The Fifth Circuit has ruled that the Biden administration violated the first amendment of the constitution by pressuring media, notably Twitter and Facebook, to remove content with which the administration disagreed.
“The ruling said the administration “coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences” and “significantly encouraged the platforms’ decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes, both in violation of the First Amendment,” according to the Washington Post. “
That’s interesting, considering the many times I have seen Trump condemned for allegedly acting contrary to the Constitution.
The ruling stems from a Louisiana lawsuit that accuses the Biden administration of threatening platforms like X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook, with antitrust lawsuits or changes to federal law that protect their liability
I didn’t know the first amendment was this broad. These are actions the government is legally allowed to do under normal circumstances, so I don’t understand why it becomes illegal to mention their possibility.
While bad policy, it was my understanding that the Trump administration was within legal bounds to threaten 230 in his public feud with the original Twitter.
What did Biden do differently here that runs afoul of the first amendment?
I’m wondering where all these First Amendment Defenders were when Ron Desantis punished Disney because he didn’t like what the CEO said about his policies…and actually nailed other companies that had nothing to do with Disney in a little bit of collateral damage.
If I take a page out of the cons playbook my reply should be two Bush appointees and a Trump appointee. They are playing politics nothing to see here. But my gosh what a surprise I dont play those stupid games.
Now we have to see how and if the WH responds. Not read the ruling in detail but I will agree no government should cooerce social media to remove content they find questionable. However I see nothing wrong with social media companies removing content they find objectionable.
The entirety of Desantis actions were political and were in furtherance of him staking out a claim for being culture war general.
That’s the only reason why he did it. Everything about what disney has been doing this blah blah is post fact rationalization.
That being said what the Biden admin did is worse. Stifling the speech of a corporation is nowhere near the issue of stifling speech of private individuals opposing policy.
Wasn’t one of the charges against Trump for conspiring against Constitutional rights? If the Biden administration has been conspiring against constitutional rights, under the same basis shouldn’t we be talking impeachment and prosecution for everyone involved?
Check out count 4 of the Jan 6 indictment.
