[rufusroflpunch]

Joe Biden was a lifelong U.S. Senator, Vice President and a Presidential candidate. They were providing lists of people to silence, just weeks before he was elected as President. And you're arguing that because he was TECHNICALLY a private citizen at the time while the highest levels of Twitter was working at his campaign's behest to make sure he got elected President, that is somehow NOT a first amendment violation?

I would not be surprised to find out sometime that there are judges who might disagree with you on that point.

[shagie]

Could you describe what authority Joe Biden (or team Biden) had within the federal government in October 2020?

I'm not going to claim that it isn't an issue that VIPs have excessive influence on social media companies and there operations. People with lots of followers have certainly been able to pull strings to craft the message at twitter in the past. Joe Biden and his campaign team c. Oct 2020 are certainly to be counted in that number. Things like banning certain accounts ( https://www.wired.co.uk/article/elon-musk-parody-twitter-acc... ) or getting your account unblocked ( https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-45953747 ).

I am going to ask specifically how this is a first amendment issue when none of the people involved had any role within the government at the time this took place.

[sseagull]

> he was TECHNICALLY a private citizen

The 1st amendment prohibits the government from interfering with speech. You just admitted he was not part of the government. Therefore it’s not a 1st amendment violation.

It may be morally wrong, or violating “free speech”, but I don’t see a 1st amendment violation.

[anoonmoose]

Dunno why you're being downvoted here. "The Law" under "The US Constitution" is not a "technicality" here- it is the guiding document dictating how this conversation should be directed. Biden's role as a private citizen in 2020 is clear, in that light.

[djur]

Either Biden was already effectively able to employ government power against Twitter or Twitter had the ability to affect whether he got elected, but arguing both makes no sense.

[crummy]

> They were providing lists of people to silence

Can you clarify what you mean by this? Are you talking about the tweets with nudity they emailed about?

[ttyprintk]

Perhaps accounts apparently created only to disseminate the leak are what poster means by “people”. We’re left to speculate whether bots count as people and would be covered by the poster’s 1A.

[Taniwha]

but he was none of those things in 2019/20 when he was running for president