The weird thing is that, a year ago, if you asked me where "private companies should be able to make their own decisions about what content they publish" falls on the spectrum, I would have considered it to be right of center.
I guess it comes down to whether these justices are ideologically "right-leaning", or just Republican partisans.
From my observations left leaning means apply liberal criteria to decisions. Right leaning means adhere to the Constitution and law of the United States of America.
And how did you get to that conclusion? I mean the "right" has been failing to adhere to the Constitution since like forever. The Constitution does not allow restrictions on abortion, but it was affirmed by Supreme Court by Republican majority. The Constitution does not allow warrantless spying on American citizens, but it was affirmed by Supreme Court under a Republican majority. The Constitution does not say that I am free to pollute your lands with my toxic coal smoke spewing smoke stacks without paying for the damage caused, yet our Supreme Court under a Republican majority has decided it does.
From my perspective, left-meaning means having a close association with reality and pragmatism, and right-leaning means do and say anything to make the rich richer.
You can twist the Constitution in both directions.
You could say that the value of free speech is so important to society that it is codified on the Constitution. These companies that become big enough platforms should respect that value.
You could also say that the Constitution provides free speech protections to everyone. These companies should benefit from those same protections, thus the government shouldn't be able to interfere what these companies publish.
I defy anyone to write a rule with any kind of specificity for the first case.
User count? Great, while the user count is < N the platform is moderated and popular. As soon as the user count exceeds N it's instantly a cesspool of spam and porn. Then what, it bleeds users and drifts back into the first category again? They're going to write subjective distinctions on the content of the speech into the law to differentiate between spam, porn, porn-spam, and political speech?
It doesn't work! If it could work, please, anyone who reads this comment: Many of us are programmers here, propose a rule that doesn't fall apart.
The second interpretation is at least consistent, even if it does protect corporations.
If Twitter is the devil just leave Twitter, no one has to use it. Gab exists. We have no legal right to access the people who are on Twitter.
That is odd as it means there is no left and right debate. A society choose. Law is what the society agreed. And you said the us society you in, unlike Eu say, are right leaning.
Whilst it might be, but is the left in us is already right (like Obama use Romey Insuranve not single payer). Or are we in mix economy some are left some are right. Or left right actually many different things like large and small Gov,liberty, ownership, ...
Or is there something like open source which is beyond left and right but community, not gov vs market etc.
Hello, 5-month-old account. Please take the time to substantiate your assertions. For example, I assert that you're observations are ridiculous and here is some empirical evidence on which I base my assertion:
"There were only three areas in which Rehnquist showed any interest in enforcing the constitutional guarantee of free expression: in cases involving advertising, religious expression and campaign finance regulation. Rehnquist was 2.6 times more likely to invalidate laws restricting commercial advertising than laws restricting political or artistic expression. He voted to invalidate campaign finance legislation 67 percent of the time, and he voted to invalidate restrictions on religious expression 100 percent of the time. Indeed, in non-unanimous decisions, Rehnquist was 14.7 times more likely to vote to invalidate a law restricting commercial advertising, campaign expenditures, or religious expression than one involving any other aspect of 'the freedom of speech, or of the press.'"[1]
