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Facebook temporarily disabled the social media accounts of a woman who was posting video of her own standoff negotiations with the police:
Baltimore police shot and killed Korryn Gaines, a 23-year-old black woman, after an hourslong standoff on Monday — during which Facebook and Instagram, at police request, temporarily shut down Gaines' accounts. [...] Police Chief Jim Johnson says Gaines was posting video of the standoff to social media as it was unfolding, which prompted police to request the deactivation of her accounts. Gaines' Facebook page is now reactivated; it does not have any videos visible to the public. On Instagram, one video apparently recorded during the standoff remains. [...] A second video, now deleted, showed a police officer with a gun drawn at Gaines' door. Facebook and Instagram have not responded to NPR's requests for comment.
[...] "Gaines was posting video of the operation as it unfolded. Followers were encouraging her not to comply with negotiators' requests that she surrender peacefully," he said. "Clearly, you can see this was an exigent circumstance where life and serious injury were in jeopardy." After a short period of time, Facebook (which owns Instagram) complied and deactivated the accounts. No data was deleted, Johnson said. Police do not have the authority to directly deactivate a social media account, Johnson and the spokeswoman both said. Facebook decides whether to comply with such requests.
(Score: 2) by Bogsnoticus on Thursday August 04 2016, @07:41AM
Freedom of speech does not cover using a private entity's service.
Same as how the 4th ammendment does not protect you against the security guard at a store insisting he/she check inside your bag to ensure you haven't stolen anything.
Genius by birth. Evil by choice.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday August 04 2016, @08:43AM
A closer analogy would be: suppose police asked a security guard at a store to search someone's bag.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @10:11AM
In this case, it does.
Freedom of speech does not prevent Facebook for refusing to show her speech, it bans the government from telling Facebook to remove her speech.
Guess which category the police falls under...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @02:37PM
Ding ding ding, we have a winner!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday August 05 2016, @01:01AM
No it doesn't.
It prohibits the police from *legally requiring* Facebook to shut down her stream. But they're still free to ask, which seems to be all they did here. Facebook then shut it down voluntarily. Just like it says in TFS:
(Score: 2) by CirclesInSand on Friday August 05 2016, @02:57AM
Police have a lot of power, and unlimited get out of jail free cards. A request from the police is not the same thing as a request from your peers.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday August 05 2016, @08:55PM
Absolutely. And if the request was made to an individual person, there very well might be some confusion about the difference between a request and a command. Although that still doesn't mean the police can't ask, it just means they have to be very careful about *how* they ask, because if they ask in such a way that it can reasonably be considered a command then you can file a lawsuit against them later for violating your rights -- and probably win. But a massive corporation like Facebook surely has lawyers on staff to review such requests, and I don't really think it's reasonable to assume they were confused about the request. Facebook also has quite a lot of power which they could have used to fight this had they wanted to.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday August 04 2016, @02:32PM
Ideally in this example the sites involved would tell the government to go fuck itself.
But not much chance of that :P
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"