Trump Says He Is Suing Facebook, Google and Twitter for Alleged Censorship
npr.org
npr.org
Said another way... How could "Collusion between the Government and a private corporation" be supportive of Trump's effort here when he was heading the government that was allegedly doing the colluding.
https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1412828921242996738
> But what makes this meta-insane is that he’s claiming that the Facebook was a FEDERAL state actor because it was entangled with the FEDERAL government at a time when HE WAS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.
The absolute purity of the status of Facebook et al. as private companies, free from any taint of government influence and hence free to suppress speech at corporate will, is looking a mite tattered.
Sure, blah blah deep state. Even if Fauci and Zuckerberg teamed up in some grand scheme to ban Trump from Facebook after an election that he lost -- the question remains -- how is that a 1st Amendment issue and not an Executive Branch staffing issue?
Given that we have a Unitary Executive (an argument held strongly by the most conservative jurists in the country) -- if someone in the Executive Branch were colluding to pressure social media companies with the power of the State, legally it was Trump who was colluding. So Trump is suing Facebook for colluding with his own government?
This lawsuit makes no sense on its face, it will be Cable News bait for a few days and then be forgotten, and unfortunately, it further clouds the much more important debate about social media platforms and their rights and responsibilities.
"When you have Mark Zuckerberg and others being called in front of Congress and being coerced and being questioned by all these congressmen, then you also have Mark Zuckerberg emailing with Dr. Fauci about COVID and in fact, a lot of their emails that we received have been redacted, not just because of phone numbers, but because they were trading trade secrets. A private company is communicating with the federal government and parts of that were redacted. They’re not immune anymore. They are not immune anymore. It was coercion, collusion, working together and they cannot hide from the first amendment."
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-press-conf...
For the 1 millionth time - the Fauci-Zuckerberg emails not only took place during the Trump administration, and were shared with the White House comms team, but they were also were released under FOIA during the Trump administration. All of these were released in 2020!
His government redacted the emails that he's complaining about being redacted. He's literally suing Facebook for colluding with his government and his attorney is using the redactions that his government performed as evidence of that collusion.
Just an astonishingly incompetent lawsuit and I hope the lawyers who filed it are sanctioned.
> This imputed Washington - SV nexus will be the fulcrum of the suit.
This doesn't and couldn't exist.
If you want to understand the purpose of the suit, check out the email they sent to his follower list as soon as the press conference was over:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E5tKUD9WQAoJ82z?format=jpg&name=...
Just endless grifting.
Rep. Angie Craig (D, MN) questions Mark Zuckerberg in a Congressional hearing: "Facebook allows Rep. Greene's (R, GA) video to remain online. Is that right, yes or no?"
It should be fairly obvious why large companies want to be in the good graces of lawmakers. It's reasonable for Sundar Pichai or Mark Zuckerberg to think that angry lawmakers lead to more anti-trust lawsuits than happy lawmakers.
The problem is actually that both sides are angry at Big Tech, but for opposing reasons. The Democrats don't like that Republican content is the most popular on Facebook, and the Republicans don't like that Facebook doesn't deplatform Democrats engaging in the same or worse behavior as any deplatformed Republican.
Both of their concerns are understandable, and stem from the power of "deplatforming" – ever since the deplatforming of Alex Jones, this situation was inevitable. As soon as the platforms set a precedent for what's "bad," they created future obligations for themselves. Because they need to be consistent, right? So if you took down this "bad" thing, why not take down this other "bad" thing? Well, it turns out people have different definitions of "bad," and so that's where most of this vitriol originates.
Facebook has a 1st amendment right to host whatever content they want.. any desire toward consistency is entirely self-imposed. They could ban every single Democratic politician tomorrow if they wanted and people would be outraged, but the US government rightfully protects private companies from government-compelled speech.
Personally, I continue to believe that the algorithmic newsfeed is the primary source of these problems. Perhaps that's where we can find some common ground to take a logical first step. I propose that we regulate any Newsfeed with >100m impressions per day, to require and default to a "chronological" sorting order, with any preference expiring after 30 days.
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/congress-in-a-five-hour-hea...
Interestingly to me was him explaining how he picked the lawyers to use. He asked who the best lawyers are, and "they" said it's the tobacco lawyers, so he went with the tobacco lawyers, because "they" say the tobacco lawyers are the best.
In the end it has no merit. Trumps M.O. is to threaten legal action to get what he wants. Sometimes he follows through. In this case he gets his name in the news, and whips up his supporters. Now he can again claim he went after big tech. The details like merit and results don’t matter.
Twitter & Facebook should've de-platformed him much earlier but they prioritized engagement, unfortunately.
Because it doesn't seem to be about murder spikes, riots, or organized thefts.
Silencing your opposition doesn't make them go away or make your views right.
The mind boggles at the mental gymnastics some people must go through to deal with the cognitive dissonance.
Apart for peaceful protests which I feel there's a weird sentiment that the police or military should intervene to suppress (which I think is the most problematic act against democracy), I don't really see where it is dying otherwise.
Prior to Facebook or Twitter, there were no free platforms. You couldn't even dream to be on television unless you had a lot of money to pay to offer your own TV channel, or pay to be featured.
So I really don't see the argument for Facebook and Twitter and all to somehow have to offer free content hosting and promoting for anyone. Why wouldn't it be at their discretions like it always was for private platforms to do so?
If you're worried about the death of democracy, given the context, it seems strange to focus on the deplatforming.
"Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2021"
That one is hardly friendly to Pence, but stops far short of branding him a "traitor".
Or was there one I missed?
I hope Mike is going to do the right thing. I hope so. I hope so. Because if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election. All he has to do, all this is, this is from the number one, or certainly one of the top, Constitutional lawyers in our country. He has the absolute right to do it. We're supposed to protect our country, support our country, support our Constitution, and protect our constitution.
States want to revote. The states got defrauded. They were given false information. They voted on it. Now they want to recertify. They want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify and we become president and you are the happiest people.
Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us, and if he doesn't, that will be a, a sad day for our country because you're sworn to uphold our Constitution.
They want to recertify. But the only way that can happen is if Mike Pence agrees to send it back. Mike Pence has to agree to send it back.
The radical left knows exactly what they're doing. They're ruthless and it's time that somebody did something about it. And Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country. And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you. I will tell you right now. I'm not hearing good stories.
The Republicans have to get tougher. You're not going to have a Republican Party if you don't get tougher. They want to play so straight. They want to play so, sir, yes, the United States. The Constitution doesn't allow me to send them back to the States. Well, I say, yes it does, because the Constitution says you have to protect our country and you have to protect our Constitution, and you can't vote on fraud. And fraud breaks up everything, doesn't it? When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules.
So I hope Mike has the courage to do what he has to do. And I hope he doesn't listen to the RINOs and the stupid people that he's listening to.
A traitor is someone who betrays their country, which is exactly what Trump is charging here. He told his followers that Pence refusing to certify the election is tantamount to breaking his oath to protect the country and Constitution.
Trump tweets this during the insurrection, when he should have been Tweeting to calm things down. His followers got that message in real time and gave them further animus to find Pence. You can see it in the chronological videos NYT and Washington Post stitched together. The implication wasn't lost on them.
The emerging Glenn Greenwald perspective on early government knowledge and possible participation merits consideration, IMO.
Not everything is a slippery slope.. and thankfully, democracy doesn't depend on Twitter or Facebook accounts.