[Caligatio]

Should power companies be allowed to disconnect power (i.e. moderate) to entities that disagree with their ideals?

I'm not necessarily arguing X/Twitter is in the same league as a power company but this line of thought has many precedents.

[whatwhaaaaat]

Yes you are right it does. Namely the twitter files! Having this argument after all of the revelations in the twitter files is down right hilarious.

[shadowgovt]

Twitter Files mostly demonstrated a big tech company doing big tech company moderation. It wasn't the bombshell people make it out to be.

[whatwhaaaaat]

The twitter files showed that factions in the government were directly requesting individual posts be removed from a private platform.

This is highly revelational and currently being litigated with the most recent decision that it was in fact unconstitutional.

[shadowgovt]

> This is highly revelational

I guess to anyone who hadn't had experience with moderating a popular social media platform or talked to anyone who has. Was that really so shocking?

> it was in fact unconstitutional

Nice of the government to step up to the plate and give those of us who've been on the corporate side of this some guidance, for once. Most of what companies get from Congress and the Court is radio silence on the topic (ironically, I suspect, so the government isn't credibly accused of violating a corporation's First Amendment rights by telling them how they can and cannot moderate). So it's nice for the courts to step up and tell companies that the thing the executive said they had to do, no, they don't have to do; that'll be helpful moving forward.

[whatwhaaaaat]

Yeah well the court told the Biden admin they specifically cannot do exactly what you are saying would be “nice”.

Missouri v biden

[shadowgovt]

Yes, I saw. It's nice for the Courts to finally give some guidance to corporations on when they should and should not follow the signal from the Executive; without it, they're pretty much on their own to guess at the Constitutionality of requests or demands.

[Caligatio]

> the most recent decision that it was in fact unconstitutional.

This is not really what the decision states. The government can request all it wants but it cannot partake in "threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech".

I'm personally OK with the government requesting things to be moderated; I'm not OK with the aforementioned methods if the request isn't backed by law.