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travisoneill1 | 5 years ago

1. Democratic party threatens tech industry with heavy regulation because they don't censor to the degree that the Democrats want.

2. Democratic party takes over control of the government.

3. Major companies in the tech industry work together to boot a competitor, and political opponent of the Democratic party off the internet.

At what point is this a legit first amendment issue? The government can't just pressure private companies to do things the government can't do and then hide behind the fact that they are private entities, right?

discuss

order

8note|5 years ago

On a similar vein, the president breaks all the policies of a web service, and the company that runs it does not kick him off due to fear of retribution by the government.

It seems like Twitter's free speech has been limited for the past 4 years, and they've only been able enforce their policies once trump stopped having power

travisoneill1|5 years ago

I would agree that such a situation would be a problem, but I don't agree that it applies. Trump violated Twitter's TOS plenty before he was president, and Twitter didn't ban him then, so I don't think they were doing this in fear of retribution.

joshuamorton|5 years ago

An alternative framing:

1. Republican party threatens teach industry with heavy regulation if they censor to the degree that the tech industry wishes to.

2. Republican party looses power.

3. Major companies in the tech industry do what they wanted to do the whole time.

At what point is (1) a first amendment issue? The government shouldn't pressure private companies to do things that violate those groups first amendment rights.

travisoneill1|5 years ago

This would be an issue, but I dispute point 1 because the leaders of the tech industry would very much like to wash their hands of politics and be seen as neutral platforms so they can save money on moderation. Most of these same platforms pretty much had an anything goes unless it's illegal attitude from the time they were started until a few years ago when they started getting a lot of political blowback and blame for "helping Trump" by not moderating more.

bonestamp2|5 years ago

Wasn't Parler booted by Amazon before Step 2?