| I think you conveniently stopped reading before point 3. > The government does, in fact, have the power to regulate some speech. When the rights and liberties of others are in serious jeopardy, speakers who provoke others into violence, wrongfully and recklessly injure reputations or incite others to engage in illegal activity may be silenced or punished. The twitter files only showed that the government lobbied for changes, and that Twitter agreed to some changes. There is also evidence in those files that Twitter also refused some requests. we can hem and haw about the validity of the requests all day but I want to ask this: If you were a big enough media site that you become a potential public safety/national security risk (something like 90+M American users), what do you propose you should do when the government takes notice and starts contacting you? Do you think Twitter should have just ignored all emails from the government about public safety threats? Do you think they should have had a policy of just throwing government correspondence in the big ole customer service heap and handled national security and public safety issues in 10-12 business days? when government agencies contact you about potential threats/issues would you take them seriously or laugh in their face? Did these government actors threaten Twitter with legal action or just request action be taken about certain content? I don't want to be in the position of defending the FBI or a big corporation here, but I think if you have concerns about the conduct of Twitter or government here, the 1st amendment can't be your legal foundation here. You need to 1) contact your representatives about reducing FBI/DHS overreach and potentially restructure their responsibilities and funding. If you have an issue with the FBI we can do something about it together other than yelling about liberal bias at Twitter 2) actually have meaningful conversations about how you think social media should handle things like misinformation, extremism, and hatespeech. Because 0 moderation is not the answer and will never create healthy communities. And 3) think critically about what avenues government can and should use to make requests when it comes to issues of public health. Government is always going to want to keep tabs on what goes on in public forums and have concerns and it's the platforms decision as to whether or not to heed advice. I agree that we should be concerned about any legal threats are attached to requests, but I dont think you'll ever stop government from contacting major platforms that have a major affect on their constituents altogether. |