Was Twitter Breaking The Law?
The Dilbert cartoonist, Scott Adams, says – Twitter wasn’t breaking the law, because while the Twitter files expose some bias and some monkey business during the 2020 election, no laws were broken.
This is a dumb thing to say –
Scott and many others online – don’t seem to understand that the Constitution is the supreme law of the land in this country.
And they sure don’t seem to know what the document does – or how it was actually written to protect your rights.
Because Freedom of Speech is Protected Under the Constitution
In 1791 we made it legal in this country to criticize others, and this includes ALL government officials – even the non-elected ones.
You even have the legal right to call the police officer that pulls you over a PIG or any other curse word that comes to mind – because if that’s your opinion of him or her it’s protected speech.
Yet Free Speech Does Have Clear Legally Defined Limitations
The legal protection of expressing your opinion stops the second you threaten someone, which also applies to the public (by saying something like I have a bomb at the airport, or by yelling fire when there is no fire in a crowded theater).
Or when you commit fraud by lying in your advertising or giving false information in your agreements.
Or when you attack someone’s character verbally it’s slander, when it’s written we call it libel.
And you can be sued civilly for any damages your words may have caused.
The crime of hate speech happens when the words you use have been proven to cause harm or damage to a person or a group.
If you’d like to look them up – here is a larger list of the categories: Obscenity, fighting words, solicitation to commit a crime, incitement to commit an imminent crime, defamation, child pornography, perjury, blackmail, true threats, plagiarism, fraud, and treason if committed verbally.
Yet censoring ideas based on the potential harm they may cause – violates the first amendment and this has already been decided by court precedent.
While there are times we allow government to censor us – they must invoke these emergency powers by declaring martial law (they certainly don’t apply to us in peacetime).
And this job cannot be assigned to corporations or to random politicians who ask for it.
Judges Even Swear An Oath To Protect Your Constitutional Rights
Because the Constitution is considered the Supreme Law of the Land.
If any state law violates these protections – the Supreme Court will judge the law in question against the Constitution and if there’s any contradiction –
They’ll defer to the Constitution.
This is important because…
Even if Twitter were not showing extreme bias when enforcing their own policies, if challenged in court, their policies could be deemed by a court of law to be in violation of your right to freedom of expression.
Here’s one example:
Do Shadow Bans Constitute Fraud or Discrimination?
When you join a social media platform, there is an implied agreement –
We invite our friends and family to use the platform so we can communicate with each other, but that’s not what happens anymore (unless it’s a paid post).
Now relatives might see our posts if we get enough likes and comments.
This is what fraud looks like – changing the rules of the game on us after we agreed to a specific set of rules…
If Twitter had policies to shadow-ban certain tweets or accounts, they deemed potentially dangerous, they need to apply to everyone.
When an algorithm was doing this, there was less of a chance of the bias we are now seeing due to Twitter employees mediating free speech.
Twitter Chose to Be a Platform Not a Publisher.
And 47 U.S. Code § 230 protects social media platforms from being sued for things that are published on their platform.
So Twitter isn’t ever responsible for hate speech under section 230…
The person who posts hate speech on Twitter is.
This law says if you happen to commit a crime online as sometimes people do –
By threatening someone or committing fraud.
Twitter isn’t legally responsible.
And so it’s not their job to choose what constitutes hate speech or not…
There are already rules in place, set by court precedent.
So, can tech nerds who come up with their own corporate policy – shadow ban and censor you for saying something they think is inciteful and offensive?
Will their political feeling on the topic matter and hold up in court?
Nope, their shadow banning, censoring and deplatforming nonsense will not hold up in court – unless the judge has been compromised and paid off, because we live in America.
Scott Adams asked what law was violated?
Criminal Defense Attorney, Robert Gouveia Esq. responded to Scott Adams’ original post with what looks like 4 Serious Criminal Violations:
- Attempt and Conspiracy
- Conspiracy Against Rights
- Fraud by Wire, Radio, or Television
- Perjury Generally
And I’d add –
If you can show a bias towards deplatforming or shadow banning one particular political party…
It could be discrimination?
If the discrimination and deplatforming is unbalanced enough – could it change the results of an election?
I think we all know the answer.
This is why previous American’s fought wars to protect your free speech.
With this right you get to hold controversial opinions, and even wrong opinions!
Yet right now these platforms won’t allow you to share your political or medical preferences. Because a few tech nerds in a dark room somewhere are deciding if what you say is hate speech or not…
Law Enforcement Is Also Subject to The Constitution
Scott Adams says –
When the government says, “jump” you jump.
When the FBI says watch the account – you watch the account…
Yet this approach throws the entire idea of law in the trash.
If the FBI had the authority to do anything more than monitor these accounts – they would be coming to Twitter with a court order.
Even the FBI has NO RIGHT to shadow-ban or limit your speech until you’ve been formally charged with a crime.
If they think you may have committed a crime, they must take their evidence to a judge to get legal permission to suspend your rights –
This isn’t T.V. where the cops can do whatever they want.
Shadow Banning is a Form of Fraud…
Because when you’re formally accused, you get to face your accuser.
You get to KNOW you’re being charged and what those charges are.
That’s the reason we have law enforcement agencies.
So if the FBI says, “Hey, watch this account…”
Yes, you can watch it for them legally, but you can’t shadow ban it, otherwise, you’re committing fraud, because you’re selectively denying a customer what you agreed to provide them.
And while the platform obviously has a right to monitor, and in extreme situations, like child porn, for example, suspend the account…
When this happens, they must not only NOTIFY the offender but report them to the authorities.
So, they got a private corporation to do the very thing they had no legal right to do, is this what they were doing?
It gets even worse –
The Twitter files show they were following suggestions from the White House.
The fact that we have been allowing powerful politicians to silence their opponents with tech companies – just might be the greatest danger to democracy in our day.
Conclusion: It’s Time For Big Tech Companies To STOP Censoring Free Speech
Big tech has no right to limit reach, shadow ban, or even fact-check speech…
All of this is censorship, something even our government has no right to do!
So, why are we allowing big tech to do this?
The Twitter Files show it’s time to stand up and protect Freedom of Speech online.
(PC – Fox News)
Joni Molloy – President at Effective Advertising & Creator of The UPLEVEL Masterclass
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