Federal judge blocks Florida law aimed at punishing social media companies
cbsnews.com
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I have no love of Facebook and Google. Don't use their services. But for better or worse, they own their data centers. Your account is a set of files on servers they can burn to the ground if they so choose. The rights of property owners have always been first and foremost the most sacrosanct of all rights enshrined in American tradition. Whether you agree with that or not, it's the way our Constitution works. You can't compel private property owners to host content on their property. They can ban, at will, for any reason. It doesn't have to be fair. It doesn't have to balanced. They're allowed to be politically motivated. They're allowed to be wrong.
If you think we need a public digital square, then it needs to actually be public. These are legislators. They can propose a publicly funded alternative to private social media that would have to respect free speech rights because it would be part of the government.
"That brings us to issues about First Amendment treatment of social-media providers that are not so clearly settled. The plaintiffs say, in effect, that they should be treated like any other speaker. The State says, in contrast, that social-media providers are more like common carriers, transporting information from one person to another much as a train transports people or products from one city to another. The truth is in the middle."
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flnd.37...
Indeed, the judge clearly believes that this is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. His commentary that you are citing is merely an indication that's it not as hilariously flagrantly violating it as the plaintiffs contended.
But leaving the 'technical' aspects of the debate aside, the Florida law ultimately protects the free speech of individuals which makes me think it is preferable to protecting the free speech of the companies. This is especially true when the companies are incredibly huge and influential, with more users than most countries. They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech, and we've seen their power in action when they banned Trump in unison. That kind of power should have limitations - the same limitations we place on our government's ability to control speech.
Do you think that Hacker News is really a "dumb conduit" for the public town square? Or how about your internal company Slack or message board? Review comments on your local retailer's website? Your local newspaper's comments section? These are all examples that would absolutely be classified as social media per Florida's law (modulo size requirements). If you're going to argue they're not social media, then what is the basis for drawing the distinction?
The problem with the law is--especially as the commentary of the legislators and De Santis make clear--it's really about punishing Facebook and Twitter, and not about protecting users at all. Indeed, if you followed the actual hearing itself, the state effectively tried to defend the absurdities of the law by basically saying that the only sane way to interpret it is that the only way for Facebook et al to violate the law is to not follow their own defined policies.
I think you're begging the question here. It's not clear they're conduits - they're arguably at one end of the conduit. They arguably abut the town square (the internet at large), but that's not the same as being the town square.
> Why not just treat political opinion as a protected trait as well?
Lots of reasons. If you think about it for a minute or two, you can probably think of several.
> They are effectively governments when it comes to their ability to shut down speech
You mean "their ability to shut down speech on their own property, and nowhere else", which is different. So, yes, they're effectively governments on their own turf, much like the owner of a popular bar. Even if the bar is the the de-facto "town square" of some isolated hamlet where the townsfolk routinely gather to discuss the issues of the day.
If your electric company drops you, you don't go to any social media sites, because the power is off and there's nobody else.
Utilities are regulated because they're the only option. It's impractical to build alternatives because of the limited space for infrastructure. Often, in fact, local governments helped build that "last mile" infrastructure in the first place.
Facebook is the largest social media site, but there are tons of others. You aren't being literally frozen out if they decide not to serve you. Go meet your friends on some other site.
I would also prefer the elimination of all traffic cameras as taxation devices; require an officer there for judgement and to be close by in case other civic issues arise. These matters should be about public safety, not trying to entrap people in poorly marked speed traps nor lights that are timed to encourage unsafe driving.
Maybe this is a choice between first amendment rights of the dominant platform companies vs. first amendment rights of 100s million of their users? If that's the case, wouldn't we want to take the users' side in this issue vs. platforms?
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/583/pruneyard-shopp...
> The California Supreme Court held the individuals had the right, under state law, to engage in the proposed activity. The ruling did not compel the shopping center to say anything at all, and the ruling did not prohibit the center from saying anything it wished, when and how it wished.
And it doesn't apply because:
> FAIR and PruneYard establish that compelling a person to allow a visitor access to the person’s property, for the purpose of speaking, is not a First Amendment violation, so long as the person is not compelled to speak, the person is not restricted from speaking, and the message of the visitor is not likely to be attributed to the person. The Florida statutes now at issue, unlike the state actions in FAIR and PruneYard, explicitly forbid social media platforms from appending their own statements to posts by some users. And the statutes compel the platforms to change their own speech in other respects, including, for example, by dictating how the platforms may arrange speech on their sites. This is a far greater burden on the platforms’ own speech than was involved in FAIR or PruneYard.
While I understand that people try to frame this as protecting First Amendment rights, this is actually very literally the government requiring the companies to publish certain kinds of speech. There is a provision in the law that would require any covered social media provider to carry all posts from any declared candidate. Turns out, though, there's a handy SCOTUS case that says that requiring a newspaper to publish replies from elected officials is unconstitutional abrogation of the newspaper's free speech.
Just as the First Amendment protects the freedom of speech, it also protects the freedom from compelled speech.
It only specifically constrains Congress. It does not mention state governments.
In addition, this falls under freedom of association; people (individually and in groups) are free to choose who they associate with, and include or exclude anyone they like based on any criteria they like (with certain specific exceptions regarding protected classes). "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone" - for instance, a restaurant or store (or an individual at home) can kick out someone being disruptive, and so can a web host or social media platform.
Talk about contradictory statements. In other words "we want to be the arbiter of allowed speech and continue our monopolistic conglomerate with other companies to shut down what we don't like in hopes of garnering the favor of the current party in power"
If someone Trump like gets back into office this is going to backfire in the faces of people supporting this stuff.
No, it's actually unconstitutional when you have Senators like Hirono requesting and goading them into removing people they don't like.
I find it hilarious that years of being against "big business" democrats are now the one's championing monopolies and in bed with everyone in Silicon Valley.
>The government certainly should not be able to come in and fine you for deleting comments on your blog.
But it's ok to threaten action if Trump isn't removed from platforms? Double standards are great!
No, it's not unconstitutional. Government officials are allowed to voice their opinion.
Why pass laws limiting speech when you can have your lackey friends in SV do it? It's a coercion tactic similar to what police do since they're in a position of power.
Would you be ok if they brought in the local restaurant owner and asked them why they served transgender people and when they were going to stop them from spreading trans culture inside their business?
I agree that elected officials shouldn't try to make an end-run around the 1st Amendment by threatening to regulate companies if they don't censor on behalf of those officials.
When they do, shouldn't we should place the blame at the feet of those elected officials, not the companies they're attempting to extort?
"But it's ok to threaten action if Trump isn't removed from platforms?" Can you show me where the government threatened action if Trump was not removed from these platforms?
There is no double standards. Governments wield the power of state sanctioned violence and their ability to use that force to demand actions from private entities should be limited where ever possible. You are conflating private and government entities and they are really not comparable under any credible view especially that of the constitution.
Anyone that believes in the first amendment should be very against governments being able to determine content on private platforms.
"I find it hilarious that years of being against "big business" democrats are now the one's championing monopolies and in bed with everyone in Silicon Valley" This is not a political party issue, its a constitutional one.
If you have government officials bringing executives and having hearings asking Zuckerberg when they're going to do something about removing speech they find offensive your first amendment is basically gone. Do you think they just invite him in to hear what he has to say? It's all an intimidation tactic to elicit coercion from these companies so they can use these platforms to push their agenda and silence anything else while guaranteeing funding.
>Anyone that believes in the first amendment should be very against governments being able to determine content on private platforms.
Wow? gaslight much? This would have done the opposite by disallowing the platforms to allow you only to see specific things. I don't know what to tell you if you're so confused that you think blocking specific speech is more supportive of the 1st amendment.
>This is not a political party issue, its a constitutional one.
I don't even know what you mean by that. There's one party pushing de-platforming and removal right now.
I kinda think you're the one not considering repercussions of allowing these platforms to drive social norms.
If your opinion holds so much water then you should welcome the opportunity to have public discourse with someone who thinks differently.
What I hear when someone supports removing speech is just fear. Fear that their specific opinion won't stand up against someone else's.
Regardless of whether there's a legal way to stop these platforms from their current crusade I don't' see how any one can morally support what they're doing.
I generally think that private organizations and individuals should not be held to that same requirement.
I think the Internet should be a utility, and ISPs should not be able to deny you access to the Internet. I think that Twitter should have the same right to deny service that my local bar does, which is to say, they can discriminate as long as it's not against a protected class.
Ok then explain to me why it's ok for these politicians to celebrate removal and de-platforming of individuals and post about it on social media? I'd also like to know why they're allowed to have hearings asking when certain platforms are going to ban specific rival politicians?
>I think the Internet should be a utility, and ISPs should not be able to deny you access to the Internet. I think that Twitter should have the same right to deny service that my local bar does, which is to say, they can discriminate as long as it's not against a protected class.
Explain? Why one and not the other? ISP's are businesses too. What I'm seeing when you write this is basically that you'd like to hold businesses you dislike to different standards that ones you don't. I assume you're ok with the social media stuff because it's catering to your opinions currently. You need to ask yourself if Trump had a stranglehold on Silicon Valley like the left currently does would you still be ok with your views?
Additionally, once private businesses reach a point where they're too big and they control too much market share they need to be held to different standards. You mentioned ISP's this is exactly what's happened with them. They all start working in coercion just like the handful of big tech companies have. There are no competitors without building a entirely separate infrastructure now.
because they're just speaking (which is protected), the government did not actually remove or de-platform anyone.
> why they're allowed to have hearings
same as above.
> Why one and not the other?
For the same reason I think "roads" and "endpoints on the road" are different. For the same reason I think "electricity" and "water" should be utilities. It's a pipe. I just think they're different things.
You're not following what I'm saying. They're explicitly coercing companies into doing things due to the fact they can bring down real repercussions if they do not. The government is using big tech as a middle man to do their bidding and silence "bad" speech. That, is in fact the same as doing it themselves, therefore stomping all over the 1st amendment.
Just because Pablo Escobar uses mules and dealers to peddle his drugs doesn't mean he's not guilty.
Although, if you change your statement to "implicitly coercing companies", you may be actually fairly accurate, I just don't think that is a bad thing, it happens all the time.
Not that the Florida law holds merit. Just that the irony here is lost to most people.
Additionally I did not state I want anyone removed from social media, I just stated that private companies are allowed to censor over things that dont fall under a protected status.
So, essentially you're telling people they should stop thinking the way they do and think the way you want them to?
Would you apply this to trans people as well? I'm trying to figure out where your line is. Basically if it's an external physical attribute then discrimination is bad but if it's mental then discrimination is fine and dandy? Does this apply to homosexuality, religion, cultural attitudes etc?
I just don't understand the inability of people to see what happens when they give so much power away. That power does not disappear when the next POTUS appears.
These tech companies will 100% change with the wind, in fact, they already do it for China. They're only doing these things to garner favor from the current administration in hopes of staying away from any regulation. There's nothing altruistic about their behavior at all.
(Is the above also an argument that religious affiliation shouldn't be a protected class? Yes. Unpopular opinion that I hold, and I'll take the heat for it.)
I'm sure plenty of people dislike associating with lgbtq people and people of different race, religion etc.
With regards to other protected classes- gender, race, religion, country of origin- the people belonging to those classes are so broad that you cannot make generalizations about them like that. When I see a dude wearing a swastika, I can, in my opinion, make some pretty accurate generalizations about them. Again, complain about the case I picked if you want, but all other political beliefs are just a watered down version of this example. Pick a guy wearing a "kill all the white people" shirt if you want, I refuse to advocate for any law or proposal that would force a white guy to serve him a beer.
Just to get a better understanding.... homosexuals, trans, black, muslim, asian etc. All free to ban too right?
Muslims are members of a religion. Discrimination based on religion is illegal, same as above.
In 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that the CRA64 also covered sexual orientation and gender identity, making discrimination based on being homosexual and transgender illegal.
"Opinion, political belief, or political affiliation" is not a protected class, so it is legal to discriminate against people for those reasons. And, in my opinion, it is actually GOOD to discriminate against people for those reasons. It is an expression of ones First Amendment Freedom of Association.
Yes and it wasn't illegal for a long time so what's your point here?
>In 2020 the Supreme Court ruled that the CRA64 also covered sexual orientation and gender identity, making discrimination based on being homosexual and transgender illegal.
Thanks for agreeing that you can add protections to different classes.
> And, in my opinion, it is actually GOOD to discriminate against people for those reasons.
No it's not "good" to discriminate in the way you're referring to it by shutting down what they say. It's good to present your differing opinion and put it out there so people can decide whether they agree. A lot people really thought discriminating based on skin color was "good" too.
If someone engages in speech I disagree with, I don't want the government to punish them for it. That does not mean I think bad speech should have no repercussions- I just think those repercussions should be in the private realm, in the hands of private citizens and private organizations.
In case it isn't clear, I'd sooner do away with all protected classes than add "Nazi" to the list.
You seem to be confused about what the double standard is. They are not being banned and neither are the several dictators using the platforms to promote violence.
The platforms are free to ban dictators in the US and other groups in the US that incite violence with conspiracy theories. That is well within their rights, and it is even a public service to do so.
It's worth noting, though, that while I'm not allowed to ban Muslims from my bible study forum site, I'd be well within my rights to prohibit them (and anyone else) from evangelizing islam there.
Regarding my personal opinion, I think they should be allowed to deny service to who they want as its a core feature of the business. I think this is different than a say black / white restricted eating areas as the core feature of those business' is to feed people, not to facilitate personal race / sexuality based interactions. Just my opinion though I am sure there are edge cases that would make me pause.
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/933/compelled-speec...
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-1/f...
Feel free to read my multiple other comments. The government can restrict your speech by means other than passing laws.
- The legislation compels providers to host speech that violates their standards—speech they otherwise would not host
- and forbids providers from speaking as they otherwise would
These aren't contradictory. If a site does want to host a politician's speech then they can?
Since corporations are also people as SCOTUS ruled they have similar protections.
Asking them to host content they otherwise don't approve might be like I would require you to say great things about Biden when you're a Trump supporter. It would suppress your freedom of speech, don't you think? It's like Russia requiring to say great things about Putin and Belarus about Lukashenko.