Posted on 10/17/2018 1:05:33 PM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
Private company, leave it alone. Choose to use or not, vote with feet (mouse?). Do we really want the net to be a “public resource” (read nationalized)?
KYPD
Exactly. Or if a newspaper or TV or radio station refuses to run any ads for GOP candidates, is it just fine & dandy for them to say, “Hey, if you don’t like it, start your own newspaper or TV station!” ?
“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.”
You sound like my wife, her siblings, our adult children, adult nephews/nieces and this old man.
We don’t use Facebook nor do business with anyone who insults our country or religion.
So we don’t need any local to state to National politicians “helping” us.
“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.”
A distinction could be made between those services having near monopoly power (e.g., Google, Facebook) and those that do not.
I’m not sure how this can be a free speech issue being that these are private companies.
—
There’s got to be something more than that.
The TV networks are private companies, too. Should they be allowed to simply omit whatever news doesn’t suit their leftist agenda, or misreport facts? You could say “well, we don’t have to watch them” - and that’s true, but I think there’s also an issue of acting for the greater good here. They’re a major information delivery system and that should come with SOME responsibility for fairness - either that or force themselves to identify themselves as the democrat propaganda machines that they are.
The tech companies will win on the question put in that way.
I keep telling our side that they are looking for a constitutional right that might as well be be located with the “right to get married” and the right to an abortion.
That is what they do now.
It’s a private sector company.
Government censors.
Private sector companies do not.
“For communicating on the internet, there are only a few companies that own ALL of the social media services.”
To cut this short. There are plenty of places online to say stuff.
And please do reply with how those other sites aren’t fun or all your buddies aren’t there, or X,Y, or Z number of people aren’t using them.
The point is that they exist, just like there are other bakeries.
TERMS OF SERVICE == No "Hate Speech".
HATE SPEECH == somewhere along the spectrum of:
* Anything the Southern Poverty Law Center says is Hate.
* ...... to .....
* Anything said by conservatives.
That’s not a legal contract.
“That is what Zuckerberg sold to investors when he went public with Facebook”
Well that’s between him and shareholders, not a SCOTUS case.
“A distinction could be made between those services having near monopoly power (e.g., Google, Facebook) and those that do not.”
There isnt a “marketshare” of ability to post a POV online, though.
I am always disturbed when people conflate issues. The people on Facebook and Twitter are not asking either company to provide them with any special service. They are asking them to refrain from interfering with their willingness to post on a platform who’s stated intent is to data-mine their users information.
In each of the cake cases, the issue was not would the bakery sell products to gay couples. All of the bakers (except Muslim bakery’s that weren’t sued) had either sold or agreed to sell products to gays. It was a question if the bakery should be forced provide special services involving using the baker’s talent to create a product that presented a statement in violation of the baker’s religious beliefs.
The contrast is clear and last time I checked, liberalism was a mental disease, not an accepted religion, yet.
Where have you heard that before? (F.W Wolworth's c. 1960). See Civil Rights in Public Accommodations and Facilities: Law and History
Facebook and Twitter are private yet every bit as much a public accommodation as is FW Woolworth's lunch counter.
Think 14th Amendment and the equal protection clause.
Facebook and Twitter could easily be in violation of the Civil Rights Act, as well.
FReegards!
Radio and tv may be a different issue since they do us a public airwave that is requlated.
I do not understand the actual working of the internet so I do not know if there is some “public” resource that is used.
“A distinction could be made between those services having near monopoly power (e.g., Google, Facebook) and those that do not.”
I agree, which is why I think a better approach might be for the Justice department to go after these companies using existing anti-trust laws, just like they should do with the big media corporations. I’m not sure if a lawsuit over censoring users will succeed, although it is possible using the monopoly argument.
It will be an interesting case. Is censorship and denial of service denying Americans their right to peaceably assemble and freely associate? After all, online media giants are how a vast number of citizens assemble and associate these days. Sure, you could find other ways. In the Ma Bell days, you could have bought a CB radio, or strung your own telephone wires, right? I believe a large number of leftists would be just fine with cutting off communications and the ability to freely associate to much of the country (flyover country, red states), and they are actually able accomplish this to a large degree via FB, Twitter, Google, etc.
Your point of a SCOTUS case is sound.
I don't know if this applies here but the SEC has brought down others for misrepresenting their company to future shareholders.
It is in the court of public opinion, which is where this battle is being fought right now.
Anyway, I'm not a lawyer but when I was in various business classes in college, they talked about cases where unions argued that certain company practices that had been long-standing (such as giving workers turkeys at Christmastime), could not be arbitrarily stopped because they had been so longstanding as to have become de facto policy.
I doubt that was a legally binding thing or just an arbitration thing, but as with concepts like common law spouses, are their some business practices that become de facto contracts after being in force for so long?
In Facebook's case, it was not their practice to ban content until conservatives won the big elections, which makes Facebook's action seem arbitrary given that they wouldn't be doing this if the election went the other way.
An arbitrary contract is no contract at all. I believe the legal practice is that an arbitrary or ambiguous contract term (like "hate speech" or "fake news") is to be decided against the party that drafted the contract, which would be Facebook.
-PJ
From your link:
“The section Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in public facilities because of race, color, religion, or national origin.”
I agree, if Facebook prohibits people due to their race, color, religion, or national origin, they would be in violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
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