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Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry Chi

Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry Chinese state propaganda, for example? Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry ISIS propaganda? There are alternatives to Google. They should host that content there

throwitaway1235 5y ago
The argument would be the magnitude of their impact on how a member of society can search for, view or transmit information is too large for Google to be deemed a private company. If a private company impacts a nation's states democracy to such an extent that it rivals it in power, they ought to be classified as something else.
- beebmam 5y ago
  So, in your opinion, what should a government force the company to do when they are classified as what you describe? Force them to host all speech? Does that include art? Disinformation? Propaganda? Porn? Spam? Terrorism? I don't think you've thought out the consequences of what you're advocating for. If you have thought it out, please explain exactly what speech they should be forced to host and what speech they shouldn't be.
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
    Right. I personally never thought it was that complicated. Once a company is classified as a public utility (I believe Google is) it should be forced to host all legal content. You tell me what's illegal and I can safely tell you it can't be hosted by Google.
    - beebmam 5y ago
      By whose laws? Even within the US, there are plenty of different laws. Should it be an intersection of all laws, everywhere? Only content which is lawful around the world? Or regionally? Should people outside those regions be segmented off from content that isn't in their region? Moreover, you're saying that spam should be forced to be hosted by these companies, just like our snail-mail protects. Even if it takes up Exabytes of information. Should people who have their content removed be able to sue these companies for removing it?
      - throwitaway1235 5y ago
        They are American companies, they therefore fall under American laws. Just with Twitter, we know that content is regulated by region. Setting your location to Germany will prohibit seeing certain content from the U.S. Many more such regional cases. The spam example would be a problem, but it's more of an annoyance to solve than a basic human rights case. You simply cannot have a democracy where segments of the population are barred from interacting with public officials online. Especially when public business (advertising, fundraising, making political arguments) is now a core of online communications.
        beebmam 5y ago
        If you're saying US companies (that classify as whatever you're defining them as) should be forced to carry all legal speech, no matter how terrible or cruel or provocative it is, I'd be okay with this, and that means literally all spam, and that admins would not be able to moderate any legal speech. If it's any less than this, I'm not okay with what you're advocating for. And effectively this would turn these sites into platforms that are so filled with trash they will be unusable. And the chaotic part of me would love to see that happen. But it means basically the end of these companies to function. Realistically, I think we should keep to the standard we've had in the past: we can't compel companies to host speech they disagree with, and we should take strong measures to limit their anti-competitive behavior and break them up into competing companies if necessary (like we did with telecom)
        throwitaway1235 5y ago
        I don't want to keep arguing. Mostly informative exchange. I would say though, Twitters model from around 2012 was extremely open compared with today (remember the Arab Spring?) and in no way was it an unusable, trash/spam laden platform.
        quotemstr 5y ago
        Don't be disingenuous. The problem is viewpoint discrimination. Spam isn't a viewpoint. Porn isn't a viewpoint. Libel isn't a viewpoint. We can limit the ability of tech companies to arbitrarily censor points of view while still keeping the platform free of spam. How? Create a cause of action whereby if a tech company removes someone's content, that person can go to court and ask that a judge determine whether that content removal is some kind of anti-spam operation or viewpoint censorship. You don't let the company have the final say.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
  I'm sorry, but no one from a reasonable standpoint is going to look at Google not hosting "misleading content" and then think democracy is threatened.
  - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
    Yeah google de-indexing all pages criticizing the democrats and the company is also not threat to democracy. They must provide us with a curated set of sound information vetted by the politicians, FAANG and the state department.
    - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
      No one is curating anything. If you want your right-wing search engine, then create it. Google is under no obligation to give you top page rank.
      - throwitaway1235 5y ago
        Can we at least agree on some basic facts? Google does in fact curate search. Where a page is listed does not depend on how many times the link was clicked. Yes?
      - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
        "If you want your left-wing gasoline create it. Shell,Citgo, Exxon,etc are in no obligation to give it to you. Go and extract your own oil and refine it."
      - drstewart 5y ago
        >If you want your right-wing search engine, then create it. And your true intentions come out. If Google delists AOC from all their properties in the next election and replaces the results with those from her opposition, I'm sure you'll be the first to say it's totally fine and she should just host her own search site if she doesn't like it.
  - throwitaway1235 5y ago
swalsh 5y ago
Why do we not allow telephone companies to censor our conversations? Why can't the power company choose not provide power to offices for political campaigns they disagree with? We afford monopolies certain privileges, but we also require monopolies to have certain restraints. Many of these large tech companies have become natural monopolies. I think its reasonable to expect similar restraints.
- beebmam 5y ago
  I agree with you on restraints on natural monopolies. That should come in the form of limiting their anti-competitive behavior and probably also harvesting user data unconsentually for profit. But regarding limiting these companies from being able to decide which speech they don't want to host: I don't think you've thought this out fully. What speech should they be forced to host? Art? Disinformation? Propaganda? Porn? Spam? Terrorism? For illegal speech: Whose laws should they be forced to obey?
  - gshixman 5y ago
    With respect, no speech should be illegal, regardless of how absurd, abhorrent, or inaccurate the speech is to anyone. Free speech is fundamental to a truly free society, full stop.
    - beebmam 5y ago
      You disagree with your own statement and you don't even know it! "No speech should be illegal" - should I be able to threaten people then? That's speech. Should I be able to detail my plans for how I'm going to commit a crime? That's speech. Should I be able to scream at the top of my lungs in a public space? Should I be able to use a loudspeaker to broadcast my voice (or an advertisement) to drown out all other sound in a public space? It sounds nice what you're saying, but it's not what you actually believe, so I kindly ask you to argue less in bad faith.
      - z33k 5y ago
        You're right. We should make exceptions to free speech only for recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally: -making unreasonable noise and continuing to do so after being asked to stop -disrupting a lawful assembly of persons -speech made for the principal purpose of creating panic -if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely. My solution to the original problem would be to make it technologically unfeasible to solve. The architecture of the communication platform should be constrained in such a way that operators & owners are unable to make choices about which speech to include. This is because nobody is equipped to solve this problem, and nobody should be forced to do anything to try and solve it.
prepend 5y ago
> Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Prior to the civil rights act, companies didn’t serve certain people based on their race because they disagreed with that race. It’s not that Google should be forced to carry stuff, they should be forced to not discriminate because they don’t like it. ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for that reason.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Are you arguing that we should pass legislation that forces all US companies to host all legal content?
  - quotemstr 5y ago
    Yes. Any company with an user base or influence above a certain threshold should not get to make moderation decisions unilaterally without the input of society at large. That input is called "the law".
  - prepend 5y ago
    Not at all. But I would like to see legislation (or some strong rule) that forces huge corporations or companies over a certain market share to host all legal content. Similar to how television broadcasters have regulations that that force them to provide equal time to all major candidates. I think there’s some reasonable threshold that doesn’t require small providers to host everything.
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      Equal time for TV hasn’t been a thing for decades. And it was justified because TVs used the public airwaves. I don’t know how you could write a law that would pass constitutional muster. And it seems very unlikely that you could get a constitutional amendment through on this topic.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  > ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for that reason. What specifically is illegal about pro-ISIS speech?
busymom0 5y ago
> Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry Chinese state propaganda, for example? Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry ISIS propaganda? They already do host them. CloudFlare, the biggest CDN, despite their words and claims routinely censors sites meanwhile defending hosting terrorist site's free speech. https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle... > the company serves at least seven groups on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas. > CEP has sent letters to Cloudflare since February 13, 2017, warning about clients on the service, including Hamas, the Taliban, the PFLP, and the Nordic Resistance Movement. The latest letter, from February 15, 2019, warns of what CEP identified as three pro-ISIS propaganda websites. CF claims terrorist organization's websites are free speech: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ As for the whole "private speech" argument, so, Rosa Parks should have just started her own bus company too? Discriminating against people based on race was legal after all. And if race is a "different" topic, then how about religion? Religion is based on ideas. These tech companies claim to censor religion based offensive content too. But almost all LGBT content is against all religion. Isn't that offensive too and should be censored too? And just like religion is based on ideas, political opinions are ideas too. Railroads, telecom, electricity and water companies should be able to refuse service too? Are you against the FDA, EPA, FCC, FEC, COPPA regulations, regulations of fire insurance rates etc? How about Net Neutrality? Private businesses should be able to charge whatever they want and for whatever content they want right? How about the government-forced lockdowns forcing private businesses to shut down and go bankrupt? And how about the baker who refused to bake cake for the gay couple for religious reasons? How about the current Administration banning menthol cigarettes, flavoured cigars? How about government banning incandescent light bulbs? How about Fauci's emails where he's emailing with Zuckerberg (some of which was also redacted). Fauci is the government and him working together with FB in building their "COVID dashboard" which censored many people, especially those talking about the lab leak theory as well as Ivermectin. Is that not government enforced censorship? There's a whole community on TikTok (you can find them here on Twitter, too) which scorns people as "fatphobic" for encouraging fitness and weight loss. They falsely say obesity isn't unhealthy. Should that be allowed considering that's also "misleading/misinformation"? Are social media companies that allow it "killing people" (Biden's words from today)? Are social media companies also guilty of "killing people" if they allow content encouraging people to be obese, to consume fatty junk food, content which glorifies cigarette smoking and large amounts of alcohol consumption and a sedentary lifestyle? Seems like the "it's a private business" crowd is totally okay with government enforced regulations and lockdowns for their political benefit but when it comes to political speech of their opposition, they suddenly discover the "private" business. SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether President Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as President Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians like President Trump aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic. Here's a few excerpts: > "But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smoth- ered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves." > "As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them." The last 2 points are important as Justice Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look." I would highly recommend reading his opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf One can even cite Amazon's recent censorship of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas's own documentary as well as Eli Steele’s documentary as examples: https://archive.is/aNv3B https://archive.is/aNv3B Also based on recent revelations of things like Press Secretary Psaki admitting that they are flagging content *FOR* Facebook, advocating for censoring any person from all social media if they are censored on only one social media as well as Fauci's emails showing him actively emailing with Zuckerberg on the COVID news which led to censoring of anyone who brought up the lab leak theory, this makes these companies State actions and not private companies.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

throwitaway1235 5y ago

The argument would be the magnitude of their impact on how a member of society can search for, view or transmit information is too large for Google to be deemed a private company. If a private company impacts a nation's states democracy to such an extent that it rivals it in power, they ought to be classified as something else.

beebmam 5y ago
So, in your opinion, what should a government force the company to do when they are classified as what you describe? Force them to host all speech? Does that include art? Disinformation? Propaganda? Porn? Spam? Terrorism? I don't think you've thought out the consequences of what you're advocating for. If you have thought it out, please explain exactly what speech they should be forced to host and what speech they shouldn't be.
- throwitaway1235 5y ago
  Right. I personally never thought it was that complicated. Once a company is classified as a public utility (I believe Google is) it should be forced to host all legal content. You tell me what's illegal and I can safely tell you it can't be hosted by Google.
  - beebmam 5y ago
    By whose laws? Even within the US, there are plenty of different laws. Should it be an intersection of all laws, everywhere? Only content which is lawful around the world? Or regionally? Should people outside those regions be segmented off from content that isn't in their region? Moreover, you're saying that spam should be forced to be hosted by these companies, just like our snail-mail protects. Even if it takes up Exabytes of information. Should people who have their content removed be able to sue these companies for removing it?
    - throwitaway1235 5y ago
      They are American companies, they therefore fall under American laws. Just with Twitter, we know that content is regulated by region. Setting your location to Germany will prohibit seeing certain content from the U.S. Many more such regional cases. The spam example would be a problem, but it's more of an annoyance to solve than a basic human rights case. You simply cannot have a democracy where segments of the population are barred from interacting with public officials online. Especially when public business (advertising, fundraising, making political arguments) is now a core of online communications.
      - beebmam 5y ago
        If you're saying US companies (that classify as whatever you're defining them as) should be forced to carry all legal speech, no matter how terrible or cruel or provocative it is, I'd be okay with this, and that means literally all spam, and that admins would not be able to moderate any legal speech. If it's any less than this, I'm not okay with what you're advocating for. And effectively this would turn these sites into platforms that are so filled with trash they will be unusable. And the chaotic part of me would love to see that happen. But it means basically the end of these companies to function. Realistically, I think we should keep to the standard we've had in the past: we can't compel companies to host speech they disagree with, and we should take strong measures to limit their anti-competitive behavior and break them up into competing companies if necessary (like we did with telecom)
        throwitaway1235 5y ago
        I don't want to keep arguing. Mostly informative exchange. I would say though, Twitters model from around 2012 was extremely open compared with today (remember the Arab Spring?) and in no way was it an unusable, trash/spam laden platform.
        quotemstr 5y ago
        Don't be disingenuous. The problem is viewpoint discrimination. Spam isn't a viewpoint. Porn isn't a viewpoint. Libel isn't a viewpoint. We can limit the ability of tech companies to arbitrarily censor points of view while still keeping the platform free of spam. How? Create a cause of action whereby if a tech company removes someone's content, that person can go to court and ask that a judge determine whether that content removal is some kind of anti-spam operation or viewpoint censorship. You don't let the company have the final say.
x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
I'm sorry, but no one from a reasonable standpoint is going to look at Google not hosting "misleading content" and then think democracy is threatened.
- Ostrogodsky 5y ago
  Yeah google de-indexing all pages criticizing the democrats and the company is also not threat to democracy. They must provide us with a curated set of sound information vetted by the politicians, FAANG and the state department.
  - x86_64Ubuntu 5y ago
    No one is curating anything. If you want your right-wing search engine, then create it. Google is under no obligation to give you top page rank.
    - throwitaway1235 5y ago
      Can we at least agree on some basic facts? Google does in fact curate search. Where a page is listed does not depend on how many times the link was clicked. Yes?
    - Ostrogodsky 5y ago
      "If you want your left-wing gasoline create it. Shell,Citgo, Exxon,etc are in no obligation to give it to you. Go and extract your own oil and refine it."
    - drstewart 5y ago
      >If you want your right-wing search engine, then create it. And your true intentions come out. If Google delists AOC from all their properties in the next election and replaces the results with those from her opposition, I'm sure you'll be the first to say it's totally fine and she should just host her own search site if she doesn't like it.
- throwitaway1235 5y ago

swalsh 5y ago

Why do we not allow telephone companies to censor our conversations? Why can't the power company choose not provide power to offices for political campaigns they disagree with? We afford monopolies certain privileges, but we also require monopolies to have certain restraints. Many of these large tech companies have become natural monopolies. I think its reasonable to expect similar restraints.

beebmam 5y ago
I agree with you on restraints on natural monopolies. That should come in the form of limiting their anti-competitive behavior and probably also harvesting user data unconsentually for profit. But regarding limiting these companies from being able to decide which speech they don't want to host: I don't think you've thought this out fully. What speech should they be forced to host? Art? Disinformation? Propaganda? Porn? Spam? Terrorism? For illegal speech: Whose laws should they be forced to obey?
- gshixman 5y ago
  With respect, no speech should be illegal, regardless of how absurd, abhorrent, or inaccurate the speech is to anyone. Free speech is fundamental to a truly free society, full stop.
  - beebmam 5y ago
    You disagree with your own statement and you don't even know it! "No speech should be illegal" - should I be able to threaten people then? That's speech. Should I be able to detail my plans for how I'm going to commit a crime? That's speech. Should I be able to scream at the top of my lungs in a public space? Should I be able to use a loudspeaker to broadcast my voice (or an advertisement) to drown out all other sound in a public space? It sounds nice what you're saying, but it's not what you actually believe, so I kindly ask you to argue less in bad faith.
    - z33k 5y ago
      You're right. We should make exceptions to free speech only for recklessly, knowingly, or intentionally: -making unreasonable noise and continuing to do so after being asked to stop -disrupting a lawful assembly of persons -speech made for the principal purpose of creating panic -if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely. My solution to the original problem would be to make it technologically unfeasible to solve. The architecture of the communication platform should be constrained in such a way that operators & owners are unable to make choices about which speech to include. This is because nobody is equipped to solve this problem, and nobody should be forced to do anything to try and solve it.

prepend 5y ago

> Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Prior to the civil rights act, companies didn’t serve certain people based on their race because they disagreed with that race. It’s not that Google should be forced to carry stuff, they should be forced to not discriminate because they don’t like it. ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for that reason.

beebmam 5y ago
Are you arguing that we should pass legislation that forces all US companies to host all legal content?
- quotemstr 5y ago
  Yes. Any company with an user base or influence above a certain threshold should not get to make moderation decisions unilaterally without the input of society at large. That input is called "the law".
- prepend 5y ago
  Not at all. But I would like to see legislation (or some strong rule) that forces huge corporations or companies over a certain market share to host all legal content. Similar to how television broadcasters have regulations that that force them to provide equal time to all major candidates. I think there’s some reasonable threshold that doesn’t require small providers to host everything.
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    Equal time for TV hasn’t been a thing for decades. And it was justified because TVs used the public airwaves. I don’t know how you could write a law that would pass constitutional muster. And it seems very unlikely that you could get a constitutional amendment through on this topic.
mullingitover 5y ago
> ISIS propaganda is illegal and should be taken down for that reason. What specifically is illegal about pro-ISIS speech?

busymom0 5y ago

> Please tell me why a private company should be forced to host content that they fundamentally disagree with. Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry Chinese state propaganda, for example? Why should Google be forced, legally, to carry ISIS propaganda? They already do host them. CloudFlare, the biggest CDN, despite their words and claims routinely censors sites meanwhile defending hosting terrorist site's free speech. https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddles-its-role-as-privacy-champion-and-hate-speech-enabler https://www.fastcompany.com/90312063/how-cloudflare-straddle... > the company serves at least seven groups on the U.S. State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations, including al-Shabab, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), al-Quds Brigades, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Hamas. > CEP has sent letters to Cloudflare since February 13, 2017, warning about clients on the service, including Hamas, the Taliban, the PFLP, and the Nordic Resistance Movement. The latest letter, from February 15, 2019, warns of what CEP identified as three pro-ISIS propaganda websites. CF claims terrorist organization's websites are free speech: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-and-free-speech/ As for the whole "private speech" argument, so, Rosa Parks should have just started her own bus company too? Discriminating against people based on race was legal after all. And if race is a "different" topic, then how about religion? Religion is based on ideas. These tech companies claim to censor religion based offensive content too. But almost all LGBT content is against all religion. Isn't that offensive too and should be censored too? And just like religion is based on ideas, political opinions are ideas too. Railroads, telecom, electricity and water companies should be able to refuse service too? Are you against the FDA, EPA, FCC, FEC, COPPA regulations, regulations of fire insurance rates etc? How about Net Neutrality? Private businesses should be able to charge whatever they want and for whatever content they want right? How about the government-forced lockdowns forcing private businesses to shut down and go bankrupt? And how about the baker who refused to bake cake for the gay couple for religious reasons? How about the current Administration banning menthol cigarettes, flavoured cigars? How about government banning incandescent light bulbs? How about Fauci's emails where he's emailing with Zuckerberg (some of which was also redacted). Fauci is the government and him working together with FB in building their "COVID dashboard" which censored many people, especially those talking about the lab leak theory as well as Ivermectin. Is that not government enforced censorship? There's a whole community on TikTok (you can find them here on Twitter, too) which scorns people as "fatphobic" for encouraging fitness and weight loss. They falsely say obesity isn't unhealthy. Should that be allowed considering that's also "misleading/misinformation"? Are social media companies that allow it "killing people" (Biden's words from today)? Are social media companies also guilty of "killing people" if they allow content encouraging people to be obese, to consume fatty junk food, content which glorifies cigarette smoking and large amounts of alcohol consumption and a sedentary lifestyle? Seems like the "it's a private business" crowd is totally okay with government enforced regulations and lockdowns for their political benefit but when it comes to political speech of their opposition, they suddenly discover the "private" business. SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas opined couple months ago discussing big tech censorship quite extensively. The case was regarding whether President Trump was allowed to block people on Twitter and it being a 1st amendment violation. While the case was declared moot as President Trump left office, Justice Clarence Thomas took the opportunity to discuss censorship. How politicians like President Trump aren't allowed to block users on big tech but big tech is able to block and ban government employees and how this creates a weird power dynamic. Here's a few excerpts: > "But whatever may be said of other industries, there is clear historical precedent for regulating transportation and communications networks in a similar manner as traditional common carriers. Candeub 398–405. Telegraphs, for example, because they “resemble[d] railroad companies and other common carriers,” were “bound to serve all customers alike, without discrimination." ... "Internet platforms of course have their own First Amendment interests, but regulations that might affect speech are valid if they would have been permissible at the time of the founding. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468 (2010). The long history in this country and in England of restricting the exclusion right of common carriers and places of public accommodation may save similar regulations today from triggering heightened scrutiny—especially where a restriction would not prohibit the company from speaking or force the company to endorse the speech." ... "The similarities between some digital platforms and common carriers or places of public accommodation may give legislators strong arguments for similarly regulating digital platforms. [I]t stands to reason that if Congress may demand that telephone companies operate as common carriers, it can ask the same of ”digital platforms." ... "For example, although a “private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment,” Halleck, 587 U. S., at ___, ___ (slip op., at 6, 9), it is if the government coerces or induces it to take action the government itself would not be permitted to do, such as censor expression of a lawful viewpoint. Ibid. Consider government threats. “People do not lightly disregard public officers’ thinly veiled threats to institute criminal proceedings against them if they do not come around.” Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963). The government cannot accomplish through threats of adverse government action what the Constitution prohibits it from doing directly. See ibid.; Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U. S. 991, 1004–1005 (1982). Under this doctrine, plaintiffs might have colorable claims against a digital plat- form if it took adverse action against them in response to government threats. The Second Circuit feared that then-President Trump cut off speech by using the features that Twitter made available to him. But if the aim is to ensure that speech is not smoth- ered, then the more glaring concern must perforce be the dominant digital platforms themselves." > "As Twitter made clear, the right to cut off speech lies most powerfully in the hands of private digital platforms. The extent to which that power matters for purposes of the First Amendment and the extent to which that power could lawfully be modified raise interesting and important questions. This petition, unfortunately, affords us no opportunity to confront them." The last 2 points are important as Justice Thomas is basically saying "give us a case which brings up these two questions and then we will have a deep look." I would highly recommend reading his opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-197_5ie6.pdf One can even cite Amazon's recent censorship of SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas's own documentary as well as Eli Steele’s documentary as examples: https://archive.is/aNv3B https://archive.is/aNv3B Also based on recent revelations of things like Press Secretary Psaki admitting that they are flagging content *FOR* Facebook, advocating for censoring any person from all social media if they are censored on only one social media as well as Fauci's emails showing him actively emailing with Zuckerberg on the COVID news which led to censoring of anyone who brought up the lab leak theory, this makes these companies State actions and not private companies.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]