Means you haven’t really looked into the Twitter files. They were literally holding meetings with the government officials and were told what to censor and who to ban. That’s plainly unconstitutional and heads should roll for this.
The government asking you to do something is like a dangerous schoolyard bully asking for your lunch money. Except the gov has the ability to kill, imprison, and destroy. Doesn’t matter if you’re an average Joe or a Zuckerberg.
So it's categorically impossible for the government to make any non-coercive request or report for anything because it's the government?
I don't think that's settled law.
For example, suppose the US Postal Service opens a new location, and Google Maps has the pushpin on the wrong place or the hours are incorrect. A USPS employee submits a report/correction through normal channels. How is that trampling on Google's first-amendment rights?
This is obviously not a real question, so instead of answering I propose we conduct a thought experiment. The year is 2028, and Zuck had a change of heart and fully switched sides. Facebook, Threads, and Instagram now block the news of Barron Trump’s drug use, of his lavishly compensated board seat on the board of Russia’s Gazprom, and bans the dominant electoral candidate off social media. In addition it allows the spread of a made up dossier (funded by the RNC) about Kamala Harris’ embarrassing behavior with male escorts in China.
What you should ask yourself is this: irrespective of whether compliance is voluntary or not, is political censorship on social media OK? And what kind of a logical knot one must contort one’s mind into to suggest that this is the second coming of net neutrality? Personally I think the mere fact that the government is able to lean on a private company like that is damning AF.
All large sites have terms of service. If you violate them, you might be removed, even if you're "the dominant electoral candidate". Remember, no one is above the law, or in this case, the rules that a site wishes to enforce.
I'm not a fan of political censorship (unless that means enforcing the same ToS that everyone else is held to, in which case, go for it). Neither am I for the radical notion of legislation telling a private organization that they must host content that they don't wish to.
This has zero to do with net neutrality. Nothing. Nada.
Is there evidence that the government leaned on a private company instead of meeting with them and asking them to do a thing? Did Facebook feel coerced into taking actions they wouldn't have willingly done otherwise?
