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The central issue in these cases are the difference between the following two scenarios: 1. The CDC or other government agency says "We believe X is misinforma

by darawk 4y ago

The central issue in these cases are the difference between the following two scenarios: 1. The CDC or other government agency says "We believe X is misinformation, do with that advice what you will". 2. The CDC or other government agency says "We believe X is misinformation, and if you don't act on that, we will penalize you in some way". The former is perfectly legitimate, and exactly what e.g. public health agencies ought to be doing: offering opinions and advice to the private sector and public. The latter is a first amendment violation. Presumably, some of these cases will also turn on whether there was an implicit regulatory threat in the "recommendations" given. In some cases, according to this article, the threats seem to have been fairly explicit.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago
It seems like #2 is what had happened to Alex Berenson. Kicked off Twitter, sued the U.S. govt and won, and how he's back on Twitter!
- lesuorac 4y ago
  > Kicked off Twitter, sued the U.S. govt and won, and how he's back on Twitter! Where do you read this stuff? It says "v Twitter" in the title of the lawsuit [1]. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61630076/1/berenson-v-twitter-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61630076/1/berenson-v-t...
  - bgentry 4y ago
    They may have been confused by the fact that Berenson recently announced his intention to sue the US government following the revelations from his Twitter suit, but to my knowledge he hasn’t yet done that. So he sued Twitter and won and was then reinstated on the platform.
    - lesuorac 4y ago
      > So he sued Twitter and won and was then reinstated on the platform. I'm not sure I'd call an out of court settlement a win but to each their own I guess. I'm not too sure he really got what he wanted since the 1st amendment argument was thrown out in court. ---- For those of you who aren't going to bother to read the court document. His strongest point was a "Breach of Contract" which revolved around Twitter directly telling him he wasn't going to get kicked off for what he was posting and then they kicked him off.
      - hunterb123 4y ago
        He sued and got the outcome he wanted, his platform to be reinstated, thus he "won".
        bgentry 4y ago
        He also got a whole bunch of discovery and the right to release much of that publicly, which is a pretty huge win given that those docs revealed explicit US Govt censorship pressure direct from the White House.
honksillet 4y ago
Either way these requests should be PUBLIC
themitigating 4y ago
When did number two happen?
- naasking 4y ago
  From the article: > public admissions by then-White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki that the Biden administration was ordering social media companies to censor certain posts, as well as statements from Psaki, President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas threatening them with regulatory or other legal action if they declined to do so,
  - ineptech 4y ago
    The rest of that quote is, "...[according to judges] still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action." Pretty misleading to cut that out. Edit: TFA goes on to contrast those cases with a different case, Missouri v. Biden, which I didn't mention because it's the entire topic of the article I'm charitably assuming we've all at least skimmed before coming here to argue about, but I'm adding it now due to naasking's uno reverse card.
    - naasking 4y ago
      > The rest of that quote is, "...[according to judges] still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action." Pretty misleading to cut that out. That's not relevant to the question I was answering, which was about what/when threats allegedly happened. Furthermore, the article goes on to describe judges that did find it sufficient. Is it misleading of you to leave that out?
    - fallingknife 4y ago
      So the judges said that the government ordering private companies to censor, and threatening them with consequences if they don't comply is not a 1st amendment violation? Sounds like we need some new judges.
brightball 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- darawk 4y ago
  It's not quite that straightforward. What happened according to Zuck (on the JRE podcast) was that the FBI came to FB and said "We believe some kind of Russian disinformation is about to drop in the next couple of weeks, be on the lookout for that". When the Hunter Biden laptop story came out, FB reasonably concluded this was what the FBI warned them about, and suppressed it. It's now clear that this story was not "disinformation" in any normal sense, and FB should not have censored it. Whether or not this rises to the level of a first amendment violation is a tricky question though. It seems to me that in this particular case, both parties simply made a mistake. The FBI was too quick to characterize it as misinformation, and FB was too credulous of the FBI, and didn't do their own investigation. My opinion is that this isn't quite a first amendment violation, but just an unfortunate series of mistakes. Some of the CDC stuff seems closer to true government coercion though, at least, if you take what the Tablet piece is saying at face value.
  - cloutchaser 4y ago
    Or it's cleverly done so everyone has plausible deniability, when in reality everyone involved knew it was basically election interference and first amendment violation. It doesn't take an IQ of 200 to do that without leaving direct evidence.
    - darawk 4y ago
      Ya, that's a real possibility, and some of these cases will probably turn on the judge's perception of whether that is what was happening. It seems very hard to prove in a case like that one though.
  - musicale 4y ago
    My eyes keep confusing FB and FBI.

by darawk 4y ago

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

It seems like #2 is what had happened to Alex Berenson. Kicked off Twitter, sued the U.S. govt and won, and how he's back on Twitter!

lesuorac 4y ago
> Kicked off Twitter, sued the U.S. govt and won, and how he's back on Twitter! Where do you read this stuff? It says "v Twitter" in the title of the lawsuit [1]. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61630076/1/berenson-v-twitter-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61630076/1/berenson-v-t...
- bgentry 4y ago
  They may have been confused by the fact that Berenson recently announced his intention to sue the US government following the revelations from his Twitter suit, but to my knowledge he hasn’t yet done that. So he sued Twitter and won and was then reinstated on the platform.
  - lesuorac 4y ago
    > So he sued Twitter and won and was then reinstated on the platform. I'm not sure I'd call an out of court settlement a win but to each their own I guess. I'm not too sure he really got what he wanted since the 1st amendment argument was thrown out in court. ---- For those of you who aren't going to bother to read the court document. His strongest point was a "Breach of Contract" which revolved around Twitter directly telling him he wasn't going to get kicked off for what he was posting and then they kicked him off.
    - hunterb123 4y ago
      He sued and got the outcome he wanted, his platform to be reinstated, thus he "won".
      - bgentry 4y ago
        He also got a whole bunch of discovery and the right to release much of that publicly, which is a pretty huge win given that those docs revealed explicit US Govt censorship pressure direct from the White House.

honksillet 4y ago

Either way these requests should be PUBLIC

themitigating 4y ago

When did number two happen?

naasking 4y ago
From the article: > public admissions by then-White House press secretary Jennifer Psaki that the Biden administration was ordering social media companies to censor certain posts, as well as statements from Psaki, President Biden, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas threatening them with regulatory or other legal action if they declined to do so,
- ineptech 4y ago
  The rest of that quote is, "...[according to judges] still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action." Pretty misleading to cut that out. Edit: TFA goes on to contrast those cases with a different case, Missouri v. Biden, which I didn't mention because it's the entire topic of the article I'm charitably assuming we've all at least skimmed before coming here to argue about, but I'm adding it now due to naasking's uno reverse card.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > The rest of that quote is, "...[according to judges] still did not suffice to establish that the plaintiffs were censored on social media due to government action." Pretty misleading to cut that out. That's not relevant to the question I was answering, which was about what/when threats allegedly happened. Furthermore, the article goes on to describe judges that did find it sufficient. Is it misleading of you to leave that out?
  - fallingknife 4y ago
    So the judges said that the government ordering private companies to censor, and threatening them with consequences if they don't comply is not a 1st amendment violation? Sounds like we need some new judges.

brightball 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
darawk 4y ago
It's not quite that straightforward. What happened according to Zuck (on the JRE podcast) was that the FBI came to FB and said "We believe some kind of Russian disinformation is about to drop in the next couple of weeks, be on the lookout for that". When the Hunter Biden laptop story came out, FB reasonably concluded this was what the FBI warned them about, and suppressed it. It's now clear that this story was not "disinformation" in any normal sense, and FB should not have censored it. Whether or not this rises to the level of a first amendment violation is a tricky question though. It seems to me that in this particular case, both parties simply made a mistake. The FBI was too quick to characterize it as misinformation, and FB was too credulous of the FBI, and didn't do their own investigation. My opinion is that this isn't quite a first amendment violation, but just an unfortunate series of mistakes. Some of the CDC stuff seems closer to true government coercion though, at least, if you take what the Tablet piece is saying at face value.
- cloutchaser 4y ago
  Or it's cleverly done so everyone has plausible deniability, when in reality everyone involved knew it was basically election interference and first amendment violation. It doesn't take an IQ of 200 to do that without leaving direct evidence.
  - darawk 4y ago
    Ya, that's a real possibility, and some of these cases will probably turn on the judge's perception of whether that is what was happening. It seems very hard to prove in a case like that one though.
- musicale 4y ago
  My eyes keep confusing FB and FBI.