5 ms·

Free speech has limits, does it not? The US Supreme Court has ruled that one cannot, for example, falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. I would assume that

Free speech has limits, does it not? The US Supreme Court has ruled that one cannot, for example, falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. I would assume that calls for the violent overthrow of the US government in order to overturn an election at the very least should be considered as equally dangerous as screaming fire in a crowded theater.

jpxw 6y ago
If you think Trump incited violence, that is a crime which should be decided in a courtroom, and not in Mark Zuckerberg’s office. For what it’s worth, I don’t think what Trump said was incitement, or even close to it. Irresponsible? Yes. Incitement? No.
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  I agree that this should be decided in a courtroom. If Trump wishes to sue Twitter or the US Government, he is more than free to do so. However, I think both his case and yours is undermined by the very, very strong circumstantial evidence that after his lawyer, Giuliani, called for "trial by combat" and he said that he would personally lead the crowd in a march on the Capitol on Jan 6th the violent insurrection actually took place is a very strong argument that he incited the uprising. Furthermore, the fact that even as these Trump supporters were occupying the Capitol he said that he "loves them", that also undermines any argument that he did not incite sedition.
- zadokshi 6y ago
  This is why social media platforms are anti competitive and in risk of anti trust lawsuits. You don’t get to twist trumps words and then ban the @POTUS account just because he threatens to create a competing platform. No reasonable person could take that as incitement. So the only logical answer is anti competitive behaviour, or political manipulation/interference.
- andrei_says_ 6y ago
  What trump did was incitement using carefully constructed language giving clear instructions while maintaining denialability. There’s no way you believe he was doing anything else. You’re basically pushing for the denialability part by pretending to be innocently surprised. No.
- cmurf 6y ago
  Trump wound them up with lies and conspiracies and urgency two hours before they went to the capital on his recommendation. This is certainly provoking unlawful behavior or urging someone to behave unlawfully which is the definition of incitement. The defendants will unquestionably be using the "Trump told us to" defense. Trump violated the terms more often and worse than regular people who were removed from the platform. Thousands of regular people kicked off for violating the terms and it's Donald Fucking Trump and Parler that gets folks in an uproar? Over things that happen all the time? By long standing service agreements? What?
zadokshi 6y ago
Strawman. Who is calling for violent overthrow of the US government? Even one person? And on Parler or on Twitter?
- that_guy_iain 6y ago
  Here is a great thread on Twitter that explains how Trump did. https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680?s=21 https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680?...
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347908845281095680.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347908845281095680.html
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  Trump has been calling openly to overturn the election every day from Nov 3rd until Jan 6th, including when he was caught on tape attempting to convince the Secretary of State of Georgia to illegally overturn the election there.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  Lots of people. Here's one subset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  > Who is calling for violent overthrow of the US government? Does the crowd storming the Capitol chanting "hang Mike Pence" count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW718KRYDtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW718KRYDtU
- Bud 6y ago
  The President gave a speech on Wednesday, to a mob, in which he called for the violent overthrow of the US government. It has been three days. Have you already forgotten?
tick_tock_tick 6y ago
.... That over overturned decades ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
- landryraccoon 6y ago
  Here's a quote from the article you cited: > n 1969, the Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio effectively overturned Schenck and any authority the case still carried. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". I would argue that the elements of Trump's speech on Jan 6th satisfy all the elements in the lawless action test: - Trump gave a speech on January 6th, the same date as the insurrection. - In this speech he directed his supporters to march on the capitol with his support. - His supporters did actually march on the Capitol, then proceeded to violently occupy it. Regardless of Trump's inner mind, it is clear that his followers believed that his intent was for them to march on the Capitol while the election was being certified and forcefully disrupt those proceedings. It seems to me this is a very strong case that Trump's speech did in fact incite the violence that occurred that day, and the very short amount of time separating those events make it easy to argue that one was the immediate cause of the other.
  - verroq 6y ago
    We are not talking about trump. We are talking about Apple, who is forcing other companies to censor their user’s speech and acting as judge and jury on what is acceptable.
    - landryraccoon 6y ago
      Ah, let's talk about Parler specifically then. https://fortune.com/2021/01/08/parler-violence-trump-2020-election-twitter-apple/ https://fortune.com/2021/01/08/parler-violence-trump-2020-el... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/05/parler-telegram-violence-dc-protests/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/05/parler-... https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/06/trump-riot-twitter-parler-proud-boys-boogaloos-antifa-qanon/6570794002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/06/trump-riot-tw... Based on these articles, it sure sounds to me like Parler users are openly calling for immediate violence.
verroq 6y ago
This is just the same lame four excuses [0] to justify censorship and mass surveillance. Just replace terrorism with “inciting violence”. Now the government doesn’t even need to get their hands dirty to censor the internet, private companies enforce it themselves with with impunity. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocal...
mopsi 6y ago
> The US Supreme Court has ruled that one cannot, for example, falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. Very few people seem to know the context of that ruling. That line of thought was used to justify criminal punishment of two socialists from Philadelphia for hindering the war effort in 1917. Their crime: they distributed anti-war leaflets. Elizabeth Baer spent 3 months in prison, Charles T. Schenck 10 years. Goes to show the extent "yelling fire in a theater" can be stretched, and has been stretched from the very first case.
throwawaysea 6y ago
You are allowed to call for the overthrow of the US government. Sedition is protected speech unless it is calling for "imminent" lawless action, as a result of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. As a result, you are allowed to yell fire in a theater (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...).

jpxw 6y ago

If you think Trump incited violence, that is a crime which should be decided in a courtroom, and not in Mark Zuckerberg’s office. For what it’s worth, I don’t think what Trump said was incitement, or even close to it. Irresponsible? Yes. Incitement? No.

landryraccoon 6y ago
I agree that this should be decided in a courtroom. If Trump wishes to sue Twitter or the US Government, he is more than free to do so. However, I think both his case and yours is undermined by the very, very strong circumstantial evidence that after his lawyer, Giuliani, called for "trial by combat" and he said that he would personally lead the crowd in a march on the Capitol on Jan 6th the violent insurrection actually took place is a very strong argument that he incited the uprising. Furthermore, the fact that even as these Trump supporters were occupying the Capitol he said that he "loves them", that also undermines any argument that he did not incite sedition.
zadokshi 6y ago
This is why social media platforms are anti competitive and in risk of anti trust lawsuits. You don’t get to twist trumps words and then ban the @POTUS account just because he threatens to create a competing platform. No reasonable person could take that as incitement. So the only logical answer is anti competitive behaviour, or political manipulation/interference.
andrei_says_ 6y ago
What trump did was incitement using carefully constructed language giving clear instructions while maintaining denialability. There’s no way you believe he was doing anything else. You’re basically pushing for the denialability part by pretending to be innocently surprised. No.
cmurf 6y ago
Trump wound them up with lies and conspiracies and urgency two hours before they went to the capital on his recommendation. This is certainly provoking unlawful behavior or urging someone to behave unlawfully which is the definition of incitement. The defendants will unquestionably be using the "Trump told us to" defense. Trump violated the terms more often and worse than regular people who were removed from the platform. Thousands of regular people kicked off for violating the terms and it's Donald Fucking Trump and Parler that gets folks in an uproar? Over things that happen all the time? By long standing service agreements? What?

zadokshi 6y ago

Strawman. Who is calling for violent overthrow of the US government? Even one person? And on Parler or on Twitter?

that_guy_iain 6y ago
Here is a great thread on Twitter that explains how Trump did. https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680?s=21 https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680?...
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347908845281095680.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1347908845281095680.html
landryraccoon 6y ago
Trump has been calling openly to overturn the election every day from Nov 3rd until Jan 6th, including when he was caught on tape attempting to convince the Secretary of State of Georgia to illegally overturn the election there.
klmadfejno 6y ago
Lots of people. Here's one subset. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Who is calling for violent overthrow of the US government? Does the crowd storming the Capitol chanting "hang Mike Pence" count? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW718KRYDtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OW718KRYDtU
Bud 6y ago
The President gave a speech on Wednesday, to a mob, in which he called for the violent overthrow of the US government. It has been three days. Have you already forgotten?

tick_tock_tick 6y ago

.... That over overturned decades ago. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-time-to-stop-using-the-fire-in-a-crowded-theater-quote/264449/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

landryraccoon 6y ago
Here's a quote from the article you cited: > n 1969, the Supreme Court's decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio effectively overturned Schenck and any authority the case still carried. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech--and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan--is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech "is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". I would argue that the elements of Trump's speech on Jan 6th satisfy all the elements in the lawless action test: - Trump gave a speech on January 6th, the same date as the insurrection. - In this speech he directed his supporters to march on the capitol with his support. - His supporters did actually march on the Capitol, then proceeded to violently occupy it. Regardless of Trump's inner mind, it is clear that his followers believed that his intent was for them to march on the Capitol while the election was being certified and forcefully disrupt those proceedings. It seems to me this is a very strong case that Trump's speech did in fact incite the violence that occurred that day, and the very short amount of time separating those events make it easy to argue that one was the immediate cause of the other.
- verroq 6y ago
  We are not talking about trump. We are talking about Apple, who is forcing other companies to censor their user’s speech and acting as judge and jury on what is acceptable.
  - landryraccoon 6y ago
    Ah, let's talk about Parler specifically then. https://fortune.com/2021/01/08/parler-violence-trump-2020-election-twitter-apple/ https://fortune.com/2021/01/08/parler-violence-trump-2020-el... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/05/parler-telegram-violence-dc-protests/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/05/parler-... https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/06/trump-riot-twitter-parler-proud-boys-boogaloos-antifa-qanon/6570794002/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/01/06/trump-riot-tw... Based on these articles, it sure sounds to me like Parler users are openly calling for immediate violence.

verroq 6y ago

This is just the same lame four excuses [0] to justify censorship and mass surveillance. Just replace terrorism with “inciting violence”. Now the government doesn’t even need to get their hands dirty to censor the internet, private companies enforce it themselves with with impunity. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocal...

mopsi 6y ago

> The US Supreme Court has ruled that one cannot, for example, falsely scream fire in a crowded theater. Very few people seem to know the context of that ruling. That line of thought was used to justify criminal punishment of two socialists from Philadelphia for hindering the war effort in 1917. Their crime: they distributed anti-war leaflets. Elizabeth Baer spent 3 months in prison, Charles T. Schenck 10 years. Goes to show the extent "yelling fire in a theater" can be stretched, and has been stretched from the very first case.

throwawaysea 6y ago

You are allowed to call for the overthrow of the US government. Sedition is protected speech unless it is calling for "imminent" lawless action, as a result of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio. As a result, you are allowed to yell fire in a theater (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...).