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Trump's Twitter blocks violate First Amendment rights, appeals court affirms
It's one thing for most of us to block Twitter users who annoy us, but it's a violation of those users' First Amendment rights for the president to do so, a federal appeals court confirmed.
The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Tuesday issued an opinion supporting an earlier federal court ruling that as long as Donald Trump is a public official, he cannot block people (which prevents them from reading his feed or responding to his comments) he disagrees with on Twitter.
The opinion (PDF) is narrow, specific, and unanimous, with all three judges concurring. "We do not consider or decide whether an elected official violates the Constitution by excluding persons from a wholly private social media account," the judges write, "Nor do we consider whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms."
But, they continue, "The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees.... Once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants, he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with."
"The irony of all this," the opinion concludes, "is that we write at a time in the history of this nation when the conduct of our government and its officials is subject to wide-open, robust debate. This debate encompasses an extraordinarily broad range of ideas and viewpoints and generates a level of passion and intensity the likes of which have rarely been seen. This debate, as uncomfortable and unpleasant as it frequently may be, is nonetheless a good thing. In resolving this appeal, we remind the litigants and the public that if the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less."
[Update 20190713_080924 UTC: Part of what distinguishes this case from other politician's use of twitter is that on June 6, 2017 it was reported:
At the daily White House press briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer said the President's tweets are considered official White House statements, saying the President is the "most effective messenger on his agenda."
--martyb]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @06:24AM (29 children)
What the fuck I just wasted my time reading?
Sherley, there must be a shorter and more human comprehensible expression for the gloating above?
Did you just equate 'if the president chooses pornhub as a platform for communication, then the president can't block others from pornhub on the reason they express views contrary to those of the president' with 'twitter can't stop anyone behave on their platform contrary to their terms of use'?
If so, on what basis?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday July 12 2019, @06:31AM (19 children)
Clear your mind of hate, reread what I wrote and examine it as a cold logic problem. It will come to you.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @06:44AM (17 children)
As a non-American, I have no other feeling but puzzlement on the weirdness of the way American choose to do politics. No hate, no love.
And it brings me no benefit to the try deciphering the meanders you take to make your point, assuming you have one to make. You either take my feedback of 'i didn't get it, lease rephrase' or I'm going to ignore your post as pointless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by coolgopher on Friday July 12 2019, @07:26AM (5 children)
Plenty of "stay-the-fuck-away" though >.>
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @08:05AM (4 children)
Because it just happens I don't like the American life-style. Can you blame me for it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @10:38AM (3 children)
Even if it is the part of "American life-style" you dislike the most.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @11:09AM (2 children)
Your mistake (no, I don't dislike free speech, I dislike irresponsible speech).
Your problem if you blame me for it, it's inconsequential.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Touché) by hemocyanin on Friday July 12 2019, @03:10PM (1 child)
That's a dodge, a way to justify censorship to oneself and still feel like an anti-authoritarian.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @11:21PM
Lemme guess, you parents never taught you about things that, for example, are not nice to say, actually rude.
Or did you just forget their lessons?
Common-sense, mate. It has a meaning (and that meaning doesn't overlap with 'dodge').
If you drive the common-sense of your population out of whack with the rest of the world, don't be surprised if the rest of the world will not like you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0, Redundant) by jmorris on Friday July 12 2019, @07:48AM (9 children)
Look below, Arik got it. There is no effective difference in WHO does the banning. If it is protected communication between citizen and elected official then the argument that Trump can't ban probably stands, but then Jack can't banhammer either because it is the same thing. Just because he chooses not to protect Trump from his critics doesn't save him if he is openly doing it for AOC. In fact it makes it even more indefensible. If the rule is you can't be banned from communicating with your elected officials, and they are deemed to be "on the clock" and conducting such official business that these rules need to be enforced, then it is a platform and Jack can't ban users who aren't breaking any laws.
Imagine AT&T was still "The Phone Company" for a moment. The White House switchboard implemented a block list to keep the annoying jerks who call up every other day to complain. Courts smack them down. So they ask a big contributor, who happens to be CEO of AT&T, to just turn off the phones of the annoying people. Think that flies in a court? Anywhere in the West? Now explain what is different with Twitter other than the "On the Internet" reality distortion field. Are you seeing it yet? BOOM!
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @08:02AM (8 children)
If it is protected communication between citizen and elected official then the argument that Trump can't ban probably stands, , but then Jack can't banhammer either because...
I hope you realize that if Twitter wounlnd't be constrained by the strictly economic risk of losing customers, they could ban Trump at any moment from their platform.
Is there any law to force a private business to carry the president's message? 'cause if there is, then there is no difference I can see between being a private company and a nationalized one. It happened quite a lot in USSR and the communist European countries, I know from direct experience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @08:41AM (7 children)
They're able to ban him and all elected officials, via ToS, overnight.
And they're more than welcome to do so. It would be the glorious day of their death, and a small liberation of the internet as a result.
Because he'd just move to a more friendly platform, and they would die.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @09:40AM (6 children)
So, if they can kick out the POTUS, it follows they can kick out anyone.
So, jmorris' assertion twitter has a legal special obligation to carry the speech of anyone only because it's between that one and POTUS is bullshit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @09:53AM (3 children)
"So, if they can kick out the POTUS, it follows they can kick out anyone."
No, no. Ok, yes, but no.
They can kick out POTUS. THEN they kick out anyone they want.
But until they kick out POTUS, then, logically, they are willingly hosting a public hall.
In which case they really can't kick out anyone, barring a judicial order to do so.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @11:46AM (2 children)
It doesn't necessary follow. See, they aren't promising they'll enforce their ToS every time for everyone, they reserve for themselves the right to do it at their discretion.
Like they reserve their right to kick-out a rowdy red-neck, but also have the discretion to not do it for certain prominent red-necks.
Otherwise, read their ToS and show me where they made the (bound by commercial law) offer/promise they will host an open hall. If you can't find such a promise, methinks no judge will ever hold them guilty for not doing so.
Excerpts from Twitter's ToS [twitter.com]
Doesn't sound like as a "promise to host a public hall", does it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @11:55AM (1 child)
But the court decision we were discussing introduce a very different element to the conversation.
Please try to keep up.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @12:07PM
I think you are having a wet dream and you may be embarrassed of your uncontrollable excitement when you wake up.
Because, there, no further then TFS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @10:17AM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @02:28PM
Racist!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @09:07PM
I think at least a few of us have chosen the path of "ignore jmoriss as pointless" a long time ago. And nothing of value has been lost; at least that is what I have found. YMMV.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @07:58AM
jmorris just had sex with my pet ground squirrel. Neither of them enjoyed it, it was purely a political transaction. Jmorris is like that, sex with rodents, sex with Nazis, sex with Richard Spencer, not to mention Milo. So what was he saying, again? Nothing of consequence. He will come, but nothing to do with logic.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @07:01AM (7 children)
If Trump can't ban me from his twitter feed for my expressed political disagreement with him (which is what the ruling says) then why should Jack Dorsey be able to remove me from Trump's twitter feed (and every other feed) for my expressed political disagreement with him?
So yes, the implication of this seems to be that if the POTUS chooses to use Pornhub for a public hall, and Pornhub allows him to do so, then this virtual hall becomes a place to which access is guaranteed by the first amendment, and neither the POTUS nor Pornhub can remove access without inviting a lawsuit.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @11:59AM (5 children)
Because both you and Trump entered in a contract with Twitter, on the conditions established by Twitter.
Yes, signing in after you read the ToS is a contract, more precisely an adhesion contract [investopedia.com] (the "my way or the highway" type of contract).
Guess what you agreed with [twitter.com]?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 12 2019, @12:03PM (1 child)
I would argue in all earnest that even had I engaged there, that could not reasonably be taken as any evidence of my acceptance of any ridiculous terms.
But, again, even if all that holds up... it gains them nothing. All he has to do is leave. And take his followers with him.
Why are you trying to defend these trash?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 12 2019, @12:16PM
If you don't use Twitter, it's fine. If you do use Twitter, then your disagreement with the ToS is irrelevant in the eyes of the law, you are still bound by their adhesion conditions.
In any case, in my post the "you" should be understood in the context of your
I.e. an impersonal you [wikipedia.org] meaning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday July 12 2019, @05:15PM (2 children)
Nobody is arguing whether their ToS says that. The courts are slowly working themselves into a position where they will be forced to settle the question of whether they can say that and remain regulated as a neutral Platform. The problem for Big Social is that if a court ever firmly places them into either the Platform -OR- Publishers legal categories their current business model is dead and they have no real desire to accept the changes that would be required to survive. They will have to be forced into it, at gunpoint. Yes I'm being brutally honest about that, government is force.
This current legal skirmish isn't about the ToS, the corrupt judges in this ruling explicitly said they weren't imposing anything on Jack. By the ToS alone, Trump is perfectly entitled to use the block feature of twitter, just like any other. But the court ruled that while Mr. Trump is POTUS he can't make use of it. And I'm saying that is an unprincipled exception that will soon die under the weight of the contradictions it is going to create when they apply that rule to AOC and Jack simply banhammers anyone who annoys her, creating an effective violation of the principle the court is invoking to "get Trump."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @09:37PM (1 child)
I've noticed that you frequently have a rather macabre view of government. Is there no room in your political philosophy for consent of the governed?
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Saturday July 13 2019, @09:01AM
If everyone is in agreement there isn't need for government involvement in that issue. It is when one group demands another group do something it doesn't want that government gets involved. At which point the more powerful group (not the most numerous) uses government to force the loser to obey. Or else. Because there has to be an "or else" or there would be no need to obey.
Government itself requires a rough consent of the governed to last long, but it can often manufacture that, especially with modern media and knowledge of propaganda techniques. And remember, the U.S. and England invented propaganda. Mr. H, he found himself on the opposing end of it in WWI and learned from the experience. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 12 2019, @09:22PM
Jack Dorsey it not President of the United States. The President is not allowed to censor citizens.
The End
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 12 2019, @07:25AM
The DMCA and other laws make some liability distinctions for things like copyright.
CNN, Bloomberg, and Disney are publishers. (for most purposes) They get to decide what they show, and they are liable for things like copyright violation and slander and child porn.
Freenode, Verizon, and Akamai aren't generally considered publishers. (for most purposes) They don't make editorial decisions on the data passing over their networks, and they are not liable for whatever it may be.
Social media giants want to have it both ways. They want to make decisions about what passes through their networks, but they don't want any liability. That isn't how the law works.