The Supreme Court will hear a case that could decide whether Facebook, Twitter can censor users

CNBC ^ | 10/16/2018 | Tucker Higgins

[rightwingcrazy]

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could determine whether users can challenge social media companies on free speech grounds.

The case, Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, No. 17-702, centers on whether a private operator of a public access television network is considered a state actor, which can be sued for First Amendment violations.

The case could have broader implications for social media and other media outlets. In particular, a broad ruling from the high court could open the country’s largest technology companies up to First Amendment lawsuits.

That could shape the ability of companies like Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet’s Google to control the content on their platforms as lawmakers clamor for more regulation and activists on the left and right spar over issues related to censorship and harassment.

The Supreme Court accepted the case on Friday. It is the first case taken by a reconstituted high court after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation earlier this month.

[rightwingcrazy]

It will be interesting to see Kavanaugh's and Gorsuch's take on this.

[willk]

I’m not sure how this can be a free speech issue being that these are private companies. Just like a bakery should not have to bake a cake for a gay couple. I myself refuse to have anything to do with Facebook.

[Sacajaweau]

Let's see what happens.

The next suit...let's see what happens when foreigners post "ideas" about our government on Facebook.

[Blue House Sue]

“I’m not sure how this can be a free speech issue being that these are private companies. Just like a bakery should not have to bake a cake for a gay couple. I myself refuse to have anything to do with Facebook.”

Exactly.

Websites that are not owned by the government are not controlled by the government.

[cyclotic]

I agree. The internet companies are stupid but within their rights.

[bigtoona]

In the bakery case, you can go to another bakery, there are many of them in driving distance and many will gladly bake a flaming gay wedding cake.

For communicating on the internet, there are only a few companies that own ALL of the social media services. These service are the primary way that humans communicate now. Censoring people based on their political views locks people out from contacting groups of people on either side of the fence.

This is exactly like if 20 years ago, Ma Bell cut off your phone service because you are a republican! One can argue back then that there were plenty of pay phones around.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I don’t have a problem with them censoring users.

I have a problem with them not enforcing their terms of service for a long period of time and then dropping the hammer just before a critical election.

That’s election tampering.

If they had been censoring conservatives all along there would be plenty of conservative sites filling the void.

[DouglasKC]

What a slippery slope. FreeRepublic is done if they rule that they can’t censor users for political opinions. A solution: IF the site is billed as open and non-partisan THEN no censorship. State your political preference affiliation and you can censor all you want.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Exactly.

[DouglasKC]

For communicating on the internet, there are only a few companies that own ALL of the social media services. These service are the primary way that humans communicate now. Censoring people based on their political views locks people out from contacting groups of people on either side of the fence. This is exactly like if 20 years ago, Ma Bell cut off your phone service because you are a republican! One can argue back then that there were plenty of pay phones around.

The Ma Bell argument is a good argument.

[GaltMeister]

The ‘private company’ thing does not apply, they are a public company that sells stock - not a mom and pop bakery.

[TBP]

Here is the difference:

Public access channels, while private entities, are a creature of long-standing agreements between communities and cable companies. They would in all probability not exist but for those agreements. IOW, they would not exist except for government regulating them into existence. They’re quasi-government, like the US Postal Service.

Facebook, Google, Twitter, and yes, Free Republic are creations of the market — of private entities who saw a need and filled it. They are much more private entities than a public access TV station is, and therefore not subject to the same regulations.

[rightwingcrazy]

There is a host of regulations related to political action committees and other political organizations, campaign financing, etc. Even setting aside First Amendment issues, these rules need to be reconciled to make sure the scales aren’t being tipped in one direction.

[bigtoona]

Here is another angle, these social media companies take in a lot of AD revenue and they actually work with democrat campaigns OPENLY. They should be regarded as political action committees.

If they want to do this stuff, fine, but if you are providing skewed search results and manipulating what people can or cannot see in favor of one party or campaign, then you are providing the same exact thing that a PAC provides in support of a candidate. In fact, these companies are providing millions of dollars of free services to these campaigns through these actions.

[PeteB570]

I think the case will turn on if the companies are considered to be public because of the amount of users.

If private - then the majority will side with the companies.

[Desron13]

I believe this has more to do with YouTube and Twitter which have a growing number of conservative and libertarian voices gaining huge followings such as Sargon of Akkad, Jordan Peterson, Stephen Crowder, Stefan Molyneux and Laura Southern. Recently Molyneux and Southern’s Australia Tour drove the Libtards Down Under absolutely apoplectic. A must watch for Freepers if you haven’t already. The dinosaur media are panicking over losing the narrative to the younger crowd and the Googles of the world are trying their best to deplatform them at every turn.

[Political Junkie Too]

Hold Facebook accountable to what it said it would do when it took people's money.

From Facebook's IPO Prospectus dated May 3, 2012 (emphasis mine):

---

Our mission is to make the world more open and connected.

People use Facebook to stay connected with their friends and family, to discover what is going on in the world around them, and to share and express what matters to them to the people they care about.

Developers can use the Facebook Platform to build applications (apps) and websites that integrate with Facebook to reach our global network of users and to build products that are more personalized, social, and engaging.

Advertisers can engage with more than 900 million monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook or subsets of our users based on information they have chosen to share with us such as their age, location, gender, or interests. We offer advertisers a unique combination of reach, relevance, social context, and engagement to enhance the value of their ads.

We believe that we are at the forefront of enabling faster, easier, and richer communication between people and that Facebook has become an integral part of many of our users’ daily lives. We have experienced rapid growth in the number of users and their engagement.

[snip -- the following emphasis is Facebook's from the prospectus]

How We Create Value for Users

Our top priority is to build useful and engaging products that enable you to:

• Connect with Your Friends. With more than 900 million MAUs worldwide, our users are increasingly able to find and stay connected with their friends, family, and colleagues on Facebook.
• Discover and Learn. We believe that users come to Facebook to discover and learn more about what is going on in the world around them, particularly in the lives of their friends and family and with public figures and organizations that interest them.
• Express Yourself. We enable our users to share and publish their opinions, ideas, photos, and activities to audiences ranging from their closest friends to our 900 million users, giving every user a voice within the Facebook community.
• Control What You Share. Through Facebook’s privacy and sharing settings, our users can control what they share and with whom they share it.
• Experience Facebook Across the Web. Through apps and websites built by developers using the Facebook Platform, our users can interact with their Facebook friends while playing games, listening to music, watching movies, reading news, and engaging in other activities.
• Stay Connected with Your Friends on Mobile Devices. Through the combination of our mobile sites, smartphone apps, and feature phone products, users can bring Facebook with them on mobile devices wherever they go.

Foundations of the Social Web

We believe that the web, including the mobile web, is evolving to become more social and personalized. This evolution is creating more rewarding experiences that are centered on people, their connections, and their interests. We believe that the following elements form the foundation of the social web:

• Authentic Identity. We believe that using your real name, connecting to your real friends, and sharing your genuine interests online create more engaging and meaningful experiences. Representing yourself with your authentic identity online encourages you to behave with the same norms that foster trust and respect in your daily life offline. Authentic identity is core to the Facebook experience, and we believe that it is central to the future of the web. Our terms of service require you to use your real name and we encourage you to be your true self online, enabling us and Platform developers to provide you with more personalized experiences.
• Social Graph. The Social Graph represents the connections between people and their friends and interests. Every person or entity is represented by a point within the graph, and the affiliations between people and their friends and interests form billions of connections between the points. Our mapping of the Social Graph enables Facebook and Platform developers to build more engaging user experiences that are based on these connections.
• Social Distribution. Over time, people are consuming and creating more kinds of information at a faster pace across a broader range of devices. The growing volume of information makes it challenging to find meaningful and trusted content and to effectively make your voice heard. Facebook organizes and prioritizes content and serves as a powerful social distribution tool delivering to users what we believe they will find most compelling based on their friends and interests.

---

That is what Zuckerberg sold to investors when he went public with Facebook. Is that what is happening now? Doesn't the prospectus describe a public forum where all viewpoints are equally tolerated?

The prospectus said:

Express Yourself. We enable our users to share and publish their opinions, ideas, photos, and activities to audiences ranging from their closest friends to our 900 million users, giving every user a voice within the Facebook community.

Is Facebook making good on its promise to "enable our users to share and publish their opinions" and "give every user a voice within the Facebook community?"

Set aside, for the moment, the banning of conservatives from the platform. What about the advertisers who are losing access to that audience?

The prospectus said:

Advertisers can engage with more than 900 million monthly active users (MAUs) on Facebook or subsets of our users based on information they have chosen to share with us such as their age, location, gender, or interests. We offer advertisers a unique combination of reach, relevance, social context, and engagement to enhance the value of their ads.

Facebook is now denying access to large segments of banned users that advertisers expected to be there when they invested in building their storefronts on Facebook.

Finally, the prospectus said:

We believe that we are at the forefront of enabling faster, easier, and richer communication between people and that Facebook has become an integral part of many of our users’ daily lives.

By their own admission, their users have made Facebook "an integral part... of users' daily lives." Now Facebook wants to rip that away from people after people invested so much time and energy into it?

These should be the main arguments against Facebook.

-PJ

[Forgotten Amendments]

I myself refuse to have anything to do with Facebook.

Don't cheat yourself. I have found countless long lost friends & family that I never would've heard from again. That is a priceless gift. And it's all free!

I remember when if you heard from an old friend it was probably to con you into Amway.

[Political Junkie Too]

The bakery analogy is not quite correct. Facebook is not selling cakes.

Instead, what if the bakery offered floor space to people to set up their own shops, using the bakery's ovens, refrigerators, storage space, and customer lists?

Then, after you set up your successful business, the bakery decides to evict you because they don't like what you're putting on your cakes?

That's more like the Facebook model, according to their prospectus (see my earlier post). Facebook is offering a generic storefront to people and access to Facebook's customer base. Once people establish a successful storefront on Facebook, Facebook is evicting them based on their product content.

-PJ

[grateful]

I have no problem with them having a Terms of Service that dictates what will get you banned from their site and enforcing that TOS. I DO have a problem with liberals threatening to kill people, harassing people, and inciting violence, against most social media networks’ TOS and nothing being done, but a conservative hurts the feelings of a liberal and gets a permanent ban.