[CNN] Bernie Sanders doesn't 'feel comfortable' about Twitter's permanent ban against Trump despite

Internet access though isn't the same as social media. You can certainly access the internet without going through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any of the other sites.

The argument I've seen is whether those sites are so large that they represent the "town square" and in that case then even though they are private property they act as a commons. There was a case 20 years ago regarding whether the Mall of America was considered a space where although private was essentially a town square and as such free speech applied. The case involved anti-fur protests. The ruling that even though the mall might seem like a main street and an old fashioned town square it still was private property and the First Amendment didn't apply. This was reaffirmed in another case five years ago regarding BLM protesters who protested at the Mall of America.

Here's a good article on it with both opinions for and against whether the Mall should be considered a town square.
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/12/22/protests-first-amendment-public-space-vs-private

Social media is still considered private property but more than that to access it you have to agree to Terms of Services so you've made a contractual agreement also and that means that you've already voluntarily agreed to limit what rights you might have for access.

This is again why the argument put forward that private companies are censoring and should be compelled under the banner of free speech to not be able to restrict content is very bizarre. It goes against two long held principles of the Conservative thought, the value of private property and contracts.

The argument that FB and Twitter should be more regulated like a public utility makes sense from the Left but from the Right the response should be the market should address it. If you don't like how Twitter is moderating content then go to Parler.

 

I don't think the government can make a competent public digital square, but some clearinghouse institution could force the industry to create a CSPAN of sorts. The thing is, does anyone really want the responsibility of cleaning that public digital outhouse? Still thinking of the class action lawsuit of former FB moderators who have PTSD from reviewing obscene images...

In any case, there is a missing utility for a public digital forum that's currently held ad hoc inside private entities. Amazons and Facebooks existing as a private monopolistic nation states shouldn't be met with a begrudging reality, and I'm not sure further market disruptions to solve that issue answers the problem at hand.

 

Here an op-ed from Forbes that covers some of these issues including the limitations on what speech a private business can restrict.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomspi...why-your-boss-can-censor-you/?sh=45f611c77b79

Why Social Media Companies Can Censor Trump, And Why Your Boss Can Censor You

Tom Spiggle
Senior Contributor
Careers
I’m an employment lawyer who writes about your workplace rights.

In response to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, various social media companies suspended or banned President Trump from using their platforms.

For example, Twitter locked his account on Wednesday night because some of his Tweets violated Twitter’s rules, such as its Civil Integrity or Violent Threat policies. Twitter said that his account would be locked until 12 hours following his removal of three specific Tweets and that continued Twitter policy violations could result in a permanent suspension of his Twitter account.


On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg published a post where he announced that the blocks placed on President Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were to continue for the next two weeks at a minimum, “until the peaceful transition of power is complete.”

Then on Friday, Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s account “…due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Many people have questioned whether Twitter and Facebook could do this and if such censorship constituted violations of President Trump’s First Amendment rights. Let’s examine this question and see how its answer affects free speech rights in the workplace.

Free Speech Rights on Social Media

The most prominent free speech protections come from the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. But what many people seem to forget is that these protections only protect individuals from federal and state action (the Fourteenth Amendment applies the First Amendment to the states).

Therefore, as a general rule, free speech protections do not protect individuals from censorship by a private entity, whether it’s from a church, employer or social media company. This gives companies like Twitter and Facebook the right to create their own rules that can restrict the speech of its users in almost any way it sees fit.

But while this is the law, this isn’t always what companies do. For example, for much of President Trump’s term, he has violated both Twitter and Facebook policies in ways that should have resulted in account suspensions or bans. Yet, until very recently, none of those things happened.

Why? Well, the simple answer is that Trump is the President of the United States. The more complicated answer probably adds other considerations, such as politics, public perception and company profitability.

The bottom line is that President Trump’s First Amendment rights were not violated. When Facebook and Twitter suspended and banned his accounts, it was an instance of private, not government action.

It’s this private versus government action that also allows many employers the right to restrict the free speech rights of their employees.

First Amendment Rights for Private Sector Workers

Just like how Twitter and Facebook can censor their users, private sector employers can censor their employees. This includes the implementation of social media policies about how employees can discuss their employers online or restricting the kind of political clothing employees wear to work. However, there are a few exceptions to what private employers can do.

First, there’s employee speech relating to collective bargaining and concerted action. Sections 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA) provide significant protections to employees who are attempting to help each other in regards to terms of employment, like pay or working conditions. These protections don’t just apply to discussions at work, but outside of work, like on social media.

Second, the employer’s speech restrictions are discriminatory against a protected class. Imagine that an employer had a policy against wearing political or offensive clothing to work. But then a Black employee is told to change when he comes in wearing a George Floyd t-shirt, even though a white employee is allowed to continue wearing a t-shirt with a Blood Drop Cross on it (a hate symbol of the Ku Klux Klan).

Third, there is a state law that protects the employee’s speech in a particular way. California, Washington, D.C. and Colorado are jurisdictions that prohibit some forms of discrimination because of an employee’s political affiliation or activities.

Depending on how an employer restricts its employee’s political behavior, the employer may run afoul of these laws. For instance, some protections only protect political speech outside of work.

But what about government workers’ free speech rights? Because their employer is the government, there should be no employer rule restricting an employee’s ability to say whatever they want, right? Well, yes and no.

First Amendment Rights for Government Workers

Public employees generally have more free speech rights than those employed by a private company. But government employers can still impose some restrictions.

Generally speaking, when deciding if an employee will have the right to speak freely pursuant to the First Amendment, courts will consider the following two factors:

1. Whether the topic of discussion involves a matter of public concern. This means that the employee is talking about something of “legitimate news interest.” The employee must also be speaking as a private citizen, as opposed to a representative of the employer.

2. If the employee’s interest in speaking outweighs the government employer’s ability to carry out its function. So even if an employee’s speech is about a matter of public concern, if it were to disrupt the workplace so much such that the government employer could not carry out its duties, then the employee’s speech could potentially be restrained.

Practical Considerations

Despite the law giving social media companies and employers wide latitude in restricting the speech of their employees and users, it doesn’t always mean they will want to do so.

In President Trump’s case, Twitter and Facebook saw fit to allow him to continue using their platforms even if he violated their terms of service. It was only after a literal assault on the United States Capitol that resulted in multiple deaths that they finally took action.

Discussion surrounding this topic is not new, and continues to arise in various circumstances. About a year ago, the Washington Post caught some flak when it took action against one of its reporters for a Tweet she made following Kobe Bryant’s death.

The reality is that when someone says something online that a social media company or employer doesn’t like, figuring out what the law says is the easy part. The hard part is deciding what to actually do about it.

 

Tired of old men crying about Tik Tok and Twitter.

 

not really to me, pending what is said.

I have more trouble with equating violations of a company’s terms of service with someone being jailed by their government for speaking their mind.

I will get kicked out of my local diner if I’m rude enough to the waiter and other customers. But I won’t go to jail for saying their soup sucks.

 

I’m sure they tried

 

Trump being off Twitter is a net benefit to society.

 

So why would you ask a direct question if it was not the point?

All of this moot because FB and twitter are not government entities.

 

Im genuinely curious about what you believe is your threshold for what is acceptable for these social media apps to moderate that doesn't violate "free speech on principle"?

I'm assuming child p*rnography is one item. What about grusume violence like decapitations? Also what if there is content that is so bad to the company that it makes their business model unsustainable?

 

I definitely agree it's to his credit. Even I'm "uncomfortable" with the situation. I will really double down on people like 45 automatically forcing just about everyone else into uncomfortable choices.

I do think we should keep a few things in mind.
(a) there were terms of service and somebody who managed account A accepted those terms.
(b) those terms were (arguably) violated repeatedly by person A or whoever managed the account.
(c) if some hypothetical person B, even with a wildly different political outlook, (e.g. may promulgate facts. haha, but seriously), they would come up against did they or did they not violate terms of service.

I do understand that people can argue the terms of service have too much leeway and are too open to interpretation and abuse.

Fundamentally, until we declare some types of social media a public utility, I'm not comfortable with giving them too much crap about who they boot.

 

It has been SO PEACEFUL without Trump and his lies on Twitter.

 

NO SOUP FOR YOU!!

 

First off I'm going to complement you for actually expressing and articulating your own opinion rather than falling back on just posting an op-ed.

Regarding the substance of, this is again a strange argument to make coming from the Right and given that you specifically have cited "Liberals" as being who you see pushing "censorship" you are making arguments from the Right. Thing like the UN Declaration of Human Rights have been opposed from the Right and are not recognized being law and certainly not having any bearing on US sovereignty. It seems odd then to cite something that the Right opposes and further goes to the point that there is no consistency in current Rigthwing thought.

That said if we are going to cite the UN Declaration of Human Rights there is also:
"Article 12
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."
Much of what is considered "censorship" has been blocking things that are racist and defamatory in nature and also things like "doxxing". Under this principle then such content should be blocked because it is a fundamental right to be protected from attacks upon people's honour and reputation while also protecting privacy, family, home or correspondence.

"Article 17
1. Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.
2. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."

The fundamental difference that we are talking about here is that Twitter isn't the US government and as such is private property. As stated in the post I had earlier there is debate on whether social media represents the "Town Square" but there is no denying that it is private property. Under the UN Declaration of Human Rights the right to property is recognized yet the argument that you're positing here would not recognize that right. In fact you consider it disingenuous to treat private property as different than the public. Yet another bizarre argument coming from the Right.

Another issue not addressed though in all of this is that no one is forced to go onto social media. I don't recall being forced to go onto Clutchfans and while I'm on FB there are lots of time I don't spend on it, and have not signed up to Twitter, Instagram, Snap Chat, Tik Tok and many more social media sites. So while free speech might be recognized as a right being on social media isn't nor is it a duty. Why free speech and free expression matters from government side is that for the most part we don't have a choice about being under the jurisdiction of a state while we have a choice to be under the jurisdiction of Mark Zuckerberg. The only force of law that Facebook can apply to us is contract law that we agree to when we decide to use it. A government though has the force of law whether we agree to it or not.

Finally this argument still skirts the issue that if you feel that Facebook and Twitter are censoring you there are other options. Parler is still there and another social media site can always be started. The argument that Facebook and Twitter are so large they are basically the commons and should be regulated like a utility ignores that there are other social media sites such as TikTok that have started and are successful. Consider that we're having this discussion on a social media site that isn't Facebook or Twitter.

If we're going to talk about being lazy and disingenuous we here are lot about the free market except for this issue the argument is that the market doesn't work and private companies have to be forced, and not for profit reasons, to act in our narrow interests.

 

I welcome @Os Trigonum's slow decent into Marxism.

 

Since he's citing the UN Human Declaration of Human Rights you might get him singing the "Internationale"