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kearsargeII t1_iua3bvm wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in On the day Elon takes over, Twitter bans NH’s Jeremy Kauffman. by Final_Act6703

Companies by definition cannot violate someone’s first amendment rights, as there is no requirement for companies to be forced to support speech they do not like. It is the equivalent of kicking someone off your property if they are causing a scene, as they have full right to do whatever they want with their property.

The only entity that the first amendment applies to is the government. In literally any other case, there is no expectation that someone is required to give you a platform on their property, and no expectation that people are required to listen to it.

If Kaufman tries to sue, it would be thrown out as frivolous more or less immediately, particularly when twitter shows in its TOS that they can remove anyone for any reason. Same for Reddit. Reddit is not the government. They have full rights over who is and isn’t allowed to use their property. If you want to say things that Reddit does not want, make your own platform.

For that matter what actually might be a violation of first amendment rights would be the government cracking down on people who report things on Twitter, which would be a violation of their first amendment rights. The very idea of being able to sue an individual who “violated first amendment rights” by reporting someone on Twitter is batshit insane, as the idea that someone could violate first amendment rights by exercising their own is assbackwards.

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[deleted] t1_iuanpa7 wrote

[removed]

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kearsargeII t1_iuaw0cv wrote

It is beyond clear to me that you don’t have the slightest idea of what you are talking about.

Anti discrimination laws only apply to protected classes, like on the basis of race, age over 40, or sex. A company can legally discriminate against someone on the basis of political belief or just straight up thinking they are dumb. The whole cake case was because they were refused because they were homosexual when sexuality is a protected class. Saying stupid shit is not one, and companies are free to associate how they wish with those people. To make those laws relevant, Kauffman would have to prove in court that his twitter ban was because he was white or straight or something along those lines, not because of things that he expressed on the site, and good luck with that.

Again, the first amendment only applies to the government. A private entity is free to choose which speech can appear. A public venue that is privately owned can choose who goes there as much as they want, provided it isn’t in the count of protected class. Theaters are not forced to have some random drunk dude come up on stage, concert halls can decide who they want to have preform. Newspapers can refuse to publish an opinion article. A public message board on private land can remove whatever messages they wish.

Section 230 just removes the publisher from liability on what is published, it does not magically make it so anyone can post what they want. It extends zero rights for people using the service, and it’s existence says nothing about what social media even is. For that matter, if section 230 was in fact repealed, social media sites would have to take a hard line in removing content as to not remove something that leads to criminal acts would open them up to liability, and erring on the site of extreme caution would be the only way to remain solvent.

And Lm fucking AO at that last sentence. Even assuming for a moment that there was a government owned social media site, complaining about someone’s post to admins would fall under free speech. At very best there might be a libel case there if the evidence was totally fabricated, but if it is a matter of opinion there is absolutely fucking zero standing for Kauffman to have a rights violation case against someone for saying something should be done about their posts. To even rule on this, provided there was no outwardly false info, would be a violation of the reporters first amendment rights. This opinion is so fucking stupid I reported your post to make a point. I hope to see from you soon when you get hit with a SLAPP judgement for trying to sue me for this.

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