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> It’s not so cut and dry, because believers in free speech can believe that the federal government and its employees should also be free to speak. If the spee

> It’s not so cut and dry, because believers in free speech can believe that the federal government and its employees should also be free to speak. If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment. Nobody is saying that government officials can't engage in other kinds of speech that don't violate the Bill of Rights.

snowwrestler 3y ago
Demands are free speech, even if unreasonable. The First Amendment constrains the application of the power of law, like prosecution and imprisonment. Which is not what happened in these cases.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > Demands are free speech When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech. If you recall, Trump wasn't allowed to block citizens who were critical of him on Twitter for the same reason. > In a 29-page ruling on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decision that found that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked certain Twitter users https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-rules-trump-violated-first-amendment-by-blocking-twitter-follo https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...
  - snowwrestler 3y ago
    > When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech. In other words, you’re happy to censor speech you disagree with, while waving the flag of free speech.
    - GeekyBear 3y ago
      The First Amendment is doing the demanding here. Not all speech is protected, and Government officials are not allowed to censor political speech.
      - snowwrestler 3y ago
        Speech does not censor speech; this is an essential core of the concept of free speech. If I tell you to take down your comments, I am not censoring you. I’m speaking. It’s only censorship if I can force you to take them down. The same is true for federal officials; just telling someone to shut up is not censorship. Without an actual threat of force, it’s not censorship or intimidation. Note that I’m not arguing that intimidation cannot and does not happen. But intimidation requires an actual threat. Not just an angry email. The ironic thing is that federal officials can speak freely because of the First Amendment. It gives them license to speak because actual legal protections exist for citizen speech. The power of federal officials is well constrained under U.S. law. They can tell a media company to change their content, and the company can say “no.” Because of the First Amendment.
        GeekyBear 3y ago
        > Speech does not censor speech We know from the Twitter document dumps that government officials on both sides of the aisle have been demanding that speech (and speakers) critical of them, their preferred policies and/or their political party be censored. > intimidation requires an actual threat Threatening to yank section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if platforms don't ramp up their censorship is an actual threat. > You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them. Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-ex...
        3y ago
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      You're speaking of the difference between constitutional literalism, and constitutional intent. The 2nd Amendment, interpreted literally, means I should be able to build a nuke. After all there are no explicit limits. That obviously was not the intent of the amendment by any stretch of the imagination. Such a consideration was never dealt with because this was simply outside any sort of world the Founding Fathers could have imagined. So too here with the 1st amendment. Interpreted literally, you're absolutely correct. Intimidation isn't passing a law, but obviously the government using threats to censor billions of people (since this would expand even beyond the US) is obviously contrary to every single reasonable interpretation of the 1st Amendment. Again a world where the government even could censor billions of people using intimidation alone is something the Founding Fathers could never have even begun to imagine.
      - snowwrestler 3y ago
        You’re arguing the obvious and easy part. It’s fully settled law that intimidation can violate the First Amendment. But under current law, intimidation must be proven (there must be an actual threat). The core question here is whether any statement, request, or demand by a federal official will be treated, by default, as intimidation under the law. If upheld, such a standard would be a radical redefinition of the interactions between the federal government and private sector, and have some very weird and unexpected side effects. For example, political speech is usually the most protected, but this standard would constrain tons of it. Imagine if the communications officer of a sitting Senator could get prosecuted because they asked a newspaper to alter a story they did not like. Something that happens almost every day in DC.
        brightlancer 3y ago
        > Imagine if the communications officer of a sitting Senator could get prosecuted because they asked a newspaper to alter a story they did not like. Stop it, you're turning me on.
curiousllama 3y ago
> If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment "Censor" is doing a lot of work here. It's important for the government to engage in public speech that may lead another person to self-censor. E.g., a press release saying "FYI: publishing your how-to-build-a-nuke guide is gonna help crazy people bomb US cities, please don't do that." If gov speech is inherently coercive, then the gov is NOT allowed to make that request. (which feels dumb to me) In reality, it's more likely a court would hold they can say that; they just can't imprison the publisher (or audit their taxes more aggressively) as a result. So the gov can def say things that would lead to self-censorship. They just can't be dicks about it.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  > So the gov can def say things that would lead to self-censorship. They just can't be dicks about it. The government is going to have a hard time claiming they didn't engage in coercion when they've been actively threatening to yank the Section 230 protections of the Communications Decency Act if the platforms don't step up the censorship. >You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them. Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-ex...
- revelio 3y ago
  The threat of more aggressive tax audits or regulations or whatever is always there. It doesn't have to be spelled out. Piss off the government and they have a billion ways to make you feel pain. It would be absurd if the government could "suggest" you do something and this was considered not an abuse because they didn't literally, at that exact moment, spell out the penalties they would impose for non-compliance. Of course in a theoretically ideal system laws are precise enough that governments can't simply make your life worse for getting on the wrong side of them. But nobody seems willing to stomach the level of rigor that would require from lawmakers. Three Felonies A Day and such.

snowwrestler 3y ago

Demands are free speech, even if unreasonable. The First Amendment constrains the application of the power of law, like prosecution and imprisonment. Which is not what happened in these cases.

GeekyBear 3y ago
> Demands are free speech When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech. If you recall, Trump wasn't allowed to block citizens who were critical of him on Twitter for the same reason. > In a 29-page ruling on Tuesday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower court's decision that found that Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked certain Twitter users https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-rules-trump-violated-first-amendment-by-blocking-twitter-follo https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...
- snowwrestler 3y ago
  > When a government official demands that the political speech of citizens be censored, that is not protected speech. In other words, you’re happy to censor speech you disagree with, while waving the flag of free speech.
  - GeekyBear 3y ago
    The First Amendment is doing the demanding here. Not all speech is protected, and Government officials are not allowed to censor political speech.
    - snowwrestler 3y ago
      Speech does not censor speech; this is an essential core of the concept of free speech. If I tell you to take down your comments, I am not censoring you. I’m speaking. It’s only censorship if I can force you to take them down. The same is true for federal officials; just telling someone to shut up is not censorship. Without an actual threat of force, it’s not censorship or intimidation. Note that I’m not arguing that intimidation cannot and does not happen. But intimidation requires an actual threat. Not just an angry email. The ironic thing is that federal officials can speak freely because of the First Amendment. It gives them license to speak because actual legal protections exist for citizen speech. The power of federal officials is well constrained under U.S. law. They can tell a media company to change their content, and the company can say “no.” Because of the First Amendment.
      - GeekyBear 3y ago
        > Speech does not censor speech We know from the Twitter document dumps that government officials on both sides of the aisle have been demanding that speech (and speakers) critical of them, their preferred policies and/or their political party be censored. > intimidation requires an actual threat Threatening to yank section 230 of the Communications Decency Act if platforms don't ramp up their censorship is an actual threat. > You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them. Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-ex...
        3y ago
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    You're speaking of the difference between constitutional literalism, and constitutional intent. The 2nd Amendment, interpreted literally, means I should be able to build a nuke. After all there are no explicit limits. That obviously was not the intent of the amendment by any stretch of the imagination. Such a consideration was never dealt with because this was simply outside any sort of world the Founding Fathers could have imagined. So too here with the 1st amendment. Interpreted literally, you're absolutely correct. Intimidation isn't passing a law, but obviously the government using threats to censor billions of people (since this would expand even beyond the US) is obviously contrary to every single reasonable interpretation of the 1st Amendment. Again a world where the government even could censor billions of people using intimidation alone is something the Founding Fathers could never have even begun to imagine.
    - snowwrestler 3y ago
      You’re arguing the obvious and easy part. It’s fully settled law that intimidation can violate the First Amendment. But under current law, intimidation must be proven (there must be an actual threat). The core question here is whether any statement, request, or demand by a federal official will be treated, by default, as intimidation under the law. If upheld, such a standard would be a radical redefinition of the interactions between the federal government and private sector, and have some very weird and unexpected side effects. For example, political speech is usually the most protected, but this standard would constrain tons of it. Imagine if the communications officer of a sitting Senator could get prosecuted because they asked a newspaper to alter a story they did not like. Something that happens almost every day in DC.
      - brightlancer 3y ago
        > Imagine if the communications officer of a sitting Senator could get prosecuted because they asked a newspaper to alter a story they did not like. Stop it, you're turning me on.

curiousllama 3y ago

> If the speech the government officials are engaging in is a demand to censor the political speech of citizens, then we are looking at a violation of the First Amendment "Censor" is doing a lot of work here. It's important for the government to engage in public speech that may lead another person to self-censor. E.g., a press release saying "FYI: publishing your how-to-build-a-nuke guide is gonna help crazy people bomb US cities, please don't do that." If gov speech is inherently coercive, then the gov is NOT allowed to make that request. (which feels dumb to me) In reality, it's more likely a court would hold they can say that; they just can't imprison the publisher (or audit their taxes more aggressively) as a result. So the gov can def say things that would lead to self-censorship. They just can't be dicks about it.

GeekyBear 3y ago
> So the gov can def say things that would lead to self-censorship. They just can't be dicks about it. The government is going to have a hard time claiming they didn't engage in coercion when they've been actively threatening to yank the Section 230 protections of the Communications Decency Act if the platforms don't step up the censorship. >You may have never heard of it, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is the legal backbone of the internet. The law was created almost 30 years ago to protect internet platforms from liability for many of the things third parties say or do on them. Decades later, it’s never been more controversial. People from both political parties and all three branches of government have threatened to reform or even repeal it. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-ex...
revelio 3y ago
The threat of more aggressive tax audits or regulations or whatever is always there. It doesn't have to be spelled out. Piss off the government and they have a billion ways to make you feel pain. It would be absurd if the government could "suggest" you do something and this was considered not an abuse because they didn't literally, at that exact moment, spell out the penalties they would impose for non-compliance. Of course in a theoretically ideal system laws are precise enough that governments can't simply make your life worse for getting on the wrong side of them. But nobody seems willing to stomach the level of rigor that would require from lawmakers. Three Felonies A Day and such.