The 2020 General Election Thread

[jamil]

Eh, not so much. The invisible hand is constrained by government regulation, including Section 230 protections.

I would also propose another analogy: Big Tech monopolization of social media is analogous to a wealthy land owner buying up all of the land used as the "public square" or "public forum" buildings in every town, and then asserting private property rights to control the dialogue/discourse in the erstwhile public forums. Social media have made themselves the de facto public forum of the internet age (which they have done, in part, by consolidating a monopoly of social media and by driving all internet discourse away from independent blogs/sites/forums and toward their own platforms), and thus they have a direct impact on the ability of the individual to exercise freedom of speech.

Nah. It's a myth. I'll not argue the point here in the election thread.

As this pertains to the election, I agree with the analogy you propose. It's still not a constitutionally relevant point though, but is most definitely a denial of free speech.

 

[jamil]

I'll give you 230 protections, kinda, I guess.. I don't see the these actions as being considered campaign finance violation. Just because it hurts Trump, doesn't mean it's meant to help Biden. You're going to need to make that connection for the violation to stick.

You don't think that suppressing information that is damaging to Biden isn't helping Biden? They're not doing that across the board. They're pretty eager to follow their rules when it comes to Trump, but they were quite happy to let NYT post about their "leaked" Trump tax records. That kind of service to Democrats has a lot of political value.

 

[OakRiver]

You don't think that suppressing information that is damaging to Biden isn't helping Biden? They're not doing that across the board. They're pretty eager to follow their rules when it comes to Trump, but they were quite happy to let NYT post about their "leaked" Trump tax records. That kind of service to Democrats has a lot of political value.

Don't forget: the NYT receiving and publishing the tax information was illegal. There is no such concern with the Biden data from the laptop, as the property was abandoned, and ownership passed to the electronic store.

 

[OakRiver]

 

[Alpo]

IF there is any truth in it. I wouldn't put it past Giuliani to fabricate evidence.

 

[jamil]

Don't forget: the NYT receiving and publishing the tax information was illegal. There is no such concern with the Biden data from the laptop, as the property was abandoned, and ownership passed to the electronic store.

It wasn't necessarily illegal. It depends what the NYT actually had. But it was probably illegal.

 

[jamil]

IF there is any truth in it. I wouldn't put it past Giuliani to fabricate evidence.

Giuliani is not trustworthy. I would not rely the truthfulness of any information coming from him. If it's true, it'll be vetted by more reliable sources.

 

[actaeon277]

Sorry, not sorry: Twitter locks Trump's campaign account for posting Biden Ukraine story after shutting down WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's - and DESPITE apology from Jack Dorsey for giving 'zero context

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ine-story.html

 

[Alpo]

Giuliani is not trustworthy. I would not rely the truthfulness of any information coming from him. If it's true, it'll be vetted by more reliable sources.

That's exactly correct.

 

[Alpo]

Sorry, not sorry: Twitter locks Trump's campaign account for posting Biden Ukraine story after shutting down WH Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany's - and DESPITE apology from Jack Dorsey for giving 'zero context

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ine-story.html

Yeah....probably shouldn't have given Trump a Twitter account back in 2016. We'd all be better off for that decision.

 

[chipbennett]

It is indeed a free speech issue. It's just not a violation of the 1st amendment.

I refer back to the Declaration of Independence, which asserts that the most righteous - if not the only - purpose of government is to protect individual exercise of unalienable, natural rights. The real question is whether Social Media platforms censoring individual speech constitutes a violation of the exercise of the right of free speech.

In the internet age, where the monopoly Social Media platforms comprise the public forum in which public dialogue takes place - particularly, to the exclusion of other forums - such censorship is indeed, and unquestionably, a violation of the exercise of the right of free speech.

 

[jamil]

Yeah....probably shouldn't have given Trump a Twitter account back in 2016. We'd all be better off for that decision.

This wasn't Trump's personal account. It was his campaign's account. That's a pretty valuable service that Twitter gave Biden, giving Biden's campaign access to a large platform and tends of millions of voters, while denying the same for Trump.

 

[jamil]

I refer back to the Declaration of Independence, which asserts that the most righteous - if not the only - purpose of government is to protect individual exercise of unalienable, natural rights. The real question is whether Social Media platforms censoring individual speech constitutes a violation of the exercise of the right of free speech.

In the internet age, where the monopoly Social Media platforms comprise the public forum in which public dialogue takes place - particularly, to the exclusion of other forums - such censorship is indeed, and unquestionably, a violation of the exercise of the right of free speech.

That smells like penumbras. I don't think there's a constitutional case for that.

 

[Alpo]

What monopoly? I don't use Twitter at all. And I don't use Facebook for news.

I am not alone.

 

[chipbennett]

You don't think that suppressing information that is damaging to Biden isn't helping Biden? They're not doing that across the board. They're pretty eager to follow their rules when it comes to Trump, but they were quite happy to let NYT post about their "leaked" Trump tax records. That kind of service to Democrats has a lot of political value.

It's obvious and blatant.

Compare and contrast Twitter's handling, based on Twitter's own policies and terms of service, of the NY Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop contents and their handling of the NY Times article of Trump's illegally obtained tax records.

 

[chipbennett]

Don't forget: the NYT receiving and publishing the tax information was illegal. There is no such concern with the Biden data from the laptop, as the property was abandoned, and ownership passed to the electronic store.

Great minds think alike, or something...

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to OakRiver again.

 

[Alpo]

It's obvious and blatant.

Compare and contrast Twitter's handling, based on Twitter's own policies and terms of service, of the NY Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop contents and their handling of the NY Times article of Trump's illegally obtained tax records.

The tax records are truthful, are they not?

 

[chipbennett]

It wasn't necessarily illegal. It depends what the NYT actually had. But it was probably illegal.

There is no probably. It was illegal. Some party that had legal access to Trump's tax records illegally disclosed/distributed those tax records to other parties to whom that party had no right to disclose/distribute them.

 

[Alpo]

Thank you Judge Wapner.

 

[chipbennett]

The tax records are truthful, are they not?

That's irrelevant. The policy in question is one that prohibits the distribution of information that was obtained illegally. The real irony is that the Hunter Biden information was obtained legally, and the Trump tax records were obtained illegally.