[mypastself]

Can’t find the claim about the statement not being political anywhere in the linked article. But there’s this:

> Meta’s CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on online platforms

Sounds like he wasn’t the initiator of the discussion, but I may be misreading the paragraph.

[JumpCrisscross]

And it’s in the news because it’s being made newsworthy, not because it’s new.

“A U.S. federal judge,” in 2023 “restricted some agencies and officials of the administration of President Joe Biden from meeting and communicating with social media companies to moderate their content” [1].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/judge-blocks-us-officials-comm...

[jasonlotito]

More to the point: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/06/scotus-tosses-cl...

"On Wednesday, the Supreme Court tossed out claims that the Biden administration coerced social media platforms into censoring users by removing COVID-19 and election-related content."

[_gabe_]

Further in that article:

> “For months, high-ranking Government officials placed unrelenting pressure on Facebook to suppress Americans’ free speech," Alito wrote. "Because the Court unjustifiably refuses to address this serious threat to the First Amendment, I respectfully dissent."

It seems like the court had agreement that government coercion did happen. They threw the case out because they couldn’t draw a direct correlation to harm to the specific people that brought the allegations up.

[Althuns]

Unfortunately, Alito has objectively proven himself to be a liar at best. His statements are the farthest of any justice from representing an agreement of the court.

The only "pressure" that was put on FB, was the same put on Twitter, which was that reports and requests from Administration employees has some higher gravity than other reports. The "investigation" here, and Zuckerberg's responce are not evidence of wrongdoing, only political maneuvering.

[jasonlotito]

No one was forced to do anything.

Full stop.

[laidoffamazon]

It's genuinely weird that they keep talking about pressure as if there was an actual means of exerting pressure rather than literally providing feedback - this administration doesn't go after it's enemies in the private sector unlike the last one (JEDI contract comes to mind)

[laidoffamazon]

Very funny that the initial case got lots of press on HN and got people like patio11 in a tizzy but when it was tossed out by SCOTUS there was nary a peep.

[Palmik]

The headlines on the ruling can be misleading:

> Plaintiffs may have succeeded if they were instead seeking damages for past harms. But in her opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that partly because the Biden administration seemingly stopped influencing platforms' content policies in 2022, none of the plaintiffs could show evidence of a "substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable" to any government official. Thus, they did not seem to face "a real and immediate threat of repeated injury," Barrett wrote.

[laidoffamazon]

Whatever it takes to spin a 6-3 decision man. It was clear from the start that this supposed government “pressure” doesn’t and never did exist.

[stcroixx]

Are you saying Zuck is lying and the government did not do what he's saying they did? In Twitter's case, there are emails from Adam Schiff - do you think that evidence is fraudulent?

[jasonlotito]

Your feelings don’t matter.