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It's a catchy headline, but doesn't accurately reflect what happened. The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on beha

It's a catchy headline, but doesn't accurately reflect what happened. The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on behalf of a municipality is acting as a private platform, or as a "state actor". The court ruled that it is indeed acting as a private platform, and therefore "not subject to First Amendment constraints on its editorial discretion".

lithos 7y ago
Worth mentioning that public access channels are normally something like your local version of PBS. For Brits maybe something like BBC but at much smaller regional scale. In many cases they are extensively funded by tax payers. ___ And the fact that these were channels pretty much in existence due to taxpayers. Made them a great target to turn more places into a public forum, in hopes of it also having a ruling that affects social media. Which is why people were worried about it affecting social media.
- ghaff 7y ago
  IANAL (and haven't read the opinions) but it seems as if the general situation with public access channels could have allowed for a very narrowly crafted opinion that said the provider was a state actor in this very particular case. But it is a potentially slippery slope. ADDED: SCOTUSblog has a writeup. In general, the split decision seems mostly a disagreement over which rather specific facts apply. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/opinion-analysis-court-holds-that-first-amendment-does-not-apply-to-private-operator-of-public-access-channels/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/opinion-analysis-court-ho...
- xenadu02 7y ago
  Note that PBS is mostly funded by donations and public access channels are a different thing - usually part of the cable franchise agreement with the local city.
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  "public access channels are normally something like your local version of PBS. For Brits maybe something like BBC but at much smaller regional scale." I don't think that's accurate at all. Public access channels are TV stations which will broadcast content created by any member of the community. I don't know how they are now, but decades ago in NYC all sorts of bizarre shit got broadcast on public access, from weird conspiracy theories to borderline pornographic material to awful performance art project some NYU or SVA student slapped together. The main thing all the content had in common was that it was ultra-low-budget, since it was usually created by a single person on a cheap video camera. It was absolutely nothing even remotely like the BBC or PBS, which are both organizations with significant funding and a highly professional staff of people working for them. Most importantly, the BBC and PBS create their own content, while on public access channels the content is created by members of the community. Usually, on public access there's some kind of signup roster where you as a community member put your name in a free slot, and when your time comes you get to play your video. Some public access stations might let community members use their studios or their equipment, but for the most part you're on your own. The closest thing I could compare it to would be youtube, but without any advertising or search or choice of what to watch. As a viewer, you just had to watch whatever video a random community member played at the time you turned your TV to that station. 99.9% of the time, the content was absolutely bottom of the barrel amateur garbage which probably had close to zero viewers. Frankly, I'm surprised these stations still exist, as these days most people probably get their random user-generated videos from youtube.
stcredzero 7y ago
The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on behalf of a municipality is acting as a private platform, or as a "state actor". In the case of public access cable channels, they are just one alternative out of many for the information they cover. The question of whether an entity is a state actor is somewhat peripheral to the question of Free Speech in the world of 2019. What if the latest and greatest media technology was the printing press, and only one company made printing presses that were worth a damn, and they never sold but only leased their presses, and they only leased them to Republicans? OctoPressCo wouldn't be a state actor. However, they would be exercising power of such magnitude that it doesn't make a difference. All the while, OctoPressCo and its supporters would be saying, there's still Free Speech. You can always just distribute manually hand-written newspapers, pamphlets, and books! Viral spread and discovery through social media are a game changing media technology. The people who control a small number of mega-corporations want to grant this power preferentially to a certain political party, while choking it off from big swathes of the population and entire demographics they deem less worthy. That's not democratic, it's oligarchic. It's also going against the spirit of Free Speech!
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  It's also going against the spirit of free speech to force people to promote speech they don't want to. If the issue is that a few companies largely control the avenues of discourse, let's just fix the problem at the root and break up those companies. After all, even if they were principled defenders of free speech, we'd still be consigning ourselves to living under essentially benevolent dictators.
  - ironmagma 7y ago
    While this is a tempting argument to make, the problem is that "just" is not an accurate way to describe the task of breaking up large companies. It takes monumental effort and money to do so. There is no "just" breaking up monoliths.
dang 7y ago
Ok, I've put your phrasing in the title above, though that pushed out the Supreme Court.

lithos 7y ago

Worth mentioning that public access channels are normally something like your local version of PBS. For Brits maybe something like BBC but at much smaller regional scale. In many cases they are extensively funded by tax payers. ___ And the fact that these were channels pretty much in existence due to taxpayers. Made them a great target to turn more places into a public forum, in hopes of it also having a ruling that affects social media. Which is why people were worried about it affecting social media.

ghaff 7y ago
IANAL (and haven't read the opinions) but it seems as if the general situation with public access channels could have allowed for a very narrowly crafted opinion that said the provider was a state actor in this very particular case. But it is a potentially slippery slope. ADDED: SCOTUSblog has a writeup. In general, the split decision seems mostly a disagreement over which rather specific facts apply. https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/opinion-analysis-court-holds-that-first-amendment-does-not-apply-to-private-operator-of-public-access-channels/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2019/06/opinion-analysis-court-ho...
xenadu02 7y ago
Note that PBS is mostly funded by donations and public access channels are a different thing - usually part of the cable franchise agreement with the local city.
pmoriarty 7y ago
"public access channels are normally something like your local version of PBS. For Brits maybe something like BBC but at much smaller regional scale." I don't think that's accurate at all. Public access channels are TV stations which will broadcast content created by any member of the community. I don't know how they are now, but decades ago in NYC all sorts of bizarre shit got broadcast on public access, from weird conspiracy theories to borderline pornographic material to awful performance art project some NYU or SVA student slapped together. The main thing all the content had in common was that it was ultra-low-budget, since it was usually created by a single person on a cheap video camera. It was absolutely nothing even remotely like the BBC or PBS, which are both organizations with significant funding and a highly professional staff of people working for them. Most importantly, the BBC and PBS create their own content, while on public access channels the content is created by members of the community. Usually, on public access there's some kind of signup roster where you as a community member put your name in a free slot, and when your time comes you get to play your video. Some public access stations might let community members use their studios or their equipment, but for the most part you're on your own. The closest thing I could compare it to would be youtube, but without any advertising or search or choice of what to watch. As a viewer, you just had to watch whatever video a random community member played at the time you turned your TV to that station. 99.9% of the time, the content was absolutely bottom of the barrel amateur garbage which probably had close to zero viewers. Frankly, I'm surprised these stations still exist, as these days most people probably get their random user-generated videos from youtube.

stcredzero 7y ago

The question was whether a private cable operator that runs public-access channels on behalf of a municipality is acting as a private platform, or as a "state actor". In the case of public access cable channels, they are just one alternative out of many for the information they cover. The question of whether an entity is a state actor is somewhat peripheral to the question of Free Speech in the world of 2019. What if the latest and greatest media technology was the printing press, and only one company made printing presses that were worth a damn, and they never sold but only leased their presses, and they only leased them to Republicans? OctoPressCo wouldn't be a state actor. However, they would be exercising power of such magnitude that it doesn't make a difference. All the while, OctoPressCo and its supporters would be saying, there's still Free Speech. You can always just distribute manually hand-written newspapers, pamphlets, and books! Viral spread and discovery through social media are a game changing media technology. The people who control a small number of mega-corporations want to grant this power preferentially to a certain political party, while choking it off from big swathes of the population and entire demographics they deem less worthy. That's not democratic, it's oligarchic. It's also going against the spirit of Free Speech!

jakelazaroff 7y ago
It's also going against the spirit of free speech to force people to promote speech they don't want to. If the issue is that a few companies largely control the avenues of discourse, let's just fix the problem at the root and break up those companies. After all, even if they were principled defenders of free speech, we'd still be consigning ourselves to living under essentially benevolent dictators.
- ironmagma 7y ago
  While this is a tempting argument to make, the problem is that "just" is not an accurate way to describe the task of breaking up large companies. It takes monumental effort and money to do so. There is no "just" breaking up monoliths.

dang 7y ago

Ok, I've put your phrasing in the title above, though that pushed out the Supreme Court.