4 ms·

I linked that in my original comment in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36616058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36616058

• meragrin_ 3y ago
  Perhaps read(or reread) it? There is literally nothing in there which "bans any and all communication among millions of citizens".
  • brasic 3y ago
    The targets of the injunction are the following agencies. The wording makes clear that all members of said agencies are in scope of the injunction: HHS: 80,000 NIAID: 18,000 CDC: 11,000 Census Bureau: 5,000 FBI: 40,000 (double counted under DOJ) DOJ: 115,000 CISA: 3000 DHS: 260,000 State Department: 14,000 Among the actions prohibited are communicating with "social media companies", defined in the injunction as including: "Facebook/Meta, Twitter, YouTube/Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, WeChat,TikTok, Sina Weibo, QQ, Telegram, Snapchat, Kuaishou, Qzone, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn, Quora, Discord, Twitch, Tumblr, Mastodon, and like companies." That list, especially given the "like companies" part, includes easily several million people. Also "Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group". What makes a group "like" those orgs? The prohibited topics and purposes of communication are incredibly vague, basically anything contrary to "protected free speech", which has no definition in the injunction and is famously tricky to define in US law. This amounts to a blanket ban from where I'm sitting. If I were a low level staffer at DHS this would arguably prohibit me from expressing opinions on this matter to a friend or spouse working at a social media company, for fear of, for example, "encouraging reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech". The fact that that example is silly is precisely my point. Injunctions must be narrowly tailored to address the specific conduct at issue. This is so broad as to make a joke of the process and in doing so harms the free speech and rule of law that are at issue in this case.
    • 1MachineElf 3y ago
      It's really strange that the PDF you've linked to omits pages 2-4. Half of the list of prohibited activities, as well as some context, are missing from it. Try the Reason article posted earlier: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/04/july-4-injunction-bars-various-federal-departments-from-encouraging-social-media-platforms-to-delete-content/ https://reason.com/volokh/2023/07/04/july-4-injunction-bars-... Given your example of a DHS staffer expressing opinions to a friend or family members who is employed at a social media company, there are many regulated industries like government and social media, where employees must disclose conflicts of interest. If rules reflecting this injunction were to be adopted, then disclosing relationships with social media employees would be quite reasonable. DHS staffers, who already go through extensive background checks, would not be significantly more burdened by this than any of the other disclosures that are already required. >CISA: 3000 Glad you mentioned them, as their history of partisan censorship is well documented: https://web.archive.org/web/20230318074435/https://report.foundationforfreedomonline.com/11-9-22.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230318074435/https://report.fo...
    • shkkmo 3y ago
      > The prohibited topics and purposes of communication are incredibly vague, basically anything contrary to "protected free speech", which has no definition in the injunction and is famously tricky to define in US law. By "incredibly vague" you mean "specified with a detailed 10 point list over 1.5 pages with an additional page of specific exclusions"