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Comment by rufusroflpunch | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a blatant first amendment violation. Twitter are acting as agents to state to silence individuals. The federal government cannot pick and choose who gets to speak.

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Do you understand that if it is a First Amendment violation (which I don't think it is), the party with standing to sue over it would be Twitter, who has not claimed they were coerced/forced by the government and has not sued or announced intention to?

Agreed, but that would require acting parties within Twitter to claim they were coerced or forced to act. Knowing who the acting parties were, that's highly unlikely. So I don't think the counter-argument holds much water.

If I understand you correctly, your argument asserts bad faith- that the people involved will lie. So I don't think your counter-counter-argument holds much water, either. And I'm not sure you're even strictly correct- having the employees testify against the argument would hurt, but I could still see Twitter being able to prove they were coerced, or at least try.

You've misunderstood. I don't believe the people who acted felt they were being coerced - I believe they felt they were doing the right thing and were happy to oblige.

Yes, this is so painfully obvious that it seems disingenuous to be so naive as to not understand.

Nah, just misunderstood and somewhat continue to misunderstand their point. I don't see how the offered info is relevant to whether this is a 1A violation.

The 1st amendment doesn't come into play unless Twitter is being coerced by the government against their will. There's no legal prohibition against Twitter moderating their platform in a way that also pleases certain people associated with the government.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

To be clear, first amendment doesn't say the gov't shouldn't (let alone can't) ask you to do (or not do) something. It states that the legislative body of the federal government cannot make a law abridging the freedom of speech.

The text doesn’t just say make no law but also prohibiting the free exercise thereof. If the government makes some kind of implicit threat, for example that regulators might not look at a private company the same way if it doesn’t choose to comply with a request to censor someone, that’s clearly an infringement. The legislature doesn’t need to specifically pass a law banning speech for the actions of the government to be unconstitutional.

The text clearly means that the law cannot prohibit the free exercise thereof. It's not saying the law can only not establish a religion, and then, the government, in general cannot prohibit the free exercise. It says congress cannot make a law abridging the free exercise of speech.

What federal government was in the office in October of 2020?

Joe Biden was a lifelong U.S. Senator, Vice President and a Presidential candidate. They were providing lists of people to silence, just weeks before he was elected as President. And you're arguing that because he was TECHNICALLY a private citizen at the time while the highest levels of Twitter was working at his campaign's behest to make sure he got elected President, that is somehow NOT a first amendment violation?

I would not be surprised to find out sometime that there are judges who might disagree with you on that point.

> he was TECHNICALLY a private citizen

The 1st amendment prohibits the government from interfering with speech. You just admitted he was not part of the government. Therefore it’s not a 1st amendment violation.

It may be morally wrong, or violating “free speech”, but I don’t see a 1st amendment violation.

Dunno why you're being downvoted here. "The Law" under "The US Constitution" is not a "technicality" here- it is the guiding document dictating how this conversation should be directed. Biden's role as a private citizen in 2020 is clear, in that light.

The law is also nowhere near as black-and-white and interpreted by robots as you seem to think it is.

Could you describe what authority Joe Biden (or team Biden) had within the federal government in October 2020?

I'm not going to claim that it isn't an issue that VIPs have excessive influence on social media companies and there operations. People with lots of followers have certainly been able to pull strings to craft the message at twitter in the past. Joe Biden and his campaign team c. Oct 2020 are certainly to be counted in that number. Things like banning certain accounts ( https://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-parody-twitter-acc... ) or getting your account unblocked ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45953747 ).

I am going to ask specifically how this is a first amendment issue when none of the people involved had any role within the government at the time this took place.

Either Biden was already effectively able to employ government power against Twitter or Twitter had the ability to affect whether he got elected, but arguing both makes no sense.

> They were providing lists of people to silence

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Are you talking about the tweets with nudity they emailed about?

Perhaps accounts apparently created only to disseminate the leak are what poster means by “people”. We’re left to speculate whether bots count as people and would be covered by the poster’s 1A.

but he was none of those things in 2019/20 when he was running for president

So you are saying the Trump team asking (as documented in the twitter thread) for things to be taken down was a 1A violation? Because only the government can violate the 1A the Biden campaign wasn't the government.

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