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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 Fa

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.
- tatrajim 5y ago
  For the record, here's what Pam Bondi said on related issues during the press conference today: "When you have Mark Zuckerberg and others being called in front of Congress and being coerced and being questioned by all these congressmen, then you also have Mark Zuckerberg emailing with Dr. Fauci about COVID and in fact, a lot of their emails that we received have been redacted, not just because of phone numbers, but because they were trading trade secrets. A private company is communicating with the federal government and parts of that were redacted. They’re not immune anymore. They are not immune anymore. It was coercion, collusion, working together and they cannot hide from the first amendment." https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conference-announcement-transcript-sues-facebook-twitter-google-over-censorship-claims https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conf...
  - mikeyouse 5y ago
    I suspect she meant they can't hide "behind" the first amendment.. but otherwise that word salad makes as much sense as the typical Pam Bondi speech. For the 1 millionth time - the Fauci-Zuckerberg emails not only took place during the Trump administration, and were shared with the White House comms team, but they were also were released under FOIA during the Trump administration. All of these were released in 2020! His government redacted the emails that he's complaining about being redacted. He's literally suing Facebook for colluding with his government and his attorney is using the redactions that his government performed as evidence of that collusion. Just an astonishingly incompetent lawsuit and I hope the lawyers who filed it are sanctioned.
  - ModernMech 5y ago
    Didn't Pam Bondi solicit a bribe from Donald Trump to drop her investigation into Trump University (which was later found to be fraudulent by a court and was ordered dissolved)? What credibility does she have left?

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.

tatrajim 5y ago
For the record, here's what Pam Bondi said on related issues during the press conference today: "When you have Mark Zuckerberg and others being called in front of Congress and being coerced and being questioned by all these congressmen, then you also have Mark Zuckerberg emailing with Dr. Fauci about COVID and in fact, a lot of their emails that we received have been redacted, not just because of phone numbers, but because they were trading trade secrets. A private company is communicating with the federal government and parts of that were redacted. They’re not immune anymore. They are not immune anymore. It was coercion, collusion, working together and they cannot hide from the first amendment." https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conference-announcement-transcript-sues-facebook-twitter-google-over-censorship-claims https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conf...
- mikeyouse 5y ago
  I suspect she meant they can't hide "behind" the first amendment.. but otherwise that word salad makes as much sense as the typical Pam Bondi speech. For the 1 millionth time - the Fauci-Zuckerberg emails not only took place during the Trump administration, and were shared with the White House comms team, but they were also were released under FOIA during the Trump administration. All of these were released in 2020! His government redacted the emails that he's complaining about being redacted. He's literally suing Facebook for colluding with his government and his attorney is using the redactions that his government performed as evidence of that collusion. Just an astonishingly incompetent lawsuit and I hope the lawyers who filed it are sanctioned.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  Didn't Pam Bondi solicit a bribe from Donald Trump to drop her investigation into Trump University (which was later found to be fraudulent by a court and was ordered dissolved)? What credibility does she have left?