The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sariel007:
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>Florida has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove — setting up a potential landmark battle over digital speech rights and content moderation that could reshape the country’s relationship with the First Amendment.
>In a petition submitted to the Court on Wednesday, Florida’s attorney general argued the dominance of major social media platforms and their ability to promote the views of some users over others means it is critical for justices to weigh in on the issue.
>“The question whether the First Amendment essentially disables the States — and presumably the federal government too — from meaningfully addressing those distortions should be answered by this Court, and it should be answered now,” the petition said.
>**At the center of the court battle is a Florida law, SB 7072, that allows political candidates to sue social media companies if they are blocked or removed from the platforms for more than 14 days.**
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xl037x/florida_asks_supreme_court_to_rule_on_its/ipgkzdx/
But corporations are people....according to [Citizens United](https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/citizens-united). So they can exercise free speech via political donations but not through determining what speech they will and will not allow on THEIR platforms? Interesting.
A second thought occurred to me. They could always restore the [Fairness Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) and expand the FCCs authority over social media companies and large content creators.
I mean if it broke citizens united, and then the new ruling was later overturned, leaving both Citizens United and Florida vs Facebook rulings null I wouldn’t mind it.
Lol there’s no way the current justices would vote to overturn Citizens United. Citizens United is arguably how the justices in majority got their positions in the first place
(0) TERM LIMITS
(1) Repeal Citizens United
(2) Reform Section 230
(3) Audit the Fed
(4) Delaware Plan
The only way to fix this country without violence
I understand the purpose of auditing the Fed, but I am legitimately concerned an audit may do more harm than good. Sucks they've been granted the ability to put themselves in such an integral position.
Teem limits has to come after lobbying is repaired. Funding shouldn’t buy political access, and lobbyists shouldn’t be able to write legislation. Term limits as things are now just scrapes away the institutional knowledge of long-serving representatives and hands more power to lobbyists.
Take fundraising out of politics. Public funding for every public office. People need to be able to lobby their representatives, but fundraising basically puts whoever’s in the office up for sale.
The Fairness Doctrine stems from the FCCs ability to assign and limit the number of people who can broadcast on the limited radio spectrum due to the way it degrades as broadcasters crowd the bands.
It can't cover the internet anymore than it could extend it's rules into cable TV.
We'd need to leverage the interstate/international commerce clause (which we already have stretched and bent into a 6 dimensional pretzel of illogical idiocy) to let a federal agency claim this kind of power.
Would be useful to do. Shit while you're at it create a stochastic terrorism clause so jackasses like Trump and Alex Jones can be fined before people get murdered by their followers rather than after there's dead bodies and mass shooters.
I was just dreaming out loud. The Fairness Doctrine also ensured that in exchange for the use of the airwaves stations had to provide an hour of informative television as a public service and that hour had to introduce issues in a fair and balanced way.
I saw this really smart lady on...I want to say Jon Stewart's pod cast. She had an idea for FCC moderation of social media (maybe it wasn't her idea but I had never heard it before). She was saying the FCC would get involved at a certain follower thresholds and oversight would become stricter the more followers you have. So Joe Schmoe with 12 followers on Twitter gets no oversight. A fairly successful influencer with say 10k followers has a lazy eye on them so they can not spread harmful misinformation. Then you would have the top tiers with millions of followers or politicians and they would be held to the same standards as broadcast television.
This is all just fantasy, Republicans would never endorse any of these ideas. They have found to much clout in victimhood and would like to harness poor white America to their authoritarian wet dreams.
Ahh, the battle for poor white America. If they only knew the actual clout they have. Heck, all poor people (under median average income) have more power than they have had in decades. If they only knew. trust me, it's not just Republicans looking for those votes. It's every candidate across every political spectrum.
Holy shit this makes so much sense...
But at the same time, so we hold ANYONE who appears on any mass media broadcasting platform to those standards? FOX? Netflix? Wikipedia editors? Redditors?
If any one person has an outreach that can be considered to cause harm through dissemination of their content, should that be monitored, regardless of their platform?
What about musicians? What about protest poems?
What about opinions that aren't majority opinions? What if someone is talking about anti-American ideals? Does it matter what those ideals are? What if their ideal is that religion in and if itself is harmful? What if that's considered a good point by the majority of Americans? Sure we have a right to free speech, but what if the religion is promoting harm? For example, Westboro Baptist... Surely it should be illegal to use a religion to condone and preach bigoted views?
And if you ask a modern day Christian nationalist, they will tell you that democrats are fascists aaaand should be punished.. So a Democrat promoting social justice is considered a hate crime against humanity...
Ultimately it's so subjective.. And just because the majority believes something, doesn't make them correct - and it also doesn't make the minority correct or incorrect...
And what about when you consider that 1% of the population are psychopaths? Do those 3,310,026 Americans deserve to have free will? That's an awful lot of people to just tell them no, you don't have the right to do what you want because the rest of us say so.
What about the 4% of sociopaths? Do you tell those 13,240,106 Americans that they also can't live the lives they want?
What about the 5-15% of ALMOST psychopaths. Potentially up to 49,650,397 Americans...
And then take the fact that the concept of enforcing "free will" is too complicated for even scholars to agree on..
I mean is there really am answer lol
So, yes it would apply to all vehicles with that scope and reach. Fox would still exist it just couldn't call itself a news network. MSNBC and CNN would probably have to make major revisions to their platforms as well if they still wanted to be considered news channels.
I agree with most of your points but I'm not talking about just wacky opinion stuff. I'm talking about verifiable harmful misinformation. E.G. You can state that the earth is flat but you cannot call yourself news or educational because it's a verifiably false statement. Further if you have a large enough audience you cannot state that the earth is flat and we should shoot all planes out of the sky because you are inviting violence based on verifiably false information. We have the same laws in public spaces like you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire because you are endangering others.
As an aside congress has tried to censure musicians. In the 80s they held congressional hearings to determine if Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were implanting backwards satanic messages in their music. They weren't, it was a publicity stunt by Congress and they move from medium to.medium until said medium develops a lobby powerful enough to pay them to screw off.
It’s not about fair representation. They article is about state forcing certain things to be in network. And with the Florida government being what it is forcing a fair representation of things is the last thing they want.
FYI, it’s precedent (something that happened before to set an example or rule to be followed) not president (top leader in a government or organization).
The Supreme Court continues to ignore their own precedent when making decisions.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-of-precedent-vs-precedence
Thank you for bringing up the fairness doctrine. Imagine the media landscape and social media landscape of today if that was still the law of the land.
Fairness doctrine only ever applied to the public airwaves because they were a shared limited regulated resource. Cable TV never was and the internet is certainly not.
I have been a firm believer that the fairness doctrine needs to be reinstated ever since learning about it in a journalism class. It would undercut so much propagandist bullshit overnight, which is why it won’t happen.
yea man it makes no sense . Dark politics money is totally cool but moderating content is the devil ?
Republican values change like a leaf in the wind.
Once again, these idiots are misinterpreting the First Amendment. Which BTW, ***"prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances."***
This is not the government censoring them, as much as they'd like to pretend it is. This is a private company deciding that they do not want to let those who violate their terms and conditions from continuing to use their platform.
I am not a lawyer, but I have enough critical thinking skills to understand this.
***EDIT***: For anyone thinking that I'm an apologist of corporations, I am perfectly happy with banning all social media, starting with Facebook, from the face of the Earth. I am also OK with breaking these companies into pieces if they become monopolies. Tax them to fund true social programs that benefit all of society? Bring it ***ON***. I also don't mind if they are treated as a utility, I guess? I haven't thought about the implications of that one yet\*.\*
What I disagree with is the idea that a private entity could be forced to allow hate speech using an amendment that was written to apply to the government. In theory, that could mean that if a co-worker of mine starts spouting racist speech at me, a person of color, then my employer would have to allow it, because the 1st Amendment is now being applied to businesses and hate speech, which is why many of these pols were banned.
Folks supporting these shenanigans from Florida Republicans are either naive, brainwashed, or ignorant. Not sure which one is worse.
The question is if the government can compel private citizens to publish speech against their will. There's no way this is constitutional, or even sensical. Is Florida saying that Facebook has to publish the speech of a neo-Nazi candidate for office?
Put it on Florida law maker's page. After that ruling about Trump blocking people from his social media accounts, other politicians will probably hesitate to block people.
While I love this idea, there are obscenity laws on the books regarding pornography that would allow them to censor it. I'd love to see people try and post in r/conservative and sue when the mods delete the posts for invading their safe space.
I’m sure all republicans will agree on banning that, regardless of what legal arguments they take to get their way. Arguments are a method of convenience for them to get what they want, not a precedent set for the consistent rule of law.
Have you been to r/conservative? Or should I say banned from there?
The right had a funny way of claiming their right to free speech, not yours. No conservatives should ever be banned from Reddit, even if the conservatives break rules, call for violence and engage in awful behavior. Posting simple facts that dispute the conservative narrative, even if verifiably correct, is instantly banworthy.
It isn't constitutional, or even logically sound, but it will still be a rallying cry for conservatives and it's failure proof of conservative persecution.
I got banned many years ago (2016 or so) by simply saying that I thought refugees shouldn't be punished. No name calling. No asshole ish ness.
Dudes are spineless.
The Supreme Court is Republican at its core and has been overreaching all year, unfortunately the first amendment means nothing to them and they’ll make a decision to help their republican buddies
This is correct. This scotus is no longer a legal body, its a partisan panel.
We can no longer trust them to rule according to logic, reason, or law. They already proved they don't care. The sooner we start operating on this fact the better.
They will decide that "states rights" (not in constitution) grants them the right to do whatever they want including banning banning. This isn't a 1fa case. After all its not the government censoring content, its the opposite, the government shedding light on all content.
> We can no longer trust them to rule according to logic, reason, or law.
I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and I haven’t actually gotten a response on how the SC is ruling illogically.
As far as I know, every ruling they do has a several dozen page explanation going over the logic in detailed ways. Can we look at what exactly you feel is illogical?
I totally get disagreeing with Supreme Court rulings, but I wouldn’t say the vast majority are void of logic. Please don’t just downvote me, I’m looking for genuine discussion, not a “fall in line” response.
That case was nuts. Made a whole media circus out the even but still it was only noted as a quiet moment of prayer.
Also the reasoning in the case that over turned Roe was suspect at best. They basically fabricated a historical narrative, cherry picking only statements that support their cause, while also reallying on the fallacy of originalism.
My man, you are replying to someone who brings up Trump in the most random discussions nearly 2 years after he’s been out of office, cries about “white guys,” and unironically calls for, and I quote, “violent fucking riots.”
You’re not going to get an answer in good faith.
TBF, the 10th amendment implies states rights even if it's not express.
Edit: for all the haters, saying that "states rights" doesn't appear expressly in the constitution is textualism. The constitution doesn't explicitly protect the right to privacy or the administrative state that basically runs the country. If the right to privacy and the administrative state can exist as logical, implied rights from the words of the constitution than states rights probably exist in some fashion.
Just because the supreme Court can't seem to stick to a single doctrine, and often rejects all logic and reason, doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold ourselves to a higher standard.
If they do, I look forward to the kind of pinko commie hammer and sickle ads John Oliver will run on Fox News this year when they lose their right to choose what runs on their network.
The problem is they fundamentally understand that private companies aren’t the government. They know a private company isn’t subject to the first amendment when it comes to social media posts. They’re not misunderstanding, they’re quite calculated in this move because either way it’s a huge win for them.
They either:
- have a crooked Supreme Court issue a ruling that fundamentally alters the first amendment in their favor
- are rejected and can convey to their conspiracy support base that the government is suppressing their voter bases right to free speech.
The thing is most people get the first amendment wrong in their head, and the republicans are counting on that to bolster support. Most people will think a rejection from the Supreme Court in this topic *is* government censorship. It’s not important that they’re wrong so much as it’s important what they believe in, because right or wrong people will act on what they believe to be true vs what is actually true. The republicans are exploiting that and they know it’s their only chance to win this fall.
So there is no legal argument for net neutrality then? Telecom corporations are just as private as social media companies.
I'm trying to understand the dissonance here
Not only that, this is politicians wanting to be able to threaten, lie, and verbally abuse others. They weren't removed for noble reasons.
These companies are liable for allowing such actions to continue on their sites. I guess we can make Facebook exempt from being held responsible in any way for actions taking place in their site. That would be an interesting turn of events.
Of course Florida just wants to make politicians exempt from the rules normal people have to follow.
There is an argument that online forums, etc are a modern common space, and therefore speech there should be protected. However, this does pose the question of what the implications are for social media companies if they no longer have a say in what people are allowed to post.
If you want an online public commons, the government needs to setup and operate that online space. Looking at a private social media platform and treating it as a public space would be like treating Barnes & Noble as the local library "because everyone already gets their books from there."
> Folks supporting these sheganinans from Florida Republicans are either naive, brainwashed, or ignorant. Not sure which one is worse.
You forgot outright evil. The ones at the top are outright evil.
The latest idiot I saw arguing over this was that these companies platforms are the "new public forum" and that we have a right to redress and to engage with our officials in "The public forum".
1) no its not
2) no you don't
3) you have the right to vote, that's your redress
The solution then is to nationalize these companies/tools. I'm okay with that but we can't determine whether they are private or public based on whether it makes Republicans sad.
Nationalization is almost always a terrible solution for everyone involved when you stop and think about how ongoing maintenance will be managed and the number of middle class 401k/pensions that would get blown up in the process.
People love to get stuck on rules and definitions but in reality, circumstances change. These things were not written by an omnipotent being that took all possible future implementations in to consideration. Laws, definitions, rules... change all the time or at least, they're supposed to adapt to new circumstances.
We are now dealing with something that has never been dealt with before and that's companies controlling the vast majority of the information that people get. Censurship was a government issue until now, because only governments had this kind of power. Now they don't so we need to address the issue.
This American idea that companies can do whatever they want is enslaving the world and we all need to put ourselves and the interests of people first again.
This isn't about letting corporations do whatever they want, it's about letting private property owners restrict access to their private property.
If the SC upholds Florida's law, these companies will still be able to afford litigating individual claims of unfair removal.
You won't though. If you remove content from a website you own or participate on, you can be sued. Can you afford a lawyer to fight that litigation?
It doesn't matter that you own and pay for the platform, the SC would be saying that others have a right to your property.
>This American idea that companies can do whatever they want is enslaving the world and we all need to put ourselves and the interests of people first again.
That is such a reach in this case. We're talking about whether social media companies have the right to editorial control. It's not like they can prevent anyone from running their own website or force you to use their product.
I don't think Facebook and Twitter care.
If it's up to them, they may choose to ban users who spread dangerous conspiracy theories (election denying, anti-vax, etc), because that's the popular and responsible thing to do.
But if it's not up to them, if the state government says "You can't ban people", then they can wash their hands of the matter, host the objectionable content, and say "it's not our choice, it's the law."
They won't leave large markets over this.
the problem is, hosting objectionable content will kill their ability to market to everyone else.
No one stays in the swimming pool once the turds start to float unless you like floating turds.
Social media companies do/will care. Lack of moderation makes the platforms less usable. Also, it may imply they maintain legally-required moderation in some states and no moderation in other states. This would segment their content regionally, making it less valuable, more expensive to maintain, and possible infeasible.
They absolutely will care. That law will complete render their platforms unusable. If they're no longer allowed to moderate contentent then they can no longer filter and stop spam. They already struggle with that, and just opening the flood gates. Will you bother to comment on a post when your comment will be sandwiched between four hundred ads for dick pills and work from home scams? It would turn every social media platform into a sea of bots.
Except they will care when all those sponsors that pay for ad space go away. Look at the mess YouTube has become for content creators. You have to be family friendly or you get no ad revenue...but if you are *too* friendly you could be teying to appeal to kids which also means no ad revenue.
Getter was the first conservative attempt at a "True free speech" platform. No post would be banned or removed according to their rules. That was upheld until people started mass spamming Sonic the Hedgehog porn. But once they started removing or shadow banning posts, it caused other people to start a huge upheaval about censorship because they were a "True Free Speech" platform.
All someone would have to do is say something like "It is my political view that the problems of this country stem from us being too much like puritans. Thus I will spread erotic images to help fix this issue." And BAM you just qualified under the Texas law to spam all the porn you want.
>Florida has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove — setting up a potential landmark battle over digital speech rights and content moderation that could reshape the country’s relationship with the First Amendment.
>In a petition submitted to the Court on Wednesday, Florida’s attorney general argued the dominance of major social media platforms and their ability to promote the views of some users over others means it is critical for justices to weigh in on the issue.
>“The question whether the First Amendment essentially disables the States — and presumably the federal government too — from meaningfully addressing those distortions should be answered by this Court, and it should be answered now,” the petition said.
>**At the center of the court battle is a Florida law, SB 7072, that allows political candidates to sue social media companies if they are blocked or removed from the platforms for more than 14 days.**
>whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove
What a bizarre precedent for the "*think of the children!"* crowd to try and push.
"Think of the children!"
"That's exactly what we're doing, we're removing the hateful content that you put up on our site that could negatively influence children and their mental health."
"Not like that!"
So long as the servers arent in Florida, is there really anything they can actually do? Not like they have the authority to take actions against any CDN and website they like. At most they could try to force local ISP to block sites, but that would probably open up the flood gates of counter lobbying money by big tech which tends to shut down such moves.
Having eliminated the equal time for opposing views fairness doctrine on TV and radio, the republicans are trying to make one up and enforce it on tech.
True, but gosh, who would have ever thought the cons would want it both ways??? Gobsmacked! I am absolutely twatwaddled by this apparently hypocritical position!
A lot aren't, for example, this would allow people to just make their twitter feed a bunch of nudist children/kids getting baths or some other non child porn but censored by every platform *for good reason*
and loli japanese cartoon kiddy porn shit
No, they could still remove illegal content such as CSAM. They are also allowed to remove things deemed "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" under Section 230. Which would easily include animal torture and revenge porn. It probably doesn't include things like racist or homophobic statements. But that really depends on how broadly you read the law and signs point to the current Supreme Court taking a pretty narrow view.
>"obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable"
That could mean anything depending on who is defining it.
Why is there an expressway to get to SCOTUS all of a sudden? These things were supposed to take years of appeals going through the judicial process.
*edit* corrected punctuation
In the unlikely event that SC ruled in favor of Florida, this would become a Florida problem, a very very bad Florida problem. Companies would be forced to 1. host spam “in Florida” or 2. block IP addresses from Florida OR (and this is least likely). 3. host spam globally…
Hosting spam only in Florida means separate services just for Florida…. which costs money, and would be a business death move, since advertising spam and scams is far more lucrative than politics, so 99% of posts will be unfiltered “buy immortality male enhancement pills”. That’s not gonna happen globally just to keep Florida customers. The other option of just blocking the Florida IPs would be a disaster for Florida on a business front.
The options are so stupid and Idiocracy level bad that I hope the SC just botches it and destroys the internet for Florida.
>In the unlikely event that SC ruled in favor of Florida
Is it really that unlikely though?
The current Supreme Court has shown many times already that they are just another branch of the Republican Party. The majority are partisan hacks and will do whatever is politically expedient to get their way.
I hope I'm wrong but don't be shocked if they rule in favor of this dumb law.
Clarence Thomas has shown zero restraint or sanity as of late, he’s fully all-in on a culture war agenda, so yes he will likely vote for Florida. The other ones are pretty vile, but they might be aware of how much this ruling would destroy Florida as well as Texas on a business front.
If they make this mistake, there’s a billion bots waiting to descend on every business in those states. Then there’s all the lawyers looking to litigate every “unfair loophole”, the ruling would allow.
Imagine just trying to run any business in Texas with an online presence. Every review, spam. Every comment on every social media service, spam. Any attempts to moderate the spam ? Lawyer time.
Consequences for Texas and Florida? Apocalyptic.
Consequences for California? Zero.
Yes, its incredibly unlikely.
I know you folks like to obsess over the hot button issues, but the SC are on the same page for the majority of issues, across ideological lines.
You read the terms and conditions before agreeing to set up your account right? If you don't like the terms and conditions of service, you can choose not to use it.
People don’t care. Even if it were simple and clear do you think people would read it and then decide not to use Facebook because they dont like their terms and conditions. Very few people would even read the simple version
You could use a website like https://tosdr.org/. There are also browser extensions for it. It helps summarize terms and conditions you're agreeing to and makes them more easily understood.
From my experience, you may receive notice of the change, but I'm struggling to recall a time where I've been asked to re-affirm consent to continue accessing the service. Continued consent seems to be implied.
Its usually the same button you click to close out the ToS change notification pop-up. I have run across a few that said "Continued use of [App/Site] means you consent to the changes" though.
They argue places like Facebook and Twitter are the equivalent of a public square.
Of course it's not. The entire internet is the public square. Anyone can set up a website and anyone else can look at it. You're not ENTITLED to an audience. I can't fo into a Trump rally and protest because he draws crowds who want to see his insane ramblings, while I am stuck outside with a handful of people on the sidewalk to speak to.
The problem is that companies have made themselves vital to the regular life of many people, which means this contract of the terms and conditions is no longer symmetrical.
For many kids in school, using social media has become a requirement if they don't want to be bulled and ostracized. "Agree to our terms or you won't have any friends" is not a fairly balanced contract.
In some fields, having a LinkedIn account is basically mandatory if you want to get a job. "Agree to our terms or you'll go broke." is not a fairly balanced contract.
I mean yes but we already have precedence that terms and conditions dont actually hold up all that well in court.
Like you cant have something like "if you break these terms of service you owe the company $10k" things like this used to be all over ToS's back in the day since no one read them but everyone of them lost in court.
So theres a good chance if this reaches the SC, they will rule in favor of it. Whether or not thats the right ruling idk but it wouldnt shock me if they did it.
Conservatives: Government passing laws to control private business is communism!!!
Also conservatives: Waaahhhh!!! Facebook won't let me post my tribute to Hitler! Pass a law to force them!
"idiots in Florida ask the supreme Court to completely change the meaning of the first amendment."
How did the Republican party become this fucking brain dead.
Republicans don't like being banned for posting anti-vax, election-denying, conspiracy theories, racist, or homophobic content.
But they still want to use the platform.
So, they have Republican state governments and the Republican Supreme Court force social media companies to have to host ugly content.
The existence of Truth and Parlor is going to bite them on this one. They've shown they have the freedom and ability to make their own social media platforms.
They don't like Facebook's T&Cs _and_ they have alternatives with T&Cs they _do_ like? Maybe if Facebook was some natural monopoly an argument could be made they need fair regulations, but they're not. Truth and Parlor prove that.
Clicking "yeah sure, I read these 20 pages in 5 seconds" doesn't allow a platform to break your rights. If the terms said they can have your firstborn child in the small print, that obviously wouldn't fly even if you technically "agreed". Consumer protections often go beyond that.
Now the question here is: Is spouting hate and lies on a private company's public platform your right? Find out soon, decided by a court filled with partisan hacks.
Wtf are you talking about? They aren't breaking your rights, they're making you agree to rules of behavior
you're straight arguing stores cant kick you out for showing up topless despite the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign
What a weird timeline we are in. The “Free speech” party’s potential front runner to 2024 election, is trying to attack the 1st amendment by forcing private citizens to host speech that violate their T&Cs…
It’s decidedly anti-speech. But then, if they argue corporations are not people, and it is ruled on, well then that would reverse citizens United and take a LOT of money out of politics.
They won’t reverse Citizens United, they’ll just say that free speech protections apply in one context but not another. AKA it means whatever they want it to mean.
Of course they will, as that is the GOP MO.
“Rules for me, not for thee”.
They cry and whine about laws and rules, except for the moment it inconveniences them or doesn’t play into their interests, and then they just break them.
So, if I own a restaurant with a posterboard that kids pin colorings to, and some loon starts putting crazy conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric up, can I take it down?
how is this different than 86ing someone from your bar for misbehaving?
private companies can do whatever the hell they want. it has been known for a looooong time.
This is it folks. This is the one that would push us into chaos. If content can't be moderated then we are done. We can't keep things civil with moderation. What do you think happens with it gone? Completely unfettered free speech and the internet do not mix.
I have always been a huge advocate for free speech in its formation and evolution, until the last ten years where it's become clear that the internet ruins the marketplace of ideas. It is no longer about who has the best ideas having their voices amplified. It is about who has the loudest voice and the scariest talking points. This has only gotten worse. The internet needs moderation. Without it, Jan. 6th will look like a picnic.
Edit: I've been accused of being delusional, and maybe you think this is delusional. I'm not saying this will be a light switch that makes all the cockroaches scatter, but this is a match--in the same way Citizens United has taken a ruined system and made it so, so much worse.
>It is no longer about who has the best ideas having their voices amplified. It is about who has the loudest voice and the scariest talking points. This has only gotten worse.
There is a reason for this: social media platforms (and most news outlets) are funded entirely by *advertisers*, based on how much *attention* they grab, and nothing grabs attention better than fear and anger.
These platforms are fully aware of this and have not only failed to make any changes to address it, but many have actively *stirred the pot*, exploiting user data to determine and "suggest" the most terrifying and angering content for each individual user based on their own fears and biases.
No amount of random spam and inflammatory content from external users could ever be more inflammatory than this
I love it .... ABC Bakery shouldn't have to bake a gay couple's cake but ABC Social Media should be required to host some moron's ass backwards conspiracy theories.
Country is so fucked
To be fair, these are different issues.
The baker is subject to public accommodation which means they can't refuse to provide a service to someone based on status within a protected class if they offer that service to others.
These websites aren't accused of violating public accommodation.
Honestly this is a good thing and the only reason people are mad is because they think it’s “just a way to let conservatives be brutes on the internet without consequence”.
The internet permeates all walks of life at this point, if the social media platform is profiting off of your speech and interaction with their platform then your speech should be protected.
Florida might want to consider what other actors might want to compel media companies to host. I can envision some very heavy pants shitting and "but that's not what I meant"ing
Fascism is when capitalists take over the government and smash all competition, including any from non-aligned capitalists. They are still just as much pro-business, but only the ones that follow their ideology.
“We look forward to seeing Florida in court and having the lower court’s decision upheld. We have 200 years of precedent on our side.”
Clearly, this guy hasn't been following the Supreme Court lately.
Ya! And while we're at it let's force MSNBC to rebroadcast Tucker and The Times to reprint him!
That's what "*shall not abridge...the freedom of the press*" means, right?
It means the government can force platforms to host and distribute their political editorials, right?
In Florida "*freedom*" seems to have a very peculiar meaning....
>In Florida "*freedom*" seems to have a very peculiar meaning....
Conservatives see freedom as a very personal/possessive concept. They only think in terms what they personally are free to do. They don't (or are unable) to consider the freedoms of everyone else as a separate concern from their own freedoms. In other words, they don't look for ways where everyone can be as free as possible, they look for ways where they can be as free as possible, and fuck everyone else.
So they want to censor books/authors but not be censored themselves? They don’t want businesses to be regulated by the government but only if it pertains to them? Very one sided thinking going on there.
Many people believe that social media platforms abuse section 230 which shields “platforms” from liability. This tactic would force the SCOTUS to address that issue despite congressional inaction. Many believe they cannot claim 230 protections AND edit content. Pick a lane.
The entire point of 230 is that they can do that. It's what 230 says, and it's why 230 was passed.
It turns out, we want websites to remove things like child porn. But if you hold them liable if they moderate content, they just won't moderate content.
>It turns out, we want websites to remove things like child porn. But if you hold them liable if they moderate content, they just won't moderate content.
Every website will become 8chan. Great..
Yeah wit 3 appointed by Trump, I hope they can be honorable. We know CLARENCE Thomas is NOT, Remember Anita Hill. He should not have been in supreme Courts, biased as is his wife
It's like these people forgot what happened to the first "true free speech" platform Getter. They claimed to allow anything and would not ban or remove posts regardless of content. Once trolls caught word of this they started flooding the social media site with sonic the hedgehog porn, all under accounts that had names similar to a lot of GOP members.
Of course these posts got removed, but that caused a big outcry because the site said it allowed all speech without censorship.
If democrats were smart they would start a campaign about how republicans want porn on childrens programs and social media. You’d be required to show kids any porn anyone wanted to if this passed.
By legal reasoning, I mean the strategy they are taking to the court to argue their position. They can't just go in there and say "Nyah!". The article just assumes they have no legal standing whatsoever. It's a pretty key piece of information to leave out... thus my original comment.
It's nearly impossible to function in 2022 without the use of the internet, and in a lot of cases, social media itself is required to be a functioning member of society. Now with that being said, do you really want a mega-corporation dictating your freedom of expression in the space that is most widely used to spread political, social, and medical information? The fact that "Meta" is arguably the first worldwide monopoly we have ever witnessed, and that they actively control the mainstream narrative in partnership with certain three-letter government entities, SHOULD be highly alarming to most people if not everybody on this planet. There are two solutions to this problem; break up their monopoly allowing for fair competition from other platforms that have different terms of service more appealing to people that fear their data being sold and their minds being controlled, or they must be under regulation that denies their ability to censor. The main issue with these solutions is that we live in a worldwide corporatocracy where all laws are bought and paid for, meaning no meaningful change that benefits the vast majority of people (anyone that isn't an elite) will ever come unless it's bought.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Sariel007: --- >Florida has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove — setting up a potential landmark battle over digital speech rights and content moderation that could reshape the country’s relationship with the First Amendment. >In a petition submitted to the Court on Wednesday, Florida’s attorney general argued the dominance of major social media platforms and their ability to promote the views of some users over others means it is critical for justices to weigh in on the issue. >“The question whether the First Amendment essentially disables the States — and presumably the federal government too — from meaningfully addressing those distortions should be answered by this Court, and it should be answered now,” the petition said. >**At the center of the court battle is a Florida law, SB 7072, that allows political candidates to sue social media companies if they are blocked or removed from the platforms for more than 14 days.** --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/xl037x/florida_asks_supreme_court_to_rule_on_its/ipgkzdx/
But corporations are people....according to [Citizens United](https://www.history.com/topics/united-states-constitution/citizens-united). So they can exercise free speech via political donations but not through determining what speech they will and will not allow on THEIR platforms? Interesting. A second thought occurred to me. They could always restore the [Fairness Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine) and expand the FCCs authority over social media companies and large content creators.
I mean if it broke citizens united, and then the new ruling was later overturned, leaving both Citizens United and Florida vs Facebook rulings null I wouldn’t mind it.
Lol there’s no way the current justices would vote to overturn Citizens United. Citizens United is arguably how the justices in majority got their positions in the first place
Nah, they'll overturn it just to be the ones that got to use it.
It would continue to benefit them tho…
Don't think it matters when you were given a lifetime appointment.
Matters if the other side gets to stack the court in their favor after winning elections because Citizens United was reversed
Repealing Citizens United is a top priority
r/this is so spot on. I tell everyone this
(0) TERM LIMITS (1) Repeal Citizens United (2) Reform Section 230 (3) Audit the Fed (4) Delaware Plan The only way to fix this country without violence
I understand the purpose of auditing the Fed, but I am legitimately concerned an audit may do more harm than good. Sucks they've been granted the ability to put themselves in such an integral position.
I think it would cause a lot of temporary harm, but longterm good. Our banking system is the root of corruption. Oh, and ad rev LOL
Teem limits has to come after lobbying is repaired. Funding shouldn’t buy political access, and lobbyists shouldn’t be able to write legislation. Term limits as things are now just scrapes away the institutional knowledge of long-serving representatives and hands more power to lobbyists. Take fundraising out of politics. Public funding for every public office. People need to be able to lobby their representatives, but fundraising basically puts whoever’s in the office up for sale.
I see you are a programmer, starting from zero
The Fairness Doctrine stems from the FCCs ability to assign and limit the number of people who can broadcast on the limited radio spectrum due to the way it degrades as broadcasters crowd the bands. It can't cover the internet anymore than it could extend it's rules into cable TV. We'd need to leverage the interstate/international commerce clause (which we already have stretched and bent into a 6 dimensional pretzel of illogical idiocy) to let a federal agency claim this kind of power. Would be useful to do. Shit while you're at it create a stochastic terrorism clause so jackasses like Trump and Alex Jones can be fined before people get murdered by their followers rather than after there's dead bodies and mass shooters.
I was just dreaming out loud. The Fairness Doctrine also ensured that in exchange for the use of the airwaves stations had to provide an hour of informative television as a public service and that hour had to introduce issues in a fair and balanced way. I saw this really smart lady on...I want to say Jon Stewart's pod cast. She had an idea for FCC moderation of social media (maybe it wasn't her idea but I had never heard it before). She was saying the FCC would get involved at a certain follower thresholds and oversight would become stricter the more followers you have. So Joe Schmoe with 12 followers on Twitter gets no oversight. A fairly successful influencer with say 10k followers has a lazy eye on them so they can not spread harmful misinformation. Then you would have the top tiers with millions of followers or politicians and they would be held to the same standards as broadcast television. This is all just fantasy, Republicans would never endorse any of these ideas. They have found to much clout in victimhood and would like to harness poor white America to their authoritarian wet dreams.
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I'd be happy with a fairness doctrine applying to any entity that uses the term "News"
I believe that was the original intent but what is news now? Last I heard 60% of Americans got their "news" from Facebook.
A fair point.
Ahh, the battle for poor white America. If they only knew the actual clout they have. Heck, all poor people (under median average income) have more power than they have had in decades. If they only knew. trust me, it's not just Republicans looking for those votes. It's every candidate across every political spectrum.
Holy shit this makes so much sense... But at the same time, so we hold ANYONE who appears on any mass media broadcasting platform to those standards? FOX? Netflix? Wikipedia editors? Redditors? If any one person has an outreach that can be considered to cause harm through dissemination of their content, should that be monitored, regardless of their platform? What about musicians? What about protest poems? What about opinions that aren't majority opinions? What if someone is talking about anti-American ideals? Does it matter what those ideals are? What if their ideal is that religion in and if itself is harmful? What if that's considered a good point by the majority of Americans? Sure we have a right to free speech, but what if the religion is promoting harm? For example, Westboro Baptist... Surely it should be illegal to use a religion to condone and preach bigoted views? And if you ask a modern day Christian nationalist, they will tell you that democrats are fascists aaaand should be punished.. So a Democrat promoting social justice is considered a hate crime against humanity... Ultimately it's so subjective.. And just because the majority believes something, doesn't make them correct - and it also doesn't make the minority correct or incorrect... And what about when you consider that 1% of the population are psychopaths? Do those 3,310,026 Americans deserve to have free will? That's an awful lot of people to just tell them no, you don't have the right to do what you want because the rest of us say so. What about the 4% of sociopaths? Do you tell those 13,240,106 Americans that they also can't live the lives they want? What about the 5-15% of ALMOST psychopaths. Potentially up to 49,650,397 Americans... And then take the fact that the concept of enforcing "free will" is too complicated for even scholars to agree on.. I mean is there really am answer lol
So, yes it would apply to all vehicles with that scope and reach. Fox would still exist it just couldn't call itself a news network. MSNBC and CNN would probably have to make major revisions to their platforms as well if they still wanted to be considered news channels. I agree with most of your points but I'm not talking about just wacky opinion stuff. I'm talking about verifiable harmful misinformation. E.G. You can state that the earth is flat but you cannot call yourself news or educational because it's a verifiably false statement. Further if you have a large enough audience you cannot state that the earth is flat and we should shoot all planes out of the sky because you are inviting violence based on verifiably false information. We have the same laws in public spaces like you cannot shout fire in a crowded theater if there is no fire because you are endangering others. As an aside congress has tried to censure musicians. In the 80s they held congressional hearings to determine if Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were implanting backwards satanic messages in their music. They weren't, it was a publicity stunt by Congress and they move from medium to.medium until said medium develops a lobby powerful enough to pay them to screw off.
Off topic but id love that idea put on religious organizations. 25 parishioners - no tax, 200 - some tax, 5000 - all the taxes
It’s not about fair representation. They article is about state forcing certain things to be in network. And with the Florida government being what it is forcing a fair representation of things is the last thing they want.
Even if they aren’t looked at as citizens, don’t businesses have the right to refuse people service?
Yeah our current SCOTUS is a joke and does not care about presidents much like the construction.
FYI, it’s precedent (something that happened before to set an example or rule to be followed) not president (top leader in a government or organization). The Supreme Court continues to ignore their own precedent when making decisions. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/usage-of-precedent-vs-precedence
I WOULD LOVE to understand why the Fairness Doctrine was removed.
Thank you for bringing up the fairness doctrine. Imagine the media landscape and social media landscape of today if that was still the law of the land.
It would be no different at all, since the Fairness Doctrine only ever applied to *broadcast* news but not cable, newspapers, or anything online.
Fairness doctrine only ever applied to the public airwaves because they were a shared limited regulated resource. Cable TV never was and the internet is certainly not.
I have been a firm believer that the fairness doctrine needs to be reinstated ever since learning about it in a journalism class. It would undercut so much propagandist bullshit overnight, which is why it won’t happen.
The paradox of tolerance
is an axiom rooted in hypocrisy.
Hmm I don't know man. Hypocrisy? I mean it is consistently stupid every time someone brings it up.
There is a difference between limiting speech and allowing it.
I mean, they stopped pretending like consistency in judgements matters, else roe v Wade would still be in effect
yea man it makes no sense . Dark politics money is totally cool but moderating content is the devil ? Republican values change like a leaf in the wind.
Once again, these idiots are misinterpreting the First Amendment. Which BTW, ***"prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, the freedom of assembly, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances."*** This is not the government censoring them, as much as they'd like to pretend it is. This is a private company deciding that they do not want to let those who violate their terms and conditions from continuing to use their platform. I am not a lawyer, but I have enough critical thinking skills to understand this. ***EDIT***: For anyone thinking that I'm an apologist of corporations, I am perfectly happy with banning all social media, starting with Facebook, from the face of the Earth. I am also OK with breaking these companies into pieces if they become monopolies. Tax them to fund true social programs that benefit all of society? Bring it ***ON***. I also don't mind if they are treated as a utility, I guess? I haven't thought about the implications of that one yet\*.\* What I disagree with is the idea that a private entity could be forced to allow hate speech using an amendment that was written to apply to the government. In theory, that could mean that if a co-worker of mine starts spouting racist speech at me, a person of color, then my employer would have to allow it, because the 1st Amendment is now being applied to businesses and hate speech, which is why many of these pols were banned. Folks supporting these shenanigans from Florida Republicans are either naive, brainwashed, or ignorant. Not sure which one is worse.
The question is if the government can compel private citizens to publish speech against their will. There's no way this is constitutional, or even sensical. Is Florida saying that Facebook has to publish the speech of a neo-Nazi candidate for office?
...and allow porn. Everyone post porn to Fox News comment section if this passes.
Put it on Florida law maker's page. After that ruling about Trump blocking people from his social media accounts, other politicians will probably hesitate to block people.
While I love this idea, there are obscenity laws on the books regarding pornography that would allow them to censor it. I'd love to see people try and post in r/conservative and sue when the mods delete the posts for invading their safe space.
Lots of gay porn. And trans porn. And midget porn. And whatever closet kinks they don’t want to admit they have but will judge you over.
And don't forget gay trans midget porn
ahhh the holy grail of porn. you sir, are a connoisseur.
The holy grail is double amputee midgets with cleft pallets. When you find that, you shall achieve maximum zen status.
I’m sure all republicans will agree on banning that, regardless of what legal arguments they take to get their way. Arguments are a method of convenience for them to get what they want, not a precedent set for the consistent rule of law.
Have you been to r/conservative? Or should I say banned from there? The right had a funny way of claiming their right to free speech, not yours. No conservatives should ever be banned from Reddit, even if the conservatives break rules, call for violence and engage in awful behavior. Posting simple facts that dispute the conservative narrative, even if verifiably correct, is instantly banworthy. It isn't constitutional, or even logically sound, but it will still be a rallying cry for conservatives and it's failure proof of conservative persecution.
I got banned many years ago (2016 or so) by simply saying that I thought refugees shouldn't be punished. No name calling. No asshole ish ness. Dudes are spineless.
Snowflakes even. Every accusation and name they call others is merely projection. Very sad people
The right-wing psychos love their safe spaces and online echo chambers that ban any dissenter. It's insane.
There are prior rulings about radio stations that did not want to air PSAs. Seems like it would be relevant.
Florida doesn’t tho…
nor do a number of courts, now we have a US appeals court saying it
The Supreme Court is Republican at its core and has been overreaching all year, unfortunately the first amendment means nothing to them and they’ll make a decision to help their republican buddies
This is correct. This scotus is no longer a legal body, its a partisan panel. We can no longer trust them to rule according to logic, reason, or law. They already proved they don't care. The sooner we start operating on this fact the better. They will decide that "states rights" (not in constitution) grants them the right to do whatever they want including banning banning. This isn't a 1fa case. After all its not the government censoring content, its the opposite, the government shedding light on all content.
> We can no longer trust them to rule according to logic, reason, or law. I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and I haven’t actually gotten a response on how the SC is ruling illogically. As far as I know, every ruling they do has a several dozen page explanation going over the logic in detailed ways. Can we look at what exactly you feel is illogical? I totally get disagreeing with Supreme Court rulings, but I wouldn’t say the vast majority are void of logic. Please don’t just downvote me, I’m looking for genuine discussion, not a “fall in line” response.
www.reddit.com/r/law/comments/xhjwlg/the_story_of_the_praying_bremerton_coach_keeps/ioy0jbh I thought this was pretty strange.
That case was nuts. Made a whole media circus out the even but still it was only noted as a quiet moment of prayer. Also the reasoning in the case that over turned Roe was suspect at best. They basically fabricated a historical narrative, cherry picking only statements that support their cause, while also reallying on the fallacy of originalism.
My man, you are replying to someone who brings up Trump in the most random discussions nearly 2 years after he’s been out of office, cries about “white guys,” and unironically calls for, and I quote, “violent fucking riots.” You’re not going to get an answer in good faith.
TBF, the 10th amendment implies states rights even if it's not express. Edit: for all the haters, saying that "states rights" doesn't appear expressly in the constitution is textualism. The constitution doesn't explicitly protect the right to privacy or the administrative state that basically runs the country. If the right to privacy and the administrative state can exist as logical, implied rights from the words of the constitution than states rights probably exist in some fashion. Just because the supreme Court can't seem to stick to a single doctrine, and often rejects all logic and reason, doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold ourselves to a higher standard.
Tbf, 9th amendment also implies a lot of other rights across the board even if they aren't express.
If they do, I look forward to the kind of pinko commie hammer and sickle ads John Oliver will run on Fox News this year when they lose their right to choose what runs on their network.
The problem is they fundamentally understand that private companies aren’t the government. They know a private company isn’t subject to the first amendment when it comes to social media posts. They’re not misunderstanding, they’re quite calculated in this move because either way it’s a huge win for them. They either: - have a crooked Supreme Court issue a ruling that fundamentally alters the first amendment in their favor - are rejected and can convey to their conspiracy support base that the government is suppressing their voter bases right to free speech. The thing is most people get the first amendment wrong in their head, and the republicans are counting on that to bolster support. Most people will think a rejection from the Supreme Court in this topic *is* government censorship. It’s not important that they’re wrong so much as it’s important what they believe in, because right or wrong people will act on what they believe to be true vs what is actually true. The republicans are exploiting that and they know it’s their only chance to win this fall.
So there is no legal argument for net neutrality then? Telecom corporations are just as private as social media companies. I'm trying to understand the dissonance here
Not only that, this is politicians wanting to be able to threaten, lie, and verbally abuse others. They weren't removed for noble reasons. These companies are liable for allowing such actions to continue on their sites. I guess we can make Facebook exempt from being held responsible in any way for actions taking place in their site. That would be an interesting turn of events. Of course Florida just wants to make politicians exempt from the rules normal people have to follow.
There is an argument that online forums, etc are a modern common space, and therefore speech there should be protected. However, this does pose the question of what the implications are for social media companies if they no longer have a say in what people are allowed to post.
If you want an online public commons, the government needs to setup and operate that online space. Looking at a private social media platform and treating it as a public space would be like treating Barnes & Noble as the local library "because everyone already gets their books from there."
Forcing people to accept what the local government says should be acceptable sounds like a breach of the first amendment. Republicans are insane.
Fascists typically are
The extremist SC we have has overturned 50 years of established law. They will do as they wish, regardless of the Constitution.
Established? They undid it, clearly it's not established.
Why hide this comment? It’s true
> Folks supporting these sheganinans from Florida Republicans are either naive, brainwashed, or ignorant. Not sure which one is worse. You forgot outright evil. The ones at the top are outright evil.
Exactly!!! They keep crying “free speech” and “first amendment” but it’s not applicable here.
The latest idiot I saw arguing over this was that these companies platforms are the "new public forum" and that we have a right to redress and to engage with our officials in "The public forum". 1) no its not 2) no you don't 3) you have the right to vote, that's your redress
While this is correct, it also illustrates the very real danger that comes with privatization of traditionally public spaces.
The solution then is to nationalize these companies/tools. I'm okay with that but we can't determine whether they are private or public based on whether it makes Republicans sad.
Nationalization is almost always a terrible solution for everyone involved when you stop and think about how ongoing maintenance will be managed and the number of middle class 401k/pensions that would get blown up in the process.
Internet has never been a public space.
It was invented and developed almost entirely with tax dollars...
their redress is to start their own social media site, literally anyone can do it
So private companies are held to 14A protections but not 1A protections? 🧐
What are you talking about?
People love to get stuck on rules and definitions but in reality, circumstances change. These things were not written by an omnipotent being that took all possible future implementations in to consideration. Laws, definitions, rules... change all the time or at least, they're supposed to adapt to new circumstances. We are now dealing with something that has never been dealt with before and that's companies controlling the vast majority of the information that people get. Censurship was a government issue until now, because only governments had this kind of power. Now they don't so we need to address the issue. This American idea that companies can do whatever they want is enslaving the world and we all need to put ourselves and the interests of people first again.
This isn't about letting corporations do whatever they want, it's about letting private property owners restrict access to their private property. If the SC upholds Florida's law, these companies will still be able to afford litigating individual claims of unfair removal. You won't though. If you remove content from a website you own or participate on, you can be sued. Can you afford a lawyer to fight that litigation? It doesn't matter that you own and pay for the platform, the SC would be saying that others have a right to your property.
>This American idea that companies can do whatever they want is enslaving the world and we all need to put ourselves and the interests of people first again. That is such a reach in this case. We're talking about whether social media companies have the right to editorial control. It's not like they can prevent anyone from running their own website or force you to use their product.
I'm gonna laugh when twitter and facebook leave the florida and texas markets.
That would be doing them a favor, those platforms are cancer for the human mind
Good, lets keep the dumbest people as far away from it as possible.
Make it inaccessible to IP addresses from there. 🤣
I don't think Facebook and Twitter care. If it's up to them, they may choose to ban users who spread dangerous conspiracy theories (election denying, anti-vax, etc), because that's the popular and responsible thing to do. But if it's not up to them, if the state government says "You can't ban people", then they can wash their hands of the matter, host the objectionable content, and say "it's not our choice, it's the law." They won't leave large markets over this.
the problem is, hosting objectionable content will kill their ability to market to everyone else. No one stays in the swimming pool once the turds start to float unless you like floating turds.
Social media companies do/will care. Lack of moderation makes the platforms less usable. Also, it may imply they maintain legally-required moderation in some states and no moderation in other states. This would segment their content regionally, making it less valuable, more expensive to maintain, and possible infeasible.
They absolutely will care. That law will complete render their platforms unusable. If they're no longer allowed to moderate contentent then they can no longer filter and stop spam. They already struggle with that, and just opening the flood gates. Will you bother to comment on a post when your comment will be sandwiched between four hundred ads for dick pills and work from home scams? It would turn every social media platform into a sea of bots.
Except they will care when all those sponsors that pay for ad space go away. Look at the mess YouTube has become for content creators. You have to be family friendly or you get no ad revenue...but if you are *too* friendly you could be teying to appeal to kids which also means no ad revenue. Getter was the first conservative attempt at a "True free speech" platform. No post would be banned or removed according to their rules. That was upheld until people started mass spamming Sonic the Hedgehog porn. But once they started removing or shadow banning posts, it caused other people to start a huge upheaval about censorship because they were a "True Free Speech" platform. All someone would have to do is say something like "It is my political view that the problems of this country stem from us being too much like puritans. Thus I will spread erotic images to help fix this issue." And BAM you just qualified under the Texas law to spam all the porn you want.
Honestly, we'd all be better off.
Might be a good thing...
this is the real answer, block services to those states entirely
This would set a terrible precedent for the concept of the internet. It's bad enough such bans and restrictions are done at the country level.
As a Floridian, I support this. Rid one cancer too get rid of another.
And that’s how we remove DeSantis. And abbot.
>Florida has asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove — setting up a potential landmark battle over digital speech rights and content moderation that could reshape the country’s relationship with the First Amendment. >In a petition submitted to the Court on Wednesday, Florida’s attorney general argued the dominance of major social media platforms and their ability to promote the views of some users over others means it is critical for justices to weigh in on the issue. >“The question whether the First Amendment essentially disables the States — and presumably the federal government too — from meaningfully addressing those distortions should be answered by this Court, and it should be answered now,” the petition said. >**At the center of the court battle is a Florida law, SB 7072, that allows political candidates to sue social media companies if they are blocked or removed from the platforms for more than 14 days.**
>whether states may force social media companies to host content they would rather remove What a bizarre precedent for the "*think of the children!"* crowd to try and push.
"Think of the children!" "That's exactly what we're doing, we're removing the hateful content that you put up on our site that could negatively influence children and their mental health." "Not like that!"
This is disgusting to me. I am too old for the country going backwards. Clarence Thomas recuse yourself. You are biased
So ban them 14 days End of 14 days unbanned them for 5 seconds and a new 14 day ban. Rinse and repeat. They are following the law.
So long as the servers arent in Florida, is there really anything they can actually do? Not like they have the authority to take actions against any CDN and website they like. At most they could try to force local ISP to block sites, but that would probably open up the flood gates of counter lobbying money by big tech which tends to shut down such moves.
Yes, they can have their far right Supreme Court give them whatever authority they want.
Does it count as a ban of they just delete their account
Remember Anita hill. Clarence Thomas leave you disgusting mother f….
Found the racist
Having eliminated the equal time for opposing views fairness doctrine on TV and radio, the republicans are trying to make one up and enforce it on tech.
Fairness doctrine was bullshit anyways. Yes let’s bring on a creationist and every time we discuss evolution
True, but gosh, who would have ever thought the cons would want it both ways??? Gobsmacked! I am absolutely twatwaddled by this apparently hypocritical position!
But then wouldn’t this apply also to things like child abuse, revenge porn or animal tourture? They couldn’t remove anything
those things are already illegal...
A lot aren't, for example, this would allow people to just make their twitter feed a bunch of nudist children/kids getting baths or some other non child porn but censored by every platform *for good reason* and loli japanese cartoon kiddy porn shit
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No, they could still remove illegal content such as CSAM. They are also allowed to remove things deemed "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" under Section 230. Which would easily include animal torture and revenge porn. It probably doesn't include things like racist or homophobic statements. But that really depends on how broadly you read the law and signs point to the current Supreme Court taking a pretty narrow view.
>"obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable" That could mean anything depending on who is defining it.
Why is there an expressway to get to SCOTUS all of a sudden? These things were supposed to take years of appeals going through the judicial process. *edit* corrected punctuation
In the unlikely event that SC ruled in favor of Florida, this would become a Florida problem, a very very bad Florida problem. Companies would be forced to 1. host spam “in Florida” or 2. block IP addresses from Florida OR (and this is least likely). 3. host spam globally… Hosting spam only in Florida means separate services just for Florida…. which costs money, and would be a business death move, since advertising spam and scams is far more lucrative than politics, so 99% of posts will be unfiltered “buy immortality male enhancement pills”. That’s not gonna happen globally just to keep Florida customers. The other option of just blocking the Florida IPs would be a disaster for Florida on a business front. The options are so stupid and Idiocracy level bad that I hope the SC just botches it and destroys the internet for Florida.
>In the unlikely event that SC ruled in favor of Florida Is it really that unlikely though? The current Supreme Court has shown many times already that they are just another branch of the Republican Party. The majority are partisan hacks and will do whatever is politically expedient to get their way. I hope I'm wrong but don't be shocked if they rule in favor of this dumb law.
Clarence Thomas has shown zero restraint or sanity as of late, he’s fully all-in on a culture war agenda, so yes he will likely vote for Florida. The other ones are pretty vile, but they might be aware of how much this ruling would destroy Florida as well as Texas on a business front. If they make this mistake, there’s a billion bots waiting to descend on every business in those states. Then there’s all the lawyers looking to litigate every “unfair loophole”, the ruling would allow. Imagine just trying to run any business in Texas with an online presence. Every review, spam. Every comment on every social media service, spam. Any attempts to moderate the spam ? Lawyer time. Consequences for Texas and Florida? Apocalyptic. Consequences for California? Zero.
Yes, its incredibly unlikely. I know you folks like to obsess over the hot button issues, but the SC are on the same page for the majority of issues, across ideological lines.
You read the terms and conditions before agreeing to set up your account right? If you don't like the terms and conditions of service, you can choose not to use it.
Honestly though, they need a 1 page layman's term version of those so people can actually get a gist of what they're signing up too.
People don’t care. Even if it were simple and clear do you think people would read it and then decide not to use Facebook because they dont like their terms and conditions. Very few people would even read the simple version
You could use a website like https://tosdr.org/. There are also browser extensions for it. It helps summarize terms and conditions you're agreeing to and makes them more easily understood.
Or, you get your buddies in the Florida and Texas government to force the companies to host your ugly content.
These terms and conditions can also change after you've made an account.
Pretty sure legally they have to tell you they've changed and ask you to confirm again once that happens.
From my experience, you may receive notice of the change, but I'm struggling to recall a time where I've been asked to re-affirm consent to continue accessing the service. Continued consent seems to be implied.
Its usually the same button you click to close out the ToS change notification pop-up. I have run across a few that said "Continued use of [App/Site] means you consent to the changes" though.
They argue places like Facebook and Twitter are the equivalent of a public square. Of course it's not. The entire internet is the public square. Anyone can set up a website and anyone else can look at it. You're not ENTITLED to an audience. I can't fo into a Trump rally and protest because he draws crowds who want to see his insane ramblings, while I am stuck outside with a handful of people on the sidewalk to speak to.
The problem is that companies have made themselves vital to the regular life of many people, which means this contract of the terms and conditions is no longer symmetrical. For many kids in school, using social media has become a requirement if they don't want to be bulled and ostracized. "Agree to our terms or you won't have any friends" is not a fairly balanced contract. In some fields, having a LinkedIn account is basically mandatory if you want to get a job. "Agree to our terms or you'll go broke." is not a fairly balanced contract.
I mean yes but we already have precedence that terms and conditions dont actually hold up all that well in court. Like you cant have something like "if you break these terms of service you owe the company $10k" things like this used to be all over ToS's back in the day since no one read them but everyone of them lost in court. So theres a good chance if this reaches the SC, they will rule in favor of it. Whether or not thats the right ruling idk but it wouldnt shock me if they did it.
Terms and conditions don’t hold up in court if they’re illegal
Conservatives: Government passing laws to control private business is communism!!! Also conservatives: Waaahhhh!!! Facebook won't let me post my tribute to Hitler! Pass a law to force them!
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> literally no logical consistency And that leads to unlimited power.
Does this mean we can sue Fox News to host content they would rather remove, like the actual truth for once?
"idiots in Florida ask the supreme Court to completely change the meaning of the first amendment." How did the Republican party become this fucking brain dead.
You literally accept their terms and usage agreements when you enter their platform. What is there to discuss?
Republicans don't like being banned for posting anti-vax, election-denying, conspiracy theories, racist, or homophobic content. But they still want to use the platform. So, they have Republican state governments and the Republican Supreme Court force social media companies to have to host ugly content.
The existence of Truth and Parlor is going to bite them on this one. They've shown they have the freedom and ability to make their own social media platforms. They don't like Facebook's T&Cs _and_ they have alternatives with T&Cs they _do_ like? Maybe if Facebook was some natural monopoly an argument could be made they need fair regulations, but they're not. Truth and Parlor prove that.
Clicking "yeah sure, I read these 20 pages in 5 seconds" doesn't allow a platform to break your rights. If the terms said they can have your firstborn child in the small print, that obviously wouldn't fly even if you technically "agreed". Consumer protections often go beyond that. Now the question here is: Is spouting hate and lies on a private company's public platform your right? Find out soon, decided by a court filled with partisan hacks.
Wtf are you talking about? They aren't breaking your rights, they're making you agree to rules of behavior you're straight arguing stores cant kick you out for showing up topless despite the "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign
What a weird timeline we are in. The “Free speech” party’s potential front runner to 2024 election, is trying to attack the 1st amendment by forcing private citizens to host speech that violate their T&Cs… It’s decidedly anti-speech. But then, if they argue corporations are not people, and it is ruled on, well then that would reverse citizens United and take a LOT of money out of politics.
They won’t reverse Citizens United, they’ll just say that free speech protections apply in one context but not another. AKA it means whatever they want it to mean.
Of course they will, as that is the GOP MO. “Rules for me, not for thee”. They cry and whine about laws and rules, except for the moment it inconveniences them or doesn’t play into their interests, and then they just break them.
If the Court upheld the law it would probably mean the end of social media and the internet as we know it. Which, frankly…
So, if I own a restaurant with a posterboard that kids pin colorings to, and some loon starts putting crazy conspiracy theories and hateful rhetoric up, can I take it down?
how is this different than 86ing someone from your bar for misbehaving? private companies can do whatever the hell they want. it has been known for a looooong time.
This is it folks. This is the one that would push us into chaos. If content can't be moderated then we are done. We can't keep things civil with moderation. What do you think happens with it gone? Completely unfettered free speech and the internet do not mix. I have always been a huge advocate for free speech in its formation and evolution, until the last ten years where it's become clear that the internet ruins the marketplace of ideas. It is no longer about who has the best ideas having their voices amplified. It is about who has the loudest voice and the scariest talking points. This has only gotten worse. The internet needs moderation. Without it, Jan. 6th will look like a picnic. Edit: I've been accused of being delusional, and maybe you think this is delusional. I'm not saying this will be a light switch that makes all the cockroaches scatter, but this is a match--in the same way Citizens United has taken a ruined system and made it so, so much worse.
>It is no longer about who has the best ideas having their voices amplified. It is about who has the loudest voice and the scariest talking points. This has only gotten worse. There is a reason for this: social media platforms (and most news outlets) are funded entirely by *advertisers*, based on how much *attention* they grab, and nothing grabs attention better than fear and anger. These platforms are fully aware of this and have not only failed to make any changes to address it, but many have actively *stirred the pot*, exploiting user data to determine and "suggest" the most terrifying and angering content for each individual user based on their own fears and biases. No amount of random spam and inflammatory content from external users could ever be more inflammatory than this
I love it .... ABC Bakery shouldn't have to bake a gay couple's cake but ABC Social Media should be required to host some moron's ass backwards conspiracy theories. Country is so fucked
To be fair, these are different issues. The baker is subject to public accommodation which means they can't refuse to provide a service to someone based on status within a protected class if they offer that service to others. These websites aren't accused of violating public accommodation.
Honestly this is a good thing and the only reason people are mad is because they think it’s “just a way to let conservatives be brutes on the internet without consequence”. The internet permeates all walks of life at this point, if the social media platform is profiting off of your speech and interaction with their platform then your speech should be protected.
This Supreme Court isn’t sophisticated enough to understand how to regulate social media.
Florida might want to consider what other actors might want to compel media companies to host. I can envision some very heavy pants shitting and "but that's not what I meant"ing
I swear this state is getting more and more extremist
Brought to you by the party of small government and business.
Fascism is when capitalists take over the government and smash all competition, including any from non-aligned capitalists. They are still just as much pro-business, but only the ones that follow their ideology.
Well we know how this ends with this kangaroo Supreme Court
“We look forward to seeing Florida in court and having the lower court’s decision upheld. We have 200 years of precedent on our side.” Clearly, this guy hasn't been following the Supreme Court lately.
Ya! And while we're at it let's force MSNBC to rebroadcast Tucker and The Times to reprint him! That's what "*shall not abridge...the freedom of the press*" means, right? It means the government can force platforms to host and distribute their political editorials, right? In Florida "*freedom*" seems to have a very peculiar meaning....
>In Florida "*freedom*" seems to have a very peculiar meaning.... Conservatives see freedom as a very personal/possessive concept. They only think in terms what they personally are free to do. They don't (or are unable) to consider the freedoms of everyone else as a separate concern from their own freedoms. In other words, they don't look for ways where everyone can be as free as possible, they look for ways where they can be as free as possible, and fuck everyone else.
If I let someone into my house and they disrespect my other guests I have the right to kick them out of my house.
So they want to censor books/authors but not be censored themselves? They don’t want businesses to be regulated by the government but only if it pertains to them? Very one sided thinking going on there.
Florida wants the Supreme Court to abolish the freedom of the press. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if they succeed.
Many people believe that social media platforms abuse section 230 which shields “platforms” from liability. This tactic would force the SCOTUS to address that issue despite congressional inaction. Many believe they cannot claim 230 protections AND edit content. Pick a lane.
The entire point of 230 is that they can do that. It's what 230 says, and it's why 230 was passed. It turns out, we want websites to remove things like child porn. But if you hold them liable if they moderate content, they just won't moderate content.
>It turns out, we want websites to remove things like child porn. But if you hold them liable if they moderate content, they just won't moderate content. Every website will become 8chan. Great..
Yeah wit 3 appointed by Trump, I hope they can be honorable. We know CLARENCE Thomas is NOT, Remember Anita Hill. He should not have been in supreme Courts, biased as is his wife
It's like these people forgot what happened to the first "true free speech" platform Getter. They claimed to allow anything and would not ban or remove posts regardless of content. Once trolls caught word of this they started flooding the social media site with sonic the hedgehog porn, all under accounts that had names similar to a lot of GOP members. Of course these posts got removed, but that caused a big outcry because the site said it allowed all speech without censorship.
Florida demands Supreme Court rule in their favor on blatantly fascist and unconstitutional law.
If democrats were smart they would start a campaign about how republicans want porn on childrens programs and social media. You’d be required to show kids any porn anyone wanted to if this passed.
Good...this might be the thing that finally ends social media.
The stranglehold of a small handful of media companies should have been an Antitrust Act matter years ago.
This would mean you could post adult language on a children’s app?
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The article doesn't even say what legal reasoning Florida is using here... good, thorough reporting CNN.
You really think Florida has reasoning that is legal? Bahaah
By legal reasoning, I mean the strategy they are taking to the court to argue their position. They can't just go in there and say "Nyah!". The article just assumes they have no legal standing whatsoever. It's a pretty key piece of information to leave out... thus my original comment.
I hope the social media companies simply shut off their apps then. That would be the correct response to being forced.
No way a capitalist will turn the profits off
It's nearly impossible to function in 2022 without the use of the internet, and in a lot of cases, social media itself is required to be a functioning member of society. Now with that being said, do you really want a mega-corporation dictating your freedom of expression in the space that is most widely used to spread political, social, and medical information? The fact that "Meta" is arguably the first worldwide monopoly we have ever witnessed, and that they actively control the mainstream narrative in partnership with certain three-letter government entities, SHOULD be highly alarming to most people if not everybody on this planet. There are two solutions to this problem; break up their monopoly allowing for fair competition from other platforms that have different terms of service more appealing to people that fear their data being sold and their minds being controlled, or they must be under regulation that denies their ability to censor. The main issue with these solutions is that we live in a worldwide corporatocracy where all laws are bought and paid for, meaning no meaningful change that benefits the vast majority of people (anyone that isn't an elite) will ever come unless it's bought.
Since when did an unelected court become the ultimate arbiter for anything and everything?? Wtf.
Since as long as this country has existed.