ACLU: "Elon Musk's Decision to Re-Platform President Trump Is the Right Call"

A statement from the ACLU:

You'd be hard-pressed to find a more steadfast opponent of Trump and his policies than the ACLU, but Elon Musk's decision to re-platform President Trump is the right call. When a handful of individuals possess so much power over the most important forums for political speech, they should exercise that power with restraint. If Trump violates the platform rules again, Twitter should first employ lesser penalties like removing the offending post—rather than banning a political figure.

Like it or not, President Trump is one of the most important political figures in this country, and the public has a strong interest in hearing his speech. Indeed, some of Trump's most offensive tweets ended up being critical evidence in lawsuits filed against him and his administration. And we should know—we filed over 400 legal actions against him.

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

Can we maybe wait until after the midterms though?

[DaivdBehar]

ACLU = Spearpoint of Democrat attck machine. Garbage organization.

[DaivdBehar]

Twitter is a utility. Any other view is delusional, a denial of reality.

[David Nieporent]

Twitter has none of the characteristics of a utility.

[DaivdBehar]

Your ipse dixit has none of the characteristics of an argument.

A natural monopoly. Investor owned, not government owned. Used by large numbers. Provides the views of officials. Provides an essential service, to which the general public has a right, communication. The service is of public concern. It may not discriminate by viewpoint. It should be subject to public regulation to assure access and quality of service at 2% above cost.

[David Nieporent]

Twitter is not a natural monopoly. Twitter is not a monopoly of any sort. Twitter does not provide an essential service.

[DaivdBehar]

See the influence of Trump before and after deplatforming.

[FivebySixThree]

The Democrats need all the help they can get and a Trump on twitter would be a gold mine

[Bored Lawyer]

It's already May, and yet hell is freezing over.

[AtR]

I honestly cannot figure out which civil liberties the ACLU supports these days ...

[Greg J]

The Democrats are heading for an epic beating in November

Their desperate hope is that they can get suburban women to vote for the people who say the parents have no right to control their kids' education, so long as "orange man bad" is on the other side.

This tactic has been failing so far. They're hopeful that if Trump would just get back on Twitter, the Dems will get more votes

It's a weak hope, but since they aren't willing to be sane, and aren't willing to support policies to lower energy prices, it's all they've got

[Martinned]

Meanwhile here is a video of Elon Musk telling Thierry Breton how much he likes the EU's new Digital Services Act: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1523773895974612992

[Brett Bellmore]

Diplomacy IS, famously, the art of saying "Nice doggy!" while groping around for a stick. He's just making comforting noises until the orbital bombardment infrastructure is up and running.

[Greg J]

So, next year?

I had not really been paying attention to just how much orbital lift capacity SpaceX has. It blew my mind when I started looking.

For the amount he's paying for Twitter, he could have a rather serious orbital bombardment system in place.

As in "I can destroy your bunker that you're hiding in, and then destroy any part of your Army Navy / Air Force that's still active"

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Conservative bloggers deserve a lot of credit for making Twitter into what it is—when it was first started I think it was supposed to be like a micro blog with people updating each other but not really discussing issues.

[Martinned]

It's cute that you think people are using Twitter to "discuss" "issues". I take it you haven't seen it yourself in a decade or so?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Twitter involves discussing issues in the same way that two dogs in a fight involves comparing dentistry.

[Brett Bellmore]

"If Trump violates the platform rules again,"

And here's the problem. Did he really, objectively, violate the platform rules? I mean, in a sense meaningfully different from many other people who weren't kicked off?

There are terrorists who haven't been kicked off twitter. Dictators. War criminals. Genocides! And, what did Trump get kicked off Twitter for tweeting?

That he wouldn't be attending Biden's inauguration.

The problem here is that Twitter's existing rules are so vague, so flexible, that they really just amount to, "Because we want to."

[M. Potter]

The rub is that Twitter's rules essentially do permit at-will suspension and banning for any reason.

The question persists as to whether public officials' social media accounts--specifically their comment sections--should be classified as public forums, limiting their potential to block users. The Second Circuit and a growing number of circuits seem to suggest that they should be designated public forums out of the "official" context public officials comment in and the extent they exercise significant control over the account. Thomas's concurrence from the denial of cert. in Biden v. Knight touches on this, but unfortunatlely seems to implicitly assume Twitter is private before proposing Congressional remedies for protecting free speech.

[M. Potter]

*implicitly assumes Twitter is private (correctly in my view, but without extended analysis into state action that the Second Circuit en banc and panel decisions discussed) before delving into a proposal for classifying social media companies as common carriers.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The rub is that Twitter's rules essentially do permit at-will suspension and banning for any reason."

Which renders the ACLU's "If Trump violates the platform rules again" utterly vacuous, which was my point. Trump literally has no way of NOT "violating the platform rules" if they want him off, and if they want him on there is literally nothing he can't get away with tweeting.

Of course, the ACLU is going to pretend that Trump violated some objective rule, that he was somehow guilty. But the truth is he was kicked off Twitter because they felt like doing it, and nobody could stop them.

And nothing more.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, you describe press freedom, clumsily, but appear to hate it.

[Krayt]

"You'd better censor harrassing tweets, or section 230 might get broken, costing you billions in stock value. And start with the harrassing tweets of our political opponents right before an election."

But yeah, aside from that, it was their own free choice. Thanks for playing.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Krayt, that is why Section 230 should never be repealed, except unconditionally. Presumably you join me in that advocacy, right?

[Krayt]

It shouldn't be touched at all, at least for now. Both sides threaten it, for the exact opposite reasons. One side, to force censorship of harrassment, oh yeah, don't forget our political opponents, the other to stop them from doing that.

I can't see any near future where modifications would be severed from these unconstitutional motivations.

[Stephen Lathrop]

So you are fine if Twitter kicks Trump off? Good for you!

Would you be fine if Twitter, Facebook, Google, You Tube, Snapchat, all decided to kick all right wingers off? If not, maybe you better give some thought to the distortions Section 230 has imposed on the publishing business, and try to think how to correct that without government censorship of publishers.

[David Nieporent]

Of course, that's a completely made up quote, and a completely made up conspiracy. The only people who have passed legislation, and filed lawsuits, trying to infringe on Twitter's free speech rights, are Trumpkins.

[Ed Grinberg]

Trumpkins

For someone whose leader is Joe Fucking Biden, you're pretty smug.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, I don't know what organization you think I belong to such that Joe Biden would be my leader.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Yes, Brett. Trump repeatedly, knowingly and intentionally violated Twitter rules.

Next simple question?

[Brett Bellmore]

A totally vacuous claim, because the rules are so vague as to be impossible to follow if they want you banned, and impossible to violate if they don't.

Literally, they banned him for a tweet stating that he wouldn't attend Biden's inauguration, which they chose to interpret as inciting violence.

[Sarcastr0]

"President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th."

You're being willfully blind if you don't see what Trump was laying down in that tweet (and the previous one about how is voters 'would not be disrespected.')

[Armchair Lawyer]

Oh, please tell us more about the secret messages that Trump puts on Twitter, and how they are actually code for violence.

Then tell us how other politicians issuing a literal "call to arms" to fight isn't inciting violence....

"the Supreme Court is coming for us next. This moment has to be a call to arms." "We will not surrender our rights without a fight—a fight to victory!"

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, I posted twitter's analysis - it's not really about secret messages.

Bad show on ignoring how context matters - in this case it cuts against Trump for reasons obvious but to the most toolish of partisans.
In other cases it shows a tweet is just rhetoric in service of a peaceful purpose.

And if you think even by it's text 'a fight to victory' is about an actual fight, I wonder if you speak English.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, we're back to the dog really having ordered the Son of Sam to commit those murders.

Meanwhile, members of Congress can explicitly incite crimes on Twitter, and get away with it, so long as they're Democrats. Pelosi is encouraging protesters to raise hell at the Justices' homes, in direct violation of federal and state law.

[Sarcastr0]

Again, this is Twitter's analysis. Most people tend to agree with it. If it's a delusion, it's a massively shared one.

Your analysis on the other hand, most people tend to think is not correct and just right-wing victimhood yet again. Do you think most of the country thinks Democrats are actually calling for violence? No.

So how is your idiosyncratic analysis not the Son of Sam bullshit delusion?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's massively shared on the left, massively derided on the right.

Twitter is run by the left, so this sort of analysis gets applied to people on the right, and people on the left benefit from a presumption that phrases like "call to arms" are just metaphors.

[Brett Bellmore]

"So how is your idiosyncratic analysis not the Son of Sam bullshit delusion?"

Because you have Democratic politicians directing people to protest at Supreme court justices' homes, not implying it, but saying it outright, and protesting at those homes violates both state and federal law. Regardless of whether or not it's done peacefully.

So you've got tweets that don't just figuratively advocate crimes, they literally advocate them. A direct violation of Twitter's rules, but those politicians are Democrats, so they won't be enforced against them.

To be clear, I'm not saying they should be banned. I'm saying they WOULD be banned, if Twitter ever applied the same reasoning to them they used for Trump.

That crazy reasoning is the problem here. All that 'reading into', instead of just reading.

[wreckinball]

Ha arguing with Sarcastro is like arguing with Son of Sam's dog. Actually the dog has better arguments.

I mean he's actually arguing that Twitter has "reasons" top ban Trump but not ANTIFA or take your pick of a whole bunch of others who actually do violate the rules.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Brett. Everyone who is not super into Trump agrees.

Protest is not violence.

And lol lets ban Antifa on Twitter? Who is that exactly?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Everyone who doesn't agree with me about Trump is a right-wing fanatic! It's not my fault half the population are fanatics!"

[Toranth]

Antifa on Twitter? How about you start with the people that call themselves Antifa? Is that too complex for you?

[tkamenick]

"it's not really about secret messages."

"is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as"

People reading a bunch of things into what he said that he didn't actually say sure sounds like secret messages to me.

(btw, I despise Trump)

[Sarcastr0]

That is observation not decoding.

Do you think that isn’t true?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I mean, I posted twitter's analysis

You regurgitating someone else's bullshit as fact doesn't make it any less bullshit, or you any less guilty of peddling it.

[Sarcastr0]

Ever thought to try and engage with what twitter said, or are you just going to call it bullshit and declare victory?

[bevis the lumberjack]

I don’t think the guy is capable of the subtlety that you’re attributing to him. Thinking Trump capable of being subtle is like thinking a hippopotamus is capable of doing ballet.

[Don Nico]

Didn't you see Fantasia?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

*golf clap*

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That a few antisocial misfits can’t apprehend or follow the rules most Americans live by is no reason to appease those disaffected malcontents or modify societal norms..

[bevis the lumberjack]

I’m not sure the word “knowingly” can be applied to Donald Trump.

[CindyF]

Didn't someone sue Trump for blocking them on Twitter and win the case? Then, why can't someone sue for Twitter blocking Trump? Or, am I mistaken? Was that the White House twitter account rather than Trump's own account? Anyway, it seems to me that if people have a right to see Trump's "tweets", then Trump should be allowed to tweet. Meme-makers alone should sue. They are being deprived of so much material! An obvious commerce clause violation!

[Martinned]

Because Trump, at the relevant time, was President of the United States? What's so hard to understand about "The First Amendment Only Applies to Government Entities"?

[Toranth]

Trump lost because the Court declared that Trump's personal Twitter was a public forum that people must be allowed to access and interact with.

But by banning Trump, they are blocking everyone from interacting with Trump's personal account. Allowing that seems... open to abuse.

Of course, now that he is no longer President, that argument seems rather moot.

[Ben_]

They have many rules. Every Twitter user probably violates them. It only matters when someone at Twitter doesn’t like you.

It’s the Silicon Valley version of driving while black.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

As usual Brett, you've left out the actual reasoning because it proves your claim to be shallow and incomplete.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension

[Brett Bellmore]

They claimed his tweets were inciting violence. That was the excuse I cited. And, literally, the tweet that got him kicked off was his announcing he wouldn't be at Biden's inauguration.

By this standard, about half the Democratic caucus should have been kicked off Twitter during the Antifa/BLM riots.

"President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.

...
"

This is secret decoder ring territory. Seriously, it is. And, they only use the decoder ring when it's somebody they don't like.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, look who ISN'T being kicked off Twitter:

Lori LIghtfoot issues call to arms

A call to arms. They won't surrender without a fight. Protesters are violating state and federal laws to physically intimidate Justices. Pro-life headquarters have been firebombed.

So, literally violent rhetoric. Advocacy of illegal acts. In the context of violent crimes being committed.

But Twitter likes her, so she's safe.

[Sarcastr0]

"A fight to victory" is not really violent rhetoric.

You're really straining here.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, and so was Twitter, in the case of Trump. But they only strain to find an excuse to ban you if they don't like you.

Let me return to my thesis: Twitter's so-called 'rules' are so vague and flexible that, in the end, they collapse to "because we don't like you", and nothing more.

There's no end of left-wing politicians they could justify banning by the exact same reasoning, but they're safe.

Now, I think they should be safe, but so should Trump, and he wouldn't be.

[Sarcastr0]

No - you're ignoring the immediate context in both places. Trump's tweets coming right after Jan 06 matters. And Democrats tweeting about protest and then talking about 'fight to victory' also matters, in the other direction.

Your inability to understand that part even as this is the third time I wrote it says something about how outcome-oriented your outrage is here.

[Brett Bellmore]

Wait, you think I'm supposed to suddenly agree with you, if you make the same stupid argument three times in a row?

[tkamenick]

""A fight to victory" is not really violent rhetoric. "

It only is to the same extent a "call to arms" is. Jeez, do you really not see it? Fight? Arms?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Advocacy of illegal acts."

For the love of god, Brett. If you actually think your conclusion holds any fucking water, contact the FBI.

People have been fighting for their rights for centuries in this country.

As to your 'secret decoder ring' nonsense - Twitter actually has the ability to see what happens to his tweets, who engages with them, and how they are being received.

You could do that too, if you weren't too busy being certain of your evidence-free belief that everything's a conspiracy.

[Brett Bellmore]

USC 18 §1507. Picketing or parading

"Whoever, with the intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer, in the discharge of his duty, pickets or parades in or near a building housing a court of the United States, or in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer, or with such intent uses any sound-truck or similar device or resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

Nothing in this section shall interfere with or prevent the exercise by any court of the United States of its power to punish for contempt."

Virginia § 18.2-419. Picketing or disrupting tranquility of home.

"Any person who shall engage in picketing before or about the residence or dwelling place of any individual, or who shall assemble with another person or persons in a manner which disrupts or threatens to disrupt any individual's right to tranquility in his home, shall be guilty of a Class 3 misdemeanor. Each day on which a violation of this section occurs shall constitute a separate offense."

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Like I said - contact the FBI if you're so damn sure of yourself.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why the heck would I bother? It's not like they're going to prosecute somebody on my say-so, when the White house is saying to let them be.

[Sarcastr0]

Or maybe it's not a conspiracy that includes twitter and the FBI and the Democrats, but rather you're the one out of whack.

[wreckinball]

There are their rules which they broadly stretch and apply to conservative political viewpoint.

None of this applies to liberal political viewpoint. No rules.

Twitter ha how about our DOJ. Same with a BLM protest versus a election protest vs a lets intimidate SCOTUS protest.

No rules for the first. The latter two we make rules up if we have to to arrest detain indefinitely and ruin the participants lives.

[wreckinball]

Correction the "lets intimidate SCOTUS" protest also has no rules . Need an edit button

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Notably, the myth of conservatives being disproportionately targeted for silencing in social media is false.

Telling lies has never seemed to bother you before, so I suppose you should just carry on with your falsehoods.

[Toranth]

Citation, please? I'd like to see your data.

Surely you have data to support your position, right? You wouldn't go calling people liars for saying something you don't know isn't true, right?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

https://bhr.stern.nyu.edu/bias-report-release-page

If you'd like to check out any of the other 4.2 million results, google "conservative censorship myth."

[Ben_]

Same with Covid rules. Mothers were getting arrested for going to the park with their kids and a few days later you had 500 BLM protestors chanting in the street and public health authorities said it was fine.

Does anyone actually believe in any of these sorts of "but the rules!" arguments any more? The people who claim to care about so-called rules know that they’re personally exempt from them and only want to wield the rules against others.

[Sidney r finkel]

Does this mean I have the right to refute the idiotic editorials in the Wall Street Journal. What? No? A person does not have the right to comment on a private company's media. How can that be?

Oh wait a minute, I see it. It depends on the content and whether or not I have an alternative. For Trump, unless he can post on Twitter he has no way to communicate. News and other media never pay attention to what he says, or print stories about him, they just totally ignore him. And he doesnot have his own media platform. And being as poor as he is there is just no way other than free posts on Twitter he can say anything that will have any circulation.

Poor baby!

[Krayt]

It's astounding how haters of uncontrolled corporate free speech now war to defend it...as long as it censors the political opposition.

Be ashamed of your newfound love of censorship. Or of your philosophical inconsistency.

It's just a fancy, facetious wrapper around an age-old dictatorial tool.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It's astounding how haters of uncontrolled corporate free speech now war to defend it.

Hypocrisy and a general lack of principles among rabid partisans isn't astounding at all. Quite the contrary, it should be expected. It's just the nature of the beast.

[dwb68]

A little late for an April Fools joke.

[jb]

I do appreciate that folks on the right can't conceive of a situation in which anyone would do something that runs against strict partisan lines. It makes it much more clear why there's no principles in the modern Republican party--it's just about opposition to the Democrats/libs, not about standing up for any actual position.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I appreciate that, in this instance, they're on the right side, even if they have to pretend that Trump actually did something to justify his being banned.

I appreciate it even more because it runs contrary to the trends at the ACLU. You couldn't count on their being on the right side of this issue, as you could have a decade ago.

[wreckinball]

The position is free speech. Lori Lightfoot has not been suspended form Twitter for advocating taking up arms against folks she disagrees with.

But yet Trump was suspended for insulting Joe Biden. As has been previously pointed out they just made up a reason to suspend him. Get it now?

[Cal Cetín]

He's baaaack!

[mydisplayname]

Today seems to be a day when many (including the Director of National Intelligence) are recognizing that adversaries sometimes make rational choices -- and that immorality and irrationality are distinct. For example, https://www.csis.org/analysis/putins-invasion-was-immoral-not-irrational

[Ed Grinberg]

putins-invasion-was-immoral-not-irrational

So is abortion.

[Doug Heffernan]

Trump will have a lot of ground to make up. Humanity has been deprived of his off-the-cuff twitter wisdom for quite a while now. He'll be able to do it because he is just that clever.

He did pledge not to return to twitter. But what is a pledge anymore anyway? Trump could hold out and make a deal with the musky guy in exchange for his return, but Trump would never do that because he knows that humanity needs his tweets urgently. Our long nightmare is over. Humanity's greatest genius will be muzzled no more. The man with the best words is back and everyone everywhere will be better off for it.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Is it April 1st?

[Stephen Lathrop]

When a handful of individuals possess so much power over the most important forums for political speech, they should exercise that power with restraint. If Trump violates the platform rules again, Twitter should first employ lesser penalties like removing the offending post—rather than banning a political figure.

That is the ACLU weasel wording an important message, which desperately needs clarity. Leaving aside the concerning issue of formalizing a separate category for political figures, the textual problem is, "should," used twice, with ambiguity.

The ACLU knows there is widespread advocacy to use government power to force public access to private publishers' curated audiences. Its own message trends toward support of that advocacy—which for a civil liberties organization is a huge mistake.

Private publishers enjoy 1A press freedom. That unambiguously includes a private power to publish or not publish anything at all, at pleasure, with complete freedom. Any government activity to force a different outcome is censorship, full strength.

Public pressure to deliver that censorship increases—but has so far been somewhat hampered. Rivals among the censorship advocates seek government's help to undermine each other.

With, "should," the ACLU seems to say, "Do it, but pretend it's voluntary." If the ACLU's real intended advocacy is otherwise—on behalf of complete voluntary choice by private publishers—the ACLU ought to make that so clear that competing advocates for government censorship of private publishers draw no comfort from it.

If the ACLU really cares about the public life of the nation, as it ought to do, then it can address the actual source of the censorship activity, whether it is activity the ACLU is trying to fix, or activity it is trying to join. That source is the giantism among internet platforms, amounting to monopolistic control of advertising sales. That in turn enables network effects to put too much power into the hands of some publishers. The big publishers crowd out the others, as the nation has seen, to almost universal dismay.

Information distortions in the nation's public life are a byproduct of those business distortions. It is a hugely important byproduct. What is required is policy focus on the business cause, to empower private activity to cure the information effect.

The only secure refuge for press freedom ever found has been diversity and profusion among private publishers. Internet practices and mis-regulations are crowding that out of existence. Public policies to encourage diverse private publishing are needed. The ACLU could do genuine public service—and reduce its ambiguously-expressed concerns above—by focusing its attention on that problem. It should not—even slightly or ambiguously—be weighing in on behalf of government censorship.

[Philippe Lacoude]

Thank you!

[VinniUSMC]

Nonsense, thy name is Stephen Lathrop.

[wreckinball]

And the guy that bought them is exercising that freedom. You need to be a little more succinct.

[Philippe Lacoude]

From a legal standpoint, I do not agree with this because Twitter is a private forum. I would certainly not invite President Trump on my private property to spew his xenophobic anti-trade vitriolic drivel. Of course, President Trump would be welcome to my home if he wanted to make one of his anti-regulation speeches. The ACLU has always been a collectivist organization so it has a lot of troubles coming up with a correct property-rights-based analysis.

From a moral standpoint, President Trump should not have been removed from Twitter if the platform was still hosting Putin, Xi and the Iranian mullahs, who are orders of magnitudes more dangerous to society than President Trump will ever be.

Of course, Twitter has the right to behave immorally while claiming to be holier than the rest of us. And we have the right to mock them for doing so. But nobody has the right to force Twitter to behave morally.

Oh, and, by the way, the market has fixed the issue of the social media platforms bias. Without government intervention, all sorts of alternatives to YouTube, Meta and Twitter appeared to serve the needs of right-wingers.

[Brett Bellmore]

The ACLU isn't saying Twitter is legally obligated to unban Trump. They're saying it's the right thing to do.

[Krayt]

Ok, so you wouldn't invite Trump on your private property. What if government told you not to invite harrassing tweeters on, or your property taxes would go up?

Let's all freely choose to not invite him.

[questioner7]

"Twitter is a private forum. I would certainly not invite President Trump on my private property" -- but your private yard is hardly analogous to Twitter. That both are private property does not mean they're similar in all other relevant ways. There are many other comparable yards; there are not many comparable online platforms.

[OtisAH]

First of all, he literally has his own platforms thru the ever-ready RW media monster and Strewth Social and any other platform he hasn’t been banned from.

Second of all, no it isn’t the right call.

[OtisAH]

Btw, Elon Musk does not own Twitter.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not yet, anyway. If it's going through, he says in the next three months or so.

[OtisAH]

“He says” is doing all the heavy lifting.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't know that there's any lifting involved here. He comes right out and says that he doesn't own Twitter yet, and may never. He just says that we should know one way or another in about 3 months.

Twitter has yet to schedule a stockholder vote, it appears they're pursuing other defense tactics. And the administration seems determined to throw up roadblocks, too.

[wreckinball]

It's comical that an organization that used to proclaim absolute free speech even has to state this opinion. It's because they are now partisan hacks like the rest of the mob.

But the little commies on here want to censor. It's because they can't make their point so they silence the opposition.

Example, Hunter's laptop is Russian misinformation was their defense. Which it wasn't and in a frees speech world was being discredited. Solution censor anything about Hunter's laptop other than its Russian misinformation.

[wreckinball]

"What Are Antitrust Laws?
Antitrust laws also referred to as competition laws, are statutes developed by the U.S. government to protect consumers from predatory business practices. They ensure that fair competition exists in an open-market economy. These laws have evolved along with the market, vigilantly guarding against would-be monopolies and disruptions to the productive ebb and flow of competition."

Do the social media companies violate the above? Notice how FB, Twitter and others act in unison to ban competition which would be not censoring conservative viewpoint.

The whole outage about Musk/Twitter is that he would not follow the other "trust" member is censoring political viewpoint.

Remember Parler. Yea there was no squelching of the competition going on there by the "trust" members! ha.

One problem is that our government actively cheers on censorship of their political opponents and even just established a Ministry of Truth to execute it.

[Sarcastr0]

No, there is no monopoly. Or evidence of collusion.

Crap websites failing is not proof of a plot.

[Brett Bellmore]

Multiple hostile actions taken in the space of hours, though? Yeah, that's evidence of a plot.

[Sarcastr0]

Hostile actions?

I’m more seeing proof of melodrama.

[Brett Bellmore]

Taken off the google app store, taken off the Apple app store. Their IT security firm drops them then somebody notifies a hacker group that hoovers up all their user data before they're kicked off Amazon hosting. Slack drops them. Their email and text message providers drop them at the same time. They challenge the takedowns in court, and their law firm immediately drops them.

All of this in the space of a couple days. And you're going to pretend that it wasn't a coordinated pile on.

[Sarcastr0]

This is made up, Brett. You made all this up out of correlations you've decided are not just causation but collusion.

Without evidence.

You're making it up.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, these things literally happened, you can read news accounts of it. All those things literally happened, and in the space of a couple days. I'm not making a single thing up.

You've now arrived at the fingers in the ears, "Neener, neener, I can't hear you!" stage of the debate. And in record time.

[David Nieporent]

No, these things literally happened,

Really? Who "notified a hacker group"?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — You know what could synchronize getting your contributions banned by a bunch of publishers? Posting contributions so bad that none of the publishers want to be associated with them. When that happens, it isn't a conspiracy.

[RhymesWithRight]

If Musk is returning Trump to Twitter despite his clear violation of its TOS, does that mean that the rest of us who have lost accounts for much less egregious violations (in my case, for pointing out that if Christians really believed in the commands of Scripture they would stone the Trump-supporting preachers who prophesied a 2020 Trump victory and/or who engaged in adultery)?

Or is Musk going to engage in political favoritism and double standards -- of the very sort he accused Twitter of engaging in prior to his purchase?

[OtisAH]

Another thread filled with the usual clowns performing their usual clown acts. The aclu defended the Skokie Nazis, you morons. They’ve defended Limbaugh, Westbrook Baptist, sided with a Christian group against the city of Boston, and even offered support on behalf of that twat James O’Keefe. Plus many others. Their mission is “free speech” and defending 1A on behalf of all who need the help.

But do keep on clowning on, clowns.

[Toranth]

Some chapters of the ACLU have also supported hate crimes bills and hate speech laws. Try reading David Goldberger (ACLU lawyer for the Skokie Nazis) on the topic of the ACLU's current positions on free speech.
Or maybe try former ACLU director Dennis Parker's views:

"First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by people of power and privilege”

.
Even the NYT did a major piece on the ACLU's wavering stance last year.

At this point, they are not the monolithic free speech supporting organization they were decades ago.