[NaturalPhallacy]

The First Amendment:

>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It's since been expanded through court cases to extend from congress to every government entity including local ones.

The government is constitutionally forbidden from meddling with the press, even through private entities via the 14th amendment. The FBI and CIA meddled with twitter. The particulars aren't relevant. They're expressly forbidden from doing what they did.

[beej71]

This doesn't mean the government can't make requests to private companies, including the press.

[wrycoder]

Government “requests” are usually treated as directives, since it’s well understood that they have many seemingly unrelated ways to make life difficult for a company and its officers.

[ceejayoz]

That’s not even true for Twitter.

https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/removal-requests...:

> Overall, Twitter withheld or otherwise removed some or all of the reported content in response to 51% of global legal demands, down 5% from the previous reporting period.

[wrycoder]

Your category is "global" "legal" requests i.e. take-down requests. The FBI has special access and its requests aren't included in that report.

[ceejayoz]

The FBI was issuing these sorts of requests. I’d welcome specific evidence to the contrary.

[hellfish]

Good idea, it's high time this practice gets banned

[michaelmrose]

This isn't true asking for your post to be removed doesn't violate your rights. It would if requests were accompanied by legal threats. Twitter is the one removing content and with every right to do so.