And that’s where my question about when/whether 1A starts applying to private businesses comes into play. If I start a new social media site AllTruth and ask if 1A should apply to it, we might argue well, it’s really small, really inconsequential - 1A probably isn’t a concern. Once AllTruth gets “sufficiently large” then you might say well, now it’s kind of big - we gotta start applying 1A because it’s in the public interest.
What’s “sufficiently large” though? Is it based on users? Number of posts? What if I only have 250 users but it’s 250 people considered to be pretty influential in the political sphere? What if my mission statement for AllTruth is to provide only irrefutably true, accurate information and that demonstrably false, inaccurate or misleading information will never be permitted? Does having 100M users and getting lots of attention suddenly override AllTruth’s mission statement and its actions to further it because your desire to push the truth and stamp out lies is infringing on people’s 1st Amendment rights to lie through their teeth?
On Amazon, Google and Apple getting together and saying we don’t want that shit on our platforms, GTFOH - if you could prove that their actions were taken purely to further anti-competitive behavior, you could go after them for antitrust violations. (Which, if recent history is any indication, they’d pay a pittance of a fine and admit no wrongdoing and get to start doing immediately without impunity … but that’s a discussion for a different topic.) But, I don’t think one could make that argument. Yes, the barriers to setting up a competitor are extremely high. Yes, it would be incredibly difficult to make a competitor to those companies and get it to scale to the point that it could be an effective competitor - but it’s possible to do it. The fact that you can’t get anyone to participate or that you’re too inept to do it yourself isn’t someone else’s problem that they have to do what you want them to.
“what is, Pence lacks the Constitutional authority to overrule state-certified elections and the election wasn’t stolen you’re just a whiny sore loser”
Going to need at least 5 minutes and several people working to catch all his lies. If he talked for longer than 20 minutes even they would fall behind. He never says anything honest.
We already have protection against lies in libel and slander laws. These corporations should start suing individuals. Take them to court for a libel and slander lawsuit and make them pay the legal bills for you and denounce what they said. It wouldn’t take that many to get the point across.
We have the same question for regular anti-monopoly laws. They may use “market share exceeds …” Sometimes laws try to draw bright lines in gray areas. That’s never perfect, but it may be better than the alternative of saying there is no solution because there is no perfect solution.
The fact that you can’t get anyone to participate …
Doesn’t that say it is impossible from a practical perspective?
The bigger problem is facebook. It is all about networking, and networks by their nature tend toward monopoly.
But, although I worry about the size, I also see the problems with many competing players, if each becomes an echo chamber.
A longer delay would be fine. Could have the screen freeze while they catch up.
I expect that 60 seconds is really a pretty long time when the fact-checkers have listened to his other speeches and expect that 95% of the lies in this one are just repeats of lies he has used frequently before. They can have some chyrons pre-written.
I still struggle to see why 1A should apply to private businesses of any kind. The existence of a monopoly position isn’t a problem; anti-competitive behavior for the purpose of establishing or maintaining a monopoly position is. “They’re buying companies that support my platform and withholding services from me to shut down my competing product” is anti-competitive behavior. “They’re stifling my free speech on their site” isn’t.
FB has all kinds of issues. It fosters conflict because it keeps people engaged - which also gets them increasingly pissed off and whipped up into a frenzy, which has contributed to the current situation. (I realized this a while back and pulled the plug accordingly.) It’s quite arguably anti-competitive and should be investigated for it and likely fined to smithereens and shattered into little pieces. I would still not want it to have to apply 1A to its users. That literally opens up FB for a free-for-all even worse than what it already is.
Unless I’m confused, this is a common 1A misconception. You have no 1A protection from what Twitter might do, 1A applies to what the Federal government can limit.
It’s right in the fricken’ amendment fer chrissakes: “Congress shall make no law…”
Not only to Congress, but to whatever departments are created via Congress, and to states, due to Gitlow v NY (1925), which referred to the incorporation clause of the 14th, according to wiki.
The confusion comes in when the federal government has regulations in an industry. So…the FCC has regulations wrt what can go over the airwaves. They can censor the ability to show porn, for instance. You will not win a 1A suit there. Just ask Howard Stern about that.
This is the area where banning Trump will hurt him the most but also make him the most dangerous. I fear he is really an asset rich debt laden individual with no net worth. AKA he is cash poor with very limited liquidity. I doubt anyone is going to loan him money anymore and he is going to potentially have a $170 million tax bill and a lot of legal fees while his businesses will flounder and have been floundering (I am on record that his Covid response is mostly due to the fact that his hotels were struggling). I say all this to say he will look for money wherever he can get it which makes him dangerous to the United States IMO.
Two weeks ago, I would have said finances weren’t that bad. He might have $3 billion in physical assets and $500 million of debt and some big legal bills (and potential settlements) that could be in the $100s of millions. He could probably refinance with that ratio. If not, he could sell a couple things. The big problem was ego because he would probably sell at a loss. And, Trump will find a way to monetize his supporters. He will certainly find a way to extract money from them
If everyone knows he can’t refinance, and he’s got debt coming due, potential buyers gain negotiating position. And, “traditional” revenue will be down because some traditional rich people won’t use his properties.
I guess if your “fear” here is that he will double down (quadruple down?) on his fraud claims to get money from the faithful, I’d have to agree that the financial problem is bigger. I wonder how much money Trump could raise with a subscription internet “news” service.
I agree that 1A does not apply to private businesses. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t “worry” about the power they have over speech.
I can appreciate your comments that some of the power of these mega companies is the result of anti-competitive activity that should be ended by normal anti-trust action. That’s a worthy effort even without the free speech issues.
We have a precedent for the gov’t compelling private companies to support certain speech. The Fairness Doctrine said that broadcasters had to provide a variety of opinions. If I understand correctly, the rationale was that broadcasters, especially TV, used a scare resource - the electromagnetic spectrum. There could be an unlimited number of newspapers in a metro area, but the technology said their could only be a few TV stations. Hence, they had to allow diversity of opinions.
Looking at Facebook, even if we could get rid of any illegal anti-competitive practices, it would still be huge due to the natural monopoly effects of networks. Maybe something like the fairness doctrine argument works here (I don’t know if the FD was ever tested in court. It may be that today’s SC would knock it down.)
But, like I said at the beginning, I have a concern, but I haven’t come up with a “solution” that I like.
There are so many comments out there on Twitter to the effect of “Twitter is banning conservatives”. No one has been banned for being a conservative. People have been banned for inciting insurrection, hate speech, and distributing false information in an attempt to overturn an election.
One basic loop of trump politics:
Trump says or does something horrible.
Liberals are outraged and call him out.
Republicans defend him, and identify with him.
-> Republicans become more horrible.
This is bigger than other stuff, but there will be a similar feedback where republicans feel like they are the ones being repressed and they better hurry up and join the insurrection.
“what is, Pence lacks the Constitutional authority to overrule state-certified elections and the election wasn’t stolen you’re just a whiny sore loser”