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The First Amendment applied to GOVERNMENT, because the Founders could not a imagine a future where CORPORATIONS limited FREE SPEECH.
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THE mass media at that time was the newspaper. Do you suppose Ben Franklin printed every "letter to the editor" he received? Of course not. He was in fact selecting those whose ideas and positions he supported, and wrote many of them himself under a different name. I doubt if he would have supported the idea that he was required to print everything that he received.
The Founding Fathers were a bunch of really smart fellas.
Here's the problem. The 'people' at Twitter who have been determining 'hate speech and disinformation' have an overt leftist agenda. If they didn't like it, it was 'hate speech and disinformation' even when it wasn't. They've been altering reality for the leftist lemmings yet somehow you seem okey dokey cool with that. Why?
I don’t see a problem with this, honestly. There are other places you can post, such as rumble, Truth, etc. If enough people leave a platform like Twitter, then Twitter will change their policies.
I don’t see a problem with this, honestly. There are other places you can post, such as rumble, Truth, etc. If enough people leave a platform like Twitter, then Twitter will change their policies.
If you don’t see a problem with that, then you don’t see a problem with Musk buying it and changing the rules either.
It would be hypocritical if you did. So everything is as it should be.
Disinformation has nothing to do in what side of the aisle you are on. It hurts all sides when it is put out. Censorship, Im for it to a point. There is a reason there are speed limits on the streets. One can hurt so many.
Disinformation has everything to do with what side of the aisle you are on. Most of what I consider left wing disinformation, you probably consider normal mistakes that they made. Not intentional. Just humans being imperfect. They usually apologize, after the truth comes out, so, must have been an accident, right? Makes me wonder about all the times the truth never came out though.
Censorship is never the answer. The answer to “bad” speech, whether it be incorrect, or hateful, or whatever, is MORE speech, not less. The answer to bad speech is good speech, not censorship.
Don’t like the rules of a social media company? You can go to another one. Twitter only censors people when they violate their terms of service that the user agreed to when they signed up. So how is that an affront to a free society? They can go on another platform. Wasn’t that why that stupid Truth Social was created? And guess what, they’ve banned and censored accounts too!
Also, the accounts that Twitter banned were banned for posting hate speech and disinformation. You think hate speech and disinformation is free speech?
It is free speech in the eyes of the government. Not du in the eyes of Twitter. Hate speech is also subjective from entity to entity.
And I don't necessarily disagree with you. I just wanted to see how consistent those who now so strongly champion the rights of "privately owned" businesses were willing to be?
And to see if they acknowledge that it can and logically should cut both ways.
Because I'm sure if any private schools or private businesses decided to take up the cue from the modern left and decided to post up some old "Whites Only" sign they just might change their tune.
The “whites only” argument is only proposed by die hard libertaryans et al who still oppose the Civil Right Act of 1964.
The argument of ‘government overstep’ was made by the Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. owner in Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States in 1964. The owner had argued the federal government overstepped its authority & violated the 5th amendment that allowed him to operate his business as he pleased. He also claimed a violation of due process & “involuntary servitude” for being mandated to rent rooms to African Americans.
The SCOTUS ruled the federal government can force businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Interstate Commerce Clause in the Constitution. The court found the refusal to rent accommodations to African American was a disruption to interstate commerce & the federal government maintained the right to regulate businesses, within reason, regardless of the 5th amendment.
As for social media companies:
Quote:
Congress has the power to regulate the Internet. The broad authority under the Commerce Clause gives Congress authority to regulate “channels of interstate commerce,” “instrumentalities of interstate commerce,” and “activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce.”74 If the regulated area falls into any of those categories, it is within Congress’s power to regulate.75
Courts have consistently held that the Internet is a channel of interstate commerce.76 Indeed, Congress has used this power to regulate various online activities.77
Because the Internet is a channel, Congress has the power to “prohibit its use for harmful or immoral purposes.”78
Regulating the removal of harmful content on social media platforms falls squarely within Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause.83
However, the regulation would face significant First Amendment challenges.84
Neither the federal government, its legislators, courts, or judges nor the social media companies who would bear the burden of identifying fake news are in a good position to determine what constitutes ‘fake news’ nor disinformation, it is GIGO & caveat emptor ‘let the buyer beware’ & ‘sold as is’.
So why didn’t AT&T cut the phone lines to people who’s politics they didn’t agree with back before the internet ? Private company right?
They could have tried but likely would have faced the same significant First Amendment challenges, & also would have bumped up against the Interstate Commerce Clause.
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