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Comment by Dig1t | Hacker News Reader

Okay well, this doesn't feel like a good faith discussion if we're resorting to technicalities like this.

You are correct, technically Joe Biden was not a part of the government at the time that this email was sent. Do you honestly believe that this behavior is keeping with the spirit of the first amendment?

His team, and the DNC (here's one that's very similar, except that its from the DNC instead of the Biden team https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FjAuD6eWAAEFiXY.jpg)

are enormous and very powerful, and effectively a part of the government.

Do you think this kind of emailing Twitter and asking them to "handle" tweets they don't like, stopped on the day that Biden was inaugurated?

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I guess the main question is, are we having a legal or moral conversation? Because when you're discussing law- which I think is the vastly more important aspect here- these aren't technicalities. I don't believe there's a thing called "the spirit of the First Amendment". There's just the First Amendment, and how the courts have enforced it and are likely to continue enforcing it. I don't think it would be a 1A violation if he did it in office- in fact, Taibbi's thread says the Trump admin did the same thing, and I don't think that's a 1A violation (legally) either.

I think you have it exactly backwards. The technicalities of the law are meaningless - morality is what's important. We created the law to codify morals, and, to the extent that it is good to follow the law, it is good only to the extent that the law agrees with morality.

And, of course, it's a moot point anyway because Taibi says requests came, and were honored, from both sides, including the White House. Even if "Joe Biden wasn't President yet" is true, Trump was President and his White House was working with Twitter to suppress speech. I just don't see how it is a question, either legally or morally, that the Federal Government, with Twitter, has been violating the first amendment.

Again, at the end, you conflate things. I don't feel the need to discuss morality, I find that boring. But legally? It's just strictly not a 1A violation with the info we have now. Twitter can take down whatever they want, it's their website. If I ask, it's not a 1A violation. If Joe Biden in 2020 asks, it's not a 1A violation. If Trump in 2020 asked, it's not a 1A violation (unless Twitter feels like they were forced, which they haven't claimed).

Just because you don't feel the need the discuss morality doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't? For some of us the "spirit of the constitution" is just as important. And IMO if you're into this whole liberalism thing and you don't think it's important then you're just being dishonest.

What you see is a non-government person asking a non-government business to censor something. What I see is a former Vice President, Congressman, and Presidential candidate, backed by the DNC, asking a major communications channel to censor something.

The former sounds like sophistry to me.

>Okay well, this doesn't feel like a good faith discussion if we're resorting to technicalities like this.

Okay and you are assuming that Twitter would just take down the tweets, or that the tweets didn't violate Twitter's policies. Is it not okay for someone in the gov't to hit the report button?

> technicalities

Being president or not seems like kind of a big deal to me.

I mean, in my opinion, it isn't a big deal with regards to whether or not asking is a 1A violation.

Actually it's the biggest deal since 1A applies to .. the government

The 1A applies to the government forcing people or companies to restrict their speech. Since Twitter has not alleged they were forced, that means they were asked and complied voluntarily- which means it doesn't matter if the person who asked was an elected official or not, from a 1A perspective.

Ah I see what you meant.

I guess people's argument then would be that the govt (or whatever) indirectly limited Twitter user's speech.

The First Amendment constrains only the government, so it is the biggest possible deal in this conversation.

If you are talking about the a more general ideal of "open and free speech" - which private companies are never legally required to uphold, but may choose to espouse anyway - then it's clearer to say that instead of conflating it with the First Amendment, which will just distract others from the points you're trying to make.

So on the one hand you're saying it's a big thing that the Biden campaign did ask for things to be taken down and dismiss that they were not part of the government is just a technicality, but on the other hand you are not complaining that the Trump campaign also asked for things to be taken down (it's literally in the same thread) and they actually were part of the government.

If you are worried about the "violation of the 1A spirit " should you not complain first about the government asking for things to be taken down? Or at least display the same level of outrage?

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