[pityJuke]

As Nilay Patel from the Verge put it [1]

>Your regular reminder that the biggest threat to free speech is the government.

> Complaining about social platforms moderating content according to their whims is just how politicians distract you from how fast they’ve all gotten sick of the First Amendment. This story is outrageous — no one will even say what this professor allegedly said that was so offensive!

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/25/23806946/your-regular-rem...

[colechristensen]

>Your regular reminder that the biggest threat to free speech is the government.

The only thing the first amendment protects you from is the government.

[jxramos]

that is an excellent point, it's kind of a distraction to drag in extraneous protections that don't apply, namely speech between citizenry. There is a government focus to the amendments that's worth keeping foremost in mind. Your statement helps me to keep this understanding in the foreground which I don't always do all the time.

[cxr]

> that is an excellent point

It's not, really. It comes from conflating mentions of "free speech" with "the first amendment". The person you're responding to brought up the latter, despite the fact that the person they were responding to said the former.

[ceejayoz]

The First Amendment is only one aspect in one country of free speech, though.

[kergonath]

> As Nilay Patel from the Verge put it [1] >Your regular reminder that the biggest threat to free speech is the government.

That is a dangerous distraction. A private institution doing the same would not be dangerous in a perfect world of spherical cows and purely free market with no hindrances such as wealth concentration, any kind of politics and the involvement of anything that looks like a human. It’s disgusting to see people, even now, missing the forest for the tree because all they can see is their government. Useful idiots, all of them.

Sure, it is terrible and a terrible government is terrible. But get rid of it tomorrow and you’ll just get a corporatist oligarchy that won’t be any better, far from it.

The problem is power, not (only) government. Power needs to be checked. Once you’ve drowned your government in your proverbial bathtub, you’ll still be with any guns you might have, on the wrong side of power dynamics.

[MisterBastahrd]

That's not really an insightful statement given that free speech in the context that it is being discussed is literally referencing ONLY government interference on the dissemination of speech. It's like saying that the biggest threat to becoming wet is water.

[kevingadd]

Is that really the right takeaway here? Do you think a private university based in Texas wouldn't have done the same thing?

[nverno]

Probably not. The Texas A&M chancellor is elected by the board of regents, selected by the Governor of Texas. This is true for many (all?) state systems (eg. the board of governors, appointed by the state politicians, picks the UNC head chancellor). So, that position is always under political pressure. This is not true at privates.

[kergonath]

Private entities are immune from corruption and never collude with politicians? People do not get fired for political reasons at private institutions?

You show a mechanism through which the government can abuse its power, which is terrible and everyone should agree that it’s bad and change how this works. But how not having that implies that a chancellor picked by a board with no oversight could not be worse? The problem is the lack of checks against abuse of power and mechanisms to guarantee a basic independence level for the professors. Once you have those in place, how is a university better merely by being private?

I wish free-market neo-liberals would apply to themselves what they say every time someone mentions socialism: pure ideology might sound good but does not work in the real world.

[nverno]

You're inferring too much. Nobody said one was better or worse. Chancellors at privates also answer to a board, which may be good or bad, but they aren't appointed by the government, a fact particularly relevant to this situation. There's great private and public universities, so obviously neither option is necessarily bad.

[tick_tock_tick]

> Your regular reminder that the biggest threat to free speech is the government.

Absolute though it crosses over with social platforms alot. There is currently an injunction against the Biden administration to stop them from instructing social platform on what to censor.

[jonathankoren]

What enforcement mechanism does the government use in this plan?

The answer is none. That’s why it’s not government censorship. It’s a completely voluntary. There’s not even a stick nor a treat involved.

[amanaplanacanal]

No there isn’t. It was stayed by a higher court.

[vxNsr]

Exactly which is why it’s a huge problem when the tech companies act in lock step with government officials.

[ceejayoz]

It'd be a huge First Amendment problem if tech companies weren't permitted to agree with the government.

[vxNsr]

That’s an incredibly aggressive intentional misinterpretation of what I said.

In the last 3 years we had government officials directing, in very strong language, various tech companies on what was and was not allowed on their platforms. While many people might argue that tech platforms are not public squares and should be free to censor however they like, everyone should have a problem with politicians directing tech companies on what can be said on their platforms.

As an addendum, I’m always curious to hear what that camp has to say about net neutrality after arguing so vigorously against its core principles.

IMHO if you want to operate as a mass market platform and are pursuing a winner takes all business strategy you should be regulated as a common carrier (Uber, Facebook, Comcast, Google, Microsoft, cloudflare, etc).

[ceejayoz]

> In the last 3 years we had government officials directing, in very strong language, various tech companies on what was and was not allowed on their platforms.

And, as is their First Amendment right, those tech companies frequently responded with "no". This is very clear from the Twitter Files information, even if the journalists involved glossed over that point.

For example:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3849819-trump-asked-tw...

> Then-President Trump asked Twitter to take down a tweet from model and television personality Chrissy Teigen in 2019 because he saw it as “derogatory,” according to testimony from a Twitter whistleblower and former employee.

Trump has the First Amendment right to ask. Twitter has the First Amendment right - which they exercised - to decline that request.

If Trump had sent US Marshals to seize Twitter HQ when they said no, that is where we have issues.

[claytongulick]

Case history and law are very clear about how the first amendment can be violated by even subtle pressure from the government.

I recommend reading judge Doughty's decision [1]. It's a long read, but well worth your time.

[1] https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.lawd.18...

[ceejayoz]

I've read the injunction. It's not very good.

It's since been stayed; https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/14/social-media-injunc....

[mjamil]

I disagree. Case history is absolutely not clear about the difference between government encouraging action by companies vs. forcing said action, and whether the former is explicitly permissible.

I read the decision. It's not so great imo by federal bench standards. Judges who write sweeping statements like, “If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” should not be taken very seriously. I'd say the Japanese Americans interned during WWII may like a word, given that they were allowed to neither practice the Shinto religion nor use Japanese in public gatherings.

[vxNsr]

Lol using the one instance that trump asked for something stupid and was denied and pretending that happened a lot is again a very intentional mischaracterization of what happened. Not only is that apparently like one of the only times trump asked for something it’s totally dwarfed in comparison to the Biden admin’s many censorship requests which had no pushback despite being equally frivolous. Not to mention the laptop from hell.

Really this sort of thing should be seen as an in-kind political contribution, and the fact it’s not shows just how captured the entire judicial and regulatory branch is.

[ceejayoz]

If you think Trump's team only ever asked for one single tweet to come down, I don't know what to tell you.

Again, censorship requests aren't a First Amendment violation. Joe Biden can request you go fuck yourself. He cannot order you to go fuck yourself. The Twitter Files make it quite clear Twitter etc. understood this distinction.

For example, here's a Twitter Files post of them saying "go get a court order" to a data request. https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1604888013422485505...

[sonotathrowaway]

Your point is an incredibly aggressive intentional misrepresentation of what actually happened.

Nobody actually believes that other than right wing fundie culture warriors. Elon Musk thinks it’s complete bullshit, as does every other person who is willing to put objective facts above their personal feelings.

[ROTMetro]

Now do the Government and tech companies bypassing the right to privacy by 'purchasing' our data. If the Government asking to take something down is a violation of our rights the government asking for private information is a violation of our rights.

[vxNsr]

yes I totally agree. Not sure why anyone would think the government should be doing that... in fact we should make it illegal for anyone to sell/share private data like that.