r/technology • u/Cascading_Neurons • May 23 '22
Florida Can't Stop Social Media From Banning Politicians Politics
https://gizmodo.com/florida-social-media-twitter-desantis-ban-facebook-1848964973567
u/hirasmas May 23 '22
Remember when the GOP used to pretend they were in favor of smaller Government?
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u/GhostalMedia May 23 '22
Itās always been this way. Big government on morality issues, and no government for bridges and healthcare.
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u/Yourmomsfavev4pe May 23 '22
Itās funny how backwards this way of thinking is
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u/SleepinginRlyeh May 24 '22
So backwards, I'd hardly call it thinking. I'd say it's more like a brain fart.
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u/retiredfromfire May 24 '22
Dubya signed the prescription benefit into law in 2003. The largest expansion of Medicare in history. Not that I'm a Dubya fan
https://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/08/elec04.medicare/
But that was really about stuffing the pockets of big pharma with cash at taxpayer expense
The GOP has never been about small government, thats the impression their propaganda arms have drilled into Americans heads but its not that way at all
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u/citizenjones May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22
Small Government is just another goal post in line to be moved.
Reds says,"Blues like telling you what to do. They want to use Government to control what you can say and do. That's 'Big' government. We're against that. Us Republicans like 'small government'.
Meanwhile, Republicans scramble to make laws that control what you can say and do AND proceed to fundraise off of : Elect us so we tell Libs what they can say and do
Democrats will try and protect a class from persecution and Republicans will say their way of life is under attack.
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u/GoldWallpaper May 24 '22
Every Republican president since and including Nixon grew the size and power of the federal government, massively in the case of Bush II, who was worshipped by 100% of Republicans at the time (despite them now pretending they didn't).
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u/Nanyea May 24 '22
They still do, except in cases of property like social media companies, women or children.
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u/spongeworthy1967 May 24 '22
Right-wingers are passionate about small government, except when they aren't. See also: free speech, fair elections, rule of law, life, etc.
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u/mindbleach May 24 '22
Their stated ideals are ad-hoc justifications.
All that has ever mattered is ingroup loyalty.
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
When has a court ruling they didn't like ever stop them.
They will just push it higher, until they find a judge that agrees with them, even to scotus because they know scotus will side with them. Scotus quite literally said precedent be damned.
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u/BevansDesign May 24 '22
Better headline: Florida still not allowed to violate the US Constitution.
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u/NewMasterKush May 24 '22
Free speech is allowing private companies to ban whoever they want. Republicans are so ass backwards.
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u/MultiGeometry May 24 '22
Preventing private companies from policing criminal behavior on their platforms seems like a bad idea.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
Freedom of speech doesn't apply to private platforms, only public ones. The government cannot stop you from peacefully protesting or speaking your mind. But Twitter, Facebook, etc are not public, they are private, and they have every right to ban you for violating their rules, for exactly the same reason as you have every right to boot anyone who behaves in a way you don't like out of your home.
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u/Rawkapotamus May 24 '22
āThe government canāt stop you from peacefully protesting or speaking your mind.ā
Not if the current SCOTUS has anything to say about it.
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u/djDef80 May 24 '22
Not in Florida. Get run over by some asshole in a car and they come after you not the driver.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
That's not remotely the same thing we were talking about.
That said, political extremism has really gotten out of hand in the US. Progressive and conservative nutjobs dominate the dialog, and anyone reasonable is shouted down.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
SCOTUS's job is too ensure that the laws enacted by Congress and enforced by the executive adhere to the constitution. They're not a shallow Democrat/Republican organization.
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u/GoldWallpaper May 24 '22
The government cannot stop you from peacefully protesting or speaking your mind.
But they can absolutely dictate where you are allowed to exercise these rights.
Free speech zones were commonly used by President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks and through the 2004 election. Free speech zones were set up by the Secret Service, who scouted locations where the U.S. president was scheduled to speak, or pass through. Officials targeted those who carried anti-Bush signs and escorted them to the free speech zones prior to and during the event. Reporters were often barred by local officials from displaying these protesters on camera or speaking to them within the zone.
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u/Hydragorn May 24 '22
But Twitter, Facebook, etc are not public, they are private, and they have every right to ban you for violating their rules, for exactly the same reason as you have every right to boot anyone who behaves in a way you don't like out of your home.
There's a good argument to be made that social media is the new public square.
The big social media companies, especially Twitter and Facebook are very much ubiquitous, they are a good example of being too big to fail.
We have politicians all around the world using Twitter in particular to address and access their voters.
It's incredibly worrying that a change in the TOS to a social media company could block dissenting views from essentially existing.
Now sure, blasting fake news I agree is worrying, but what about if say the next CEO of Twitter is pro life, that they think that promoting Abortion is the same as promoting murder.
Now any mention of being pro choice is suddenly against the TOS.
That's Twitters right to do so, but it's not an opinion that should be blocked.
Are millions of users going to leave the platform if that happens? Probably not. Users don't shift platforms very often and certainly not very successfully.
You're cutting off segments of society by allowing these social media companies to dictate who and who isn't allowed on the platform.
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u/trekologer May 24 '22
Social media platforms are not the new public square, they're more like shopping malls. The malls are happy to have you come in, take a walk around, hang out and buy stuff but only on their terms. If you're disruptive they get to kick you out. If you try to compete against them (by selling something while unauthorized) they get to kick you out.
There's a better argument to be made that Internet access services are, and should be, treated as common carriers, but the GOP has decides that ISPs are not but the individual services are.
But in any case, none of these are public grounds. Internet services and Internet access are both still private systems and networks.
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u/red286 May 24 '22
There's a good argument to be made that social media is the new public square.
Why do people bring this up? Assuming it were the case, so what? There's no mention of "public square" in the First Amendment.
The First Amendment (like the rest of the Constitution and its amendments) defines what the government is permitted to do. When it comes to freedom of speech, the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting your ability to say what you want, unless it is a call to imminent lawless action.
So unless you want to say that Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc are "governments", and have the ability to literally imprison people who say things they disagree with, the First Amendment literally does not apply to them.
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u/goforthandconquer May 24 '22
Not true. A public square is a public square.
Nobody has a problem with someone getting out there with their bullshit in a public square.
A private company has the right to enforce their TOS and you have the right not to use them if you don't like it
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u/pleasant_pistachio May 24 '22
Yup. If Twitter banned any mention of pro choice, millions of people would abandon it. If being "too big to fail" means a company or industry becomes a public good/service, why aren't banks public yet?
Twitter is a tool politicians use, sure, but it's not a requirement. As someone who has never had a Twitter account and haven't touched my Facebook account in years, I still have ways to get politician news and information. It may not be spoon fed to me based on my interests but is that necessary?
If a bakery doesn't have to make a cake for a gay couple, why should Twitter have to allow content against their TOS?
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u/Hydragorn May 24 '22
If a bakery doesn't have to make a cake for a gay couple, why should Twitter have to allow content against their TOS?
Because there's a different bakery down the street.
There isn't an alternative to Facebook and twitter.
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u/pleasant_pistachio May 24 '22
So if I start a private company that has zero competition should I be regulated as a public entity?
That's not a perspective I agree with so I guess we can agree to disagree.
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u/StickyTaq May 24 '22
Because there's a different bakery down the street.
There isn't an alternative to Facebook and twitter.
looks at all the various social platforms
There isn't?
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u/Hydragorn May 24 '22
Christ it's like you're actually trying your best to pretend you can't read.
The Internet has created a way of interaction between humans which is entirely new.
It means that we need to treat it in a different way.
The entire Internet is privatised, so yes, we do need to treat it differently.
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u/goforthandconquer May 24 '22
Yeah and I stand by what I say if you don't like private companies rules start your own
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u/Hydragorn May 24 '22
That isn't a realistic nor feasible solution. It's equivalent to saying go and start your own country if you don't like this one.
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u/thebutterchurns May 24 '22
A public square does not require I make any purchases to have my say, social media does.
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u/drew1010101 May 24 '22
If they donāt want to get banned they should have complied ā¦ with the terms of service.
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u/baeb66 May 24 '22
The conversation around free speech on social media platforms has grown more tiresome with billionaire Elon Musk feeling the need to weigh in after his offer to purchase Twitter for $44 billion was approved.
Gizmodo not pulling punches.
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u/Junkstar May 24 '22
DeSimple isnāt going to win against big tech and big mouse.
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u/kdeaton06 May 24 '22
This isn't even a punishment. They could ban every republican politician in Florida and not give a shit.
"It was enacted in May 2021, and enforced a $25,000 fine on social media companies if they were to remove a candidate for statewide political office from their platforms."
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u/RealNotFake May 24 '22
He doesn't need to win anything, he only needs to be loud in his efforts to piss off libs. It's all just a big publicity stunt, and we have seen that it works. Look at the idiots like Boebert and MTG, their followers can't get enough of their tripe - the more outrageous the better. The more libs react to it the better. They are the troll party now.
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u/Trazzster May 23 '22
We are at the point where right-wingers are demanding special exemptions from the terms of service that everyone agrees to abide by, because their whole worldview mandates that they engage in bad faith.
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u/kigurumibiblestudies May 23 '22
Isn't that precisely how they've always played? "We need to even the field because too many opinions lean left", r/conservative being an echo chamber by default... They're not subtle about it at all. The difference is that now it can be witnessed by everyone.
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u/rockdude14 May 24 '22
Wonder if this law would mean if you are running for office you couldn't be banned from r/conservative for being a liberal.
I'd love to see their little safe space bubble get popped.
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u/NewMasterKush May 24 '22
Reality leans left, but we think differently than you and our irrational voices should be heard.
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u/jupiterkansas May 24 '22
The direction of society since the Renaissance has been toward progressive thought, but conservatives have always tried to pull us back to a society controlled by religion.
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u/Barack-Frozone-Obama May 24 '22
Holy fuck. I just went into that sub for the first time since circa 2019. The delusion is unreal. Among the hits:
-Inflation is Bidens plan to keep people from having babies.
-Elon Musk is now a hero.
-Hillary had the FBI lie about her emails (guys, that shit was back I'm 2015...are we over it yet?).
-Current high gas prices are part of a plan to force people to sell their trucks for less safe sedans. Also it's a plan to kill America. It's unclear if they realize gas prices are high worldwide or not.
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May 24 '22
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
Why is this guy constantly in the news
Because he's the governor of Florida and most likely a presidential candidate for the next POTUS election.
His constant shit fuckery needs to be exposed so people understand just how unhinged this man really is.
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May 24 '22 edited May 26 '22
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u/Troathra May 24 '22
In the contrary democrats will run DeSantis, the republicans in response will run DeSantis, you won't vote ? Too bad the concept of abstention have been replaced by voting for DeSantis, you want to riot ? No because now youre yourself DeSantis and DeSantis dislike riots. Soon words itselves will become DeSantis. DeSantis DeSantis DeSantis DeSantis
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u/Pilo5000 May 24 '22
His āfuckeryā itās red meat for his racist white supremacy base. They love being stupid and pushing their stupid on the rest of us. Trump got a lot of attention and look at what happened. Ignore this fucks, let Florida sleep in the bed they made. FUCK Them
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u/Entity-2019 May 24 '22
He's the new Trump, but possibly smarter. God won't help us.
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u/poopzilla-speedskate May 24 '22
Yeah, heās a far more capable and disciplined Trump. Which is a wild card. He could move to the middle after getting in the Whitehouse. Heās good at playing the right against the left and getting negative attention from the left in a way that makes them slightly less appealing to centrist voters without a twitter account (~80% of the US population).
Though, bright side, the actual laws he signs which meet constitutional muster are pretty good or at worst benign.
Most of the attention from the left doesnāt even make sense with the text in the laws. When confronted with the actual text their response is ābut you know what he really meansā. But thatās not what it actually states. Again, pushing the center away from the left but not necessarily towards the rights.
The rest of the stupid shit laws get struck down because thereās no fucking way any liberal or conservative judge could rationalize them. That gets him positive attention from the far right without actually impacting the center. Meanwhile the left canāt point to an actual adverse outcome of a blocked and overturned law.
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u/LunarMuphinz May 24 '22
He already had COVID.
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u/Pilo5000 May 24 '22
Heās most likely vaccinated but plays the tough guy that doesnāt need a mask
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u/Troathra May 24 '22
He is gonna be future Trump's vice president and you're gonna loving it.
He will bring Jesus to your mangled soul and smack hitler out of your skin.
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u/oakstave May 24 '22
Will Russians and Republicans have to go door to door to spread Moscow misinformation?
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u/Croaker3 May 24 '22
Whaaaaaat?!! The government canāt tell a private business what to do?!ā¦ says every Republican (aka fascist).
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
Oh not they are fine telling companies what to do, if those companies go against them.
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u/findyourhumanity May 24 '22
Republicans are all about āPrivate Propertyā until someone starts critiquing them with a megaphone while standing on it. Then itās the ācommonsā worthy of their regulation.
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u/betterthanyours1 May 24 '22
Banning cell phones will be their next attempt. There's no mention of cell phones in the Bible.
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u/ascii122 May 24 '22
You gotta light a bush on fire to talk to tech support
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u/BobNoxious211 May 24 '22
GOP is made up of mostly lawyers, yet they pretend to not understand law because their constituents don't.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
most political parties are made of mostly lawyers, at least in the US.
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u/red286 May 24 '22
Arguably, this makes sense, since you kind of want the people in charge of writing and changing the laws to be, y'know, familiar with them.
Of course, when you get lawyers who pretend to not understand the law, you have problems.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
And worse, when you get lawyers who truly don't understand the law. Unfortunately there are a lot of lawyers whose legal knowledge is limited to what they can get paid for or what's useful in their pet ccauses, and they don't know or give a shit about the deeper questions of the law.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
And worse, when you get lawyers who truly don't understand the law. Unfortunately there are a lot of lawyers whose legal knowledge is limited to what they can get paid for or what's useful in their pet ccauses, and they don't know or give a shit about the deeper questions of the law.
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u/Happyandyou May 24 '22 edited May 26 '22
I must be stupid because I donāt understand this at all.
These are publicly traded companies and if someone is putting things on the site that the board doesnāt want on their site because itās a lie, itās harmful information or for what reason why should they be made to continue letting that information on their site? If someone gets hurt by bad information they found on a certain site you can be damn certain they will sue the site.
Home Depot doesnāt want to sell guns or dildos are you going to tell them they have to sell those items? No, of course not because itās up to them what they want in their stores. To me itās the same thing.
If you donāt like a site donāt go to that site.
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u/00_z3r0c00l_00 May 24 '22
Now the best revenge is to perma ban every politician that pushed for the bill
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u/HunginSD23 May 23 '22
Itās crazy to think some of these ppl are older than my parents and trying to picture them tweeting. Itās so absurd
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u/AthenaSholen May 24 '22
They have handlers for thatā¦ because you know, people aged to retire are old and mentally declining but somehow theyāre fit to rule the country. And yes, rule because they obviously donāt know what govern means.
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May 24 '22
Supreme Florida Man has roughly the same chance of forcing Microsoft to bring Clippy back.
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u/VLY2020 May 24 '22
Careful, now, Appellate Court, the Govtator might write a new law stripping you of your governing power just for crossing him. Better think about stepping out of line against the Almighty DeMantits
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u/theiLLmip May 24 '22
āThe court ruled that social media companies are private actors, and therefore their actions are protected under the First Amendment.ā
Iām about as interested in what right-wing politicians have to say as I am interested in watching moss grow, but isnāt this hypocritical?
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u/DanielPhermous May 24 '22
The First Amendment includes the Right to Freedom of Association. If they do not wish to have a business or other relationship with these politicians, that is their right.
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u/Inconceivable-2020 May 24 '22
SCOTUS has not weighed in, but is very strongly moving towards making the US Constitution second fiddle to state laws.
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u/oOzonee May 24 '22
Fuck that, free speech yes, but if you lie when there is fact as clear as 2+2=4 then you donāt deserve a voice.
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u/pythondogbrain May 23 '22
It's sad if the only way you can win an election is to silence your competition.
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u/hoppycolt May 24 '22
Imagine saying this unironically in the context of what this issue is all about.
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u/tonymurray May 24 '22
Tell that to the people redistricting voting districts to minimize competition.
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u/Jimi7D May 24 '22
Itās sad that the only way you get supporters is luring them in lies about how bad lgbtq, women and democrats are. And how they need to be controlled by white men.
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u/idksomuch May 24 '22
What the actual fuck is even going on in this state anymore
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
The GOP has nothing left but their culture war, and its starting to backfire on them.
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u/CrisbyCrittur May 23 '22
Can we just build a wall around Florida? Pretty please? Between DeathSantis here & Rick the Dick Scott...
How much you want to bet that he digs up another 13 year old Trumpie judge to overrule this?
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u/NewMasterKush May 24 '22
Florida is a purple state. The only reason it keeps going red is because of old-school Cubans in Miami that think public healthcare is communism and that AOC is Castro. There's less of them every year, and more rational Floridian environmentalist like myself. Desantis has done nothing about Florida's massive environmental problems. Subsidized sugar cartel is still poisonings the water ways with fertilizer run off. Mosaic phosphate mines are still overflowing radio active waste into the gulf, and Nestle is still speeding up salt water intrusion by stealing 1 million gallons a day of spring water and selling it back to the public.
People down here know he's a phoney, and his war against Florida's largest job creator is not helping his case.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
Cubans are literally the only people in Florida who have a CLUE what actual communism looks like in practice.
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
With the way they overreact to democrats, i doubt it.
A lot of the cubans that came over here weren't the poor farmers...they were the rich and well off, and they are really really mad about losing their power over in Cuba.
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May 24 '22
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u/SgtDoughnut May 24 '22
Wow straight to insults. I deff hit a nerve.
Turns out shitty conservatives are shitty conservatives no matter where they came from.
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u/Meltian May 24 '22
Lol, someone's mad. Go back to your shitty conservative echo chamber.
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u/JesusChrist-Jr May 24 '22
You mean social media companies that are based on California? This has been ridiculously laughable from the start.
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u/PestyNomad May 24 '22
Florida GOP need to get their BS out of state businesses. Walk it like you talk it.
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u/NJShadow May 23 '22 edited May 24 '22
I thought, by law, social media companies were not permitted to ban elected officials? Unless that was just sitting Presidents? I remember the issue came up while Trump was in office, and it had something to do with like.. government record or something.
EDIT: Never mind. It had to do with the President blocking people on Twitter. Apparently he wasn't permitted to, but then it was thrown out by the Supreme Court.
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u/cpq29gpl May 24 '22
The ruling re blocking people was just thrown out as moot b/c Trump was no longer president. There is not precedent set there.
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u/Formal-Appearance210 May 24 '22
Social media should never ban politicians.
Sorry, you can't get all the benefits of monopoly while also pretending to be private companies like anything else. We ensure that public access was baked into cable television, along with C-SPAN.
I'm no fan of Trump, but it's bullshit that just because people in Silicon Valley don't like him, he doesn't have a Twitter or Facebook account anymore, when the fucking Kremlin and Taliban do. It's utter partisan bullshit nonsense and I don't care if people call me a right-winger or a white supremacist or some other increasingly-toothless epithet for saying so.
The public square is now managed by private companies. They can either be nationalized so that the 1st amendment applies, or they can start acting like members of a liberal democratic society and not bitchy little tyrants.
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u/GibbonFit May 24 '22
Or we just engage in some good old fashioned trust busting so they're not huge monopolies anymore. And then we don't have to change precedent that could send us down a slippery slope.
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u/jasongw May 24 '22
There is no social media monopoly. The key part of "monopoly" is "mono", meaning "one". It should be pretty obvious that there are a lot more than one social media companies.
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u/TechyGuyInIL May 24 '22 edited May 24 '22
Trump wasn't banned for being disliked. Nice try. You can't force social media to be a platform for seditionists. That's not American.
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u/Sterling363 May 24 '22
Aren't there other avenues for Trump to get his message out?
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u/goforthandconquer May 24 '22
Socialā¦ Truth or parlor or something lol
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u/CyberBot129 May 24 '22
Or you knowā¦.traditional media
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u/goforthandconquer May 24 '22
Yeah I don't think there's a lack of media showing Trump running his mouth
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u/Blue_water_dreams May 24 '22
This has nothing to do with ānot being likedā, trump incited an insurrection against the untitled states. I fully support social media companies banning people who break the terms of service.
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u/PuzzleheadedComb7765 May 24 '22
Anyone can be banned lol but hey guys. It's raining and I like really hate the rain so there's that.
randomcommentsbyme
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u/MarkDavisNotAnother May 24 '22
Shouldnāt ālaw makersā who pass laws that get enforced and the SCOTUS ruled as unconstitutional have some criminal liability for their āmistakeā ?
Research their opinions prior to passing laws, instead of āgetting away with it while they can.
??? Worlds gone mad
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u/C1ashRkr May 23 '22
Tell desantis that, he'll triple down.