So what if the government partners with all the large tech companies to have them voluntarily enforce restrictions on speech? Oh, you're free to say whatever you want, just not online. Or on the airwaves. Or in public parks, which were recently put in control of a private management company too. You are free to stand in your bedroom and talk to the wall. Just don't talk loud enough that your corporate landlord kicks you out for a noise violation.
There is over 2 centuries of legal jurisprudence on that question. It's not a novel issue.
1. Religious institutions should have the same rights to funds as any other school.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/30/us/supreme-court-religiou...
2. Job Bias laws don’t protect teachers in religious schools.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/us/job-bias-catholic-scho...
In affect, government funds are used to support schools that are allowed to discriminate.
It’s not just LGBTQ rights. Some religious schools think that interracial dating/marriage is a “sin”.
Or say you live in a small town with one grocery store, and they don't like your BLM tshirt so one day they ban you. Private company, they can do that. But now where do you buy food?
Or your Brand X car breaks down, but Brand X decides they don't want you in any Brand X dealerships anymore, but the problem is your car needs a specific diagnostic tool only available to Brand X dealers.
The examples are endless
And I agree, the internet monopoly is a huge issue. The internet should become widely available to all. I would say as a utility, but that then points out the fact that I have one giant power company that could also, censor me and cut me off from my only main source of power... hmmm...
I must be missing something because I cannot imagine why everyone is so tolerant of companies having nation-state level ability to ruin lives, and to routinely face no consequences when they do so.
I am not sure if I am attacking a straw man here, but it sure sounds like you claim that buying one way flight ticket is very difficult compared to getting rid of FAAMG in your life?
I understand there are other complications involved in moving abroad that just the flight ticket, but I still think that the big global corps are much more difficult to get rid of than my government. Including the fact that they very much keep communication with my friends at least as much hostage as my government if I decide to move away.
Sure you can fly there, but your tourist visa will run out in a few weeks and they will kick you out if they can find you. So now you're on the run, and good luck finding a job, renting an apartment, or getting health care with an expired tourist visa.
Oh and if you're an American, you won't be able to open an account in a local bank because American banking laws control all banks everywhere.
The above are generalizations and some countries are easier to move to than others. And all of them IMO are much more difficult than deleting Facebook.
I'd be on the next flight out if there was some sort of undocumented American community somewhere in Western Europe or something. But that simply doesn't exist.
Is there actually something in the Federalist Papers talking about free market competition? I'm not aware they considered this at all.
A Twitter mob doesn't have any objective power to prevent anyone from finding employment. They do, however, have free speech rights which include the right to communicate with someone's potential employer and argue that they should not be hired. If literally every employer decides not to hire someone based solely on what that mob says, then (notwithstanding how ridiculous that scenario would be in real life) that's possibly a labor rights issue more than a free speech issue.
It would remove a lot of leverage of the twitter mobs if they know ahead of time the target is protected.
[0] To prove prima facie defamation, a plaintiff must show four things: 1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.
Now what you need to do is show damages. Lost your job? Deplatformed or demonetized? Vendors, partners, or clients cut ties? Victim of harassment (online or otherwise)?
Keep in mind, making an accusation not totally supported by evidence is not defamation. In the US, it falls on the defamed to both prove that the accusation is false and prove that the accuser knew it was false. Not that they had doubts or uncertainty, but that they knowingly lied. Making an ultimately incorrect acusation based on incomplete evidence isn't legally negligent.
Essentially, it comes down to what a reasonable person would do.
A reasonable person would probably not invent claims without evidence. Let's take the Kyle Rittenhouse case as the example since it's so recent and visible. The Twitter mob openly calls this individual a murderer, white supremacist, and terrorist, among other things. They also invent and distribute "facts" which are material to the case such as where the individual got the AR-15 used during the event, and the circumstances surrounding its use. [1]Significant effort is undertaken to obfuscate the truth through the editing of video footage and censoring of contrary opinions.
> Elon musk called someone a "pedo guy" because he moved to Thailand, and was found to be fine because a reasonable person wouldn't take the statement seriously.
This is clearly not the case when dealing with situations like the above, and many others which lead to individuals being deplatformed, harassed, or physically threatened, or even attacked. There can be no doubt that claims of racism, sexism, homophobia, or other bigotry are taken seriously by all the major platforms and society as a whole. It is common knowledge that such claims cause harm.
A reasonable person would not make damaging claims without any supporting evidence, manufacture fake evidence, or aid in the distribution of either.
[0] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/negligence
[1] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/09/02/facebook-declares-...
Furthermore, repeating a rumor is not negligent. So if I make a claim without evidence, but you repeat it and cite me, only I have done something wrong.
To get concrete, there is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse murdered someone. He's been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, this is Wisconsin's equivalent of Murder.
There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. He travelled across state lines to disrupt and intimidate people at a protest for racial justice. While he may not be a card carrying neo-nazi, that's evidence.
There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a terrorist. He (presumably) unlawfully used violence and intimidation against civilians for political purposes. He's listed on wikipedia's list of right-wing terrorists in the US[0].
So now you have to show that not only are the above statements false, but that they are so blatantly false, that it is unreasonable for a person to believe them, and that to reach those conclusions would require negligence. But of course, you can't really do that. Wikipedia agreeing with me pretty much proves that my claims aren't unreasonable. They may be wrong, but they aren't negligently so.
> They also invent and distribute "facts" which are material to the case such as where the individual got the AR-15 used during the event, and the circumstances surrounding its use.
Coming to incorrect conclusions after good faith investigation isn't negligent. At the moment, as far as I know, Rittenhouse got his rifle within the state of Wisconsin, from a friend. But not knowing that information, it is not unreasonable and negligent to state "He must have acquired the gun illegally, since he is underage and can't transport it across state lines." That's a reasonable conclusion. It's wrong, yes, but it's reasonable.
> This is clearly not the case when dealing with situations like the above,
Just to be clear, you are saying that it is reasonable for a person to call someone else a pedophile without any evidence, but calling someone who shot and killed someone else, on video, a murderer, is negligent? Am I getting that right?
Previously I said that you misunderstand negligence. I'll repeat what I said and add that it appears that you, personally, have an extraordinary level of prudence. Which is totally acceptable, and perhaps even an admirable trait. But it is not ordinary. Legally speaking, you appear to be "unreasonable".
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism#United_St...
> To get concrete, there is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse murdered someone. He's been charged with first-degree intentional homicide, this is Wisconsin's equivalent of Murder.
These claims were coming out prior to him being charged and prior to any credible sources reporting details of the story. There was an organized attempt to get ahead of the narrative and paint a particular picture of the events. The fact that it's actually rather difficult to find the details of the 'victims' and their criminal histories is one indicator of that. The below cited debate on the wiki entry is another. And that is without diving into the twitter discourse where it's possible to find every level of bad faith "debate"
> There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a white supremacist. He travelled across state lines to disrupt and intimidate people at a protest for racial justice. While he may not be a card carrying neo-nazi, that's evidence.
He worked in Kenosha as a lifeguard, and was there cleaning up the neighborhood [0]unarmed earlier in the day. Saying his presence there is evidence is like saying that my fingerprints inside my own home are evidence of whatever crime may have happened there.
> There is evidence that Kyle Rittenhouse is a terrorist. He (presumably) unlawfully used violence and intimidation against civilians for political purposes. He's listed on wikipedia's list of right-wing terrorists in the US[0].
This "evidence" came into existence after the claims were already circulating. [1]The original entry was Kenosha Riots, and there is ongoing organized action to alter the title and information to change the narrative. None of the sources listed existed at the time that the defamatory claims were made.
> Coming to incorrect conclusions after good faith investigation isn't negligent.
There was no investigation, so there cannot have been good faith in the investigation. The individuals claiming he 'crossed state lines with an illegal AR-15' are making multiple false claims at once. He didn't cross state lines to participate, he was already there. He didn't cross with the AR-15, it was given to him by a WI state resident. Even the possession of the weapon itself may not have been illegal as the state statutes leave wiggle room that has yet to be explored.
The ultimate point is that the people who initiated many of these claims are journalists and news publications who should have made a good faith effort to produce accurate reports. They failed miserably to do so, and their reports still carry significant inaccuracies. Some of these reports featured video clips that were edited to better support the narrative. None of these reports, at least that I've been able to find, show all of the video evidence that is public thus far.
> Just to be clear, you are saying that it is reasonable for a person to call someone else a pedophile without any evidence, but calling someone who shot and killed someone else, on video, a murderer, is negligent? Am I getting that right?
Not exactly. I'm saying that Elon Musk is one individual who has no following because of his 'investigative journalism' credentials. He's just a dude who is rather well known for being 'out there'. On the other hand, people absolutely do follow CNN & & & as a 'credible' source for such reporting.
[0] https://nypost.com/2020/08/26/suspected-kenosha-gunman-kyle-...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kenosha_protests#Requeste...
It isn't unreasonable to call someone who shot someone else a murderer. It just is not.
It is not unreasonable to conclude that someone who travelled to another state and then shot someone was doing so for nefarious reasons. It may be wrong, but it isn't unresonable.
> This "evidence" came into existence after the claims were already circulating
I'm not saying that using the Wikipedia article is evidence for the claim. I'm saying that the claim cannot be unreasonable if wikipedia ultimately reached the same conclusion.
Again, you don't need to cite someone else to be not defamatory. As long as the statement, standing alone, isn't unreasonable, you're good.
> None of these reports, at least that I've been able to find, show all of the video evidence that is public thus far.
That doesn't make them defamatory.
> Not exactly. I'm saying that Elon Musk is one individual who has no following because of his 'investigative journalism' credentials.
Your original complaint was about random individuals in twitter mobs making defamatory statements. They also have no credentials. So are you now saying that actually all the random people on Twitter are fine, but it's CNN and NBC and the news organizations that are making defamatory claims?
Because that's a reach. You really think you know defamation better than the lawyers who work for those companies and specialize in defamation?
How about KKK member, white supremacist, racist, etc?
> It is not unreasonable to conclude that someone who travelled to another state and then shot someone was doing so for nefarious reasons. It may be wrong, but it isn't unreasonable.
This isn't what happened and there is substantial evidence that demonstrates this. He didn't travel there for that reason, he was there when it started because he works there. He traveled a shorter distance 'into another state' than from me to my local mall.
> Because that's a reach. You really think you know defamation better than the lawyers who work for those companies and specialize in defamation?
[0]Lin Wood, (Kyle's lawyer) recently won multiple defamation cases, one of which was against CNN for their poor coverage of the Nick Sandmann case. He's quite literally an expert in the field. I'm happy to let him sort things out.
> Your original complaint was about random individuals in twitter mobs making defamatory statements. They also have no credentials. So are you now saying that actually all the random people on Twitter are fine, but it's CNN and NBC and the news organizations that are making defamatory claims?
They aren't "fine" but they are not the originators of the harm. The so-called journalists intentionally editing video to alter narratives, and large organizations that are trying to alter the publicly available information are absolutely not fine.
And my original point was that I've not seen Twitter mobs (as a collective) avoid crossing the line. However, you can't go after a mob, you can only go after the most important individuals fanning the flames.
[0] https://lawandcrime.com/media/lawyer-for-covington-catholics...
You can't use CNN because a twitter user called someone a white supremacist after CNN correctly reported on events and someone else says something inflammatory. Either you can go after CNN for the reporting it does, or you can go after random twitter users for inflammatory stuff, but understand that you already said that that was okay when you claimed musk was "different".
And just a note, Lin Wood did not win a case against CNN. The Sandmann case was settled out of court. Please don't defame CNN like that.