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> Twitter is not bound by the 1st amendment. Twitter is in fact bound by the first amendment when coerced by the government. We need to go back to all of two

> Twitter is not bound by the 1st amendment. Twitter is in fact bound by the first amendment when coerced by the government. We need to go back to all of two weeks ago to find an instance of a congressional candidate asking for their opponent, the sitting congresswoman, to be banned. Twitter did exactly this. Interpretations for that ban are open to debate, but they're also open to debate in court. If found that Twitter tends to comply with government censorship for fear of retribution, they are liable.

bastawhiz 5y ago
Is there evidence to suggest they were indeed coerced?
- skavi 5y ago
  https://www.reuters.com/world/us/twitter-permanently-bans-us-representative-marjorie-taylor-greene-2022-01-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/twitter-permanently-bans-us...
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    That does not show coercion.
    - skavi 5y ago
      Sorry, wasn't trying to claim it did. Just adding context.
- abernard1 5y ago
  I don't know, as I do not have the information on hand. I do not sit in the halls of Twitter and know how or why they choose to censor content. Or, alternatively, make content available. However, if Twitter were under the same publishing guidelines as the NYT, they'd be open to discovery and society could find out. The NYT is in currently in hot water for publishing third party material covered under legal privacy. The proof of that came via discovery. What is silly, and what I hear repeated to a frustrating degree, is that questions of discovery are inherently off limits due to EULAs or Twitter "not being bound by the 1st Amendment". There is no legal basis for this whatsoever, but there is a regulatory carve out which has effectively prevented scrutiny.
  - lalaland1125 5y ago
    > I don't know, as I do not have the information on hand. I do not sit in the halls of Twitter and know how or why they choose to censor content. So you agree that you have no evidence. It's just a completely unbacked conspiracy theory. > The NYT is in currently in hot water for publishing third party material covered under legal privacy. The proof of that came via discovery. If you are talking about the Project Veritas legal document leaks this is 100% incorrect. Discovery had nothing to do with that fight.
    - abernard1 5y ago
      > It's just a completely unbacked conspiracy theory. ...I had no theory at all. I was merely bringing up that the blanket statement of the first amendment not applying to Twitter is false. It can be debated in court under first amendment grounds. We have in this thread an interesting whiplash of "the 1st amendment must be protected!" and "Twitter is not bound by the first amendment" by the same people. I am doing the same, but am at least contextualizing how and where the first amendment applies to Twitter. Edit: The first amendment is a set of restrictions on what government can't restrict. Therefore, if the first amendment is applied to Twitter, it means the content not allowed to be restricted is Twitter's speech. This is how it works with newspapers and why they are liable. Twitter, is not saying this. They are, very directly in the text of this case, advocating for protecting their users' speech, not their own. But they do this selectively: they'll only allow government censorship when they feel like it Private organizations acting under threat of government action are liable and can be sued, threatened or not [1]. I have attached many cases where the Supreme Court has ruled in this way. [1] https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-private-entities-to-restrict-others-speech/ https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-p...
      - lalaland1125 5y ago
        It's not whiplash at all. Twitter isn't bound by the first amendment. Twitter is protected by it. If it came out that government was coercing Twitter to ban people, Twitter would be the victim there.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Just asking can be coercion. Rattner v. Netburn (2nd cir) held that government officials simply asking for more information about a previously anonymous author of a published article is coercion based on this language in a letter. That a lack of cooperation... "raises significant questions and concerns about the objectivity and trust which we are looking for from our business friends" And therefore was unconstitutional under on the first amendment.
  - bastawhiz 5y ago
    That sounds like Twitter's 1a rights were violated, not the politician who was banned. Twitter is always free to ban who it wants from its platform. Even if it was litigated and decided that they were indeed coerced, there's nothing requiring them to reinstate the account, no? Moreover, this wasn't the first suspension. It would be an underwhelming argument to claim that someone who repeatedly broke the rules (five times?) was banned permanently—the final punishment per the policy—because a government official said so.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      This situation is different, yes, but I was highlighting how flexible the meaning of "coercion" is in similar case law, especially with a court determining twitters rights/obligations as to unmasking a user's info, in addition to the rights of the one being unmasked. Separately there are plenty of cases exploring whether private parties are acting as an agent for the government for the purposes of determining constitutionality of various behaviors. It doesn't require actual agency or even an explicit or implicit directive. Often it's enough that that the party holds government-similar authority/power over the victim in the context of the scenario, and/or that the governments interests or incentives are sufficiently aligned such that the result is effectively indistinguishable.

bastawhiz 5y ago

Is there evidence to suggest they were indeed coerced?

skavi 5y ago
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/twitter-permanently-bans-us-representative-marjorie-taylor-greene-2022-01-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/twitter-permanently-bans-us...
- bastawhiz 5y ago
  That does not show coercion.
  - skavi 5y ago
    Sorry, wasn't trying to claim it did. Just adding context.
abernard1 5y ago
I don't know, as I do not have the information on hand. I do not sit in the halls of Twitter and know how or why they choose to censor content. Or, alternatively, make content available. However, if Twitter were under the same publishing guidelines as the NYT, they'd be open to discovery and society could find out. The NYT is in currently in hot water for publishing third party material covered under legal privacy. The proof of that came via discovery. What is silly, and what I hear repeated to a frustrating degree, is that questions of discovery are inherently off limits due to EULAs or Twitter "not being bound by the 1st Amendment". There is no legal basis for this whatsoever, but there is a regulatory carve out which has effectively prevented scrutiny.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  > I don't know, as I do not have the information on hand. I do not sit in the halls of Twitter and know how or why they choose to censor content. So you agree that you have no evidence. It's just a completely unbacked conspiracy theory. > The NYT is in currently in hot water for publishing third party material covered under legal privacy. The proof of that came via discovery. If you are talking about the Project Veritas legal document leaks this is 100% incorrect. Discovery had nothing to do with that fight.
  - abernard1 5y ago
    > It's just a completely unbacked conspiracy theory. ...I had no theory at all. I was merely bringing up that the blanket statement of the first amendment not applying to Twitter is false. It can be debated in court under first amendment grounds. We have in this thread an interesting whiplash of "the 1st amendment must be protected!" and "Twitter is not bound by the first amendment" by the same people. I am doing the same, but am at least contextualizing how and where the first amendment applies to Twitter. Edit: The first amendment is a set of restrictions on what government can't restrict. Therefore, if the first amendment is applied to Twitter, it means the content not allowed to be restricted is Twitter's speech. This is how it works with newspapers and why they are liable. Twitter, is not saying this. They are, very directly in the text of this case, advocating for protecting their users' speech, not their own. But they do this selectively: they'll only allow government censorship when they feel like it Private organizations acting under threat of government action are liable and can be sued, threatened or not [1]. I have attached many cases where the Supreme Court has ruled in this way. [1] https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-private-entities-to-restrict-others-speech/ https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/19/when-government-urges-p...
    - lalaland1125 5y ago
      It's not whiplash at all. Twitter isn't bound by the first amendment. Twitter is protected by it. If it came out that government was coercing Twitter to ban people, Twitter would be the victim there.
beerandt 5y ago
Just asking can be coercion. Rattner v. Netburn (2nd cir) held that government officials simply asking for more information about a previously anonymous author of a published article is coercion based on this language in a letter. That a lack of cooperation... "raises significant questions and concerns about the objectivity and trust which we are looking for from our business friends" And therefore was unconstitutional under on the first amendment.
- bastawhiz 5y ago
  That sounds like Twitter's 1a rights were violated, not the politician who was banned. Twitter is always free to ban who it wants from its platform. Even if it was litigated and decided that they were indeed coerced, there's nothing requiring them to reinstate the account, no? Moreover, this wasn't the first suspension. It would be an underwhelming argument to claim that someone who repeatedly broke the rules (five times?) was banned permanently—the final punishment per the policy—because a government official said so.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    This situation is different, yes, but I was highlighting how flexible the meaning of "coercion" is in similar case law, especially with a court determining twitters rights/obligations as to unmasking a user's info, in addition to the rights of the one being unmasked. Separately there are plenty of cases exploring whether private parties are acting as an agent for the government for the purposes of determining constitutionality of various behaviors. It doesn't require actual agency or even an explicit or implicit directive. Often it's enough that that the party holds government-similar authority/power over the victim in the context of the scenario, and/or that the governments interests or incentives are sufficiently aligned such that the result is effectively indistinguishable.