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RE: Trump Executive Action on Social Media Censorship BLOCKED By His Own Administration!
The President should request that Congress pass legislation prohibiting social media platforms from banning users for First Amendment-protected speech.
No that's silly, what happens to facebook's freedom of speech in that case? They don't get to decide what they want to allow on their site? If you are upset with facebook or youtube don't use them. Use sites that don't censor if that is important to you.
Despite the fact that most people feel required to use Fakebook and Goolag's Youtool, I actually agree with you that laws granting special monopolistic/cartel power to be platforms for speech in America are anathema and should not be effected.
Let them follow in the footsteps of Myspace, and die an unnatural death, because those platforms and their possessors are utterly opposed to free speech - an essential and necessary inherent right of free people, and all Americans.
However, a caveat: Fakebook and it's ilk - essentially every platform that participates in the cartel to censor speech, as demonstrated by the simultaneous deplatforming of Infowars - aren't simply private companies, as they have been overtly and covertly funded, implemented, and controlled by USG agencies, which is provable through publicly available documents by the admission of those agencies themselves.
This creates an obligation on those entities to conform to the lawful requirements imposed on USG to adhere to the First Amendment. To fail to obligate to adhere to those lawful standards those entities funded by USG to create public fora otherwise creates a mechanism for the USG to censor it's people by funding other entities and renders the First Amendment null and void.
Those entities aren't ice cream shops, and they weren't provided funding for any other reason. They have always been public fora, were intended to be public fora, and were funded by government to create public fora. Therefore that funding is dependent on the very requirement government is legally obligated to respect, as are those fora.
Thanks!
Google and Facebook are giant multinational corporations, of course they contract with the federal government.
Does it? If I was a book publisher and I sometimes contract to publish something for the government does that mean I can't choose not to publish another book that is offensive to me?
I do think at some point that ISPs may have to be included in statutes regulating other public accommodations and perhaps political affiliation would have to become a protected class.
It's not fair to kick people off the internet completely, you can argue that the internet is like a restaurant or hotel in its utility and being a public accommodation. If you can make Facebook promote Alex Jones speech doesn't that mean that Alex Jones should be forced to give Facebook a forum on his site?
It gets a little silly at that point.
I am not talking only about their present contracts that continue the quasi-covert governmental agency control over their actions, but about the original funding to create and begin operations provided by InQTel, and through other means.
Your analogy regarding publishing books is flawed, as they are each the equivalent in the analogy as one book, not many. Fakebook isn't multiple platforms that only one of which has been created, funded, and controlled via governmental agencies. Each of the platforms has been essentially created via government funding.
Every book you publish that has been funded by government does necessarily obligate you to adhere to the lawful obligations of your funding source. Also, books aren't interactive, and aren't publishing the free speech of others commenting on the books. So, a book can't censor, unlike the platforms in question.
As to the question of turnabout being fair play, and Infowars being required to avail Fakebook of it's platform, that depends on whether Infowars is similarly created by government funding. If Infowars is intended to be a public fora and created by government for that purpose then they are obligated to respect the limitations government is constrained by.
It's only silly insofar as free speech is. I don't think that's silly at all.
I don't see limiting Facebook's free speech as protecting anyone's free speech.
Neither do I, but I do see that government funding quasi-private contractors to censor the speech of Americans is contrary to the letter and spirit of law, the duty, and authority we have to govern ourselves.
Was Fakebook not created by government and intended from it's conception to be a public forum, how, and how much, of the proscription against censorship that applies to government that in turn applied to it would be less obvious.
seems like exactly what movies, television, radio and all mass media have always done, at least since WW2. Heck, we have ratings on video games these days don't we?
Your premise is flawed, Facebook was not created to be a public forum, it was created to be a surveillance and intelligence gathering system.
YESSSSSS! EXACTLY, @funbobby51
The public statements of Fakebook are that it is a public forum. I don't disagree that it was also intended to be a system for gathering intelligence, and surveillance.
That doesn't mean it is a 'private company' not subject to the First Amendment as being created by government funding.
Making it worse doesn't make it better. Surveillance and acquiring intelligence on American citizens is prohibited USG, just as is censorship, absent specific legal requirements, which Fakebook has never met, AFAIK.
At least we agree that Fakebook and it's ilk should be abandoned and forever in our recollections as bad things we have replaced with better. I completely agree we should add to that kith and kine all such interagency agreements and front companies used by government to avoid lawful proscriptions.