7 ms·

Judge tears Florida’s social media law to shreds for violating First Amendment

42 points by lakis 5y ago

okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
Its now speech to hit the delete button on someone else's speech? confusing! perhaps free speech should fall back to what it used to be, you can say anything except illegal forms, and then platforms can remove only those illegal forms, la a NAP [1] for speech itself Platforms owning the world's communications but not being subject to aspects in the constitution to protect citizens rights, isn't something that should be considered sustainable, a good read in this, which probably wouldn't fly today, is Marsh vs Alabama [2] The government fell behind in the digital era, there is no public sidewalks on the internet, no public buildings, etc. The concept of free speech, is not protected on the biggest, most popular, communication medium. Why even have free speech at this point, except for perversion by corporations-pretending-to-have-citizen-rights 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- stillbourne 5y ago
  Let's look at the body of the first amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Please observe the first word of the first amendment, "Congress." That means any legislative body: federal, state, or municipal. It does not mean any individual, corporation, or content provider. Furthermore, moderation is not censorship. It has been established that free speech is available to everyone and that moderating a given medium from content it considers objectionable, illegal, or contrary to its means or goals is de facto free speech. To suggest otherwise is counter to the idea that the first amendment was founded on. Not only to prevent monarchs, dictators and governments from suppressing speech but to also prevent monarchs, dictators and governments from forcing government dictated propaganda.
  - netr0ute 5y ago
    This is technically true, but when megacorps become the government within their niche, then maybe the 1st amendment should apply.
    - stillbourne 5y ago
      There is nothing stopping anyone from competing in the free market. If you think perhaps there is a reason megacorps should somehow get a revocation of the frist amendment because they are too big, perhaps we should consider breaking them up instead. Free speech is foundational to a free society. Megacorp social media platforms? Not so much. I would rather see Facebook, Google, and Amazon dissolved into a million smaller corporations than see a modification to the first amendment.
      - dexterdog 5y ago
        Where is there a free market?
    - 5835372 5y ago
      No they don't. Governments act by means of violence. That's why they are dangerous. Social media companies have never killed, tortured, or imprisoned anyone. The worst they can do is refuse to deal with you.
      - netr0ute 5y ago
        Still technically true, but social media companies can conceivably have caused preventable deaths or other bad things due to their algorithms designed to cause hate in the name of "engagement."
  - adolph 5y ago
    > Furthermore, moderation is not censorship. Control is control.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
    >Please observe the first word of the first amendment, "Congress." That means any legislative body: federal, state, or municipal. Actually, technically it doesn’t. At the time of the writing, the Bill of Rights only applied to the Federal Government and not the states. There were later court cases that expanded many of the rights to also include the state governments. Thus, we already have precedent for expanding two the First Amendment applies to: Originally it was Congress, and not it is even Municipal governments. An argument can be made that the power of say Facebook exceeds that of a municipal government to whom the First Amendment applies, and that a Facebook ban is far more chilling than what a small town mayor censoring stuff.
- freeone3000 5y ago
  Where did you get the idea that hate speech is illegal? It's not -- opinions are constitutionally protected regardless of content. This is, fundamentally, the issue.
  - katbyte 5y ago
    it is in many countries around the world
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      OK, but the context here is the laws of the United States.
  - okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
    Sorry, fixed. Thank you for the info!
- wpietri 5y ago
  It the government forces you to keep publishing other people's speech, yes, that can be a violation of your free speech rights.
  - adolph 5y ago
    Submit and bake the cake says the NGO to govt lawyer pipeline https://www.cpr.org/2021/06/17/masterpiece-cakeshop-transgender-discrimination-lawsuit/ https://www.cpr.org/2021/06/17/masterpiece-cakeshop-transgen...
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      I think there is a big difference, at least philosophically, between forcing someone to physically write out a message they don't agree with, and preventing a censor from seeking out messages their employer disagrees with and deleting them so other people can't see them. Whether that philosophical difference matters in the eyes of the law is another question, and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to interpret it.
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Can be. There are some rights limitations around groups historically discriminated against. E.g., by and large as a landlord you can have whoever you want rent your private property. But if you say "white people only", there's a problem.
- triceratops 5y ago
  The Internet itself - the network layer - is the public sidewalk. If you want to protect free speech, you should support re-instating net neutrality. If you have that your voice online can never be taken away. If you don't have it, you can't even access social media if your ISP feels like cutting you off. You're not entitled to have platforms carry and amplify your speech, if they believe it's harmful to their other customers. Just like your ISP isn't required to provide you service if they know you're controlling a botnet. And your phone company can cut you off if they find out you're running an unauthorized robocalling operation.
  - okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
    The network layer is the concrete that is there, the public sidewalk, the concept of a free speech stage on that concrete, the thing you see, and put ideas onto, is more application layer IMO. If the sidewalk concept stops at the network layer, then free speech stops at being able to make a VOIP call, not very useful to the concept of free speech at all To hold a sign up that has my message, one to many over a time period (stateful), is application layer, IMO - - - > You're not entitled to have platforms carry and amplify your speech, if they believe it's harmful to their other customers. Hence why I referenced the NAP
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > then free speech stops at being able to make a VOIP call Or host a web server, or IRC server, or seed a torrent, or a million other things. You can "hold up a sign" that has your message on all of these mediums.
      - okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
        DDoS, systematic spam, et al. End up preventing those aspects. And most ISPs don't "allow" home hosting on personal plans, so you have to pay extra, hosting on any other platform once again subjects you to extra rules to restrict your speech, etc etc. for something that is the right of every citizen, and needs to be in the reach of every citizen. This is not a good approach IMO
- 5835372 5y ago
  I find it very strange that you cite the NAP while supporting government aggression to force people to distribute the speech of politicians, just because they also distribute other speech. This law is wrong and unconstitutional for the same reason forcing students to say the pledge of allegiance is wrong and unconstitutional.
  - okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
    I don't believe in absolutism of labels. Why can't I appreciate the concepts of libertarianism, while also appreciating concepts of government? Its foolish to box oneself into only thinking everything must follow a label and no mixing is allowed
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > perhaps free speech should fall back to what it used to be, you can say anything except illegal forms, and then platforms can remove only those illegal forms Free speech has literally never been that.
dntrkv 5y ago
> The law carved out an unusual exemption for tech companies that happen to also own large theme parks, which would benefit Disney and Comcast, the latter of which owns NBCUniversal including Universal Theme Parks. Tells you all you need to know about this law.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  I was really looking forward to a Google amusement park though. Would be neat to have attractions like Google Drive Bumper Cars.
literallyaduck 5y ago
They will just impose a tax on the platform to kill it.
detaro 5y ago
previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700739
bosswipe 5y ago
Ron Desantis rules by virtue signalling, it doesn't matter if the law is effective as long as it angers liberals and pleases conservatives.
Gunax 5y ago
This is why corporations need constitutional rights--something I have seen the left trying to strip away during the last 10 years or so. Yes, a corporation isn't a person per se, but it is a group of people. To decide which websites have free speech rights and which do not based on their organizational or tax structure is both arbitrary and unfair.
- retrac 5y ago
  I think that was in essence what Citizens United was about?
- bigphishy 5y ago
  Well, I don't even want to touch the first part of this comment, there are smarter people than I that can put that logical fallacy to sleep. Also, please don't be disingenuous, it is entirely feasible and reasonable to legally distinguish between a blog with 10 monthly visitors, and a corporation with 100 million monthly visitors.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    > there are smarter people than I that can put that logical fallacy to sleep. I won't claim to be smarter than you, but I will attempt to provide some justification for your assertion that "corporations need constitutional rights" is a fallacy. Firstly, the idea of corporate personhood is a much later invention than the US Constitution itself, and seems to have developed almost by accident.[0] But regardless of its provenance, it is still clear that a natural person and a corporate "person" are two legally distinct classes of entity. To pick a trivial example, corporations are not entitled to vote (or be counted towards congressional representation). More generally, corporations are not inherent features of the world, but rather legal fictions which exist at the discretion of the society that chooses to grant them existence. A society could, for example, require that all corporations be dissolved, without bumping into the constitutional issues that would arise if such a law was applied to natural persons... Anyway, it seems to me that the argument for protecting "corporate speech" (such as the ACLU's support of Citizens United[1]) is that as long as corporations exist and are useful vehicles for natural persons to exercise their constitutional right to free speech, then the government can't help but infringe on the First Amendment by targeting that "corporate speech". To say that corporations need constitutional rights is to get the argument exactly backwards. Instead, the government should put a positive duty onto social media to protect freedom of speech, by forbidding terms of service which ban users based on their (legal) political opinions. Such a regulation need only apply to platforms which are of a size where they are likely to have a disproportionate effect on the national political discourse. This is not too far removed from existing First Amendment jurisprudence which does allow the government to force health warnings and correct labelling onto products. In fact I would say that a website shouldn't be able to present itself as "social media" if it systematically excludes views that are popular in that society, so the analogy to labelling laws isn't that much of a stretch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#In_the_Un... [1] https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-and-citizens-united https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-and-citizens-united
tzs 5y ago
Oh well...I'd been looking forward to seeing how big the stampede of scammers, pornographers, and the like registering to run for various state and local offices in Florida so they could take advantage of this law was going to be.

42 points by lakis 5y ago

Its now speech to hit the delete button on someone else's speech? confusing! perhaps free speech should fall back to what it used to be, you can say anything except illegal forms, and then platforms can remove only those illegal forms, la a NAP [1] for speech itself Platforms owning the world's communications but not being subject to aspects in the constitution to protect citizens rights, isn't something that should be considered sustainable, a good read in this, which probably wouldn't fly today, is Marsh vs Alabama [2] The government fell behind in the digital era, there is no public sidewalks on the internet, no public buildings, etc. The concept of free speech, is not protected on the biggest, most popular, communication medium. Why even have free speech at this point, except for perversion by corporations-pretending-to-have-citizen-rights 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
stillbourne 5y ago
Let's look at the body of the first amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Please observe the first word of the first amendment, "Congress." That means any legislative body: federal, state, or municipal. It does not mean any individual, corporation, or content provider. Furthermore, moderation is not censorship. It has been established that free speech is available to everyone and that moderating a given medium from content it considers objectionable, illegal, or contrary to its means or goals is de facto free speech. To suggest otherwise is counter to the idea that the first amendment was founded on. Not only to prevent monarchs, dictators and governments from suppressing speech but to also prevent monarchs, dictators and governments from forcing government dictated propaganda.
- netr0ute 5y ago
  This is technically true, but when megacorps become the government within their niche, then maybe the 1st amendment should apply.
  - stillbourne 5y ago
    There is nothing stopping anyone from competing in the free market. If you think perhaps there is a reason megacorps should somehow get a revocation of the frist amendment because they are too big, perhaps we should consider breaking them up instead. Free speech is foundational to a free society. Megacorp social media platforms? Not so much. I would rather see Facebook, Google, and Amazon dissolved into a million smaller corporations than see a modification to the first amendment.
    - dexterdog 5y ago
      Where is there a free market?
  - 5835372 5y ago
    No they don't. Governments act by means of violence. That's why they are dangerous. Social media companies have never killed, tortured, or imprisoned anyone. The worst they can do is refuse to deal with you.
    - netr0ute 5y ago
      Still technically true, but social media companies can conceivably have caused preventable deaths or other bad things due to their algorithms designed to cause hate in the name of "engagement."
- adolph 5y ago
  > Furthermore, moderation is not censorship. Control is control.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
  >Please observe the first word of the first amendment, "Congress." That means any legislative body: federal, state, or municipal. Actually, technically it doesn’t. At the time of the writing, the Bill of Rights only applied to the Federal Government and not the states. There were later court cases that expanded many of the rights to also include the state governments. Thus, we already have precedent for expanding two the First Amendment applies to: Originally it was Congress, and not it is even Municipal governments. An argument can be made that the power of say Facebook exceeds that of a municipal government to whom the First Amendment applies, and that a Facebook ban is far more chilling than what a small town mayor censoring stuff.
freeone3000 5y ago
Where did you get the idea that hate speech is illegal? It's not -- opinions are constitutionally protected regardless of content. This is, fundamentally, the issue.
- katbyte 5y ago
  it is in many countries around the world
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    OK, but the context here is the laws of the United States.
- okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
  Sorry, fixed. Thank you for the info!
wpietri 5y ago
It the government forces you to keep publishing other people's speech, yes, that can be a violation of your free speech rights.
- adolph 5y ago
  Submit and bake the cake says the NGO to govt lawyer pipeline https://www.cpr.org/2021/06/17/masterpiece-cakeshop-transgender-discrimination-lawsuit/ https://www.cpr.org/2021/06/17/masterpiece-cakeshop-transgen...
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    I think there is a big difference, at least philosophically, between forcing someone to physically write out a message they don't agree with, and preventing a censor from seeking out messages their employer disagrees with and deleting them so other people can't see them. Whether that philosophical difference matters in the eyes of the law is another question, and I'm glad I'm not the one who has to interpret it.
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Can be. There are some rights limitations around groups historically discriminated against. E.g., by and large as a landlord you can have whoever you want rent your private property. But if you say "white people only", there's a problem.
triceratops 5y ago
The Internet itself - the network layer - is the public sidewalk. If you want to protect free speech, you should support re-instating net neutrality. If you have that your voice online can never be taken away. If you don't have it, you can't even access social media if your ISP feels like cutting you off. You're not entitled to have platforms carry and amplify your speech, if they believe it's harmful to their other customers. Just like your ISP isn't required to provide you service if they know you're controlling a botnet. And your phone company can cut you off if they find out you're running an unauthorized robocalling operation.
- okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
  The network layer is the concrete that is there, the public sidewalk, the concept of a free speech stage on that concrete, the thing you see, and put ideas onto, is more application layer IMO. If the sidewalk concept stops at the network layer, then free speech stops at being able to make a VOIP call, not very useful to the concept of free speech at all To hold a sign up that has my message, one to many over a time period (stateful), is application layer, IMO - - - > You're not entitled to have platforms carry and amplify your speech, if they believe it's harmful to their other customers. Hence why I referenced the NAP
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > then free speech stops at being able to make a VOIP call Or host a web server, or IRC server, or seed a torrent, or a million other things. You can "hold up a sign" that has your message on all of these mediums.
    - okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
      DDoS, systematic spam, et al. End up preventing those aspects. And most ISPs don't "allow" home hosting on personal plans, so you have to pay extra, hosting on any other platform once again subjects you to extra rules to restrict your speech, etc etc. for something that is the right of every citizen, and needs to be in the reach of every citizen. This is not a good approach IMO
5835372 5y ago
I find it very strange that you cite the NAP while supporting government aggression to force people to distribute the speech of politicians, just because they also distribute other speech. This law is wrong and unconstitutional for the same reason forcing students to say the pledge of allegiance is wrong and unconstitutional.
- okdjnfweonfe 5y ago
  I don't believe in absolutism of labels. Why can't I appreciate the concepts of libertarianism, while also appreciating concepts of government? Its foolish to box oneself into only thinking everything must follow a label and no mixing is allowed
dragonwriter 5y ago
> perhaps free speech should fall back to what it used to be, you can say anything except illegal forms, and then platforms can remove only those illegal forms Free speech has literally never been that.

dntrkv 5y ago

> The law carved out an unusual exemption for tech companies that happen to also own large theme parks, which would benefit Disney and Comcast, the latter of which owns NBCUniversal including Universal Theme Parks. Tells you all you need to know about this law.

lalaland1125 5y ago
I was really looking forward to a Google amusement park though. Would be neat to have attractions like Google Drive Bumper Cars.

literallyaduck 5y ago

They will just impose a tax on the platform to kill it.

detaro 5y ago

previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700739 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27700739

bosswipe 5y ago

Ron Desantis rules by virtue signalling, it doesn't matter if the law is effective as long as it angers liberals and pleases conservatives.

Gunax 5y ago

This is why corporations need constitutional rights--something I have seen the left trying to strip away during the last 10 years or so. Yes, a corporation isn't a person per se, but it is a group of people. To decide which websites have free speech rights and which do not based on their organizational or tax structure is both arbitrary and unfair.

retrac 5y ago
I think that was in essence what Citizens United was about?
bigphishy 5y ago
Well, I don't even want to touch the first part of this comment, there are smarter people than I that can put that logical fallacy to sleep. Also, please don't be disingenuous, it is entirely feasible and reasonable to legally distinguish between a blog with 10 monthly visitors, and a corporation with 100 million monthly visitors.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > there are smarter people than I that can put that logical fallacy to sleep. I won't claim to be smarter than you, but I will attempt to provide some justification for your assertion that "corporations need constitutional rights" is a fallacy. Firstly, the idea of corporate personhood is a much later invention than the US Constitution itself, and seems to have developed almost by accident.[0] But regardless of its provenance, it is still clear that a natural person and a corporate "person" are two legally distinct classes of entity. To pick a trivial example, corporations are not entitled to vote (or be counted towards congressional representation). More generally, corporations are not inherent features of the world, but rather legal fictions which exist at the discretion of the society that chooses to grant them existence. A society could, for example, require that all corporations be dissolved, without bumping into the constitutional issues that would arise if such a law was applied to natural persons... Anyway, it seems to me that the argument for protecting "corporate speech" (such as the ACLU's support of Citizens United[1]) is that as long as corporations exist and are useful vehicles for natural persons to exercise their constitutional right to free speech, then the government can't help but infringe on the First Amendment by targeting that "corporate speech". To say that corporations need constitutional rights is to get the argument exactly backwards. Instead, the government should put a positive duty onto social media to protect freedom of speech, by forbidding terms of service which ban users based on their (legal) political opinions. Such a regulation need only apply to platforms which are of a size where they are likely to have a disproportionate effect on the national political discourse. This is not too far removed from existing First Amendment jurisprudence which does allow the government to force health warnings and correct labelling onto products. In fact I would say that a website shouldn't be able to present itself as "social media" if it systematically excludes views that are popular in that society, so the analogy to labelling laws isn't that much of a stretch. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#In_the_Un... [1] https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-and-citizens-united https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-and-citizens-united

tzs 5y ago

Oh well...I'd been looking forward to seeing how big the stampede of scammers, pornographers, and the like registering to run for various state and local offices in Florida so they could take advantage of this law was going to be.