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Supreme Court Takes Case That Could End Internet Censorship


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2018 Oct 17, 8:10pm   3,541 views  27 comments

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-17/supreme-court-takes-case-could-end-internet-censorship-expand-first-amendment

The United States Supreme Court has agreed to take a case that could change free speech on the Internet forever.

Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, No. 17-702, the case that it has agreed to take, will decide if the private operator of a public access network is considered a state actor, CNBC reported.

The case could affect how companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google and YouTube are governed. If the Court were to issue a far-reaching ruling it could subject such companies to First Amendment lawsuits and force them to allow a much broader scope of free speech from its users.

The Court decided to take the case on Friday and it is the first case that was taken after Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined the Court.

DeeDee Halleck and Jesus Melendez claimed that they were fired from Manhattan Neighborhood Network for speaking critically of the network. And, though the case does not involve the Internet giants, it could create a ruling that expands the First Amendment beyond the government.

“We stand at a moment when the very issue at the heart of this case — the interplay between private entities, nontraditional media, and the First Amendment — has been playing out in the courts, in other branches of government, and in the media itself,” the attorneys from MNN wrote in their letter to the Court asking it to take the case.

The Court could either rule in MNN’s favor, rule against it in a narrow scope that does not affect other companies, or it could rule in a broad manner that would prevent the abilities of private networks and Internet companies to limit or censor speech on their platforms.

Censorship, Free Speech or Enforcing Company Policy
It comes at a time when Facebook has purged around 800 independent media pages in one day. The media outlets ranged the spectrum from far left to far right and many that either had no political affiliation or were not extreme in their politics. Facebook claimed that the pages were engaged in “inauthentic behavior” and as a private company it does not have to answer to anyone regarding how it enforces its terms of service.

ACLU attorney Vera Eidelman said Facebook, as a private company, can enforce their terms however it sees fit, but that could result in serious free speech consequences.

“Drawing the line between ‘real’ and ‘inauthentic’ views is a difficult enterprise that could put everything from important political parody to genuine but outlandish views on the chopping block,” Eidelman said.

“It could also chill individuals who only feel safe speaking out anonymously or pseudonymously.”

The MNN case could change that and force Facebook, and other companies, to protect users First Amendment rights.

Comments 1 - 27 of 27        Search these comments

1   marcus   2018 Oct 18, 6:28am  

I think we should have total freedom to say whatever we want on the internet.

But also everyone should know that if you say the wrong thing you might disappear in the middle of the night.

Journalists that report the people disappearing also might disappear in the middle of the night.

Everyone will know, but nobody will talk about it. Especially, they won't talk about it in the internet.

That's when we will have perfect free speech - the kind the future Donald Trumps of the U.S. will insist on. The kind of free speech the right wing SCOTUS will protect.
2   marcus   2018 Oct 18, 6:34am  

fake News ? Government sponsored propaganda ?

We aint seen nothing yet, if this passes.
3   Tenpoundbass   2018 Oct 18, 6:36am  

Trump is irrelevant now. Who we elect next to preserve his sensible court. Will be far more important than anything Trump will do next.
4   bob2356   2018 Oct 18, 6:43am  

Patrick says
Supreme Court Takes Case That Could End Internet Censorship


Very very unlikely the Roberts court is gong to issue a broad ruling . Have you ever listened to Roberts speak on his philosophy as chief justice? CSPAN has some of his forums in venues like law schools. He is very committed to narrow rulings and court consensus. Check some of them out some time. I recently listened to him speak at U Minn law school.

In the 1 in a million chance they do issue a broad ruling it will not be expanding the first amendment to force private social media companies to essentially adhere to a non existent fairness doctrine. The case already has 2 districts (6th and Columbia) that have ruled in favor the supreme court's existing state actors test. while the 2nd has ruled to ignore existing law and precedent. Nader completely fucked up the first amendment with his VA pharmacy ruling by a very liberal and activist supreme court. Which bit nader and the court activists in the ass for the next 30 years finally leading to citizens united. Be careful what you wish for you may get it.

But Roberts court is conservative, strict constitutionalist, and pro business. The supreme court has to take the case because there is a conflicting ruling between districts, but I think they will simply affirm the 6th and Columbia rulings leaving the 2nd overruled.

Of course I thought Kelso was a slam dunk protection for private property case. So you never know what any supreme court will do.
5   bob2356   2018 Oct 18, 6:47am  

marcus says
the kind the future Donald Trumps will want.

Tenpoundbass says
Trump is irrelevant now. Who we elect next to preserve his sensible cour


Can you guys at least once and a while try to get into a conversation more substantial than NAA NAA trump NAA NAA trump. You know the acting like an adult thing.

Never mind, forget I had such stupid idea. What was I thinking?
6   marcus   2018 Oct 18, 7:06am  

Fuck you bob. Just becasue you can't relate to my fear of a future fascist America, that's no reason to be even more of a prick than usual.
7   marcus   2018 Oct 18, 7:09am  

What if every election cycle everything was really nyaa nyaa nyaa nyaa, even more than now, with both sides relishing which side was selling the most fun and compelling pizza gate type story ?

Could it be good for the economy ? PErhaps fake news could be an entire sector, Good for those humanities people that can't get a job in engineering or manging the robots ?
8   Goran_K   2018 Oct 18, 7:17am  

bob2356 says
marcus says
the kind the future Donald Trumps will want.

Tenpoundbass says
Trump is irrelevant now. Who we elect next to preserve his sensible cour


Can you guys at least once and a while try to get into a conversation more substantial than NAA NAA trump NAA NAA trump. You know the acting like an adult thing.

Never mind, forget I had such stupid idea. What was I thinking?


That’s different from the leftist democrats?

Partisanship can be ugly but let’s not pretend it’s only one side who engages in it. I remember Obama’s “Republicans sit in the back of the bus” comments.
9   Shaman   2018 Oct 18, 9:17am  

marcus says
But also everyone should know that if you say the wrong thing you might disappear in the middle of the night.


Your idea sucks.
It’s basically the same as Totalitarianism which is unsurprising since you also love yourself some of those types of ideologies.

In conclusion: No.
Just No
10   Ceffer   2018 Oct 18, 10:14am  

The SCOTUS has become a nightmare, with Ginsburg lifting a creaking bony finger at you, moths flying out of her mouth, and Kavanaugh pelting you with empty beer cans.

What happened to the days of sacred duty when they were all about the sanctity of metric tons of expensive legal paper and arbitrary legislation?
11   doik   2018 Oct 18, 1:02pm  

Patrick says
ACLU attorney Vera Eidelman said Facebook, as a private company, can enforce their terms however it sees fit, but that could result in serious free speech consequences.


The fact is that private companies and publicly traded companies have far more power to censor speech and control conversations than the government has ever had outside of China and North Korea. As a society we have to choose between letting corporations exercise freedoms as if they are people (Citizen's United) and having an even playing field where the free market of ideas reigns. You can't have both.

It's complicated, sure, but personally, I think I'd rather live in a society where big companies can't control speech by banning or shadow-banning users who say things they don't like. However, I don't think doxing and threats of violence should be covered by free speech. We need anonymity, but we also need to be able to track down assholes who make death threats even if it's just to scare and harass. The question is how to do this.

Also, it's really bad that employers can fire employees for any reason that isn't explicitly illegal. This means that an employer can, and will, fire people whose politics are considered objectionable to the employer. Remember Google firing James Damore for saying that there are biological reasons why men are more likely to be good programmers? This is going to happen more and more.

Identity politics is a double-edge sword. Every time you use it against the other team, you legitimize its use against you.
12   Shaman   2018 Oct 18, 1:38pm  

So Twitter can deny service to a conservative.
But a cake shop has to provide service to a gay wedding?
Both are private companies so I’m confused.
13   bob2356   2018 Oct 18, 3:15pm  

marcus says

Fuck you bob. Just becasue you can't relate to my fear of a future fascist America, that's no reason to be even more of a prick than usual.


I guess you don't read my posts. I'm anti trump and have been posting about the coming fascist america since patnet started and far before that. I personally have gotten multiple citizenship's and establishing a life overseas because of my concern of coming fascist america going back to the start of the selling out of the republican party by rove and gingrich. I think that level of concern goes far beyond relating wouldn't you say?

That doesn't mean the only thing I can post is trump sucks nyaa nyaa. on every thread. I somehow missed your substantive discussion of Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, before the supreme court. .
14   bob2356   2018 Oct 18, 3:16pm  

Goran_K says
That’s different from the leftist democrats?

Partisanship can be ugly but let’s not pretend it’s only one side who engages in it. I remember Obama’s “Republicans sit in the back of the bus” comments.


Are you saying marcus is a rightist trump supporter some how? I called out both sides, when will you start doing that?
15   doik   2018 Oct 18, 5:41pm  

Quigley says
So Twitter can deny service to a conservative.
But a cake shop has to provide service to a gay wedding?


When a cake shop refuses to serve gay couples, it prevents the gay couple from being served by another shop because the cake shop crowds out other shops. If there are several cake shops in a small town and they all refuse to serve gay couples, it's not possible for another cake shop to open to serve gay couples because the market is already saturated. That's why having a business license for a bakery means you can't refuse service to protected groups, gay, black, or whatever.

When Twitter refuses to allow access to their social media network, it's not like those refused service can go to some other social media network and still get coverage. For all practical purposes, they are denied the opportunity to have a willing audience. The mere existence of a large network like Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube prevents competition because no one is going to use MySpace when everyone is on Facebook. So the principle of crowding out competition applies. If you are big enough to corner a market, you have to serve the entire community equally or be broken up with anti-trust laws.

The only difference is that religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation are protected classes because of the historic oppression of these classes whereas political orientation is not currently a protected class. Personally, I think political orientation needs to be a protected class given how divisive it has become.

So I would approve of not letting Twitter, Facebook, and Google censor content. Yes, they blur the lines between public carrier and content provider, but let's face it, all three companies are primarily content hosts, not content creators. You don't go to Facebook for content generated by the Facebook company. You go to Facebook because all your friends are on Facebook generating their own content that you want to view.
16   MisdemeanorRebel   2018 Oct 18, 7:08pm  

doik says
When a cake shop refuses to serve gay couples, it prevents the gay couple from being served by another shop because the cake shop crowds out other shops. If there are several cake shops in a small town and they all refuse to serve gay couples, it's not possible for another cake shop to open to serve gay couples because the market is already saturated. That's why having a business license for a bakery means you can't refuse service to protected groups, gay, black, or whatever.


I follow the preceding paragraph but not this one, seems contradictory in that a Monopolistic Website with International Coverage is being compared to a multitude of geographically limited physical outlets.

Even relatively small cities of 100,000 people have several Bakeries. I find it hard to believe out of 4-5 bakeries that all 5 would refuse a gay wedding cake.

In this situation, I believe the person singled out the Bakery because they were known to be religious people and went miles and miles out of their normal travel zone just to purposely get rejected.
17   FortWayneAsNancyPelosiHaircut   2018 Oct 18, 7:20pm  

TwoScoopsOfSpaceForce says
doik says
When a cake shop refuses to serve gay couples, it prevents the gay couple from being served by another shop because the cake shop crowds out other shops. If there are several cake shops in a small town and they all refuse to serve gay couples, it's not possible for another cake shop to open to serve gay couples because the market is already saturated. That's why having a business license for a bakery means you can't refuse service to protected groups, gay, black, or whatever.


I follow the preceding paragraph but not this one, seems contradictory in that a Monopolistic Website with International Coverage is being compared to a multitude of geographically limited physical outlets.

Even relatively small cities of 100,000 people have several Bakeries. I find it hard to believe out of 4-5 bakeries that all 5 would refuse a gay wedding cake.

In this situation, I believe t...


There is a "freedom of religion" in the constitution. There isn't one that states gays have rights to other peoples labor... so even if there was just one bakery, it would still be within constitutional parameters.
18   RC2006   2018 Oct 18, 7:44pm  

Especially when said gays drive way out of thier way to go to the one baker that wont serve gays to stir shit and be drama queens.
19   Patrick   2018 Oct 18, 8:47pm  

MegaForce says
In Silicon Valley, its more like, "you might disappear at work after being called into HR to discuss 'cultural sensitivity problems'"


This is true. There is a religion here, and it's just as intolerant as the worst of them.
20   marcus   2018 Oct 18, 9:18pm  

Aphroman says
What’s the value in Free Speech if the only thing you use it for is to create noise?


Yeah. What we need in our politics and our media (and this forum) is a lower signal to noise ratio.

bob2356 says

That doesn't mean the only thing I can post is trump sucks nyaa nyaa. on every thread


Again. Fuck you bob.

https://patrick.net/comments?a=marcus
21   mell   2018 Oct 18, 9:19pm  

doik says
The only difference is that religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation are protected classes because of the historic oppression of these classes whereas political orientation is not currently a protected class. Personally, I think political orientation needs to be a protected class given how divisive it has become.


Yeah or how about no protected classes except for maybe race. That would be best. Most "protected" classes don't face any disadvantages at all nowadays so the whole designation is stupid. Also today leftoids have made a mockery out of "pre-existing" natural facts that theoretically could put you at a disadvantage. Why even have gender protected if it's a social construct? Just go as another gender. Or why even have male or female competitions if a tranny with 50% more muscle mass can simply compete as a woman and squash the competition. I say we go back to nature and state the facts - 2 sexes - and remove all discrimination laws. We'd be better off. Just protect free speech.
22   bob2356   2018 Oct 19, 5:50am  

doik says
The only difference is that religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation are protected classes because of the historic oppression of these classes whereas political orientation is not currently a protected class. Personally, I think political orientation needs to be a protected class given how divisive it has become.


Are you saying that social media is somehow forbidden to refuse offensive content involving religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation? When did that happen? Want to get into the details of how that works? Who is protecting them and how?

mell says
remove all discrimination laws. We'd be better off. Just protect free speech.


What discrimination laws do you think are forcing facebook to drop infowars?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. That is the only constitutional protection of free speech that exists. It says nothing about corporations.

There have been 240 years (with the exception of a couple very brief periods of liberal courts) starting with Dartmouth College v. Woodward of supreme court rulings expanding the rights of corporations. What exactly do you think will inspire one of the most conservative strict constitutionalist courts in history to force an entirely new set of requirements on corporations granting new and unprecedented free speech rights that have never existed before that are not mentioned in the constitution?

There is a great book out there called we the corporations detailing the history of the supreme court and corporations. Well worth a read if you actually want to know the history and facts.
23   bob2356   2018 Oct 19, 5:53am  

marcus says

Again. Fuck you bob.


Thank you. I really have appreciated your insightful thoughtful input into Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, going before the supreme court.
24   mell   2018 Oct 20, 8:48am  

bob2356 says
What discrimination laws do you think are forcing facebook to drop infowars?


None. They are actively suppressing free speech though and should be regulated. Or if you think they shouldn't be regulated then neither shouldn't the restaurant/bakery/club owner only catering to men, women, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, gays, straights etc. Don't be a hypocrite, can't have it both ways.
25   tatupu70   2018 Oct 20, 8:52am  

mell says

None. They are actively suppressing free speech though and should be regulated. Or if you think they shouldn't be regulated then neither shouldn't the restaurant/bakery/club owner only catering to men, women, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, gays, straights etc. Don't be a hypocrite, can't have it both ways.


The bakery won their case.

You can't have it both ways.
26   mell   2018 Oct 20, 11:15am  

Aphroman says
mell says
bob2356 says
What discrimination laws do you think are forcing facebook to drop infowars?


None. They are actively suppressing free speech though and should be regulated. Or if you think they shouldn't be regulated then neither shouldn't the restaurant/bakery/club owner only catering to men, women, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, gays, straights etc. Don't be a hypocrite, can't have it both ways.


I don’t like the idea of a big bloated centralized government overreaching into the private sector with onerous regulations. Government = Failure


That's a totally valid stance but it means to expect from citizens not to be snowflakes in all regards, dissolution of affirmative action wrt race, gender, creed etc. If society is splintered so be it, everyone can asspciate and do business with whomever they want (and deny it to those they don't want to associate with). Implementing these rollbacks now though would certainly be a great test of the citizens, considering how far we let government dictate our associations and speech thus far.
27   mell   2018 Oct 20, 11:30am  

tatupu70 says
mell says

None. They are actively suppressing free speech though and should be regulated. Or if you think they shouldn't be regulated then neither shouldn't the restaurant/bakery/club owner only catering to men, women, blacks, whites, Jews, Christians, gays, straights etc. Don't be a hypocrite, can't have it both ways.


The bakery won their case.

You can't have it both ways.


There shouldn't be any laws to justify taking on such a case in the first place. They should be thrown out as unconstitutional. Now let's repeal affirmative action next, lot of work to do. Throw out equal pay and obligations to disclose pay and mandating minimum gender amounts on the boards in CA etc etc. All unconstitutionaI.

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