

You’re undermining demoncrazy.

[Political Junkie Too]

The FBI reaching out to Facebook wasn't a political campaign doing it.

We can assume that if the FBI reached out to Facebook like Zuckerberg said, they also reached out to Twitter.

-PJ

[yldstrk]

What the eff is a substack

[Irenic]

nothing. Nothing will happen.

[quikstrike98]

James Woods was on FIRE last night on Tucker Carlson. “The government of the United States conspired to take my free speech and throw it in the GUTTER”.

Lotta that going around, James. The graves of patriots going back over 2 centuries scream for justice.

[Political Junkie Too]

1. The DNC and the Biden Campaign Teams are not government, right?

No, but the FBI is. Zuckerberg already publicly said the FBI reached out to Facebook, so we can assume they also reached out to Twitter.

2. Twitter is a privately owned company, correct?

If Twitter acted solely at its own discretion, it might not rise to the level of an unconstitutional 1st amendment violation.

Also, if Twitter applied its rules evenly and blindly to ideology, it wouldn't rise to the level of 1st amendment.

But when these companies are skirting very close to the edge of public utilities, and have special carve-outs in federal regulations that allow them the freedom to operate (47 U.S.C. § 230), they should be operating with the attitude of "abundance of caution" to the spirit of the legislation, which they did not do.

3. Is this a first amendment issue or is it a matter of corruption? Both?

If they are acting as an agent of the federal government as a cutout intended to bypass the 1st amendment, then it is a violation of the 1st amendment by the government. Twitter would be a co-conspirator in the unconstitutional activity.

-PJ

[Aeneas2112]

There will be plenty of people who don’t understand that if it wasn’t an *official* act of the government, then the first amendment doesn’t apply. Often the same jackwagons who have no idea as to the formal and strict definition of ‘Treason’.

[Mathews]

Thank you very much!!!!

[elpadre]

“... since this happened while Trump was president...”

Yes, and Trump was the target. This was all part of a wide-ranging anti-Trump conspiracy. Trump represented everything to which they were opposed!

[ClearCase_guy]

Yes.

And the trick is to successfully argue that the “wide-ranging anti-Trump conspiracy” — AKA “the Deep State” — IS the government. And that when Twitter “handled” people who posted about Hunter Biden’s laptop — at the direction of “Biden’s people” — this SHOULD be seen as “government censorship in violation of the First Amendment”.

My worry is that we live in a world in which the government attempts to go one way and the Deep State secretly goes another way. And the Deep State is actually more powerful and more effective — but less accountable because [shrug] it’s not “the government” and so they can get away with absolutely anything.

This is a problem.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Yes you do.

Lying just comes naturally to you.

[joshua c]

the difference is whether a crime was committed

but both are still wrong

[Thilly Thailor]

Technically it’s a political campaign asking, not the government. It’s definitely chilling speech though. It’s hard to say whether this is a loophole the Dems legally exploited.

True, but it clearly was the DNC at the center of a large spider web. It was obviously a conspiracy to commit crimes. So the question arises - at what point can a case be brought against the Democratic Party under the RICO statute?

I think it's clear we've passed that point long ago.

Not that the DOJ would ever bring RICO charges, but that just goes to prove the larger point.

[Erik Latranyi]

It’s NOT a violation of the First Amendment. The first amendment is violated when “The Government” infringes on speech.

The FBI went to Facebook (and others) telling them that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

That is the gov't colluding to suppress the First Amendment during an election.

[nwrep]

Based on the descriptions so far (not knowing what else will come out), there does not seem to be a 1A case here. Like a few have pointed out, twitter was not operating at the behest of Congress or the Federal Government. Even if the FBI sent them a note saying "this looks hacked", that would not rise to 1A levels, because it was Twitter's own decision, acting with the same political sympathies as the Biden campaign, to censor this story. As such, it shows the hopelessly left wing nature of Twitter rule-makers, but nothing more.

The main story is that Twitter made up the excuse about hacking, not having any evidence backing up this allegation, and then used that excuse to blot out the story.

[MIA_eccl1212]

The key word is infringement. Liberals are expert infringement...

[who_would_fardels_bear]

The government didn't tell Elon to ban Kanye. Elon banned Kanye.

I still think it's bad that he got a lifetime suspension. A suspension for a month or a year would have been more appropriate.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Yes. The leftists like in "fringe" ment:

[semimojo]

A freeper sent me a comment earlier indicating that, since this happened while Trump was president, you can’t blame the Democrats. Or something.

I know it’s complicated but if it wasn’t the government trying to stifle the story it wasn’t a 1st Amendment issue.

And it’s unlikely the Trump administration was trying to shut down the laptop story.

[semimojo]

It was obviously a conspiracy to commit crimes.

What crimes?