[fullstop]

It's not a technicality. One is limits that we have carefully placed on our government to prevent such abuse. The other is a matter for the police and the legal system.

This is akin to a private company only allowing men to vote in board meetings, and people saying that it's violating the 19th amendment. Is it wrong? Absolutely! But it's not violating the 19th amendment.

I'd also argue that a lot of people care about this "technicality". Businesses are not the government, end of story. The 1st amendment is quite succinct, and there's little room for misinterpreting it.

[stale2002]

> It's not a technicality.

In the context of this discuss it is.

It doesn't matter because what people want is to not be censored. Thats the point of all of this.

And you are bringing something up that just isn't relevant at all, that nobody brought up, but yourself.

> But it's not violating the 19th amendment.

Its not violating the 3rd amendment either. But nobody brought that up. Nobody cares if the 3rd amendment was violated, in this context.

What people care about is the bad thing happening. And you are distracting from the conversation, by not focusing on the fact that it is bad, and instead focusing on something that nobody cares about, in the context of this discussion.

The original context of all of this, is that someone said "It seems to me that if you really want to be a despot, you should own the companies that control the flow of information".

They didn't bring up the 1st amendment. You did. And that distracts from the important conversation, which is, that if someone wants to censor a bunch of other people, then they can get around all these laws, by just having a private company do it instead.

Thats why you got downvotes. It is because your point about the 1st amendment comes off as a bad faith way, of ignoring what everyone was actually talking about, which is about how a despot can censor a bunch of people, and cause a lot of harm, and that they can do that without running into 1st amendment issues, by just getting a private company to do it.

[fullstop]

It is absolutely not a technicality for the purpose of this discussion, and I'd argue that it's actually imperative.

The US Government can not demand Twitter remove content (of US citizens) without violating their rights, which was implied by the actual article given that a large percentage of these requests came from the US Government. Conversely, Twitter can remove whatever it feels like without violating the rights granted to every US citizen. If Twitter is succumbing to US government pressure then we have the legal means to push back. If it is Twitter moderating content on their own volition, there is currently no legal means to do anything about it.

> And you are bringing something up that just isn't relevant at all, that nobody brought up, but yourself.

It's all over this discussion, not just this thread.

[stale2002]

Do you understand at all, that the original thing that someone brought up, was how a despot could censor a bunch of stuff, without doing it through the government?

You are ignoring the point that is being brought up.

You bringing up this other thing, makes it seem like you are trying to dismiss this other concern, by bringing up a fact that does not actually address their point.

Are you actually going to address the original point here, or are you going to keep ignoring it?

The fact that you refuse to actually talk about the issue, which is that a despot can get away with censoring things, by doing it through private companies, makes it seem like you don't actually have a response to that, and are trying to misdirect.

[fullstop]

No. I'm saying that there's no legal means to stop a despot from doing this, no amendment to help you, and you have no rights. If you want to do that we're going to need another amendment or monopolies will need to be broken up.

In the eyes of the law, Twitter has done nothing wrong by moderating their content.

[stale2002]

> I'm saying that there's no legal means to stop a despot from doing this

So then you agree completely with what the other person was originally saying, got it. You have no disagreement with them.

So you should not have said "No". Instead, you should have said "Yes I agree with you".

> If you want to do that we're going to need another amendment

Actually, we could simply make a law. Such as by changing our existing, and uncontroversial, common carrier laws.

> In the eyes of the law

Literally you are agreeing with the other person. You are agreeing that a despot could cause huge amounts of harm to society, by just doing everything through private companies.

Yes. Thats the problem. You have correctly identified that someone could engage in mass censorship, that is as bad as other forms of censorship, by just doing it through private companies, although this can be fixed by changing the law.

> you have no rights.

Got it. So you agree completely with the other person, that mass censorship, and lots of very bad things could be done to society, and currently it is difficult to stop all of these extremely bad things from happening. (Which could be fixed by changing the law)

I am not sure why you keep stating things, in the way that you do, when in reality, you are agreeing completely with everyone else as to what the problem is, and you are agreeing that all of these very bad things could be done to lots of people, right now.