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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Since the government is leaning on them to do it, this is clearly a Constitutional right to free speech issue.

To be clear, I don't know about this case in particular, but the current administration has admitted to be in direct contact with social media platforms to tag "problematic" posts. And they may not even need to because the implicit threat is there.

I used to be part of the "its a private platform" group, but I asked myself the question, what would actual government censorship look like. And I couldn't think of an answer that would make what we have today not censorship.

If the social media platforms in question are taking down posts on the recommendations (or demands, take your pick) of the White House's senior staff, then I think it's fair to say that they are State Actor's.

Or when they are being paid by the government, which is indeed the case with covid messaging, just like they do all other MSM. Hence the lawsuits against Facebook for censorship because they are acting as agents of the state.

If they are, they need to stop.

That is essentially the novel legal theory behind Donald Trump's lawsuit against several social media companies. He claims that by following federal government censorship requests they are essentially acting as an arm of the government, and thus users should be entitled to 1st Amendment free speech protections. There is no case law to support Trump's claim so I expect he will lose, but I guess we'll see.

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/07/1013760153/donald-trump-says-...

read it again WE do NOT HAVE FREE

we have instead a limited notion of free political when and where it does not immediately cause death of others as that would be denying them life and pursuit of happiness under the Declaration of Independence.

Big difference

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