This is not offered as a special edition Playpen, but instead as a preemptive warning: do not be this guy at GTP.
For one thing, it’s wrong, legally speaking. For another, it’s rude. You come in my house and take a dump on the rug, you’ll be escorted out. It’s no different here online.
You may think I’m overreacting, but you don’t see the comments I get from people I’ve banned.
Don’t be that guy. Please.
Get The Picture 
I am not a constitutional lawyer, but as I understand the 1A – it doesn’t guarantee the ability to say anything anytime anywhere.
A private company, blogger, or employer has freedom to not publish your speech on their product – or fire you if you say something they don’t like – or tell you take a hike off my blog.
1A just means that you cannot be prosecuted for saying something on a blog.
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I can think of several things you can be prosecuted for saying on a blog.
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Prosecuted? Libel and Slander are civil matters
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1) threaten a federal employee
2) plan a terrorist attack
3) arrange for the distribution of narcotics
4) arrange the sale of your child for the purpose of sex
I could go on.
Anyone with intelligence and/or creativity could.
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Oh great, NOW you tell me! 🙂
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Not necessary. Point made. But, my point is still true that 1A doesn’t guarantee your right to use someone’s blog, app, or whatever to say whatever you want.
And an employer can fire you if you say something stupid on an app, blog, or whatever.
None of that is censorship
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Where i live an employer can fire you for refusing to break the law and you have no recourse.
Its called, ironically enough, a Right to Work law.
More honestly its “at will employment.” I’d be willing to bet the same applies in Georgia.
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I was told by a Georgia-licensed attorney once that an employee can’t be forced to commit an illegal act in Georgia and face repercussions from the employer. Now, this attorney might have been wrong, so take it for what it’s worth.
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Correct. Georgia is an, as you said, ironically titled “Right to Work” state.
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Yep….you are right (depending on the state), but that ex-employee has the right to sue their ass off…..and I would think they would have a good case.
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Actually they wouldn’t. There is a case in my state on point.
Employee was asked to commit a crime.
Employee said no.
Employer fired employee for that reason alone.
Courts said: too bad.
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I cannot comment on that specific scenario, but Georgia is a right to work state.
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Amazing how many memes apply to Derek. Just amazing.
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You still doing memes Napster? It’s what angry old white men do, you’re better than that. Sorry I’ve been gone for so long.
Here’s a few for you to add to your toolkit. Where do you get yours again, Qanon? or was it Storm front trooper whatever?
https://sayingimages.com/republican-memes/
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On this blog….saying Mettenberger > Murray should get you banned
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Without legal repercussion. In fact, the senator should be able to ban anyone for any content-based reason, irrespective of its rationality.
That’s freedom.
If you dont like it here, move on. If you dont like it anywhere, start your own damn blog.
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I feel the same way.
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Damn right, it’s his yard.
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Page in the link is down, did see what was posted.
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“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
When exactly was the internet elected to Congress?
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More importantly, is UGA football a religion?
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It’s much more important than that!
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Agreed
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I’ve never felt worse about our american education system as I have this week, realizing just how little a lot of folks completely misunderstand the role of the Constitution, the Presidency, and what defines censorship. Some of y’all slept through Civics and it shows.
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Ricky, I find myself thinking that the most depressing part of this pandemic is the fact that, as a country, we’re a whole lot stupider than I ever imagined. The degree of willful ignorance on display staggers the imagination. I genuinely worry for my grandchildren in a way I did not just a few months ago.
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Idiocracy was a documentary.
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Audit, if I watch that will it make me want to hurt myself? Or will it provide comic relief?
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Both
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Education is too important to be left to chance. The government should handle it.
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I think it could be argued today that had Barry Goldwater been prevented from entering a restaurant in 1963 because he was white, we might have had a more productive past 60 years as a country.
The hypocrisy is simply stunning. But not at all surprising.
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Absolutely.
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Oh for fuck sake. Who is this clown.
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It’s a parody account some guy started. She’s the wokest human on the planet! Check it out. It’s pretty damn funny, and regularly gets folks from all sides riled up if they aren’t in on it.
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Senator – I don’t always agree with your views or others, I’m sure others feel the same way about mine. You do an excellent job of moderating the forum keeping a balance of expression and weeding out comments that have no place here. Thank you again for GTP.
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Trust me — if I haven’t booted you from GTP, I appreciate you.
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But, ‘Muricah!!
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While we may disagree from time to time, I shall endeavour to not take a dump in your living room. It is your living room and your rules and this site is a virtual extension of that living room.
The interesting context is how do you balance the 1A rights of individuals/groups with large corporate hyper scale social media entities that have taken on the role of national content providers. It’s similar in some regards to the old telco carrier argument as a pipe provider but they didn’t control what was going through the pipes nor what was said in conversations. Porn wasn’t their responsibility if they didn’t know it was there. The ability of these large scale social media channels to programatically and arbitrarily determine the content that flows through their pipes without sufficient oversight is a dangerous thing regardless of where ones political opinion lies. I could argue it amounts to a virtual restriction to freedom of assembly. Clearly there are laws on the books that control illegal activities but you can’t stop the Klan from marching as long as they get a valid permit so IMO there are different conditions that have to be addressed with regards to the actions and behavior of social media channels unless they want to declare themselves as non neutral editorial opinion sites.
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“…how do you balance the 1A rights of individuals/groups with large corporate hyper scale social media entities that have taken on the role of national content providers”
That italicized part is where I think you are off base. I don’t think they ever intended on that role. It got created over time, and I think they realized that hyper scale misinformation campaigns were getting out of hand.
Listening to legal experts on this issue it seems like the EO has no real teeth and that an actual change would require Congressional action. I hope that is true, but even if it isn’t I wonder if Trump isn’t killing the goose that laid the golden egg. If they have no protection against litigation, I would advise the social media people not to allow any political speech on either side. Treat both sides equally and I think you are fine.
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I think the EO was primarily a social media version of the “Fake News” campaign used against traditional outlets. “Hey, these guys are choosing winners and losers on Twitter.”.
They wouldn’t be content providers if they stayed out of the fray. When they start filtering they cross a line because they are shaping the conversation.
There are technical challenges for sure. The ability to use chatbots and AI to drive an agenda with malicious intent is a real thing and not particularly hard to do so the media channels have to be able to detect those patterns and sift them out of the sea of real folks.
With regards to political speech, you pretty much have to allow it all or allow none. Otherwise it’s censorship and manipulation.
Ultimately I think social media needs to concentrate on the security aspects of their platforms reduce the ability for artificial manipulation for disinformation purposes. Fact checking traditionally should be the role of the press but trust in fourth estate is a whole other topic.
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“With regards to political speech, you pretty much have to allow it all or allow none.”
Totally agree. If they choose ‘none’ how the hell is Trump going to be able to campaign? He should think these things through.
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But is this purely political speech?
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-retweet-cowboys/
Arguably, pro-holocaust and Holocaust denier speech is political, but it seems that it can be filtered out by a private platform.
You can say that shit on the public square, but why does someone owe evil idiots a platform?
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What does it mean when someone says, ” I don’t say that in the physical sense and I can already see the videos getting edited where it says I wanna go murder Democrats.”
It means he wants to murder Democrats. QED
#AsBadAsTheCovingtonKids
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Or they could always double down.
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Typically, certain people of a political persuasion would argue that the market, not government would solve it.
Why doesn’t that work here exactly?
Again, the irony and hypocrisy of the “you should stop playing victim!” and “I’m a victim!“ crowd is simply stunning.
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Exactly! The market has spoken. And we all know that criticizing the actions of private companies, like almost everything, is fascism.
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To your point, the market would solve it but the owners of the market are accused of arbitrarily determining whose products are put on the shelves with a prejudice/bias against the products of others.
The government has historically stepped into those situations so there is a precedent.
Personally I’m a fan of the truth regardless of the outcome and censorship in any form or fashion is more repugnant than the speech being censored. I trust people can use critical thinking and come to their own conclusions without manipulation given unfettered, uncolored information. I am not a fan of safe spaces or shutting out or minimizing the voices of others because you simply don’t like them. Group think is a dangerous path because you never know when the group will go off the rails.
The First Amendment has to be protected for all and unfortunately that comes with some heavy lifting for the citizenry because they are individually responsible for sorting the wheat from the chaff.
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The first amendment applies to the GOVERNMENT.
Not to private companies.
Does fox news not having me as a guest put their FCC license at risk?
Should it?
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It doesn’t apply to private companies … that are licensed by the FCC. As long as the FCC approves of the speech on private TV stations, the speech should remain free. I agree.
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You lost me at “I trust people” 🙂
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Wouldn’t it be nice if every contrast between government and private speech control were that easy, and every contrast between a utility and a content forum were that easy.
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Yeah GTP is NOT a social media platform. You are a publisher/editor, so you have zero obligation to publish/post any comments. Twitter seems to be a publisher now too, but that’s a separate though related topic.
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Your 1A rights do not extend to a private platform. If a platform “suppresses your speech” by blocking/booting you, you still have your rights, just not on that platform.
Important Point
When everyone joins a community on-line, they agree to the terms of the provider. If you don’t read it, that’s on you.
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This. I’m sure Trump would be welcomed on gab.com.
The same folks that are up in arms over Twitter and Media Outlets being “unfair” and “deceptive” are likely the same people trying to burn down the CFPB and advocating “buyer beware” when it comes to the T&Cs buried in predatory lender agreements.
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Nobody wants to return to the dark days of 2010 when only 154 regulatory agencies oversaw the financial sector. It would be anarchy. We need at least 155.
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That rug – it really tied the room together
https://media1.tenor.com/images/c1ce518475e6e0d78adaff3b13638634/tenor.gif?itemid=5207349
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