9 ms·

Honest Question: If the white house contacts Twitter and asks for a tweet to be removed, is that a first amendment violation?

ryanbrunner 4y ago
If we take the most innocent sounding version of this, where the White House points out that a tweet is in violation of Twitter's stated policies and asks for those policies to be applied, I think it's pretty clearly not. Of course those requests can and will be made in a biased manner, and it's naive to assume that the nature of the request isn't going to influence how Twitter responds to it, but it's definitely a murky grey area at that point.
- Dem_Boys 4y ago
  This is a good point! The wording probably matters too. The Biden team asked Twitter to "review" certain tweets instead of "remove" certain tweets. So technically they're not suppressing speech explicitly but implicitly we (and twitter employees) all know what they mean by "review".
  - evrydayhustling 4y ago
    You do realize this was the Trump Whitehouse? and that both Trump's campaign team and White House staff made requests that were honored? And that when Biden's team asked for the reviews it was not the executive branch?
    - Dem_Boys 4y ago
      Yep! Dont really care who's in the White House in this instance. I referenced the Biden team's verbiage because that's the only verbiage that was posted with the implied intent on getting tweets removed (besides the DNC). I'd love to see the email's from the White House asking for tweets to be removed.
      - romellem 4y ago
        I wonder why these Twitter Files didn’t include any partial emails from Trump’s staff, only the DNC where they expedited a ToS violation review. Oh wait, it’s because clearly this information from a “Twitter source” (aka Elon) is disseminated with a viewpoint and is hardly impartial. All of this should be viewed with extreme skepticism, and so far none of this seems damning in any way. I haven’t seen anything that says Elon is remotely operating in good faith.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - evrydayhustling 4y ago
      I suspect some of these slimy outcomes (parties and offices having special access to request review) are pretty hard to avoid in practice. Like, if you know for a fact that there will be illegal actors targeting both campaigns, do you not listen to direct requests from the targets? And if you offer it to one side, would you offer it to all? I bet there are more principled ways to do it but I also think this is what it would like if a reasonably well intentioned but also selfish / risk averse staff tried to react in realtime to a really new situation.
      - Karunamon 4y ago
        Transparency would go a long way. The fact that all of this is happening behind closed doors means that the process is just begging for abuse.
    - dmix 4y ago
      The power structures in society having arbitrary influence is what matters. A c-tier candidate would never have the same pull as not-yet elected Biden. Nor would a controversial candidate even from a popular party. The only solution is to not provide the power in the first place instead of trying to fix it with layers of easily bypassed rules. You can’t have easy censorship if there isn’t an established censorship system already in place. A system that is limited by law and very fundamental policies is much less prone to abuse (ie, a constitutional republic with transparent but limited policy making power vs monarchical systems with backroom dealing by elites). The minute it became about broadly policing speech via backroom dealing was the minute it became wide open to abuse.
      - ModernMech 4y ago
        > You can’t have easy censorship if there isn’t an established censorship system already in place. This creates a new kind of abuse. If Twitter has no way of removing illegal content from its platform, then your opponent can use that fact to post illegal content about you (i.e. hacked pictures of your naked body), and you have no recourse.
    - agrippanux 4y ago
      Also that the tweets the Biden team asked to be reviewed violated Twitter TOS for revenge porn.
- mc32 4y ago
  Couple of things: government used to be weary of any appearance of impropriety, lest people believe they are acting improperly -being slimy. That seems to have gone by the wayside. two, if the requests were to suppress sensitive government information --secrets, ok, I might lend a sympathetic ear, if they could prove it was so (not because they said "take our word". But this is "don't make us look bad" --sorry, but no, it stays. And now we are hearing the gov wants to amp up domestic surveillance. The ACLU and EFF, etc should get off their butts and perform their claimed duty. We're not China in that sense yet, but if we let them, we'll get there.
  - ajross 4y ago
    > government used to be weary of any appearance of impropriety, lest people believe they are acting improperly -being slimy. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Voters used to punish politicians that seemed improper. They don't anymore. The Trump administration was the capstone on this, obviously, but the trend has been developing for decades.
    - dd36 4y ago
      It was clearly the common media informing the voters of improper behavior. Now voters can pick their own media and avoid unflattering stories. This then has led to terrible politicians getting away with far more than they ever could before.
      - mc32 4y ago
        Eh, the media has been corrupt and shaping and staging. They probably sunk Gary Hart's ambitions by insinuating he had an affair with Donna, so the Dems ended up with some damned Goofball against the desiccated GHW. Of course for the coup de grace they bum rushed Ross the next round.
        dd36 4y ago
        The issue isn’t there was a time of pure media. It’s there was a time of common media.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Good to observe that 1) the white House resided then president Donald Trump 2) the tweets submitted for removal were H Biden's genitalia, which are in clear violation of Twitters PoS.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
debacle 4y ago
Yes. There is precident.
SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
Possibly, but in this story the White House was the one being censored rather than the one asking for a tweet to be removed.
- Dem_Boys 4y ago
  This isn't true. White House requested tweets be removed. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752
  - indoclay 4y ago
    For this specific example with the laptop, Twitter censored the the White House press secretary by suspending her account. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598831758207696896 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598831758207696896
anoonmoose 4y ago
No! And if it was, the party with standing to sue would be Twitter themselves, who has not said they're doing this.
- Dem_Boys 4y ago
  Interesting point! The white house in this case was the Trump white house so it could have been received positively by the media that twitter is standing up to Trump by suing. Could you elaborate on why you dont think it would be a free speech violation? Is internet communication not considered speech?
  - anoonmoose 4y ago
    Internet communication is considered speech. But, the speech on Twitter's website belongs to Twitter. They get to decide what is on their website. They can, as far as the First Amendment goes, more or less ban or censor anything they want for any reason, because they are a private actor. If Twitter decided to remove Hunter Biden content completely on their own, that would be legal. If Twitter decided to remove that content because someone asked nicely- regardless of who that person is, whether they are President or not- that would be legal. It's only a legal issue if the government forces Twitter to remove the content, which is not something Twitter has asserted.
  - nonethewiser 4y ago
    In which case? The tweet says it was both White houses with obvious favoritism towardd Democrats.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  The ACLU disagrees. https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622 https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622 The government pressuring private companies to censor is a First Amendment violation.
  - anoonmoose 4y ago
    Pressure would be a First Amendment violation. Twitter has not asserted they were pressured. If they feel they were, they should say so, and sue.
mikece 4y ago
No. The 1st Amendment is a restriction on the Legislative branch: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Congress passed no laws in this regard. Whether or not this was illegal activity on the part of the Executive Branch is another question entirely -- and a good one.
- Karunamon 4y ago
  I don't think it's quite that simple. For instance, the establishment of religion clause has been read to deny public entities the ability to put up Christmas displays, despite no "laws" being passed to facilitate them. The government "asking" a private entity to take some action is inherently coercive due to the power imbalance.
- iambateman 4y ago
  This is basically just wrong. The executive branch can violate the first amendment…
- Dig1t 4y ago
  I'm not a lawyer, I don't know much about the technicalities of these things. But by this reasoning it sounds like the president could just create an executive order limiting free speech and that would be just fine? Is the president really aloud to create an executive order saying "anyone with red hair is no longer aloud to speak in public" (obviously silly example)?
  - mikece 4y ago
    The Executive executes the law: they don't make it nor do they stand in judgement of it (there are separate branches for those tasks).
  - cabaalis 4y ago
    It's a loophole of practicality that is often exploited by executive branch regardless of political party. Initiate a policy or order, mitigating the immediate damage. Then, days, months or years later, a court will decide you didn't have that power and will reverse it. But the threat or problem was already dealt with and there are no repurcussions except political capital spent.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
newZWhoDis 4y ago
Yes. And a properly-endowed Justice Department would begin prosecution for Twitter employees that colluded with the government to defraud US citizens of their fundamental rights. Twitter officers conspired with rogue elements of the US government to defraud US citizens of their constitutionally protected rights. This is not a game. The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences.
- patmcc 4y ago
  >>The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences. For what crime, specifically?
  - newZWhoDis 4y ago
    Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
    - patmcc 4y ago
      That's...not a crime? The Justice Department can't just declare things as illegal and throw people in jails for 30 years.
      - newZWhoDis 4y ago
        It is absolutely a crime > The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, creates an offense "[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
        patmcc 4y ago
        You are misreading that very severely. Even if it was a first amendment violation to ask twitter to review certain tweets. "The intent required for a conspiracy to defraud the government is that the defendant possessed the intent (a) to defraud, (b) to make false statements or representations to the government or its agencies in order to obtain property of the government, or that the defendant performed acts or made statements that he/she knew to be false, fraudulent or deceitful to a government agency, which disrupted the functions of the agency or of the government." What false statements/representations were made, by anyone? In addition, they had to in some way "defraud the United States" which is: "They cheat the government out of money or property; They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality." - None of which apply.
akira2501 4y ago
I think it should also mean that if Twitter was able to successfully do this, they no longer require any protections from Section 230. They're in full editorial control of the property, they shouldn't enjoy any further legal shields while simultaneously enjoying this apparent total oversight.
- jbarciauskas 4y ago
  This is not how Section 230 works at all. The CDA got rid of the neutral platfom requirement. You are spreading misinformation. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20700099/section-230-communications-decency-act-republicans-congress-big-tech-vergecast-weeds-podcast https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20700099/section-230-comm...
  - akira2501 4y ago
    You are intentionally being uncharitable, and in your rush, you ignored the first two words of my statement. I'm glad large tech monopolies got yet another giveaway from our congress, and if that's a flag you want to wave, be my guest; but, I still stand by my assertion.
ajross 4y ago
Clearly it's not about the first amendment if it's a request. The constitution is clear that congress (and by extension the executive branch as it's been interpreted for two centuries) "shall make no law" (or regulation or rulemaking or enforcement action, ditto). A request is just a request. In fact a request is pretty clearly just speech and can't be restricted because of the very same amendment. Twitter doesn't have to listen to id, but Joe or whoever has every right to ask. Now, if there's lawmaking/regulation/rulemaking/enforcement aimed at Twitter by the executive branch, that's a very different thing. But in this particualr case it's also sorta nonsensical. The stuff released today is about the Biden campaign, which was a private entity. Biden himself held no government position at all, so the point gets pretty strained.
chrismcb 4y ago
Not exactly. Technically the first amendment says "Congress shall not.." and of course over the years this has come to mean government. But I think it is wrong for the white house to do anything that gifts the impropriety of restricting speech.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  This is not the detail that matters. Anyone in government, including Congress, can ask someone to do anything. They cannot coerce or appear to coerce regulation of speech. This is extremely well established.

ryanbrunner 4y ago

If we take the most innocent sounding version of this, where the White House points out that a tweet is in violation of Twitter's stated policies and asks for those policies to be applied, I think it's pretty clearly not. Of course those requests can and will be made in a biased manner, and it's naive to assume that the nature of the request isn't going to influence how Twitter responds to it, but it's definitely a murky grey area at that point.

Dem_Boys 4y ago
This is a good point! The wording probably matters too. The Biden team asked Twitter to "review" certain tweets instead of "remove" certain tweets. So technically they're not suppressing speech explicitly but implicitly we (and twitter employees) all know what they mean by "review".
- evrydayhustling 4y ago
  You do realize this was the Trump Whitehouse? and that both Trump's campaign team and White House staff made requests that were honored? And that when Biden's team asked for the reviews it was not the executive branch?
  - Dem_Boys 4y ago
    Yep! Dont really care who's in the White House in this instance. I referenced the Biden team's verbiage because that's the only verbiage that was posted with the implied intent on getting tweets removed (besides the DNC). I'd love to see the email's from the White House asking for tweets to be removed.
    - romellem 4y ago
      I wonder why these Twitter Files didn’t include any partial emails from Trump’s staff, only the DNC where they expedited a ToS violation review. Oh wait, it’s because clearly this information from a “Twitter source” (aka Elon) is disseminated with a viewpoint and is hardly impartial. All of this should be viewed with extreme skepticism, and so far none of this seems damning in any way. I haven’t seen anything that says Elon is remotely operating in good faith.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - evrydayhustling 4y ago
    I suspect some of these slimy outcomes (parties and offices having special access to request review) are pretty hard to avoid in practice. Like, if you know for a fact that there will be illegal actors targeting both campaigns, do you not listen to direct requests from the targets? And if you offer it to one side, would you offer it to all? I bet there are more principled ways to do it but I also think this is what it would like if a reasonably well intentioned but also selfish / risk averse staff tried to react in realtime to a really new situation.
    - Karunamon 4y ago
      Transparency would go a long way. The fact that all of this is happening behind closed doors means that the process is just begging for abuse.
  - dmix 4y ago
    The power structures in society having arbitrary influence is what matters. A c-tier candidate would never have the same pull as not-yet elected Biden. Nor would a controversial candidate even from a popular party. The only solution is to not provide the power in the first place instead of trying to fix it with layers of easily bypassed rules. You can’t have easy censorship if there isn’t an established censorship system already in place. A system that is limited by law and very fundamental policies is much less prone to abuse (ie, a constitutional republic with transparent but limited policy making power vs monarchical systems with backroom dealing by elites). The minute it became about broadly policing speech via backroom dealing was the minute it became wide open to abuse.
    - ModernMech 4y ago
      > You can’t have easy censorship if there isn’t an established censorship system already in place. This creates a new kind of abuse. If Twitter has no way of removing illegal content from its platform, then your opponent can use that fact to post illegal content about you (i.e. hacked pictures of your naked body), and you have no recourse.
  - agrippanux 4y ago
    Also that the tweets the Biden team asked to be reviewed violated Twitter TOS for revenge porn.
mc32 4y ago
Couple of things: government used to be weary of any appearance of impropriety, lest people believe they are acting improperly -being slimy. That seems to have gone by the wayside. two, if the requests were to suppress sensitive government information --secrets, ok, I might lend a sympathetic ear, if they could prove it was so (not because they said "take our word". But this is "don't make us look bad" --sorry, but no, it stays. And now we are hearing the gov wants to amp up domestic surveillance. The ACLU and EFF, etc should get off their butts and perform their claimed duty. We're not China in that sense yet, but if we let them, we'll get there.
- ajross 4y ago
  > government used to be weary of any appearance of impropriety, lest people believe they are acting improperly -being slimy. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Voters used to punish politicians that seemed improper. They don't anymore. The Trump administration was the capstone on this, obviously, but the trend has been developing for decades.
  - dd36 4y ago
    It was clearly the common media informing the voters of improper behavior. Now voters can pick their own media and avoid unflattering stories. This then has led to terrible politicians getting away with far more than they ever could before.
    - mc32 4y ago
      Eh, the media has been corrupt and shaping and staging. They probably sunk Gary Hart's ambitions by insinuating he had an affair with Donna, so the Dems ended up with some damned Goofball against the desiccated GHW. Of course for the coup de grace they bum rushed Ross the next round.
      - dd36 4y ago
        The issue isn’t there was a time of pure media. It’s there was a time of common media.
hackernewds 4y ago
Good to observe that 1) the white House resided then president Donald Trump 2) the tweets submitted for removal were H Biden's genitalia, which are in clear violation of Twitters PoS.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

debacle 4y ago

Yes. There is precident.

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago

Possibly, but in this story the White House was the one being censored rather than the one asking for a tweet to be removed.

Dem_Boys 4y ago
This isn't true. White House requested tweets be removed. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598828932395978752
- indoclay 4y ago
  For this specific example with the laptop, Twitter censored the the White House press secretary by suspending her account. https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598831758207696896 https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598831758207696896

anoonmoose 4y ago

No! And if it was, the party with standing to sue would be Twitter themselves, who has not said they're doing this.

Dem_Boys 4y ago
Interesting point! The white house in this case was the Trump white house so it could have been received positively by the media that twitter is standing up to Trump by suing. Could you elaborate on why you dont think it would be a free speech violation? Is internet communication not considered speech?
- anoonmoose 4y ago
  Internet communication is considered speech. But, the speech on Twitter's website belongs to Twitter. They get to decide what is on their website. They can, as far as the First Amendment goes, more or less ban or censor anything they want for any reason, because they are a private actor. If Twitter decided to remove Hunter Biden content completely on their own, that would be legal. If Twitter decided to remove that content because someone asked nicely- regardless of who that person is, whether they are President or not- that would be legal. It's only a legal issue if the government forces Twitter to remove the content, which is not something Twitter has asserted.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  In which case? The tweet says it was both White houses with obvious favoritism towardd Democrats.
Amezarak 4y ago
The ACLU disagrees. https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622 https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1587198479608303622 The government pressuring private companies to censor is a First Amendment violation.
- anoonmoose 4y ago
  Pressure would be a First Amendment violation. Twitter has not asserted they were pressured. If they feel they were, they should say so, and sue.

mikece 4y ago

No. The 1st Amendment is a restriction on the Legislative branch: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Congress passed no laws in this regard. Whether or not this was illegal activity on the part of the Executive Branch is another question entirely -- and a good one.

Karunamon 4y ago
I don't think it's quite that simple. For instance, the establishment of religion clause has been read to deny public entities the ability to put up Christmas displays, despite no "laws" being passed to facilitate them. The government "asking" a private entity to take some action is inherently coercive due to the power imbalance.
iambateman 4y ago
This is basically just wrong. The executive branch can violate the first amendment…
Dig1t 4y ago
I'm not a lawyer, I don't know much about the technicalities of these things. But by this reasoning it sounds like the president could just create an executive order limiting free speech and that would be just fine? Is the president really aloud to create an executive order saying "anyone with red hair is no longer aloud to speak in public" (obviously silly example)?
- mikece 4y ago
  The Executive executes the law: they don't make it nor do they stand in judgement of it (there are separate branches for those tasks).
- cabaalis 4y ago
  It's a loophole of practicality that is often exploited by executive branch regardless of political party. Initiate a policy or order, mitigating the immediate damage. Then, days, months or years later, a court will decide you didn't have that power and will reverse it. But the threat or problem was already dealt with and there are no repurcussions except political capital spent.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

newZWhoDis 4y ago

Yes. And a properly-endowed Justice Department would begin prosecution for Twitter employees that colluded with the government to defraud US citizens of their fundamental rights. Twitter officers conspired with rogue elements of the US government to defraud US citizens of their constitutionally protected rights. This is not a game. The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences.

patmcc 4y ago
>>The people involved should be facing 30 year prison sentences. For what crime, specifically?
- newZWhoDis 4y ago
  Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
  - patmcc 4y ago
    That's...not a crime? The Justice Department can't just declare things as illegal and throw people in jails for 30 years.
    - newZWhoDis 4y ago
      It is absolutely a crime > The general conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, creates an offense "[i]f two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose. https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual...
      - patmcc 4y ago
        You are misreading that very severely. Even if it was a first amendment violation to ask twitter to review certain tweets. "The intent required for a conspiracy to defraud the government is that the defendant possessed the intent (a) to defraud, (b) to make false statements or representations to the government or its agencies in order to obtain property of the government, or that the defendant performed acts or made statements that he/she knew to be false, fraudulent or deceitful to a government agency, which disrupted the functions of the agency or of the government." What false statements/representations were made, by anyone? In addition, they had to in some way "defraud the United States" which is: "They cheat the government out of money or property; They interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity; or They make wrongful use of a governmental instrumentality." - None of which apply.

akira2501 4y ago

I think it should also mean that if Twitter was able to successfully do this, they no longer require any protections from Section 230. They're in full editorial control of the property, they shouldn't enjoy any further legal shields while simultaneously enjoying this apparent total oversight.

jbarciauskas 4y ago
This is not how Section 230 works at all. The CDA got rid of the neutral platfom requirement. You are spreading misinformation. https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20700099/section-230-communications-decency-act-republicans-congress-big-tech-vergecast-weeds-podcast https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/22/20700099/section-230-comm...
- akira2501 4y ago
  You are intentionally being uncharitable, and in your rush, you ignored the first two words of my statement. I'm glad large tech monopolies got yet another giveaway from our congress, and if that's a flag you want to wave, be my guest; but, I still stand by my assertion.

ajross 4y ago

Clearly it's not about the first amendment if it's a request. The constitution is clear that congress (and by extension the executive branch as it's been interpreted for two centuries) "shall make no law" (or regulation or rulemaking or enforcement action, ditto). A request is just a request. In fact a request is pretty clearly just speech and can't be restricted because of the very same amendment. Twitter doesn't have to listen to id, but Joe or whoever has every right to ask. Now, if there's lawmaking/regulation/rulemaking/enforcement aimed at Twitter by the executive branch, that's a very different thing. But in this particualr case it's also sorta nonsensical. The stuff released today is about the Biden campaign, which was a private entity. Biden himself held no government position at all, so the point gets pretty strained.

chrismcb 4y ago

Not exactly. Technically the first amendment says "Congress shall not.." and of course over the years this has come to mean government. But I think it is wrong for the white house to do anything that gifts the impropriety of restricting speech.

ethanbond 4y ago
This is not the detail that matters. Anyone in government, including Congress, can ask someone to do anything. They cannot coerce or appear to coerce regulation of speech. This is extremely well established.