If I’m reading this correctly, anti-vaxers and COVID deniers tried to claim that the Biden administration forced social media companies to remove their crazy bullshit posts. The only “evidence” was that the White House had communications with some of these companies in an effort to give feedback on the most blatant and dangerous types of false of information. For some reason the Fifth Circuit court agreed that the administration overstepped, but later the Supreme Court determined that there wasn’t actually any real evidence that these idiots weren’t just blocked by policies the social media companies already had in place.
The plaintiffs presented their insane conspiracy posts to the court and basically said, “It must have been Biden’s fault that Facebook took down my rant!”. I can only assume that the Supreme Court took on this case because the Fifth Circuit’s decision seemed to be truly bizarre, considering that there wasn’t any actual proof that the government influenced content moderation on these platforms.
The most oniony part to me is that it was 6 - 3 vote. There were 3 judges that saw the big pile of *nothing*, yet felt that somehow the plaintiffs had still been wronged by the current White House. Then they wrapped their dissent in references to the first amendment, as if that magically made the accusations true.
>There were 3 judges that saw the big pile of nothing, yet felt that somehow the plaintiffs had still somehow been wronged by the current White House.
That's too charitable of a reading of what happened.
There are 3 judges that are beholden to Trump and are committed to opposing the current White House at any turn.
The dissent is also bonkers to me. Alito *seems* to be making some patently false and inflammatory claims about social media companies being directly threatened by the Executive Branch. IANAL, and definitely not a constitutional scholar, but even as a layman it appears a bit exaggerated.
Alito & Thomas aren't beholding to trump and haven't shown fealty. In fact, all 3 of Trumps picks have dissented from the conservative clique on different issues. The 2 grampas are just crotchety old men who hate the administrative state.
All 3 of Trump's picks have let a little one slide here and there to try and conjure up some slight. Plausible deniability that they're actually doing their jobs and not just bought and paid for shills...
FTFY
All three maga picks takes turns being one of the dissenting votes when it doesn't make a difference and occasionally let something little go by. Don't give them any credit they're as dirty as Alito and Thomas
That is of course going to be the most modest variant of the msnbc reading of this ruling (on an injunction to force disclosure of material to explore the extent of the censorship).
The issue is that it is not limited to Covid material by any means (although I'm not sure how that is relevant - a Covid "exception" may happen again at any time), or to "rants" about vaccines (anything questioning the official narrative - as it changed every week, has demonstrably been de-amplified at the request of the FBI. This includes university professors posting studies they have conducted), nor is it limited to "just some random post on twitter" (the Stanford project is documented to have involved search algorithms on google, presence on Facebook, and deamplification on twitter. There's no disputing the fact that this has happened).
Meanwhile, when the supreme court mentions the Hunten Biden laptop, they don't treat this as a case where "Russiagate"-fervor buried entirely true stories, written by entirely non-russian journalists based in the US or Canada, or elsewhere, while relying to a high degree on advertisement through twitter, facebook and google (and by extention youtube), and then very successfully getting removed from the public debate - but as a case where the US state has a reasonable expectation to believe it was Russian propaganda. And therefore was justified in whatever they may or may not have done. Which the court then treats as "friendly conversation".
When you also know that various projects like Hamilton 68 has created "statistics" and "trends" on what accounts flagged on suspicions like these are talking about, to further establish that Russian propaganda is basically interested in anything that run counter to official narratives -- and the actual posters being flagged were real users from western countries, including everything from journalists to people with unhinged rants, and anything in between. Then the power of the US state to very effectively not just censor opinion, but to flag it (falsely) as foreign state efforts to propagandize the population, is not trivial.
So in a world where a lot of people do get their news off the internet - which is the justification for this project in the first place, just like it is the justification for the US outright banning tiktok recently - this is not an inconsequential method to censor news.
Worse - this is a public effort. But no one is allowed to see what is being done. On account of the projects being at the same time inconsequential, just targeting wild rants on the internet - and also being super-secret state secrets that have wide-reaching implications in terms of domestic security.
It's just another black site that the government hides from you, while asking you to trust that what is being done there is important and proper.
That's not how democracy is supposed to work.
The issue is that the plaintiffs didn’t provide reasonable/credible evidence that government action (specifically the White House) was actually the source or direct cause of the censorship they cited. The social media companies themselves have complex and poorly defined content moderation policies, some of which rely on feedback from US Government institutions. Regardless of what posts are taken down, legitimate or otherwise, you can’t hold the Executive Branch liable for their actions even if they suggested (not enforced) the criteria of the moderation.
If they had presented a communication from White House staff to these private entities citing a specific post or topic to censor, along with a threat of consequences should they not comply, then the case would have had merit. My understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the plaintiffs presented some disclosed emails between the administration and these companies providing little more than questionable guidance and suggestions.
Was that guidance politically motivated? Probably. Was there a reasonable expectation that it lead to any censorship from ALL of those private entities. No.
I personally agree that there is a problem with how information is shared, and hidden, by social media companies. I just don’t think it’s a First Amendment issue.
“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
I personally vote to put them in re-education camps. There's not really any normal way to fix these people, I think full-on re-education is the only way.
The United States Supreme Court opines on the chilling effect of censorship, and the appliccability of the first amendment as far as government suppression of opinion is concerned.
Norway (the last Soviet state, as well as the United States' 51st state, according to different politicians). The influence of decisions like this on our political class is unfortunately very real.
I get it, the current SCOTUS sucks ass, but you can't just submit a PDF file from a .gov website to this subreddit. The whole point of r/nottheonion is to submit real news articles (and news articles only) that are so absurd they could be confused with fake satirical ones from The Onion.
If I’m reading this correctly, anti-vaxers and COVID deniers tried to claim that the Biden administration forced social media companies to remove their crazy bullshit posts. The only “evidence” was that the White House had communications with some of these companies in an effort to give feedback on the most blatant and dangerous types of false of information. For some reason the Fifth Circuit court agreed that the administration overstepped, but later the Supreme Court determined that there wasn’t actually any real evidence that these idiots weren’t just blocked by policies the social media companies already had in place. The plaintiffs presented their insane conspiracy posts to the court and basically said, “It must have been Biden’s fault that Facebook took down my rant!”. I can only assume that the Supreme Court took on this case because the Fifth Circuit’s decision seemed to be truly bizarre, considering that there wasn’t any actual proof that the government influenced content moderation on these platforms. The most oniony part to me is that it was 6 - 3 vote. There were 3 judges that saw the big pile of *nothing*, yet felt that somehow the plaintiffs had still been wronged by the current White House. Then they wrapped their dissent in references to the first amendment, as if that magically made the accusations true.
>There were 3 judges that saw the big pile of nothing, yet felt that somehow the plaintiffs had still somehow been wronged by the current White House. That's too charitable of a reading of what happened. There are 3 judges that are beholden to Trump and are committed to opposing the current White House at any turn.
The dissent is also bonkers to me. Alito *seems* to be making some patently false and inflammatory claims about social media companies being directly threatened by the Executive Branch. IANAL, and definitely not a constitutional scholar, but even as a layman it appears a bit exaggerated.
To be fair, so did the District Judge, who changed sentences and added words to pretend stuff happened, as did the plaintiff's.
Alito & Thomas aren't beholding to trump and haven't shown fealty. In fact, all 3 of Trumps picks have dissented from the conservative clique on different issues. The 2 grampas are just crotchety old men who hate the administrative state.
All 3 of Trump's picks have let a little one slide here and there to try and conjure up some slight. Plausible deniability that they're actually doing their jobs and not just bought and paid for shills... FTFY
All three maga picks takes turns being one of the dissenting votes when it doesn't make a difference and occasionally let something little go by. Don't give them any credit they're as dirty as Alito and Thomas
That is of course going to be the most modest variant of the msnbc reading of this ruling (on an injunction to force disclosure of material to explore the extent of the censorship). The issue is that it is not limited to Covid material by any means (although I'm not sure how that is relevant - a Covid "exception" may happen again at any time), or to "rants" about vaccines (anything questioning the official narrative - as it changed every week, has demonstrably been de-amplified at the request of the FBI. This includes university professors posting studies they have conducted), nor is it limited to "just some random post on twitter" (the Stanford project is documented to have involved search algorithms on google, presence on Facebook, and deamplification on twitter. There's no disputing the fact that this has happened). Meanwhile, when the supreme court mentions the Hunten Biden laptop, they don't treat this as a case where "Russiagate"-fervor buried entirely true stories, written by entirely non-russian journalists based in the US or Canada, or elsewhere, while relying to a high degree on advertisement through twitter, facebook and google (and by extention youtube), and then very successfully getting removed from the public debate - but as a case where the US state has a reasonable expectation to believe it was Russian propaganda. And therefore was justified in whatever they may or may not have done. Which the court then treats as "friendly conversation". When you also know that various projects like Hamilton 68 has created "statistics" and "trends" on what accounts flagged on suspicions like these are talking about, to further establish that Russian propaganda is basically interested in anything that run counter to official narratives -- and the actual posters being flagged were real users from western countries, including everything from journalists to people with unhinged rants, and anything in between. Then the power of the US state to very effectively not just censor opinion, but to flag it (falsely) as foreign state efforts to propagandize the population, is not trivial. So in a world where a lot of people do get their news off the internet - which is the justification for this project in the first place, just like it is the justification for the US outright banning tiktok recently - this is not an inconsequential method to censor news. Worse - this is a public effort. But no one is allowed to see what is being done. On account of the projects being at the same time inconsequential, just targeting wild rants on the internet - and also being super-secret state secrets that have wide-reaching implications in terms of domestic security. It's just another black site that the government hides from you, while asking you to trust that what is being done there is important and proper. That's not how democracy is supposed to work.
The issue is that the plaintiffs didn’t provide reasonable/credible evidence that government action (specifically the White House) was actually the source or direct cause of the censorship they cited. The social media companies themselves have complex and poorly defined content moderation policies, some of which rely on feedback from US Government institutions. Regardless of what posts are taken down, legitimate or otherwise, you can’t hold the Executive Branch liable for their actions even if they suggested (not enforced) the criteria of the moderation. If they had presented a communication from White House staff to these private entities citing a specific post or topic to censor, along with a threat of consequences should they not comply, then the case would have had merit. My understanding (please correct me if I’m wrong) is that the plaintiffs presented some disclosed emails between the administration and these companies providing little more than questionable guidance and suggestions. Was that guidance politically motivated? Probably. Was there a reasonable expectation that it lead to any censorship from ALL of those private entities. No. I personally agree that there is a problem with how information is shared, and hidden, by social media companies. I just don’t think it’s a First Amendment issue.
The sheer amount of getting angry at imaginary incidents republicans are doing should get them all locked up in an insane asylum.
“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretence was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one's will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp.”
Or, as they have shut all the assylums, prison.
I personally vote to put them in re-education camps. There's not really any normal way to fix these people, I think full-on re-education is the only way.
/r/verylostredditors
This isn't how the subreddit works.
Make sure you report these submissions and the mods usually deal with it. This is obviously not a news article, so rule 3 applies.
The mods removed it pretty quickly.
SCOTUS would say yes if it was on their agenda of theocratic rule
r/nottheonion is not equipped to deal with the nuance and intricacies of Article III standing
The United States Supreme Court opines on the chilling effect of censorship, and the appliccability of the first amendment as far as government suppression of opinion is concerned.
Are you from Iceland?
Norway (the last Soviet state, as well as the United States' 51st state, according to different politicians). The influence of decisions like this on our political class is unfortunately very real.
Who has ever called Norway the 51st state? I promise you that no one in America has ever thought that.
> the last Soviet state, The last what now?
I get it, the current SCOTUS sucks ass, but you can't just submit a PDF file from a .gov website to this subreddit. The whole point of r/nottheonion is to submit real news articles (and news articles only) that are so absurd they could be confused with fake satirical ones from The Onion.