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by ryandrake
969 days ago
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At the extreme end of the spectrum, if every hour I repeatedly posted to Barack Obama's twitter: "NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R NI---R" over and over, would that be speech or misbehavior? At some point, online conduct crosses the line from criticism (speech) to disruption/DOS (behavior). |
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Then it's up to the social media company to decide what to do about it. Twitter has a First Amendment of association. Twitter can ban the comments, or leave them up, or do anything in between. If Barack Obama were currently a government official, Obama would have latitude to ask Twitter to restrict N-word comments on his posts, but the First Amendment would prohibit him from coercing Twitter to restrict N-word comments, and would also prohibit him from blocking the commenters.
Note: Twitter has a First Amendment right to ban speech, not only conduct. "Has a right" doesn't mean "should", but in the first place the featured article is about a legal issue, not an ethical issue.