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> Editorial decisions are a part of the first amendment too. Agreed. And editors are liable for what they publish, which is something Twitter is claiming they

> Editorial decisions are a part of the first amendment too. Agreed. And editors are liable for what they publish, which is something Twitter is claiming they aren't. Twitter's legal statement is not claiming either their rights to speech or editorial rights, which makes it moot. And now we're back to this being a user, responsible for the user's own speech, and Twitter conflating a privacy rights argument into a speech argument because it's easier for them to argue.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> and Twitter conflating a privacy rights argument into a speech argument because it's easier for them to argue. No, twitter is claiming that 1. The user has a right to free speech 2. The plaintiff is trying to breach the user's privacy, as a way to quash freely made speech 3. Twitter has the right to act to defend its user's privacy, even without that user 4. The plaintiff has not shown that the violation of the users privacy (a harm) is necessary. > Agreed. And editors are liable for what they publish, which is something Twitter is claiming they aren't. Yes, but not in the case of twitter because section 230 carves out an exception. But this isn't relevant to their argument, which is about protecting their users' privacy.
- abernard1 5y ago
  > 1. The user has a right to free speech The court has already ruled that the speech is not necessarily legal, and since the user has not responded, to initiate discovery, the user's contact information needs to be provided. Literally no other ordinary physical company could sit on evidence of a criminal and withhold it from a court under privacy concerns. > 2. The plaintiff is trying to breach the user's privacy, as a way to quash freely made speech So... fundamentally a privacy argument then? Exactly as I said. Twitter bans literally hundreds of people a day and "quash[es] freely made speech". Their CEO has said Twitter should “focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.” They don't care one bit about "chilling" free speech, and yet, read the bleeding heart defense of speech in this brief. The only pretext they have for keeping the user private is this defense of speech they've gleefully violated thousands of times per year.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    > The court has already ruled that the speech is not necessarily legal, This is in a sense not even wrong. All speech is "not necessarily legal". The court has ruled that discovery may happen, and Twitter is arguing that the court has misjudged the balance of harms, by undervaluing the privacy of it's user and the intent of the plaintiff. And that it has standing to make arguments on behalf of a user. Google has done the same thing before for private communication (emails). If I stored things in a bank deposit vault, they would be free to make the same argument, and probably do sometimes. It has nothing to do with speech or 230, it's a privacy argument from start to finish. > So... fundamentally a privacy argument then? Exactly as I said Yes, but they aren't hiding in a free speech argument. They're claiming that the plaintiff hasn't met the bar to violate someone's privacy. That's the entire claim Twitter is making! Nothing about speech! > They don't care one bit about "chilling" free speech, and yet, read the bleeding heart defense of speech in this brief. So is your contention here that people and organizations need to be morally pure in order to maintain their rights? That seems to be what you're saying: if you don't uphold a commitment to the free speech of others, you are undeserving of free speech protections yourself. Which is of course problematic for you, since it would imply you are also undeserving of those protections ;)
    - abernard1 5y ago
      > That's the entire claim Twitter is making! Nothing about speech! Two of the three paragraphs are about speech. Including the first one. First, while the burden of establishing fair use is “always” on the putative infringer in a copyright action, this is not a copyright action. It is pre-suit discovery being sought from Twitter about one of its users. A platform’s ability to assert the First Amendment’s protections on behalf of its anonymous users is well-established and is not diminished upon mention of copyright. And as a matter of policy, a platform must be permitted to raise fair use on behalf of its users to protect continued creative fair use on that platform and to prevent copyright law from being weaponized to suppress and censor speech critical of a public figure. Sounds like speech to me. (And of course, it is, because the virtual nature of Twitter allows them to make arguments that presence and interactions is speech, whereas if there was a store selling this content and they knew who he was because he came into the store to sell it to them, they wouldn't be able to).

joshuamorton 5y ago

> and Twitter conflating a privacy rights argument into a speech argument because it's easier for them to argue. No, twitter is claiming that 1. The user has a right to free speech 2. The plaintiff is trying to breach the user's privacy, as a way to quash freely made speech 3. Twitter has the right to act to defend its user's privacy, even without that user 4. The plaintiff has not shown that the violation of the users privacy (a harm) is necessary. > Agreed. And editors are liable for what they publish, which is something Twitter is claiming they aren't. Yes, but not in the case of twitter because section 230 carves out an exception. But this isn't relevant to their argument, which is about protecting their users' privacy.

abernard1 5y ago
> 1. The user has a right to free speech The court has already ruled that the speech is not necessarily legal, and since the user has not responded, to initiate discovery, the user's contact information needs to be provided. Literally no other ordinary physical company could sit on evidence of a criminal and withhold it from a court under privacy concerns. > 2. The plaintiff is trying to breach the user's privacy, as a way to quash freely made speech So... fundamentally a privacy argument then? Exactly as I said. Twitter bans literally hundreds of people a day and "quash[es] freely made speech". Their CEO has said Twitter should “focus less on thinking about free speech, but thinking about how the times have changed.” They don't care one bit about "chilling" free speech, and yet, read the bleeding heart defense of speech in this brief. The only pretext they have for keeping the user private is this defense of speech they've gleefully violated thousands of times per year.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > The court has already ruled that the speech is not necessarily legal, This is in a sense not even wrong. All speech is "not necessarily legal". The court has ruled that discovery may happen, and Twitter is arguing that the court has misjudged the balance of harms, by undervaluing the privacy of it's user and the intent of the plaintiff. And that it has standing to make arguments on behalf of a user. Google has done the same thing before for private communication (emails). If I stored things in a bank deposit vault, they would be free to make the same argument, and probably do sometimes. It has nothing to do with speech or 230, it's a privacy argument from start to finish. > So... fundamentally a privacy argument then? Exactly as I said Yes, but they aren't hiding in a free speech argument. They're claiming that the plaintiff hasn't met the bar to violate someone's privacy. That's the entire claim Twitter is making! Nothing about speech! > They don't care one bit about "chilling" free speech, and yet, read the bleeding heart defense of speech in this brief. So is your contention here that people and organizations need to be morally pure in order to maintain their rights? That seems to be what you're saying: if you don't uphold a commitment to the free speech of others, you are undeserving of free speech protections yourself. Which is of course problematic for you, since it would imply you are also undeserving of those protections ;)
  - abernard1 5y ago
    > That's the entire claim Twitter is making! Nothing about speech! Two of the three paragraphs are about speech. Including the first one. First, while the burden of establishing fair use is “always” on the putative infringer in a copyright action, this is not a copyright action. It is pre-suit discovery being sought from Twitter about one of its users. A platform’s ability to assert the First Amendment’s protections on behalf of its anonymous users is well-established and is not diminished upon mention of copyright. And as a matter of policy, a platform must be permitted to raise fair use on behalf of its users to protect continued creative fair use on that platform and to prevent copyright law from being weaponized to suppress and censor speech critical of a public figure. Sounds like speech to me. (And of course, it is, because the virtual nature of Twitter allows them to make arguments that presence and interactions is speech, whereas if there was a store selling this content and they knew who he was because he came into the store to sell it to them, they wouldn't be able to).