Former President Donald Trump’s frequent use of Twitter lurked in the background as the justices weighed whether an official’s online activities can constitute government action.
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that members of the public in some circumstances can sue public officials for blocking them on social media platforms, deciding a pair of cases against the backdrop of former President Donald Trump’s contentious and colorful use of Twitter.
The court ruled unanimously that officials can be deemed “state actors” when making use of social media and can therefore face litigation if they block or mute a member of the public.
In the two cases before the justices, they ruled that disputes involving a school board member in Southern California and a city manager in Michigan should be sent back to lower courts for the new legal test to be applied.
I’m surprised that our right wing Supreme Court would rule this way. What am I missing? Because they have not lately been ruling in good faith.
There is no long term plan with conservative/authoritarians. They live in a world where arbitrary rules are fine and justice applies to all (others).
The long term plan of conservatives is to accumulate privilege and shed limitations. That’s the only end game they care about and as long as that is the status quo they are happy as pigs in shit.
Don’t conflate the conservative Supreme Court’s philosophy with the MAGA GOP’s philosophy. The two align a lot, but they are very much not the same thing.
They’ve made several surprising rulings lately.
Free speech is not a left or right issue anymore. The left is anti-free-speech as often as the right is. The left is happy to silence speech it doesn’t like when it’s online or on campus. The right is happy to silence it when it’s a library book or story time.
I hope leftists wake up as they watch anti-Zionist speech get silenced by the mechanisms they used to use against the right. The answer to bad speech, whether hate speech or misinformation, is more speech.
Edit: spelling
Free speach is not a left or right issue anymore.
Ah, there’s the usual “both sides” “argument”.
I gave specific examples. Be specific in your response. Where was I wrong?
The “left”, insofar as it seeks to limit speech, usually tries to limit hate speech towards minority and oppressed groups.
The “right” usually limits speech to restrict the voices of those same minority and oppressed groups. Equating the two is absurd at best.
It’s not, though. The precedent protecting speech that does not incite imminent lawless action, Brandenburg v. Ohio, was won when the ACLU defended a Ku Klux Klan leader. That precedent protects your right to call for the workers of America to rise up and overthrow the corrupt billionaire-led capitalist regime and the politicians who do their bidding. Of course the left and right are not equivalent. But they do have at least one thing in common: deep-seated ambivalence about the free speech. Even the ACLU is faltering: NYT: Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis
The Palestine issue shows how hate speech restrictions can be used against minority and oppressed groups. Just label it anti-semitism.
Wikipedia: Working definition of antisemitism
Hate speech rules can also be used against criticism of white supremacy and patriarchy. Just claim it expresses hatred of white people and men.
The whole thing, from start to finish.
Ah so you are full of shit! I got you
Nope. They’re right, you’re wrong.
You didn’t even give specific examples as you pretended to, it was just a blanket “both sides do it!” You just used more words.
And " the only answer to bad speech is more speech" is just factually and provable wrong. The Nazis and their enemies had free speech during the Weimarer Republik, they all used it extensively, the social democrats, the liberals, the communists, the clerics, the workers, the unions, they all used their right to free speech to try and fight the “bad speech” the Nazis could deploy openly, do you know how that story continues? They all lost their free speech because they were forced to let the cancer that is fascism roam free, with lies, propaganda, misinformation, calls for violence and just pure hate.
So the “bad speech” got plenty of “more speech” to counter but it didn’t change anything.
What am I wrong about?
I just called them full of shit for blowing someone off.
It’s almost like I did the same thing they did
You could make the same argument against every civil liberty the Germans enjoyed in the Weimar Republic: freedom of movement, freedom of press, freedom of assembly, even democracy.
Here’s more specifics: https://thehill.com/opinion/education/4317052-what-the-vexed-history-of-campus-hate-speech-codes-teaches-us-about-fighting-antisemitism/
This is laughably incorrect. The left are so tolerant of harmful speech by their political opponents it’s neutered their own ability to sell themselves as competitively viable when they do clash with fascists in the political arena. The most lefty space I know bends over backwards to accommodate genocidal retards in the name of pacifying the right and it’s because they believe people who say things like this.
Fuck Israel, free Palestine
As you complain about excessive tolerance of free speech, you make my point for me.
See also: Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis
Your point about free speech being neither left nor right? Hate speech is not free speech. Incitement of violence and genocidal ideation is not free speech.
Sedition is not free speech. Defacing the flag is not free speech. Blasphemy is not free speech. Criticism of party officials is not free speech.
lmao, are those your opinions?
No. My point is if you arbitrarily redefine free speech to exclude speech you don’t like, free speech loses all meaning.
