Question:
Does a print newspaper have the final say in what they publish in their paper? Do they have to publish anything you send to them because they use public roads to deliver the paper?
But they do.
Newspapers and books use no public resources, but by your argument the Government can regulate their free speech?
Can cCongress pass a law that gives the President a right to require that newspapers publish his rebuttal to what he considers to be fake news on a matter of public interest?
Governments don’t have rights; people do.
They are not posting on the street. They are posting on your front door. It’s just that people from the street can see those messages on your front door.
Twitter the business is your house and property.
Twitter.com, what we all see, is your front door.
The street is the public resource everyone else uses to see what is on your front door, that you let people put messages there.
Can the government force you to let anyone put any message they want on your front door by coming onto your property and putting it there on your front door?
This is a warning for threats against another poster.
I understand the most likely interpretation of this is that it is only a rhetorical device and not a bona fide threat. It matters not. Threats against other posters are taken very seriously, and are potential Insta ban offenses. It doesn’t happen often and you’re relatively new here so yoy may not have seen it occur.
Do not do this again.
From the FAQ:
Let me be clear: You do not enjoy 1st amendment protection here. We can exclude posters at our whim. We choose to publish rules and guidelines to foster any environment conducive to discussion. Threats destroy that environment. No threats of any kind are allowed. No joking about threats. No pretend threats. No threats for any reason whatsoever.
[/moderating]
Not in the way you are suggesting they regulate Twitter, and not for any of the same reasons.
Whenever the topic is a court case, I always want to read the actual court language. In this case I can’t find it - maybe it’s not published yet. Here is the text of the complaint. This is a district court ruling on a motion to dismiss - my understanding is that typically these are viewed as favorably as possible for the plaintiffs.
It seems the grounds on which the judge is allowing the lawsuit to continue is narrow:
The continuing basis for the lawsuit is the CA Unfair Competition Law. This seems pretty weak, but at this stage of the lawsuit the standards are quite low to allow it to proceed. This isn’t about public resources being used, airwaves, etc. It’s not even about free speech per se, it appears. Seems like early stages to me.
I figured that writing hypothetically: in front was sufficient, and I see that it’s not. Sorry for the offensive post.
This is one of those “why do I bother engaging the guy making terrible arguments” moments, but I can’t help myself.
Tripolar, lets say my local CBS affiliate decides to boost its lackluster ratings by replacing saturday morning cartoons with three hours of hardcore porn and videos of people shouting obscenities.
Because this content is broadcast on public airwaves, are the government and the Columbia Boradcasting Corporation both prohibited, under the First Amendment, from preventing that programming from being played?
And if the affiliate did play the porn, and the FCC pulled the stations broadcast license; or when the FCC fined that network over Janet Jackson’s boob at the Super Bowl, those too were unconstitutional penalties?
You know that they aren’t, and it is because of my argument. Government regulation of businesses using public resources is not just to allow anybody to use those public resources for any reason, it is also to allow restrictions based on public interest. The plaintiff in this case is being censored by twitter not because of content though, but according to the article for being associated with content that might reasonably be restricted. Again, not based on content, but simply his association with such content.
Do you think that the FCC should pull CBS’s broadcast license for airing an interview with a pornographer that contains no pornographic content?
What is at issue here is the concept of a “public forum.” It is well-settled that free speech rights apply to public forums in government-owned spaces, such as public parks.
There is also a line of cases that public forums can exist in privately-owned spaces, such as when an entire town is privately owned by a company. The company can’t suppress free speech in the public forums of the town based on its ownership claims.
To some extent, privately owned shopping malls can also become public forums. There have been cases that upheld the rights of people to hand out leaflets in the forum-like areas of a mall. More importantly, there is some precedent that suggests that even if a private space is not a public forum under federal law, it can become a public forum under an individual state’s law.
At the heart of the issue is what happens when the economy or technology or ownership patterns change so that what was originally considered the public forum for the purposes of free speech become obsolete or unavailable? Individuals must have a place to exercise their free speech where they will be heard by other people.
Twitter might or might not be such a forum. However, it makes perfect sense for a judge to say that the question is too complicated to be answered on a motion to dismiss and that further evidential proceedings are required to see whether there is a plausible argument here.
Given the way our society has changed in just a few years, it makes perfect sense to tread very carefully regarding the question of whether privately owned online spaces have complete freedom to silence individuals, especially as the internet becomes more and more dominated by a handful of private actors.
One step at a time.
The government and companies are allowed, in your opinion, to censor content even on public airwaves, yes?
That’s different than what you said here:
I’d be curious to learn which of the commentators above have read the hearing transcript?
It seems almost impossible to imagine that people here would offer up efforts at in-depth analysis without having taken this elementary step first, so naturally I am loathe to accept such a conclusion. Still, the lack of accurate characterization as to some of these key points makes me suspect that perhaps some commentators were in a hurry and merely skimmed the transcript.
Yeah. That’s it.
So this was a hearing on various motions to dismiss. It was not any kind of a trial on the merits of the litigation.
Twitter offered several reasons they believed the suit should, at this early stage, be dismissed. One such reason was: this case, they said, amounted to a SLAPP suit. A SLAPP suit is a term referring to the practice of filing a lawsuit against someone not so much to win, but to impose legal costs and time constraints on an opponent to prevent them from participating in public discourse; the idea is to sue a meddlesome protester, for example, with the understanding that this expensive and time-consuming lawsuit will go away if you only shut the hell up.
Now, California – the jurisdiction in which this action takes place – has a very strong anti-SLAPP procedure. Under California law, the defendant in a lawsuit, right at the outset of the suit, before he’s incurred much in the way of legal fees and before he’s had to participate in discovery, can move to strike the suit – but only if the suit is grounded in conduct that falls within the First Amendment rights of petition or free speech.
However, the plaintiff can block that attack, so to speak, and keep the lawsuit alive, if the following three conditions are true:
It’s in this context, then, that the “public interest,” commentary arose. It does not reach any final conclusion about the plaintiff’s right to say what he pleases on Twitter. It says that, within the meaning of California’s Code of Civil Procedure § 425.17, the action, if successful, would enforce an important right affecting the public interest. OK?
Second main point to remember: at this stage, generally, the court must take as true every fact the plaintiff alleges to be true. There hasn’t been any finding of fact yet. The demurrer filed by Twitter says, in effect, “Even if every single fact you claim to be is true – and it’s not; we don’t concede that anything you said is true, but just for this argument’s sake, let’s pretend it’s all true – even then, you have no way to win this lawsuit.”
But that’s not the case: the judge found that Taylor had made allegations that, if true, might constitute a set of facts where he could maybe possibly win some kind of relief. For example, Taylor alleged that Twitter advertises itself as free and open communication, and he reasonably relied on that representation, so Twitter cannot now block him just because they don’t like him. You may say, “Well, Twitter doesn’t really advertise that,” but that’s not for you (or the judge) to say at this stage of proceedings. At this stage of the lawsuit, we must accept as true Taylor’s factual allegations.
All of this is made at least somewhat clear by reading the transcript.
So I’ll ask again: which commentators here read it?
Post #48 
Now, I hope you’ll excuse me while I go argue about the possibility of having three-dimensional self-correcting quantum memory, which I know very little about but of course that should not in any way hinder me.
At least, that’s what I infer.
Consider yourself outside the community at which I leveled my critique. 
It’s spelled “banned” “B-A-N-N-E-D”.
How much of a technical barrier exists to create a service that does the same thing (or virtually the same thing) as Twitter? Can’t Taylor set up his own instant-messaging service and invite subscribers and use it to express any opinions or rants or alternate facts he likes?
That’s good; it makes it easier to identify the nonsensicality of it.
Hokay. Exactly how many square feet does the front of your house have to be before I’m allowed to spray-paint a swastika on it if I feel like doing that?