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It'd be fine for Congress to pass some laws to treat American forum companies as common carriers, but they specifically have not done that and it'd be weird for
by shadowgovt 4y ago
It'd be fine for Congress to pass some laws to treat American forum companies as common carriers, but they specifically have not done that and it'd be weird for a court to interpret them as one.
For starters, they don't own the wires so if your signal isn't carried by Facebook, you can just go out if on Twitter or Tumblr or Rumble or HN, &c.
- s1artibartfast 4y agoYou could say the same about the telephone. You can always send a telegram or a letter instead
- shadowgovt 4y agoTrue but telephone is a common carrier and therefore bound by different law regarding the requirement that they provide their service to all members of the public. The history of precisely how they ended up as common carriers I'm not entirely sure... But I think it has something to do with the fact that they had to get municipalities and communities to agree to let them run wires through their towns. Internet forum services did not have to make any such agreements because they're just sites on the internet.
- whimsicalism 4y agoIf the claim is that restricting tech companies ability to censor is against the 1st amendment, you are implicitly making the claim that no, Congress cannot pass laws to restrict tech companies ability to censor.
- shadowgovt 4y agoThey might be able to do so if they were reclassified as common carriers. Why? I'm not exactly sure, I am accepting the fact that common carriers are currently so constrained without understanding the deeper story of how.