Sure, but the point is that Twitter would be justified in proactively removing said content before a legal order to that effect got served.
More broadly, Twitter is not obligated to keep tweets up from anyone to anyone. It would be rather silly if, for example, all tweets from north america got deleted and people got up in arms accusing it of "censorship" (in a hypothetical scenario where unbeknownst to them, there was a catastrophic infrastructure failure).
Twitter already does take down legitimate free speech content. Their terms of service are far more restrictive than the US Constitution. And sometimes Twitter management takes down content or bans users on a purely arbitrary basis just because they don't like it (or they think their major advertising customers won't like it).
There's nothing special about Twitter or any other Internet site. If someone libels you then you have recourse through the civil courts. And if you file pro se then it's very cheap.
It's an interesting argument, but in practical terms, who cares if the government can't censor your tweets when Twitter itself -- an arbitrary, non-transparent entity, with zero representation for users -- can censor your tweets?
It could be a nice first-step to more fair social media, though.
(People are arguing that twitter is not a public forum, it's just a private service, &c. Sure, maybe in origin, but practically speaking, twitter is probably the most important public forum there is right now. Being barred from twitter is a huge loss of ability to participate in civic life.)
It's not the government doing the censorship if the private site can choose to refuse. In this case both were in cahoots, but that was (is?) Twitter's prerogative.
You seem to have a profoundly distorted view of the law. The 1A places zero restrictions on what Twitter can do, only on what the government can do.
If the government intimidates Twitter into censoring content, the government has violated the first amendment and can be taken to court for that. Twitter still has the right to censor how they please, regardless of whether goverent intimidation played any role in Twitter's motivations.
That was their decision, and it's absolutely different than the government demanding that content is removed. The First Amendment applies to the government demands and not Twitter operating as a private entity.
This isn't that complicated. Twitter can just take down content in response to court orders, unless their review team decides to fight it on whatever grounds.
This is not only simpler for Twitter to implement, but provides a better level of due process and accountability. How many times has someone been 'abused' on social media and claimed XYZ company did nothing about it?
Ironically, the 1st Amendment protects Twitter's ability to block anything that it likes.
Fundamentally, the government can't dictate what anybody chooses to publish (or not) on a website that they own. They can seize it and prosecute the owners if the content is illegal, but they can't force editorial decisions.
This whole arrangement drove a lot of traffic to Twitter and helped to keep it relevant; they just didn't want to kill their golden goose.
Simple answer to this entire issue: If it’s not illegal, don’t censor or moderate it in any way.
Social media companies like Twitter realize that this is the most reasonable approach, but it effectively removes their ability to manipulate... so of course they continue to censor and moderate in a biased fashion.
No, Twitter is within its right to remove stuff that goes against its policy. e.g. no one in their right mind would argue to keep a tweet up if it was a picture of child pornography.
I just want to explain how a non issue this is here.
Twitter took this as an example to justify their new censoring features, that annoyed me a little. There is a difference between censoring and enforcement trough court. For the second one you just need a system for takedown requests.
The government working with Twitter to create broad misinformation policies and then issuing requests for takedowns under those policies once adopted is a great way for the government to violate the first amendment with plausible deniability. I guess we’ll see what the courts think.
Right so it would seem Twitter is a publisher. I'm fine with that. Who wouldn't be? But whether it is or not it has the right to take down content. And I think it should do so if it thinks such content is misleading the public.
1) In this day and age shutting down Twitter wholesale is simply a silly and undemocratic move. Information can not be blocked and will find its way around anyway. Like many people I am against it.
2) There is a blatant violation of personal rights of people by fabricated phone-tapes. You take it to the court and court decides that these are illegal, and ask the service provider (in this case Twitter) to take down those specific twits. They don't comply. What do you do?
Say there's a link for a fabricated phone conversation of Obama betraying the country disseminated using Twitter. The administration take it to the court and win the legal battle. Could Twitter afford not to comply? Can this happen?
This is the gist of the problem people are having over there.
Whether or not you care about Twitter content removal is subjective, but the answer of whether you should care more if Twitter or the government removed the content is pretty clear: you should care more about the government every time. Latching onto "should we care" is kind of pedantic and misses the point.
The most Twitter can do is tell you to find somewhere else to publish your speech. The most the French / German / Chinese government can do is destroy your entire life and the lives of everyone who publishes or consumes your speech.
So when a government leader starts talking about suppressing critical speech, that's a lot more worrisome than Twitter deleting tweets. The abuse of power is hardly comparable. You might even say that in comparison, it's a bullshit triviality.
Literally not true. They can simply decline and if the Govt wants to come after them they can sue each other and in cases where it’s legal content then Twitter will win. This is extremely well established and not even remotely weird or some dark unexplored corner of Constitutional law.
Disagree with the established precedent if you want, but if you do, I’d recommend picking a different battleground than whatever this Twitter Files fiasco is. This stuff isn’t even on the questionable end of the spectrum.
Are you claiming that Twitter is an "Internet Provider"?
> Thomas' argument is essentially repeating what all Internet providers have been saying for my lifetime: "Don't shoot the messenger, we're just the tubes. We don't exercise discretion over the content." The courts looked favorably on that argument for practical reasons. Back then though, providers were typically trying to avoid censoring, due to the fact they were hosting objectionable, possibly illegal content. These same providers are now arguing that the unbearable costs of censorship that they can not possibly withstand for illegal content... well, they in fact can manage to bear for voluntarily censoring legal content. And that particular legal, political content in this case is actually mandated with equal access provisions under election law by all other mediums.
I think you're missing some subtlety here. Websites are arguing that they should never be liable for third party content, they should not be required to censor it, and liable if they fail. The argument here being that doing so is very difficult, and they're going to screw up, so this opens them to liability.
The argument on the other side is exactly the same: if we choose to remove some stuff, we shouldn't be liable for the things we fail to remove, because ultimately it is impossible for our systems to perfectly address all content.
So the argument is exactly the same: whether or not we choose to remove some content, we cannot be held liable for all content, because doing so will make it impossible to operate.
> And that particular legal, political content in this case is actually mandated with equal access provisions under election law by all other mediums.
Are you suggesting that the NY post article was "legal, political, content"? As it stands, the rules about political advertising are about political advertising by registered political entities, not "content deemed to be political by a judge".
If Twitter decides to manipulate/cancel/promote content in an unethical way it can be taken to the court.
If the government makes unreasonable take down requests, Twitter can take it to court.
That way the pros and cons of censorship by either party is transparent and available for public scrutiny.
reply