Your project sounds like a fun exercise, though we do not have actual real liberals in the U.S.A. when compared to the rest of the world we do have some officials who lean a bit more left than others. Do remember to keep you harassment political as political speech is protected but outright attacks if they can be classified as non-political abuse can open the door to censure.

The Bloomberg article is a weak argument at best, the slippery slope is always the last resource the demagogue or pedant as they start talking down to the public they address only to puff up their own feathers. That article is an insult to those who read it because it obfuscates two separate things by making them seem related: an official channel of communication for political speech v.s. the right or the ability to use a network. There are different sets of laws for both and they can both apply independently, the article seems to make them one and the same thing and that is disingenuous. The link between having access and being banned and being banned because of not having access is non-existent and irrelevant... I digress, it will all come clear in time and what will be will be...

Have fun in your escapades and do let us know how things go, I personally would appreciate the illumination. That's enough sane grown-up talk for the time being back to the usual gibberish.

 

Last edited: Jun 1, 2018

Just another example of the media misleading readers. The article misses totally on what a "public forum" is.
The President’s feed does not fall outside the public forum doctrine simply because the government does not formally “own” the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account and did not design the digital environment and tools that allow the site to function as the modern public square. President Trump affirmatively has chosen to use Twitter’s speech-enhancing features, and the government cannot avoid the strictures imposed on public fora merely by renting a suitable space to hold its public meetings, rather than hosting meetings in space it owns.
Because the author has no idea of what a public forum is he draws parallels between being blocked by the government or government officials and being blocked by a private company , albeit Twitter; which he even admits can ban people from its platform for any reason, whenever it wants.

 

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Interesting stuff guys. This legal stuff is above my head. Question, can he block death threats? I've seen a few, well, from screen shots people took. Also, how can you prove that he blocked you over your political views? What if he just didn't like your face? Can the man block people at all, or can anyone just claim it was over of their political views, expression, ect?

The whole thing is still strange to me, it's kind of like bitching that POTUS violated your rights for hanging up the phone on you.

Did you read this? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-blocked-twitter-costing-career-190757710.html

Fucking Rebecca. The man's page can be viewed regardless. I just checked.

What's going to happen when Neo Nazis take to Twitter to express their political views? From what I can tell, they get banned for just being, can't they claim they're there for political discourse?

This is so confusing.

 

Last edited: Jun 1, 2018

Yes, of course he can and so can Twitter...speech that advocates imminent lawless action is prohibited. No constitutional protection for it.

 

The problem with your question is that it runs afoul of President Trump's position that his account is personal and not subject to the First Amendment. Accordingly, he can block whoever he wants for whatever reason. Any argument that he didn't block John Doe or Jane Doe based on their political views is only necessary if they are conceding that the account was a public forum.

 

You should read all the arguments that have been explored on this thread. You are mixing apples and oranges. Neo-nazis or any other group do NOT have any constitutional right to say whatever they want to say on private Forums. Their speech is restricted according to the rules which may vary from site to site. And the sites have the right to kick out or censor or block or mute whoever they please, for whatever reason. President Trump in this case is not being treated as a private citizen. That is the difference.

 

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This is not a good precedent. Twitter IS NOT A PUBLIC FORUM, it's a private company! And this ruling has some major implications for everyone from public figures (that includes musicians as well) to companies and individuals.

How would you like it if tomorrow someone sued you and won because you have window curtains and stone walls so they can't see inside your home and private property in real time?

 

yeah I know who you mean...
an appalling excuse of a person( seen on youtube).
I only ever made a twitter account so that I could pursue people who infringed my copyright on my photography..
I don't consider twitter to be much use other than demonstrating how people have meltdowns because they refuse to learn real life coping skills..

 

I'm not really bothered by it, other than to watch who would be stupid enough to make the usual veiled threats( as so often many do on twitter) and then wonder why they get visit from the presidential secret service..

 

@djzero You are incorrect. This ruling has no implications whatsoever for private individuals or private companies. NONE.

The comparison that you made is so that I'm not even replying to it.

 

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This world is full of stupid people. In other countries, you make some stupid threat against the President and they make you and your whole family disappear.

 

I hope that the above is sarcasm and or humor, because you are back on page one again and it makes me feel like contributions about complex matters like these are pointless because the posts that cover the ground you are currently on explain what a /public forum/ constitutes and why it has nothing to do with you walking around at home or anywhere for that matter.

As much as I hate over-simplification, in deference to your long membership and low post count as it seems you only write when you feel there is a compelling reason I will do my best to try to illustrate the current kerfuffle.

The particular part of the first amendment that this ruling covers deals with having unhindered access to engage and exchange with government on political and policy matters in an electronic forum for which you already have access but are being censored by the government.

While given the current laws it is perfectly allowable for Twitter to censor you for violating their TOS or for any reason they feel like the same censoring isn't allowed by the government. The analogous allegory here would be if government which a a member of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados was using a hall that is a meeting place for members of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados to discuss policy and governance a in essence a second office/pulpit from which not only the more theoretical matters of governance are discussed but where major policy announcements are made and comments are solicited.

Now the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados can control who can attend, and the requirement they have is that attendees be members in good standing and while attending wear their plaid pants, high, no lower than above their belly button and no higher than right bellow their nipples; and that those pants be secured with a belt and not suspenders. Aside from members of the press (for which there is a separate rule of law and system of accreditation which I will not go into) persons who are not members of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados can not really make a legal claim to force access to this /PUBLIC FORUM/ for the same reason we are not all allowed to chill inside the Oval Office whenever we want - there are rules for access.... That's how the Town Hall Meetings where everyone always agrees with the central protagonist work without being in violation of the first amendment- they are pre-screened and not officially hosted by government - there is no guaranteed access, limited space, and the government isn't the one accepting or declining people /officially/ it is the hosts and if you are thinking collusion... good luck proving it...

So how can government run afoul of the first amendment here? It is very hard to do in an analog world, the burden of proof on the aggrieved is tremendous and courts have never been friendly to conspiracy by circumstance, but what is hard to prove in real life is ridiculously easy to prove in the digital world.

In the real world government could tell the president of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados that he only wants to speak in front of or engage red tartan wearing members, that he has no interest in speaking before, seeing or hearing from those wearing green or blue tartan but that for the sake of appearing fair the president of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados can allow some blue and green tartan wearers in just never these specific 10 ones. Now, even if this were known on inferred somehow as long as there no hard and incontrovertible evidence of this exclusion the aggrieved will find it very hard to prove that excluded for any reason other than space is limited, your number just won't come up....

However the digital world is a bit different, especially if every individual has the ability to squelch, ignore, or block implicitly who can and who can not attend. Now the digital world doesn't remove the part where one has to be a member in good standing of the the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados, if you are not a member of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados you still can not attend his public forum. However, in the digital world the government is the only arbiter of who can and can not attend. So if this digital world were to mirror the Twitter model everyone could get to see what is happening inside through some sort of live stream. The persons who are members of the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados can all be inside this virtual /PUBLIC FORUM/ free to cheer or harangue expect for 10 specific ones who are standing in the public forum but are being followed around by Secret Service Block Agents who have taped over their mouths and handcuffed their hands together while making them wear virtual dunce hats with the words BLOCKED in large glowing neon letters on their hats... Since the owner of the pulpit in this case government is only person capable of ordering around the Secret Service Block Agents and enabling a block what was once hard to prove is now an easy to point out violation.

What this violation means is that persons |who were members the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados who were in attendance and had a right to be in attendance had their constitutionally protected right of free speech to the government infringed on| it doesn't open the door for the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados to have forcibly allow members the Black Uniform Red Armband and Jackboots Liebhabers to attend meeting and function hosted by the the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados. Other members of the the High Belt-line Plaid Pants Aficionados are free to censor all they want as long as they are not government of attending in an official capacity of government. The logic doesn't lead to anything else, it doesn't go downhill and windup where we all get put in stocks while member of the long vegetable club bugger us to no end as an expression of their free speech rights... it just ends there.

It is a little more complicated than that and there are nuances but all of the above is in deference to me thinking you are being genuine and the my inferred belief that there is some kind of crisis going on because you are not a person who speaks lightly and fancifully regardless of the subject at hand.

With all due respect, I wish you a good day.

 

Indubitably!

 

I don't have ANY problem with you disagreeing with ANYTHING I said but you did not explain why. The rules of this site state in pertinent part as follows:

All your ratings (especially negative or neutral) should be meaningful - so when you're asked to provide reasons for such rating, you should have one.
​

Please, explain in which way or form the court's ruling "has some major implications for everyone from public figures (that includes musicians as well) to companies and individuals."
Likewise, I am interested in knowing how you arrived at your theoretical proposition that someone is going to sue me and actually win because have window curtains and stone walls so they can't see inside my home and private property in real time?
Thank you.

 

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Well thank you for the thumbs down.

I guess in this case though it might be mea culpa for assuming that you actually gave a flying <expletive> rather than just stating a soplisopinofactiod about the falling sky. It was worth the good karma to try still, even if no good deed goes unpunished those of who can should bear that punishment for the sake of what is good.

Cheers, man.

 

Last edited: Jun 2, 2018

So basically Twitter can do whatever the fuck it wants including censor/block/ban/boot whoever, wherever on their platform, even on POTUS's feed, political or otherwise. Trump can't block anyone because a judge decided his twitter account isn't his but rather a public forum. And somehow for him to argue that he just blocked their faces because they're ugly requires him to admit the account is a public forum.

I just don't get it. I'll just see how it plays out. Word games and legal mumbo jumbo.

I don't know how such a limited platform got so popular in the first place. After spending some time on it, it's seemingly a feminist (Intersectionality) and pseudo-communist (for lack of a better description on my part) hang out where many of them try and control the masses in the West via mass bitching and guilt trips in the language of isms. Some of it makes me want to dump my computer in acid, I don't know how some of that shit is allowed on there.

I found this https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/a/2016/announcing-the-twitter-trust-safety-council.html, then I started looking into who some of these people/orgs are, hence the description above. Feminist Frequency I knew of, lunatics. WTF is online violence? Who thinks these things up? Since when is text on your screen violent? A lot of these people hate the words boy, girl, woman, man, man more so, mother, father, he, her, she, him, ect. I even saw History written like Herstory, Latino, like Latinx, and all manner of striking out gender. I saw pro fat propaganda (some of it claiming it's healthy, and that they know better than the "fat shamming" doctors), and tons of white people who hate white people. Also, they're obsessed with LGBT (fill in the string of letters) issues and "POC" is thrown in everywhere. Again, most of them white, and seemingly straight. There's also a million made up genders too. It's a trash can. WTF is wrong with these people?

There is a lot of children orgs on that list too, but remember when I said the site makes me want to dump my computer in acid? They're not doing a good job imo. Who lets their kids have a twitter account anyways? Mine couldn't go online period.

Oh, and man so many people there love Marx, just skimming through I'd say at least hundreds of thousands.

POTUS should just shut that account down. Assuming they're allowed to. Guy probably want's to try and win, that's what he does.

What a shithole. How depressing.

I'm reconsidering my idea. The place needs to be (the digital equivalent of) napalmed.

Sorry for the off topic, had to vent.

Code:

https://twitter.com/tylerthecreator/status/285670822264307712

 

It's all a left-right, black-white, straight-gender specific paradigm invented to keep us all in a state of war and arguing amongst ourselves in a devisive fasion so as to distract us from the true intentions of the elites. Whilst we are arguing amongst ourselves we remain divided and weak.
This is how the corrupt, evil, twisted ologarks control us. The rabbit hole runs deep folks!!

 

What I said was "[a]ny argument that he didn't block John Doe or Jane Doe based on their political views is only necessary if they are conceding that the account was a public forum." Emphasis was on the original.
Since neither President Trump nor the Government are conceding that the account is a "public forum", they don't need to explain why they blocked those users. On a personal accounts, the owners have the right to block anyone for any reason without the need to provide the blocked user with an explanation.

 

Yeah, I caught the if the first time. Perhaps you're coming at this within the context of a legal argument after the facts, I'm coming at it before the ruling. The assumption is he blocked these users over their political views, I'm saying what if it was just their ugly faces, the politicking wasn't relevant from his point of view, how do you prove otherwise?

Unless I miss the part where Trump said: "I'm blocking you because your political views suck."

At any rate, now that I've looked into who the Knight First Amendment Institute are it all makes sense as to why it's happening. It's the same kind of people I found on Twitter. The people suing are the type as well, all involved in the "#MarchForTruth", speaking that very selective language. The Judge, nominated by President Bill Clinton. Hillary is probably having brunch with Buchwald daily, planing their next steps.

it's all starting to feel orchestrated and personal, or maybe it's just after 2 AM. After all the shit I've seen flung at this POTUS, nothing would surprises me. By any means necessary, they want him out of office ASAP and or his rep destroyed ensuring no reelection (in their mind).

Interesting entry on the judges wiki

Knight First Amendment Institute v. Donald J. Trump

On May 23, 2018, Buchwald held that President Trump's blocking of the plaintiffs from the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account "because of their expressed political views violates the First Amendment." Buchwald differentiated between Twitter's muting and blocking functions, explaining that muting "vindicates the President's right to ignore certain speakers and to selectively amplify the voices of certain others . . . without restricting the right of the ignored to speak." Buchwald declined, however, to issue an injunction against the President and instead issued a declaratory judgment with the statement that "we must assume that the President and Scavino [ Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media] will remedy the blocking we have held to be unconstitutional."

This decision stands in conflict with similar cases from other courts. For example, earlier in 2018, a Kentucky judge upheld a governor's decision to block commenters from his Twitter and Facebook feeds in Morgan v. Bevin (E.D. Ky. 2018). Another example is Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Philip Levine, who is fighting a lawsuit for blocking Democratic activist and radio personality Grant Stern.

https://reason.com/volokh/2018/05/23/blocking-of-twitter-users-from-realdonal

https://www.politico.com/states/flo...-haunts-florida-gubernatorial-campaign-427254

Sorry, if it's been brought up already. 7 pages @2:31 AM and all. Goodnight.

All it took was an (R), and a consistant push from an overwhelmingly left leaning mainstream media to change the narrative.

 

Last edited: Jun 3, 2018

In these types of discussions when the law itself is still in limbo it is healthier to maintain a motivational and emotional detachment. This showdown was bound to happen when DJT chose to use his personal Twitter account rather than the official POTUS there are no innocents and no real defined boundaries yet.

The great thing is that with such a high profile ruling, precedent might be courts high enough that lower courts will follow and future rulings will become consistent. It will take time (years) before this is all settled, but this how this process works. Rules for digital communications are somewhat lacking and once the rules are set they will bind both sides from then on. Consider that if the next president is from the opposing side of the isle, they too will not be or be able to squelch people they disagree with. This showdown over clarification of involved laws has been coming for a long time... this is the process at work.

Personally, I could not care less about who wins (even though I agree with Buchwald's ruling to a certain extent - I don't see how it can be enforced unless congress get involved) I think that will be healthy for us citizens of the United States if the laws on the matter are clarified. One way or an other what gets worked out now will bind those who come later.