6 ms·

>It's not enough to be running for office; you have to be in office. It's the use of a private service as part of your official role that creates this situation

by clubm8 8y ago

>It's not enough to be running for office; you have to be in office. It's the use of a private service as part of your official role that creates this situation, not some special duty "politicians" have. My worry is that it means someone can attempt to separate their personal and public lives, then because they RTed the campaign account too many time or some BS, their "personal" account gets rebranded. Or what if it moves from elected official to public figure? Having seen this Comet Ping Pong nonsense spread across the web, what happens if I someday am victim of or witness to a crime? Will by rights to claim harassment or block be eroded? I agree that say, the official TSA twitter should not be able to block complainers, but even I think that someone who is harassing a government account should be able to be blocked.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> My worry is that it means someone can attempt to separate their personal and public lives, then because they RTed the campaign account too many time or some BS, their "personal" account gets rebranded. And...so what? > Or what if it moves from elected official to public figure? It's a Constitutional limit on the actions of government, that affects things public officials use for purpose connected to their government office, so there's no way for that jump to happen. > but even I think that someone who is harassing a government account should be able to be blocked. The prohibition is on viewpoint discrimination, not all blocking.
tptacek 8y ago
This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". For instance, the ruling explicitly leaves open the possibility that if we were talking about the County Supervisor's personal Facebook Profile, rather than a "Page" she set up for her office, that she'd have been free to moderate it as she saw fit. There will almost certainly be a back and forth on this. You don't have to be an elected official for this ruling to hit you; just a government official of any sort acting under color of law (ie: under the authority of your job). Being a public figure has nothing to do with it (on the Internet, "public figure" comes up in legal discussions because of its impact on defamation cases, and IANAL so maybe it comes up elsewhere too, but it's not a part of this case). The ruling isn't that you can't block people, it's that your actions in moderating your page must comply with the First Amendment. You can be kicked out of a government building for being too disruptive; you just can't be kicked out because of a particular viewpoint you're espousing.
- clubm8 8y ago
  >This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". For instance, the ruling explicitly leaves open the possibility that if we were talking about the County Supervisor's personal Facebook Profile, rather than a "Page" she set up for her office, that she'd have been free to moderate it as she saw fit. There will almost certainly be a back and forth on this. I take issue with this type of ruling. It's one thing to say you can't block a constituent from replying to you, but a comments page is different. HN respects free speech, but there are some modes of speech they would remove from the comments. Likewise I'm not sure I agree the FB page of a govt official needs to be a free for all.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    Are you taking issue with my description of the ruling or with what the ruling says?
    - clubm8 8y ago
      >Are you taking issue with my description of the ruling or with what the ruling says? Which do you think? Were you legitimately confused or are you trying to be snarky?
      - tptacek 8y ago
        I "legitimately" don't know which of those you're asking.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". It's not even a merely future certainty, the case over Trump's Twitter feed which has already itself had a similar court ruling at the trial level and is on appeal concerns his “personal” account (not the official account of the President as such) which has nevertheless been held to be public forum by use (the fact that the White House has itself pointed to it as a source of official positions was a factor here). OTOH, I fail to see the problem with that.
erikpukinskis 8y ago
Slippery slope fallacy.
ddingus 8y ago
Actually, if they are harrassing, that is criminal and could be actionable.
- clubm8 8y ago
  > Actually, if they are harrassing, that is criminal and could be actionable. Often what would normally be criminal harassment is no longer by virtue of being a public figure, to a degree. (Ex: repeatedly calling a campaign office to complain would be kosher, repeatedly calling a personal cell would not) Imagine if by virtue of running for office your personal cell could be called all hours of the night? Sometimes I feel we are not critically examining new norms.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Your post made no real sense to me.
    - clubm8 8y ago
      Unfortunately I can't control that. Is English your first language? Simply put, harassment is contacting someone after being told to stop. We don't use that definition for "public figures" - you can't be told to stop writing letters to your congressional rep's office for example. Calling or writing their home would be another matter. The problem is that by redefining personal, we can remove the ability to make it a criminal matter. I can't explain it any more simply, so please try to read carefully and if you're still confused maybe take some time before replying a second time.
      - ddingus 8y ago
        Actually, that helped. I didn't write my comment to be mean, or anything other than frank. No, you can't be told to stop writing letters and sending faxes. Once, I was part of a group doing exactly that. 10 a day from each of us over many weeks. At one point they actually put in the newspaper, "tired of hearing about...", to which we continued, "tired of bad policy x Then we worked to get that person out of office. And we did. All just civics. No worries. None of us would have thought to phone their home, or do those things at their home. The public work was at issue. That person as a normal citizen is like any of us. No worries there too. If your concern is a personal social media page being used to circumvent law, maybe! IMHO, the legal test would be whether the content is about thr office, or is actually personal. Baby photos, high school reunion, new car, cats.... personal. And they could easily make that private. I would. No reason not to really. I do not see that as an issue at this time. Public figures have plenty of options, and the incentive to make it personal clashes with the need to be public to be reelected, etc... I shoot add it is definitely unwise to go ahead and run for office using your personal cell phone Facebook accounts as a starting basis.

by clubm8 8y ago

dragonwriter 8y ago

> My worry is that it means someone can attempt to separate their personal and public lives, then because they RTed the campaign account too many time or some BS, their "personal" account gets rebranded. And...so what? > Or what if it moves from elected official to public figure? It's a Constitutional limit on the actions of government, that affects things public officials use for purpose connected to their government office, so there's no way for that jump to happen. > but even I think that someone who is harassing a government account should be able to be blocked. The prohibition is on viewpoint discrimination, not all blocking.

tptacek 8y ago

This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". For instance, the ruling explicitly leaves open the possibility that if we were talking about the County Supervisor's personal Facebook Profile, rather than a "Page" she set up for her office, that she'd have been free to moderate it as she saw fit. There will almost certainly be a back and forth on this. You don't have to be an elected official for this ruling to hit you; just a government official of any sort acting under color of law (ie: under the authority of your job). Being a public figure has nothing to do with it (on the Internet, "public figure" comes up in legal discussions because of its impact on defamation cases, and IANAL so maybe it comes up elsewhere too, but it's not a part of this case). The ruling isn't that you can't block people, it's that your actions in moderating your page must comply with the First Amendment. You can be kicked out of a government building for being too disruptive; you just can't be kicked out because of a particular viewpoint you're espousing.

clubm8 8y ago
>This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". For instance, the ruling explicitly leaves open the possibility that if we were talking about the County Supervisor's personal Facebook Profile, rather than a "Page" she set up for her office, that she'd have been free to moderate it as she saw fit. There will almost certainly be a back and forth on this. I take issue with this type of ruling. It's one thing to say you can't block a constituent from replying to you, but a comments page is different. HN respects free speech, but there are some modes of speech they would remove from the comments. Likewise I'm not sure I agree the FB page of a govt official needs to be a free for all.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Are you taking issue with my description of the ruling or with what the ruling says?
  - clubm8 8y ago
    >Are you taking issue with my description of the ruling or with what the ruling says? Which do you think? Were you legitimately confused or are you trying to be snarky?
    - tptacek 8y ago
      I "legitimately" don't know which of those you're asking.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> This controversy isn't so much a "worry" as a "certainty". It's not even a merely future certainty, the case over Trump's Twitter feed which has already itself had a similar court ruling at the trial level and is on appeal concerns his “personal” account (not the official account of the President as such) which has nevertheless been held to be public forum by use (the fact that the White House has itself pointed to it as a source of official positions was a factor here). OTOH, I fail to see the problem with that.

erikpukinskis 8y ago

Slippery slope fallacy.

ddingus 8y ago

Actually, if they are harrassing, that is criminal and could be actionable.

clubm8 8y ago
> Actually, if they are harrassing, that is criminal and could be actionable. Often what would normally be criminal harassment is no longer by virtue of being a public figure, to a degree. (Ex: repeatedly calling a campaign office to complain would be kosher, repeatedly calling a personal cell would not) Imagine if by virtue of running for office your personal cell could be called all hours of the night? Sometimes I feel we are not critically examining new norms.
- ddingus 8y ago
  Your post made no real sense to me.
  - clubm8 8y ago
    Unfortunately I can't control that. Is English your first language? Simply put, harassment is contacting someone after being told to stop. We don't use that definition for "public figures" - you can't be told to stop writing letters to your congressional rep's office for example. Calling or writing their home would be another matter. The problem is that by redefining personal, we can remove the ability to make it a criminal matter. I can't explain it any more simply, so please try to read carefully and if you're still confused maybe take some time before replying a second time.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      Actually, that helped. I didn't write my comment to be mean, or anything other than frank. No, you can't be told to stop writing letters and sending faxes. Once, I was part of a group doing exactly that. 10 a day from each of us over many weeks. At one point they actually put in the newspaper, "tired of hearing about...", to which we continued, "tired of bad policy x Then we worked to get that person out of office. And we did. All just civics. No worries. None of us would have thought to phone their home, or do those things at their home. The public work was at issue. That person as a normal citizen is like any of us. No worries there too. If your concern is a personal social media page being used to circumvent law, maybe! IMHO, the legal test would be whether the content is about thr office, or is actually personal. Baby photos, high school reunion, new car, cats.... personal. And they could easily make that private. I would. No reason not to really. I do not see that as an issue at this time. Public figures have plenty of options, and the incentive to make it personal clashes with the need to be public to be reelected, etc... I shoot add it is definitely unwise to go ahead and run for office using your personal cell phone Facebook accounts as a starting basis.