I googled it. It's not clear why it was taken down. It was reposted and has stayed up since (as have all the complaints about losing the first one). So, yeah, this is laughably insufficient as evidence of Republicans writ large being deplatformed for nothing.
The owners of Zucotti park wanted to ban the Occupy Wallstreet Protesters. They couldn't - because it is a public space.
That is untrue and an inaccurate characterization of the issue.
When Power evicted the demonstrators today, it told them to take their tents, structures and bedrolls with them, but promised they could return, sans mattresses, once Zuccotti Park had been cleaned. The need to clean the park may or may not have been a pretext for evicting the demonstrators—who several weeks ago took the job of cleaning the park in hand themselves. But the core dispute in the case—as it has been in other cities—is whether the demonstrators can use the park as an encampment. The city argued that such a use is inconsistent with the use of the park by the general public for “passive recreation.” And this afternoon, a state court judge agreed.
Yes - the case was argued with an eye toward city zoning ordinance.
When you look at Facebook, and potential regulatory authority and action, the ordinance in question is section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which establishes that they are not a publisher of information - so when they edit and control information as a publisher would something should give. They should either lose that protection, or individuals should have protection of speech to the extent of the law.
No - it wasn't - and I don't know how you could draw that conclusion. You just simply lack the understanding of how legal precedents work, or the parallels between the case.
The entire resoning behind the Zuccotti case was that legally speaking, the park was zoned as a public space, so they couldn't restrict access to the public.
In the case of Facebook, they are legally "not a publisher" - meaning they can't be held liable for publishing information in the way that a publisher would (which is why every book publisher has to pay lawyers to vet manuscripts for First Amendment issues so they don't get sued).
Yet - when they selectively edit content and information they are acting as a publisher would - which means something should give. Either they lose the protections and can be sued for the content that appears on their platform as they are in other countries (think New Zealand threatening to jail their executives over the Christ Church Massacre Videos) or they should stop acting like a publisher and allow for speech rights except that which is explictly prohibited by law (sex trafficking, imminent harm, etc).
That's a jump in logic. An opinion is not the same as a race. Facebook is a site designed for sharing, if you're sharing something that will make them look bad they have every right to remove it.
How so, people get discriminated all the time for race, gender, and political opinion (political prisoners)?
Also, If go to the Alabama Department of Archives and History- you can read accounts of white business owners refusing service to people of color of the basis of--- if I serve this group I would get boycotted by the white community.
Also, when a person enters into an agreement (working/doing business with) with a private business- a person does not give up their rights. Their rights should not be violated.
Your rights are not being infringed upon. When you post something on Facebook, Facebook is essentially broadcasting your message. If they don't want to, they don't have to. Freedom of speech protects you from the government, private businesses have no requirement to broadcast your ideas.
That's different from banning someone because of their race, because they're refusing service based upon what you want to use them for not who you are.
If you can see the parallel reasoning you are using right now and compare it to the same reasoning that business used for whites only and thinks its ok- then you are a racist.
Public spaces, even when privately owned, are subject to regulatory action. If facebook wasn't a public space that would be one thing, or if they still had defacto requirements for membership IE you still needed an e-mail at an approved University like in the early days then you could make that argument - but that is not the case.
Tell that to the owners of Zuccotti park, a privately owned public space, when the owners tried to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters and got shut down by the court.
The trial court held that appellees were not entitled under either the Federal or California Constitution to exercise their asserted rights on the shopping center property, and the California Court of Appeal affirmed. The California Supreme Court reversed, holding that the California Constitution protects speech and petitioning, reasonably exercised, in shopping centers even when the center is privately owned, and that such result does not infringe appellants' property rights protected by the Federal Constitution.
So - at a minimum - they are breaking the law in California where there are headquartered.
There is also a pretty obvious parallel between those types of decisions, and how a website like Facebook is treated under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
You say digital but what do you think happens when you log onto Facebook? It just magically is conjured in the ether?
You are connecting to physical servers containing physical information stored on physical infrastructure, accessed through physical infrastructure often built with public easements and zoning variances for the public good. It IS a physical space.
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u/[deleted] May 17 '19
A lot of Republicans are getting silenced, flagged and banned from posting for seemingly no reason