7 ms·

Trump Says He Is Suing Facebook, Google and Twitter for Alleged Censorship

22 points by oblib 5y ago

oblib 5y ago
I don't see how he has a case here. I do see how he does this to promote himself though and he'll surely get a lot of free coverage on the news media.
- Johnny555 5y ago
  Filing a lawsuit is cheap, I expect that he's not going to follow through, he's got the publicity he wants.
- ttyprintk 5y ago
  He’s only _announced_ a suit; he can claim victory any number of ways without even filing one. In fact, I don’t know that winning such a suit even theoretically helps him.
- tatrajim 5y ago
  Trump's legal team has taken up the argument put forth by Glenn Greenwald (e.g., his March essay "Congress, in a Five-Hour Hearing, Demands Tech CEOs Censor the Internet Even More Aggressively") that Congress is, in effect, outsourcing its authority to Silicon Valley in the quest of censoring opinions with which they disagree. This imputed Washington - SV nexus will be the fulcrum of the suit.
  - Buttons840 5y ago
    His argument is that congress outsourced its authority to censor? Does Congress even have the authority to censor?
    - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
      The argument is that congress knows it does not have the authority to censor so instead they brow beat the tech companies into doing it for them in the form of dragging executives before congress and using the bully pulpit.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    No, they really haven't. This is a LOLSuit of the worst form. He didn't even file in an appropriate district. > This imputed Washington - SV nexus will be the fulcrum of the suit. This doesn't and couldn't exist. If you want to understand the purpose of the suit, check out the email they sent to his follower list as soon as the press conference was over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5tKUD9WQAoJ82z?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5tKUD9WQAoJ82z?format=jpg&name=... Just endless grifting.
    - tatrajim 5y ago
      "This doesn't and couldn't exist" Rep. Angie Craig (D, MN) questions Mark Zuckerberg in a Congressional hearing: "Facebook allows Rep. Greene's (R, GA) video to remain online. Is that right, yes or no?" https://youtu.be/vsA4u7i20_0 https://youtu.be/vsA4u7i20_0
      - mikeyouse 5y ago
        I'm not sure how this relates to anything.. expand?
        tatrajim 5y ago
        She is exhibit A in Greenwald's essay lambasting Congress for pressuring SV to censor speech they find objectionable. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hearing-demands-0cf https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...
        TechBro8615 5y ago
        The argument from GG is basically that Congress intimidates Big Tech into deplatforming viewpoints that the culturally dominant party (Democrats) disagree with. The OP references Rep Craig asking Zuckerberg if it's "right" to "allow" her republican colleague Rep Greene to post content on Facebook. The implication is that Rep Craig is heavily implying it's not right, and therefore, if Facebook wants to be on the "good side" of Rep Craig (the Democrats), it shouldn't host Rep Greene's content. It should be fairly obvious why large companies want to be in the good graces of lawmakers. It's reasonable for Sundar Pichai or Mark Zuckerberg to think that angry lawmakers lead to more anti-trust lawsuits than happy lawmakers. The problem is actually that both sides are angry at Big Tech, but for opposing reasons. The Democrats don't like that Republican content is the most popular on Facebook, and the Republicans don't like that Facebook doesn't deplatform Democrats engaging in the same or worse behavior as any deplatformed Republican. Both of their concerns are understandable, and stem from the power of "deplatforming" – ever since the deplatforming of Alex Jones, this situation was inevitable. As soon as the platforms set a precedent for what's "bad," they created future obligations for themselves. Because they need to be consistent, right? So if you took down this "bad" thing, why not take down this other "bad" thing? Well, it turns out people have different definitions of "bad," and so that's where most of this vitriol originates.
- tatrajim 5y ago
  Also likely to figure in the lawsuit are emails between Fauci and Zuckerberg that might be used to indicate an untoward pattern of collusion between the government and a private corporation, featuring -- disturbingly enough -- redactions, surely a suspicious indication of potentially damaging future revelations.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    In what universe are emails from one of Trump's appointees, in which he forwards Zuckerberg's "cold email" to Donald Trump's communications team evidence of some plot to get him thrown off Facebook and Twitter 8 months later? Said another way... How could "Collusion between the Government and a private corporation" be supportive of Trump's effort here when he was heading the government that was allegedly doing the colluding.
    - mikeyouse 5y ago
      Ha - George Conway (infamous conservative lawyer) has the same question; https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1412828921242996738 https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1412828921242996738 > But what makes this meta-insane is that he’s claiming that the Facebook was a FEDERAL state actor because it was entangled with the FEDERAL government at a time when HE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
    - tatrajim 5y ago
      Of course, every single member of the US government was fully and faithfully implementing the president's policy goals. The absolute purity of the status of Facebook et al. as private companies, free from any taint of government influence and hence free to suppress speech at corporate will, is looking a mite tattered.
      - mikeyouse 5y ago
        > Of course, every single member of the US government was fully and faithfully implementing the president's policy goals. Sure, blah blah deep state. Even if Fauci and Zuckerberg teamed up in some grand scheme to ban Trump from Facebook after an election that he lost -- the question remains -- how is that a 1st Amendment issue and not an Executive Branch staffing issue? Given that we have a Unitary Executive (an argument held strongly by the most conservative jurists in the country) -- if someone in the Executive Branch were colluding to pressure social media companies with the power of the State, legally it was Trump who was colluding. So Trump is suing Facebook for colluding with his own government? This lawsuit makes no sense on its face, it will be Cable News bait for a few days and then be forgotten, and unfortunately, it further clouds the much more important debate about social media platforms and their rights and responsibilities.
retskrad 5y ago
It's remarkable how effective it was to de-platform Trump. The ring-wing fever in US almost vanished overnight and we have lived in much more peaceful time since he left office and vanished from social media. Twitter & Facebook should've de-platformed him much earlier but they prioritized engagement, unfortunately.
- literallyaduck 5y ago
  If they can do it to Trump they can do it to anyone for any reason and that means the death of democracy.
  - aweiland 5y ago
    Yes, they ban anyone who violates their TOS. This is not news nor a threat to democracy.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    "If you throw racist skinheads out of your bar, you could throw anyone out of your bar for any reason, and that means the death of your bar" Not everything is a slippery slope.. and thankfully, democracy doesn't depend on Twitter or Facebook accounts.
    - hooplah 5y ago
      Ah yes, the millions (including minorities) who disagree with me are racist and Twitter can do whatever they want, go corporatism! No anti-trust issues here! Btw don't talk about that lab leak, oh wait you can now. No laptop though. No slope here. /s
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    A corporation running its own platform in the manner it sees fit is going to lead to the death of democracy? But forcing them to carry speech they don't want to is better for democracy? The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics some people must go through to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
  - 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
seattle_spring 5y ago
Am I crazy, or does this just seem like a Trump fundraiser with extra steps?
- gwittel 5y ago
  It is. See also “barratry” (common law). In the end it has no merit. Trumps M.O. is to threaten legal action to get what he wants. Sometimes he follows through. In this case he gets his name in the news, and whips up his supporters. Now he can again claim he went after big tech. The details like merit and results don’t matter.
- okareaman 5y ago
  The fundraising has begun https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1412804622591406080 https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1412804622591406080
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
neom 5y ago
If you're curious to hear him outline it in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nil5_AI0fWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nil5_AI0fWs Interestingly to me was him explaining how he picked the lawyers to use. He asked who the best lawyers are, and "they" said it's the tobacco lawyers, so he went with the tobacco lawyers, because "they" say the tobacco lawyers are the best.
- okareaman 5y ago
  If it weren't for tobacco lawyers we'd have warning labels on cigarette packs, no cigarette vending machines, age limits on smoking, we couldn't smoke in bars and there would be a massive publicly funded campaign against smoking. Yes, tobacco lawyers are the best.
  - neom 5y ago
    I presumed he was talking about these lawyers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598535/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598535/
    - tatrajim 5y ago
      No, you've got the matter backwards. It's John Coale, anti-tobacco litigator.
      - neom 5y ago
        My mistake, thank you kindly for clarifying. Seems like no matter what side of the tobacco coin you land on, the lawyers in tobacco are quite good.
- tatrajim 5y ago
  He means John Coale, anti-tobacco, anti-Union Carbide lawyer, https://bijog.com/biography/john-p-coale https://bijog.com/biography/john-p-coale
okareaman 5y ago
I find it amusing that Donald Trump hates windmills ("they cause cancer") and "tilting at windmills" is an English idiom which means "attacking imaginary enemies"
- stonecharioteer 5y ago
  Funnily enough, Don Quixote, where that idiom originates from, is about a man living out his delusions.
whoomp12342 5y ago
stop paying attention to this man
temp8964 5y ago
Relevant and civil discussion can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27762145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27762145

22 points by oblib 5y ago

I don't see how he has a case here. I do see how he does this to promote himself though and he'll surely get a lot of free coverage on the news media.

Johnny555 5y ago
Filing a lawsuit is cheap, I expect that he's not going to follow through, he's got the publicity he wants.
ttyprintk 5y ago
He’s only _announced_ a suit; he can claim victory any number of ways without even filing one. In fact, I don’t know that winning such a suit even theoretically helps him.
tatrajim 5y ago
Trump's legal team has taken up the argument put forth by Glenn Greenwald (e.g., his March essay "Congress, in a Five-Hour Hearing, Demands Tech CEOs Censor the Internet Even More Aggressively") that Congress is, in effect, outsourcing its authority to Silicon Valley in the quest of censoring opinions with which they disagree. This imputed Washington - SV nexus will be the fulcrum of the suit.
- Buttons840 5y ago
  His argument is that congress outsourced its authority to censor? Does Congress even have the authority to censor?
  - lp0_on_fire 5y ago
    The argument is that congress knows it does not have the authority to censor so instead they brow beat the tech companies into doing it for them in the form of dragging executives before congress and using the bully pulpit.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  No, they really haven't. This is a LOLSuit of the worst form. He didn't even file in an appropriate district. > This imputed Washington - SV nexus will be the fulcrum of the suit. This doesn't and couldn't exist. If you want to understand the purpose of the suit, check out the email they sent to his follower list as soon as the press conference was over: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5tKUD9WQAoJ82z?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5tKUD9WQAoJ82z?format=jpg&name=... Just endless grifting.
  - tatrajim 5y ago
    "This doesn't and couldn't exist" Rep. Angie Craig (D, MN) questions Mark Zuckerberg in a Congressional hearing: "Facebook allows Rep. Greene's (R, GA) video to remain online. Is that right, yes or no?" https://youtu.be/vsA4u7i20_0 https://youtu.be/vsA4u7i20_0
    - mikeyouse 5y ago
      I'm not sure how this relates to anything.. expand?
      - tatrajim 5y ago
        She is exhibit A in Greenwald's essay lambasting Congress for pressuring SV to censor speech they find objectionable. https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hearing-demands-0cf https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...
      - TechBro8615 5y ago
        The argument from GG is basically that Congress intimidates Big Tech into deplatforming viewpoints that the culturally dominant party (Democrats) disagree with. The OP references Rep Craig asking Zuckerberg if it's "right" to "allow" her republican colleague Rep Greene to post content on Facebook. The implication is that Rep Craig is heavily implying it's not right, and therefore, if Facebook wants to be on the "good side" of Rep Craig (the Democrats), it shouldn't host Rep Greene's content. It should be fairly obvious why large companies want to be in the good graces of lawmakers. It's reasonable for Sundar Pichai or Mark Zuckerberg to think that angry lawmakers lead to more anti-trust lawsuits than happy lawmakers. The problem is actually that both sides are angry at Big Tech, but for opposing reasons. The Democrats don't like that Republican content is the most popular on Facebook, and the Republicans don't like that Facebook doesn't deplatform Democrats engaging in the same or worse behavior as any deplatformed Republican. Both of their concerns are understandable, and stem from the power of "deplatforming" – ever since the deplatforming of Alex Jones, this situation was inevitable. As soon as the platforms set a precedent for what's "bad," they created future obligations for themselves. Because they need to be consistent, right? So if you took down this "bad" thing, why not take down this other "bad" thing? Well, it turns out people have different definitions of "bad," and so that's where most of this vitriol originates.
tatrajim 5y ago
Also likely to figure in the lawsuit are emails between Fauci and Zuckerberg that might be used to indicate an untoward pattern of collusion between the government and a private corporation, featuring -- disturbingly enough -- redactions, surely a suspicious indication of potentially damaging future revelations.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  In what universe are emails from one of Trump's appointees, in which he forwards Zuckerberg's "cold email" to Donald Trump's communications team evidence of some plot to get him thrown off Facebook and Twitter 8 months later? Said another way... How could "Collusion between the Government and a private corporation" be supportive of Trump's effort here when he was heading the government that was allegedly doing the colluding.
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    Ha - George Conway (infamous conservative lawyer) has the same question; https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1412828921242996738 https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1412828921242996738 > But what makes this meta-insane is that he’s claiming that the Facebook was a FEDERAL state actor because it was entangled with the FEDERAL government at a time when HE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
  - tatrajim 5y ago
    Of course, every single member of the US government was fully and faithfully implementing the president's policy goals. The absolute purity of the status of Facebook et al. as private companies, free from any taint of government influence and hence free to suppress speech at corporate will, is looking a mite tattered.
    - mikeyouse 5y ago
      > Of course, every single member of the US government was fully and faithfully implementing the president's policy goals. Sure, blah blah deep state. Even if Fauci and Zuckerberg teamed up in some grand scheme to ban Trump from Facebook after an election that he lost -- the question remains -- how is that a 1st Amendment issue and not an Executive Branch staffing issue? Given that we have a Unitary Executive (an argument held strongly by the most conservative jurists in the country) -- if someone in the Executive Branch were colluding to pressure social media companies with the power of the State, legally it was Trump who was colluding. So Trump is suing Facebook for colluding with his own government? This lawsuit makes no sense on its face, it will be Cable News bait for a few days and then be forgotten, and unfortunately, it further clouds the much more important debate about social media platforms and their rights and responsibilities.

retskrad 5y ago

It's remarkable how effective it was to de-platform Trump. The ring-wing fever in US almost vanished overnight and we have lived in much more peaceful time since he left office and vanished from social media. Twitter & Facebook should've de-platformed him much earlier but they prioritized engagement, unfortunately.

literallyaduck 5y ago
If they can do it to Trump they can do it to anyone for any reason and that means the death of democracy.
- aweiland 5y ago
  Yes, they ban anyone who violates their TOS. This is not news nor a threat to democracy.
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  "If you throw racist skinheads out of your bar, you could throw anyone out of your bar for any reason, and that means the death of your bar" Not everything is a slippery slope.. and thankfully, democracy doesn't depend on Twitter or Facebook accounts.
  - hooplah 5y ago
    Ah yes, the millions (including minorities) who disagree with me are racist and Twitter can do whatever they want, go corporatism! No anti-trust issues here! Btw don't talk about that lab leak, oh wait you can now. No laptop though. No slope here. /s
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  A corporation running its own platform in the manner it sees fit is going to lead to the death of democracy? But forcing them to carry speech they don't want to is better for democracy? The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics some people must go through to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
- 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

seattle_spring 5y ago

Am I crazy, or does this just seem like a Trump fundraiser with extra steps?

gwittel 5y ago
It is. See also “barratry” (common law). In the end it has no merit. Trumps M.O. is to threaten legal action to get what he wants. Sometimes he follows through. In this case he gets his name in the news, and whips up his supporters. Now he can again claim he went after big tech. The details like merit and results don’t matter.
okareaman 5y ago
The fundraising has begun https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1412804622591406080 https://twitter.com/NYTnickc/status/1412804622591406080
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

neom 5y ago

If you're curious to hear him outline it in his own words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nil5_AI0fWs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nil5_AI0fWs Interestingly to me was him explaining how he picked the lawyers to use. He asked who the best lawyers are, and "they" said it's the tobacco lawyers, so he went with the tobacco lawyers, because "they" say the tobacco lawyers are the best.

okareaman 5y ago
If it weren't for tobacco lawyers we'd have warning labels on cigarette packs, no cigarette vending machines, age limits on smoking, we couldn't smoke in bars and there would be a massive publicly funded campaign against smoking. Yes, tobacco lawyers are the best.
- neom 5y ago
  I presumed he was talking about these lawyers: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598535/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2598535/
  - tatrajim 5y ago
    No, you've got the matter backwards. It's John Coale, anti-tobacco litigator.
    - neom 5y ago
      My mistake, thank you kindly for clarifying. Seems like no matter what side of the tobacco coin you land on, the lawyers in tobacco are quite good.
tatrajim 5y ago
He means John Coale, anti-tobacco, anti-Union Carbide lawyer, https://bijog.com/biography/john-p-coale https://bijog.com/biography/john-p-coale

okareaman 5y ago

I find it amusing that Donald Trump hates windmills ("they cause cancer") and "tilting at windmills" is an English idiom which means "attacking imaginary enemies"

stonecharioteer 5y ago
Funnily enough, Don Quixote, where that idiom originates from, is about a man living out his delusions.

whoomp12342 5y ago

stop paying attention to this man

temp8964 5y ago

Relevant and civil discussion can be found here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27762145 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27762145