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As another commenter noted, they did no such thing. They ruled that the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the practice. But how weird would it be if the

As another commenter noted, they did no such thing. They ruled that the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the practice. But how weird would it be if there was an industry segment the federal government was not allowed to talk to? The whole complaint seems like a thinly veiled attempt to say the federal government is not actually a government.

garyfirestorm 2y ago
basically saying the federal govt. shouldn't have an ability to communicate...
- chatmasta 2y ago
  The complaint was about communication that coincides with implied threats or intimidation. The social media companies take down the alleged misinformation not because they want to, but “because of the implication” of what would happen if they did not. For example, the executive branch might promote some legislation that would be damaging to social media companies, and at the same time, send them requests to take down some posts. The social media companies comply because they want to be in the good graces of the White House while negotiating on the legislation. This is called “jawboning:” https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coercion-and-problem-jawboning https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coe...
  - shadowgovt 2y ago
    So is the issue that Twitter (X) would have to sue?
    - otterley 2y ago
      I think that if Facebook et al. sued, standing would be clearly established, and the case would have proceeded very differently. Of course, they didn't. So some southern states decided they would try to intervene (while finding a few individuals to join to try to bolster their case), and ultimately failed.
  - lesuorac 2y ago
    Honestly, that article is starting to make it sounds pretty legal. In a hypothetical scenario where the USG tells Twitter to take down X post or we'll pass a future law. Whats the difference between that scenario and a City telling a Bank to remove a billboard or we'll re-zone you? > In another case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected claims that a city violated a billboard owner’s First Amendment rights when it “politely but firmly suggested” that the bank that owned the plot of land on which the billboard stood “remove the unsightly billboards” and noted the possibility that, if the bank did not prove “interested in being responsive to this community[,]” the city might be forced to resort to costlier “legal procedures.” Because the city’s letters to the bank contained no “enforceable threats,” and the only sanctions the city could bring to bear against the bank were “civil or administrative proceedings under a zoning ordinance not yet drafted[,]” the Third Circuit held that the decision to terminate the billboard owner’s lease was private action beyond the scope of the First Amendment and that this was true even though the bank admitted that it removed the billboard in order to maintain its good relations with the city.
  - brookst 2y ago
    Everything you say is true, except that is not what the complaint was about. In fact, in rejecting standing, the Supreme Court notes: > Complicating the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to Government coercion, rather than its own judgment, is the fact that the platforms began to suppress the plain- tiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communi- cations started. How can it be jawboning when the contact comes after a decision was already made? If even the plaintiffs aren’t alleging impropriety that follows normal causality, all that’s left is that NO contact can be legal.
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
> The whole complaint seems like a thinly veiled attempt to say the federal government is not actually a government. Except with hard power! You can govern with hard power, but you can't talk to anyone. It feels to me like a very thinly veiled attempt to sow distrust. To support a pre-constructed narrative that the government is out to get people. Feeling like the victim of government draws in a lot of votes, is one of the lowest common radicalizers available. People are desperate to believe the US government is out there suppressing voices. There's a whole constructed reality that this is prevalent, happening en masse. There's just, like, hardly any evidence at all. Also weird as hell many of these same political factions blame Section 230, when it's expressly a shield allowing companies to host anything online without being in trouble, a defense against The Wolves of Wall Street bad guys Stratton Oakmont suppressing Prodigy. It is inordinately hard for me to read any good faith in the outrage machine powering this all. There's a totally decoupled world of spin feeding this agenda, that seemingly doesn't need any connection to the real world to sustain & grow it's angst. And with remedies like "eliminate section 230" it's terrifying to imagine what all might be wrought by this persecution-delusion.

garyfirestorm 2y ago

basically saying the federal govt. shouldn't have an ability to communicate...

chatmasta 2y ago
The complaint was about communication that coincides with implied threats or intimidation. The social media companies take down the alleged misinformation not because they want to, but “because of the implication” of what would happen if they did not. For example, the executive branch might promote some legislation that would be damaging to social media companies, and at the same time, send them requests to take down some posts. The social media companies comply because they want to be in the good graces of the White House while negotiating on the legislation. This is called “jawboning:” https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coercion-and-problem-jawboning https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/informal-government-coe...
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  So is the issue that Twitter (X) would have to sue?
  - otterley 2y ago
    I think that if Facebook et al. sued, standing would be clearly established, and the case would have proceeded very differently. Of course, they didn't. So some southern states decided they would try to intervene (while finding a few individuals to join to try to bolster their case), and ultimately failed.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Honestly, that article is starting to make it sounds pretty legal. In a hypothetical scenario where the USG tells Twitter to take down X post or we'll pass a future law. Whats the difference between that scenario and a City telling a Bank to remove a billboard or we'll re-zone you? > In another case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected claims that a city violated a billboard owner’s First Amendment rights when it “politely but firmly suggested” that the bank that owned the plot of land on which the billboard stood “remove the unsightly billboards” and noted the possibility that, if the bank did not prove “interested in being responsive to this community[,]” the city might be forced to resort to costlier “legal procedures.” Because the city’s letters to the bank contained no “enforceable threats,” and the only sanctions the city could bring to bear against the bank were “civil or administrative proceedings under a zoning ordinance not yet drafted[,]” the Third Circuit held that the decision to terminate the billboard owner’s lease was private action beyond the scope of the First Amendment and that this was true even though the bank admitted that it removed the billboard in order to maintain its good relations with the city.
- brookst 2y ago
  Everything you say is true, except that is not what the complaint was about. In fact, in rejecting standing, the Supreme Court notes: > Complicating the plaintiffs’ effort to demonstrate that each platform acted due to Government coercion, rather than its own judgment, is the fact that the platforms began to suppress the plain- tiffs’ COVID–19 content before the defendants’ challenged communi- cations started. How can it be jawboning when the contact comes after a decision was already made? If even the plaintiffs aren’t alleging impropriety that follows normal causality, all that’s left is that NO contact can be legal.

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

> The whole complaint seems like a thinly veiled attempt to say the federal government is not actually a government. Except with hard power! You can govern with hard power, but you can't talk to anyone. It feels to me like a very thinly veiled attempt to sow distrust. To support a pre-constructed narrative that the government is out to get people. Feeling like the victim of government draws in a lot of votes, is one of the lowest common radicalizers available. People are desperate to believe the US government is out there suppressing voices. There's a whole constructed reality that this is prevalent, happening en masse. There's just, like, hardly any evidence at all. Also weird as hell many of these same political factions blame Section 230, when it's expressly a shield allowing companies to host anything online without being in trouble, a defense against The Wolves of Wall Street bad guys Stratton Oakmont suppressing Prodigy. It is inordinately hard for me to read any good faith in the outrage machine powering this all. There's a totally decoupled world of spin feeding this agenda, that seemingly doesn't need any connection to the real world to sustain & grow it's angst. And with remedies like "eliminate section 230" it's terrifying to imagine what all might be wrought by this persecution-delusion.