Biden Administration's Admission They're Flagging Content to Facebook

Good. I'm glad they are. And Facebook would have to be acting on behalf of the government for it to be a First Amendment issue. The government sending them links to content that violates Facebook's own rules so Facebook will remove it would not implicate the First Amendment.

 

Interesting issue. As long as the government doesn't censure, or tells Facebook what to censure, not sure if there is a problem. If someone were to yell, "FIRE" is a crowded, privately owned theater, and cause a panic, that person is liable for what happens next, including charges filed by the local LEO who has jurisdiction. If someone on Facebook posts something similar to his/her public wall, for all to see, is it truly any different? I don't know.

 

So basically the govt is reduced to using the “report” button to the Facebook overlords.

 

You and I can report posts to Facebook. Why not the government?

 

They aren't. They are pointing out potentially offending posts for Facebook to make its own determination. You are missing that distinction.

 

Not a 1A issue until there is a penalty for not toeing the line. Sending correct info seems like a responsible governmental action to me.

 

Right, the White House is merely alerting social media that certain posts should be flagged. Lots of naive people around here. Of course they are telling FB what posts to take down. The fact that anyone on either side of the political spectrum would be ok with this is a very sad commentary on where our country is. The government should not be in the business of censoring information they disagree with. Just think 6 months or a year ago the information the current White House disagreed with that would have been taken down that turned out to most likely be true. Hunter Biden's laptop full of incriminating emails and photos. Trump did not order protestors to be gassed in front of White House. Covid started in a lab in Wuhan. We will have a vaccine by January thanks to Trump's efforts. Black Lives Matter is a marxist organization. Masks slow the spread of Covid. Oh wait, the compliant social media was already incorrectly censoring all that.

 

As long as the government is not forcing any of this I don’t see the problem. It’s the responsible thing to do to at least try, without violating the constitution, to stop these despicable people from spreading false health information that has life or death consequences.

It may be a slippery slope, but these are extraordinary times we are living in.

 

They should not be doing it. The “not forcing” argument doesn’t fly due to the imbalance of power.

 

No it is not the right thing to do. At all. Ever. This is what they do in Cuba, China, Russia. The government does not agree with that statement so take it down. Then later when it becomes obvious the government is wrong. How do you fix that? You don't. It never gets fixed. But of course that is never part of the plan. Trump said the virus came from a lab in China he was ridiculed, censored etc. Now Biden says a lot of evidence pointing toward the virus coming from a lab in China. Why is he not censored? Why do so many of you think the Dems have the best of intentions and would never cross the line. They consistently cross the line and take everything too far.

 

Is the govt “abridging speech” when they prosecute someone for misrepresentation or fraud?

Seems like if people are knowingly profiting off misinformation/lies, a case could be made for fraud.

That doesn’t mean the pions who “follow” the misinformation should be attacked in any way, but I’ve seen the claim that something like a dozen people are responsible for a vast amount of the anti-vaxx misinformation on twitter and Facebook. If they are using things like bot networks and organized attempts to go viral with “inauthentic behavior”, I think a case can be made this is fraud. IMO. But to reach that level I think you have to demonstrate financial gain. If a person is willingly spreading misinformation for other reasons (insanity), then unfortunately that’s harder to deal with.

 

The root of the problem is Facebook has too much power and influence (particularly over morons).

Bad actors of course love this scenario, because it gives them opportunity to manipulate an easily accessible audience for power and financial gain. Is that what we call “free speech”? I suppose it is to an extent. But I don’t think Facebook can be a free for all of criminality and frauds either.

 

Is facebook making decisions at the direction of the WH or are they listening and deciding for themselves? It's not unheard of for govt to warn private companies of problems, but it could become a 1a issue only if there is some threat or coercion forcing fb to do something.

 

Yep, this is not a slope to go down. Put out the information and let Facebook police themselves. Let people pressure Facebook to do the right thing if it is important to them. But the government shouldn't even be approaching this.

 

No, in China, the government doesn't report it to the private business to give them the option of taking it down. In China, the government simply blocks the content itself. That's the distinction, and it's quite significant.