Freedom of speech is meant to protect us from government censorship. Trump sanctions would fall into that category, but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game.
Yes, according to the article. That argument is made over and over in it, it’s hard to miss. “Forcing” doesn’t just mean directly requiring the action, it also means the threat of “this is not going to end up well for you if you don’t comply”. Of course, you can argue that Google could and should fight it, but that doesn’t change what the government is doing.
> but a social media site censoring what they don't want to host seems like fair game.
Again, the article makes it really clear they are doing this as the direct result of government actions.
I saw multiple references there to the government sanctioning groups and that YouTube took down videos based on the sanctions. That very well could be a loophole and a court might deem that a first amendment violation, but it isn't as simple as finding communications where the government directly requested those videos to be taken down.
> “Forcing” doesn’t just mean directly requiring the action, it also means the threat of “this is not going to end up well for you if you don’t comply”.
Which is definitely what the current administration does. If you need an example, look at the recent Jimmy Kimmel case.
I could see a court deciding this YouTube situation is a first amendment violation. I don't know of any law or precedent that makes it a clear cut case given what is described in the article.
Jimmy Kimmel is on the air today, having walked back his nonsense about the political allegiances of the Charlie Kirk killer. If the outcome is the political left in America is even fractionally less likely to incite violence against anyone they don't like the speech of, then that's a great outcome.
That it was even off, based on threats made by the government, is the point. Bad things by one party aren’t suddenly OK because a different party beat them.
I am as against the Republicans doing this stuff even 5% as much as the Democrats did, so I'm glad the Trump administration turns out to have not done anything to get him off the air.
1. The right was making all sorts of claims about the killer before they knew anything about him (this is a true statement).
2. Donald Trump is not acting at all like someone who's in mourning (this is also a true statement).
Neither of those statements is inflammatory or ignorant. They're both objectively true statements that pretty much everyone who follows the news is aware of.
Beyond that, you're ignoring the fact that ABC only "chose" to suspend Jimmy Kimmel's show after they were publicly threatened by Trump's FCC chair.
The article answers this:
> YouTube, which is owned by Google, confirmed to The Intercept that it deleted the groups’ accounts as a direct result of State Department sanctions against the group after a review.
Sanctions were put in place and YouTube followed policy to not allow content from sanctioned groups. That sounds like a loophole, and could be found by a court to be a violation, but it isn't nearly as cut and dry as people here seem to be making it out to be.