Federal court upholds Texas law on social media censorship

All the majors are private companies, owned by shareholders of META, TWTR, GOOG, etc. Don’t confuse publicly traded with not being a private enterprise. These are all private enterprise in a capitalist free market system, no matter what comrade g8trjax may think.

Ironically, the closest we would have to “government run” social media is Truth Social with the involvement the former President and some of his allies actually running the show from a political perspective.

 

Twitter may no longer be a going concern company, they have had issues monetizing in the same way Facebook and Google have. Stuff like this could literally end them. Not right away, but it could cause their business to unravel more than it already has leaving someone else to pick up the scraps.

Facebook and Google on the other hand will probably do as you suggest, or have users from TX sign additional terms of engagement. They could literally just make a TOS that to use their service you agree not to sue them. That sort of language is in a lot of EULA already, where you at best agree to “arbitration” to resolve disputes. Not sure how this TX law gets around that, legally.

 

UOTE="archigator_96, post: 14239073, member: 30412"]Public park or street corner then. Are these platforms public is the main question to answer.
If they are run by the government then we have gov. control of media which isn't a great idea either.[/QUOTE]
I haven't read the opinion, but I seriously doubt the court bothered itself with those relevant questions in its haste to uphold the right of the Texas dictatorship to tell a.private company what it may or may not do.........presumably only in Texas??? How is this fiat supposed to work?

 

Sometimes I genuinely try to understand where they’re coming from and see things from their perspective…but the way they flip flop on issues and situations be having me like

 

And there can be cases where it would get censored and that's a good example, it is just like yelling fire in the crowded theater. What I don't agree with is the full banning of a person or company. As much as Trump is a pompous ass, he shouldn't have been banned from Twitter. Delete many of his posts as in the infowars guy, absolutely. Problem is it would take an army to constantly sift through all the posts and delete them.

 

Why does the govt need to officially run the social media companies, especially when they are all operated by people with a certain one sided political/life view that just happens to coincide with the current govt majorities. Pretty easy to label anything that goes against the official govt narrative as conspiracy, misinformation, hate speech or whatever to get the content tweaked, deleted or suppressed. Look no further than the covid narrative, no differing opinions were allowed anywhere on major lib run social media platforms.

 

Which raises another practicality issue... what does Twitter do if California passes a law that directly contradicts Texas's? And then Delaware?

jeez

 

Only in g8trjax land is life threatening misinformation considered 'opinion".

 

See, pretty easy.

 

Yes, that is the problem. For most people it’s never “a person” that bans them. It’s AI or an algorithm. Plenty of reports of people getting caught up in algorithmic bans. Obviously it says something about a person that their activity was picked up as a misinformation bot, but nonetheless if they prove they are a real person with legitimate opinion they should be able to appeal. I do think there should be regulations the govt can impose, such that *if* a person is banned there needs to be a credible process in place to appeal. That is the extent as to what I think governments involvement should be.

Trump is a unique situation. Guy basically lies *all* of the time, he obviously can’t help himself. He wasn’t finally banned until his online actions caused real world violence on 1/6. I think causing real world violence is a pretty justifiable reason for any platform to no longer want to associate with a person. Unfortunately some bad operators have discovered they can use social media outrage to generate political violence or stage coups. Trump was not the first, social media has been linked to Myanmar Genocide. Should social media be compelled to host these evil lowlifes? Not just no. But HELL no.

 

Agree, and just like there are consequences for yelling fire or similar, there should be consequences for doing the same thing in the social media world. Just because you can reach thousands more people shouldn't get you off the hook for saying damaging things.

 

Better example.

You own a local pub. You have a regular and a variable clientele. Politics and religion are occasionally discussed. Maybe voices are raised, but the business works. No one gets too loud or extreme. If they do, they are told to leave and cool it off and return another night. People generally try to coexist.

You have one group of non-regular provocateurs who regularly try to come in and disturb the place. They do everything they can to destroy the existing zeitgeist. They shout things as provocative as possible, not to try to discuss matters but just to try to inflame irritate and provoke. They tell patrons they'll follow them home and attack them, rape the women. They say places like your pub shouldn't even be allowed to exist.

You tell them they're no longer welcome, consistent with your rights under local law like you always have. They go to the constable and complain. You respond to the Constable, say you're doing what you've always done according to law. Constable there's a new law in town, that the law doesn't particularly like establishments like yours and wants to destroy them and hates patrons like yours. So it tells you you have to let them in, even if they destroy your pub.

You let them in and your pub is destroyed. As you go out of business you return to the constable and point out what happened. They say that's exactly what they wanted. They don't want people like you and your patrons to feel safe or have a place to discuss things. The terror is the intended goal. You can die or move or accept a lower place in society

 

LOL, Emails? Phone calls? PM's? Pony express? Any number of ways. And I'm sure the large social media companies are super sympathetic with any attemped gop messaging.

 

You didn't answer his question. Why were the social media companies filtering the same speech when the GOP held the reins as they do now if the companies are getting directions from the government?

 

My point exactly. I used to think if we humans used our brains, we'd all arrive at approximately the same "truths". In fact, we usually know where we want to get to and use our brains to justify the destination. (As you suggested in #36, some of us here are especially egregious.) So, I wonder if "intellectual honesty" even means anything. Just like both Roe v. Wade courts, the 5th Circuit knew where it wanted to get to and fashioned an opinion which got it there. The current SCOTUS is just as bad, but so was the Warren Court.

Most of us are just hypocrites. Thanfully, many aren't, though their numbers are dwindling.

 

The government was not running the social media platforms, but thanks to the 5th Circuit's opinion, the Texas government is now. Why can't you see that?

 

I'd have to dust off my law school books or do some research about what precisely constitutes a "viewpoint." Are racist opinions a viewpoint entitled to be given a platform? Can pornography constitute a viewpoint at least in some contexts? Are social media allowed to filter out profanity or personal attacks on other posters or ban posters for things like that?

 

Fall out of any ruling to bar private entities to control what opinions they express will be great. Church on Sunday will be filled with counter Christian opinions. Buckle up.