Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by localhost on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @02:31PM (#23327703)

IANAL but common carrier laws are there to protect the carrier. e.g., people can use a telephone to plan a crime, but you cannot hold the phone company responsible for that crime. So the phone company does not discriminate otherwise they lose common carrier protections.

Regardless, I was responding to the 1st amendment claim by the GP.

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Re:Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms by stale2002 on Wednesday May 27, 2020 @02:41PM (#23327873)

> but you cannot hold the phone company responsible for that crime

Sure. But now imagine if we applied the same provisions to twitter or facebook. We could say that if they don't follow common carrier status, then we can hold them responsible for any crime done on their platform.

This is would almost effectively the same thing as forcing them to follow common carrier laws. And it would have the same effect as requiring them to follow the 1st amendment, but doing it in a round about way.

It is not exactly the same as using the 1st amendment. But it is close enough.

Because, TBH, we already use these laws for commication platforms, such as phone companies.

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