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Folks I really can’t believe I need to say this but posting something on apples platform does not constitute free speech. If you really believe otherwise, put your money where your mouth is and file a lawsuit. I guarantee you’d be wasting your time. That being said l, Jones is a piece of **** who will one day probably be locked up. There’s only so much ******** we can all abide before we do something about it....
 
This decision had nothing to do with business. It was coordinated between the tech giants. All banned him within a 12 hour span not based on any new content... just because.

It's political and follows political pressure from CNN and other MSM outlets to ban Jones.

It is entirely political and has nothing to do with Jones and sure as hell has nothing to do with "hate speech" or violating TOS.

Linda Sarsour
Shawn King
Louis Farrakham
Antifa
Sara Jeong

All have free and open access to every tech giant platform. Things are about to pop off in a way they haven't since the 1960s. I sincerely hope people are prepared for what they are unleashing.


This is not a left wing/right wing thing, despite your wishes to make it so. It is only about Jones.
 
I understand that it may be hard to keep up with appeals and SCOTUS cases, but the information you are posting is incorrect.

While the District Court, in the Lloyd Cord. v. Tanner relied on the Marsh v. Alabama precedent to grant relief to the petitioners that their 1A rights were violated.
However....on appeal, SCOTUS reversed the lower courts decision. In their opinion, the Court concluded that the respondents could have distributed their handbills on "any public street, on any public sidewalk, in any public park, or in any public building." Therefore, respondents were not entitled to exercise their free-speech rights on the privately owned shopping-center property.

Therefore it is inaccurate to claim that 1A protections applies to private property. I'm sure there are other states that may have extended constitutional protections on a state level, but if challenged it would fall, as the SCOTUS case is precedent setting.

If there are any lawyers present maybe they can shed more light into this domain.

I don't practice constitutional law but I have no problem "keeping up" thank you very much. I don't like being patronized. Lloyd was more narrowly tailored than Logan Valley and answered a question left open by Logan Valley regarding relevance of the speech to the location. It did not reverse precedent that first amendment protections can be upheld on private property as ruled in Marsh and affirmed in Logan Valley.

I'll be happy to lend you my old textbooks if you want to educate yourself.
[doublepost=1533602996][/doublepost]
Well, I'll provide an example from my devil's advocate basket of goodies:

Here in the Bay Area we've had a problem with crime on the BART train system. Most of the crime occurs in the East Bay, particularly areas of Oakland. Most of the perpetrators of the crime are black, in particular a few instances when waves of black teenagers swarmed the trains and stole phones and tablets out of riders' hands. BART police were notably quiet about reporting this, and the race of the perpetrators was not initially mentioned (despite the fact that it's often mentioned in describing criminals). BART police have been repeatedly criticized for not publicizing the crime that occurs on the trains and at the stations. It's not racist to say that black teenagers have been committing crimes on BART. It's a fact. But fear of being labeled racist may have led to these instances being underreported.

What would reporting the race of the individuals gain you though? Are you going to read a description that says "black male between 17 and 21 with a medium build and dark hair" and say, "my God, that's John Robinson, I'm going to call the Oakland PD right now with this tip!"
 
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I understand that it may be hard to keep up with appeals and SCOTUS cases, but the information you are posting is incorrect.

While the District Court, in the Lloyd Cord. v. Tanner relied on the Marsh v. Alabama precedent to grant relief to the petitioners that their 1A rights were violated.
However....on appeal, SCOTUS reversed the lower courts decision. In their opinion, the Court concluded that the respondents could have distributed their handbills on "any public street, on any public sidewalk, in any public park, or in any public building." Therefore, respondents were not entitled to exercise their free-speech rights on the privately owned shopping-center property.

Therefore it is inaccurate to claim that 1A protections applies to private property. I'm sure there are other states that may have extended constitutional protections on a state level, but if challenged it would fall, as the SCOTUS case is precedent setting.

If there are any lawyers present maybe they can shed more light into this domain.
Don’t we have to read and analyze enough case law in real life? I certainly don’t care to do extra credit in a MacRumors forum, especially because much if not most of this stuff is much denser and harder to analyze in a forum setting.

Anyway, the infowars app is still in the App Store and I think Infowars is still on the internet radio section of iTunes, so I’m not sure if this is just more virtue signaling from Apple as opposed to a principled stand.
 
That's interesting, because all of the tech monopolies, including YouTube, banned him within 12 hours.

Your post directly contradicts your assertion that you are a "free speech proponent" when you cheer for censorship against people you don't like. YouTube, Twitter and Apple are all FILLED with people "who say a lot of nasty stuff". Only difference is they are free to say it on those platforms, while Jones no longer is.

This was a coordinated political attack. We need to be honest when discussing this, regardless of what side you are on. It has nothing to do with TOS. It was coordinated after an MSM campaign to suppress him.


You do realize that Jones's own website hosts his own videos? He can continue to do so.
 
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I don't practice constitutional law but I have no problem "keeping up" thank you very much. I don't like being patronized. Lloyd was more narrowly tailored than Logan Valley and answered a question left open by Logan Valley regarding relevance of the speech to the location. It did not reverse precedent that first amendment protections can be upheld on private property as ruled in Marsh and affirmed in Logan Valley.

I'll be happy to lend you my old textbooks if you want to educate yourself.



You say you don't like being patronized yet you turn around and come off as such. Again you need to be reminded, this isn't about someone expressing their 1st on private property, this is about a private service who no longer wishes to sell a specific product to customers. Jones never had a 1st amendment guaranteed right to sell his podcasts on Apple services to begin with, they chose to let him. At some point they felt the need to end their services with Jones.

This is Apple, you can sure as hell bet their legal side is covered in this issue. Their TOS is going to be locked up tighter then Trump's taxes and their ability to end services with anyone is going to be covered to protect them.
 
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You say you don't like being patronized yet you turn around and come off as such.

My apologies to you and Sona if I came across that way. Sona's comment of "it can be hard to keep up" just reeked of man-splaining to me (I don't know if Sona is male or not just trying to communicate what that felt like to me, like, "here honey, let me simplify this since thinking is so difficult"). In any case...

Again you need to be reminded, this isn't about someone expressing their 1st on private property, this is about a private service who no longer wishes to sell a specific product to customers. Jones never had a 1st amendment guaranteed right to sell his podcasts on Apple services to begin with, they chose to let him. At some point they felt the need to end their services with Jones.

I understand that there is no current case law specifically dealing with online services. I get that. My primary point was that the first amendment IS applicable in limited scenarios to private property (I'm sorry that I've lost track at this point as to whether you specifically said that's not true but Sona has alleged that first amendment protections cannot be applied to anything other than the government which is demonstrably wrong). I didn't say private internet platforms, I said private physical property. I then went on to theorize that one could bring suit alleging that internet platforms constitute a logical extension of Marsh under current or future conditions. I'm not arguing that this happened in a shopping mall, I'm not arguing that Apple doesn't have the right to do this under current case law, I'm stating a fact that the first is not limited exclusively to government actions and then theorizing that we could see legal action in response to this or some similar action in the future and then freely admitted that I don't have a crystal ball that would tell me how the court would rule.

This is Apple, you can sure as hell bet their legal side is covered in this issue. Their TOS is going to be locked up tighter then Trump's taxes and their ability to end services with anyone is going to be covered to protect them.

They do. There's nothing illegal about what they did today. If I were in his shoes though (as he seems like the kind of guy who wants a lot of attention) I'd file and see what happens. I'm not a fan of Larry Flint either but his case set major precedent, we could see that happen again. If I practiced constitutional law (and were high profile enough to have a shot at the case) I'd be conflicted as it would be a great one to fight but I'd feel so slimy representing him.

edit: messed up the quote tags
 
I'll respond to Sora as well below but they cited incorrectly. You're obviously not following my logic (not meant as a slight, perhaps I'm not communicating it clearly enough) but I do believe a case such as this will be filed and we'll see how it shakes out. You and I seem to be too far apart to debate it.



This was not government trying to restrict free speech or it never would have required SCOTUS review as that would have clearly violated the first amendment and been prima facie to throw it out. This was protected speech (religious materials) taking place on privately owned property (owned by the Gulf company).



No, I had to look it up, Food Employees v. Logan Valley. SCOTUS found that the protestors had a right to protest on the privately owned property of the mall. Thurgood Marshall wrote for the majority:


(footnotes omitted)

The district court had found that "the Mall is the functional equivalent of a public business district" and the appeals court affirmed that. I hadn't reviewed Lloyd Corp before but just did and it's tailoring its ruling to whether the mall was an applicable location for the speech being exercised. Valid point but they aren't stating the first amendment can't apply on private property and Logan Valley and Marsh do.

Individual states have taken this further as well. For example, California (Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter being California companies) has an affirmative right to free speech in its own constitution. The Pruneyard case went to SCOTUS and upheld individuals' right to free speech on private property as well (another shopping mall).

There's enough precedent to see that the first amendment absolutely can be upheld on private property. Not all private property but I've never stated that. Whether the precedent would extend to digital environments is something for the next court to decide but I think there's ample ground to file when an individual is excluded from expressing thoughts on an nominally open platform with sufficient reach to be considered the electronic equivalent of a public square. One could easily make that claim for Youtube, Facebook et. al.



No, I stand by my analysis, you cited the wrong case. Given I've cited the correct cases now I'll assume we can move on to more philosophical rather than legal (which is documented). A private entity could definitely chill free speech. Free speech is useless if it happens in a vacuum (or say, in your own living room). It needs to have potential for an audience whether they will agree with the speech or not. This has traditionally been the public square but as the above has shown the definition of public square can change with time, from literally the square to a shopping mall and to something else entirely in an era where communication, particularly broadcast communication by individuals, is done electronically. If the primary mechanism for communication is electronic and a oligopoly of platforms all ban a particular political viewpoint then that right is under threat. Again, whether any specific court agrees with that only time will tell but that's a valid argument (and a plausible scenario) and one I think we'll see made in the near future.

In Marsh v. Alabama, the petitioner was arrested and charged criminally - and the labeling of the case - Marsh v. Alabama indicates that the state is the respondent and thus the individual attempting to chill speech. The Court noted that the residents of these non-Gulf neighborhoods were freely allowed to use the company-owned streets and sidewalks to access the town's businesses and facilities. And because the petition was standing on the street beside a post office in what is considered a public space, the Alabama Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, holding that the statute as applied was constitutional because the title to the sidewalk was in the corporation's name. It held that the public use of the sidewalk had not been such as to give rise to a presumption under Alabama law of its irrevocable dedication to the public.

In other words, the sidewalk was public space. Therefore, even though owned by a company - it was still classified as a public space.

In Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robbins, the court found that individuals may peacefully exercise their right to free speech in parts of private shopping centers regularly held open to the public, subject to reasonable regulations adopted by the shopping centers.

Recently, the Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robbins decision has been narrowed.
On December 27, 2012, the Supreme Court of California reaffirmed Pruneyard but narrowed its applicability to the facts of the original case. The entire court concurred in Associate Justice Joyce Kennard's holding that Pruneyard applies only to "common areas" of shopping centers that are designed and furnished to encourage shoppers to linger, congregate, relax, or converse at leisure, but does not apply to any other open portions of shopping centers merely intended to facilitate the efficient movement of shoppers in and out of tenants, including concrete aprons and sidewalks which shoppers simply walk across as they move between parking lots and big-box stores.
In other words, 1A on private property is severely limited - and this applies to California. I'm sure there are other states that have similar protections. It is prudent to note that SCOTUS declined to hear further Pruneyard challenges.

Lastly, in Food Employees v. Logan Valley, your analysis is correct. The court used many factors to reach this threshold, one which was the distance of the picketing from the entrance (300-500 feet) of the business (of which there were only 2 in the mall), and the risk of injury, interference with traffic and shoppers.

While private spaces doesn't indiscriminately give the owner complete dominion over the property, the more the space is opened to the public, the more 1A challenges can occur.
With that said however, the overall thrust of these cases have one thing in common - private spaces does not offer the same 1A protections as public spaces. And more dramatically, a truly private space offers no 1A protections at all (ie: one cannot walk into an Apple Store and claim 1A protections when they are kicked out of the establishment). Because ultimately, this would be trespassing.

Applying these tests to an online sphere is a simple one. Who owns the servers own the space, and therefore it is private. Apple's servers are it's house. We are guests in their home. Because they can close their house (shut down the service) then what will you do? Google can shut down youtube tomorrow - then what? A court cannot order these private companies to keep providing a service.

The analysis of these cases are clear - a test of reasonable "public spaces" is required on privately held property to determine 1A protections. The less domain privately held spaces have, the greater 1A protections.
A truly private space, Apple Store, Google's campus, has no 1A protections at all. You would be trespassing.

BTW, these are all great cases. Very fascinating reads.
 
But where will Sarah Jeong and Louis Farrakhan go?

Oh, that's right. They have full and open access to the platforms of the tech monopolies. Along with Shgawn King, the genocide deniers The Young Turks. One of these hate mongers even has a platform with the New York Times! All are free to spew their hate and racism 24/7.

Good times we are living in.


And you are more than welcome to start a thread discussing these perceived injustices. This thread is not about those.
 
This is not a left wing/right wing thing, despite your wishes to make it so. It is only about Jones.

It's just a total coincidence that the Alt-Left dominated tech companies all banned Infowars within 12 hours, all listed "hate speech" as the reason, and none of them cited what he said or did beyond a word cloud that included "bullying", "Islamaphobia", and other negative-associative things.
 
This just in... this is a massive conspiracy by far-right conservatives to paint the liberal company in a negative and hostile light to turn conservative shoppers against the company, thus driving down stock prices and weakening the company's standing in the global market.
 
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I don't practice constitutional law but I have no problem "keeping up" thank you very much. I don't like being patronized. Lloyd was more narrowly tailored than Logan Valley and answered a question left open by Logan Valley regarding relevance of the speech to the location. It did not reverse precedent that first amendment protections can be upheld on private property as ruled in Marsh and affirmed in Logan Valley.
[doublepost=1533602996][/doublepost]

What would reporting the race of the individuals gain you though? Are you going to read a description that says "black male between 17 and 21 with a medium build and dark hair" and say, "my God, that's John Robinson, I'm going to call the Oakland PD right now with this tip!"

Lloyd Corp., Ltd. v. Tanner, 407 US. 551 (1972)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/407/551/

Respondents sought to distribute handbills in the interior mall area of petitioner's large privately owned shopping center. Petitioner had a strict no-handbilling rule. Petitioner's security guards requested respondents under threat of arrest to stop the handbilling, suggesting that they could resume their activities on the public streets and sidewalks adjacent to but outside the center, which respondents did. Respondents, claiming that petitioner's action violated their First Amendment rights, thereafter brought this action for injunctive and declaratory relief. The District Court, stressing that the center is "open to the general public" and "the functional equivalent of a public business district," and relying on Marsh v. Alabama,326 U. S. 501, and Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza, 391 U. S. 308, held that petitioner's policy of prohibiting handbilling within the mall violated respondents' First Amendment rights. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

The facts in this case are significantly different from those in Marsh, supra, which involved a company town with "all the attributes" of a municipality, and Logan Valley, supra,which involved labor picketing designed to convey a message to patrons of a particular store, so located in the center of a large private enclave as to preclude other reasonable access to store patrons. Under the circumstances present in this case, where the handbilling was unrelated to any activity within the center and where respondents had adequate alternative means of communication, the courts below erred in holding those decisions controlling.

46 F.2d 545, reversed and remanded.


I'll be happy to lend you my old textbooks if you want to educate yourself.
Textbooks?? lol
We have the internet(s). (the "s" was added for textbook crowd)

I believe we are done here.;)
 
In other words, the sidewalk was public space. Therefore, even though owned by a company - it was still classified as a public space.

Yes!

In other words, 1A on private property is severely limited - and this applies to California. I'm sure there are other states that have similar protections. It is prudent to note that SCOTUS declined to hear further Pruneyard challenges.

Yes!

Lastly, in Food Employees v. Logan Valley, your analysis is correct. The court used many factors to reach this threshold, one which was the distance of the picketing from the entrance (300-500 feet) of the business (of which there were only 2 in the mall), and the risk of injury, interference with traffic and shoppers.

Yes!

While private spaces doesn't indiscriminately give the owner complete dominion over the property, the more the space is opened to the public, the more 1A challenges can occur.
With that said however, the overall thrust of these cases have one thing in common - private spaces does not offer the same 1A protections as public spaces. And more dramatically, a truly private space offers no 1A protections at all (ie: one cannot walk into an Apple Store and claim 1A protections when they are kicked out of the establishment). Because ultimately, this would be trespassing.

YES! Oh my God we agree :) you have no idea how happy I am after all this back and forth :)

I'm sorry if I wasn't communicating this well but this is what I've been saying all along, the first amendment CAN be applied to private property when it takes on the definition of "public square." It's not common, it's not all spaces, but it absolutely can be applied.

Applying these tests to an online sphere is a simple one. Who owns the servers own the space, and therefore it is private. Apple's servers are it's house. We are guests in their home. Because they can close their house (shut down the service) then what will you do? Google can shut down youtube tomorrow - then what? A court cannot order these private companies to keep providing a service.

now we're into theorizing, which is great. I think you could argue that major online platforms, as the continue to consolidate, have become the public square. If people primarily communicate on platforms like facebook/twitter/youtube then you can make an analogy - again, despite the private ownership of servers/bandwidth/etc - that those online platforms have become public square. Especially if that is where significant political debate takes place. I think there's enough there to file. Would it hold up, who knows, the make up of the next court may not be favorable to that argument. I think it would be an interesting case though.

The analysis of these cases are clear - a test of reasonable "public spaces" is required on privately held property to determine 1A protections. The less domain privately held spaces have, the greater 1A protections.
A truly private space, Apple Store, Google's campus, has no 1A protections at all. You would be trespassing.

I think it would all hinge on whether online platforms can be classified public square. Given the political debates taking place on these environment I think you could. I'd so be following that case if/when it happens! :)

BTW, these are all great cases. Very fascinating reads.

Totally. Way back when we had a lecture on these in constitutional law, I loved it. Marsh obviously stuck in my head all these (ugh, too many now) years.
 
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It doesn’t matter what she claims her motivation was. The tweets were objectively racist.


Not if you understand
It's just a total coincidence that the Alt-Left dominated tech companies all banned Infowars within 12 hours, all listed "hate speech" as the reason, and none of them cited what he said or did beyond a word cloud that included "bullying", "Islamaphobia", and other negative-associative things.


Stop making up words, man. There is no equivalency between Antifa (I assume that's who you're referring to when you say alt-Left) and Alex Jones. Educate yourself on Jones. We can't do that for you.
 
Textbooks?? lol
We have the internet(s). (the "s" was added for textbook crowd)

I believe we are done here.;)

No need to remind me how many years have passed :p
[doublepost=1533606196][/doublepost]Whew, I read all 29 pages of comments. That was exhausting (the blatantly partisan comments and trolling that is, not the people I was communicating with). I'm not coming back to PRSI for a while :p

To those that I spoke with, thanks for a engaging debate :) it's getting late now so time to find some food...
 
I’m pretty certain only the mainstream media has peddled it as Alex jones saying it was a hoax as in no one died. I’m not up to speed on it fully but I think Alex’s stance was it was orchestrated by dark powers in high places. Something that is very different to what the media make him out to have said.
But hey I could be wrong as I only caught parts of the story.
Translation: I only got parts of the story so I’ll make up the rest myself rather than get more details.
 
Both facists and anti fascists are equally garbage. But still I see no reason why Alex Jones cannot have his own podcast audience. Rights and laws should work for everyone equally.
And they do work for everyone equally. No one is stopping him from using his millions and standing up his own platform and putting his podcast there.
 
No need to remind me how many years have passed :p
[doublepost=1533606196][/doublepost]Whew, I read all 29 pages of comments. That was exhausting (the blatantly partisan comments and trolling that is, not the people I was communicating with). I'm not coming back to PRSI for a while :p

To those that I spoke with, thanks for a engaging debate :) it's getting late now so time to find some food...

Right there with you.
Sadly, i read the 29 pages as well. It's like I love punishing myself.

BTW, thanks for posting those cases. There is much room for debate.
I honestly do hope that Jones will sue, though I don't think he will. But it would be a case worthy for SCOTUS review if he prevailed in the lower courts.
It would make sense for him to file in California considering the cases we discussed. Though the California Supreme court has gotten more conservative, it would be interesting how they would apply Pruneyard if applicable.
 
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