Public Forums Should Be Open and Uncensored

Townhall.com ^ | May 26, 2018 | Paul Driessen

[joesbucks]

I believe the judge was speaking to Trump’s use of it since he is now an elected official. Nice try. Using your conclusion, there would be no more zots on FR when someone’s panties go a little too tight or no more moderation on Hannity’s forum or other such similar places.

[arthurus]

We shall see how that works. I suspect this judge would tell you that “public forum” only applies to the President or other folks the judge selects.

[Steve_Seattle]

There's a good article about this ruling on The Federalist website. The article points out that there is actually an official presidential Twitter account, that existed before Trump took office, and will exist after he leaves. The judge's ruling was directed at Trump's PERSONAL Twitter account, which he had before he took office, and will have after he leaves office.

It is outrageous for the judge to declare that this personal account is somehow government property or a "public forum" in the narrow sense, i.e., an official government account. As the article points out, Trump's clothes and personal possessions don't become government property just because he's the president.

[Lopeover]

I don’t believe that ANY public figure has to accept with profanity or death threats on their social media accounts. As the left can’t put together a simple sentence without either, it would an easy fix.

[generally]

I wonder if there is a way to restrict the number of posts. Maybe you could let the 2 jerks post on Yoho’s FB, but restrict them to X number of posts per day?

Just spitballing here. Really, I’m against restrictions. But even more than that, I’m against restrictions that are applied ONLY TO CONSERVATIVES.

I could live with any reasonable set of rules/laws IF THEY WERE APPLIED CONSISTENTLY.

[Kaslin]

The least you could have done is posted the link. I did a search and found nothing about it in the Federalist.

[DoodleBob]

I'm against embracing a bad decision just because we might be able to twist it to our advantage.

Bravo.

First, we must be wary of a ruling from a Clinton appointee who also sided with Monsanto against organic farmers. I wouldn't be surprised to see this judge's phone logs replete with calls from Madame Loser, and texts with this picture:

Second, if the tables were reversed and the government ruled Breitbart's comments section - or Freerepublic - were public property, we'd be howling. This is an egregious and stunning overreach - legislating from the bench in the first degree.

Yea, the Founders didn't have the interweb but they knew the power of the press...as such they didn't put an asterisk on the First Amendment for this sort of thing. The Justice Dept's argument that since Twitter is a public company, it is beyond the reach of First Amendment public forum rules should have carried the day.

We may dislike FB and the statist leanings of Silicon Valley, but you're either for or against private property. This is a shameful ruling and Deplorables should be bashing this ruling on the basis of fundamentals. To see many good people cheering a ruling from a Clinton appointee is odd.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I don’t believe that ANY public figure has to accept with profanity or death threats on their social media accounts."

Death threats would probably fall within the scope of other laws, but the judge seems to leave the door wide open for spammers and bots to flood politicians and government officials with nuisance messages and obscenity.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, neo-Nazis - or people posing as neo-Nazis - flooded the National Review website with obscene and anti-Semitic messages. It got so bad that it was almost impossible to post legitimate comments, or engage in any kind of dialogue.

As a result, NR restricted the number of platforms that you could use to post comments, and eventually stopped accepting any comments at all.

[Chode]

can he not simple block everybody and just use it like a MAGAphone?

[DaxtonBrown]

What if your local mall banned conservatives? You can’t shop at Pennys. Would you be AOK with that??

[Bryanw92]

>>but you’re either for or against private property

In cyberspace, you simply cannot use the simplistic rules of private property that apply to tangible items and dirt. FB, Twitter, etc declare that all material posted on their site becomes their property and they can use it for whatever they want.

Using traditional private property rules, that’s like Wal-mart declaring that any vehicle parked in their lot belongs to Wal-mart and can be moved, looted, modified in anyway that Wal-mart decides because “you read the 80 page EULA that we posted inside the store, right?”

Cyberspace needs its own set of property rules that uniquely address all the special situations that exist in cyberspace and do not exist in the real world. Trying to adapt brick and mortar rules is impossible unless they are applied unfairly. This is what is happening here.

[Steve_Seattle]

"The least you could have done is posted the link. I did a search and found nothing about it in the Federalist."

If you go to their website, they feature about ten stories in the center of the page. The first story will appear for a few seconds, and if you don't click on it, it will move to the second story, then the third, and so on. Just a couple of minutes ago, the story I mentioned was the third one in the queue, but it's position in the queue might depend on when you actually go to the site; I'm not sure how it works.

[kiryandil]

Two words for the Lefty judgetard: "targeted harassment".

Now, judgetard - go make me a sammich, you ignorant Cant Understand Normal Thinking.

[Bryanw92]

>>What if your local mall banned conservatives? You can’t shop at Pennys. Would you be AOK with that??

Irrelevant.

Trump didn’t ban Progressives. He banned troublemakers. Go to the mall security office and look at the wall of photos of people who are banned. Ask the Mall Cop why they were banned.

[KDF48]

Conservatives go to Starbucks where they are disrespected and overcharged. I really don’t get it.

[Kaslin]

Speaking of Facebook, did you read or hear Zuckerberg wants a Supreme court for Facebook. That Sugarmountain’s britches are way to big for him imho.

[Steve_Seattle]

"What if your local mall banned conservatives? You can’t shop at Pennys. Would you be AOK with that??"

Just a week ago, a judge ruled that a private business CAN ban people for political reasons. The judge ruled in favor of a bar or restaurant that wouldn't serve a customer who was wearing a MAGA hat. This might vary from place to place, because some cities and/or states ban discrimination based on political viewpoint.

[exPBRrat]

And that goes for ALL news agencies reporting the news. The public has a right to call BS, be insensitive in making their point.

We got into this current mess by our free speech being muzzled

There are a lot of ideas, solutions, that are unknown thanks to leftest censorship.

[Kaslin]

Are you carrying a label on you that you are a conservative or a liberal?

Your suggestion is laughable

[kiryandil]

Imagine if all the great Conservative minds of FR suddenly entered Twitter as an invading force instead of sitting around the digital equivalent of some little VFW post on a road that was bypassed by the highway 25 years ago, sipping our beer and bitching about how it used to be.

I'm fairly clever on Twitter.

I've only had one account suspended for "tweeting while conservative"...