How conservatives redefined free speech in the social media era, using the First Amendment to claim a “Right to Post” on platforms run by private companies
Early December might have marked the first time anyone ever asserted a First Amendment right to see the president's son's penis … Tweets: @elonmusk , @sifill_ , @pmarca , @badlegaltakes , @timothypmurphy , @mattgertz , @qjurecic , @_fleerultra , @qjurecic , @marisakabas , @lemieuxlgm , @martinsfp , @lukeoneil47 , @theatlantic , @jbouie , @joyannreid , @adamserwer , and @radleybalko Tweets: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : Deplatforming the President (cont.) https://twitter.com/... Sherrilyn Ifill / @sifill_ : I hope that @jack and the Twitter Board understand what they've done. https://twitter.com/... Marc Andreessen / @pmarca : If you listen carefully, you can hear the pinched, narrow-minded, partisan, resentful, bitter hall-monitor censors of social media shifting their focus to AI. @badlegaltakes : https://twitter.com/... Tim Murphy / @timothypmurphy : “there is no constitutional obligation for private actors to host images of a candidate's son's penis, and indeed, rather than a violation of the First Amendment, the choice not to host such images is itself an exercise of free speech” https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Matthew Gertz / @mattgertz : “Conservative complaints about Big Tech are only superficially distinct from their grievances with the so-called liberal media.” Read @AdamSerwer on the conservative right to post https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Quinta Jurecic / @qjurecic : fwiw, I would date the “right to post” arguments to the spring of 2018, when Ted Cruz first started complaining about Section 230 https://www.lawfareblog.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Michael / @_fleerultra : the logical end result of the persecution complex at the heart of modern conservativism is a legal order centering conservatives as a protected class https://twitter.com/... Quinta Jurecic / @qjurecic : there's also this paper (focused on 230 specifically) that suggests the discourse really gets off the ground following Republican losses in the 2018 midterms, perhaps as the GOP is looking to blame the platforms for its defeat: https://papers.ssrn.com/... Marisa Kabas / @marisakabas : this is the crux of why the “revelations” in the twitter files are such complete and utter bullshit https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... Scott Lemieux / @lemieuxlgm : Great stuff from @AdamSerwer about how the fictional right to post is at war with actual principles of free speech https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @martinsfp : Just imagine if politics was about competition between ideas for making the world better, rather than noisily complaining about pronouns and censorship of pictures of a presidential candidate's son's penis. America feels lost. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... Luke / @lukeoneil47 : This explains why they haven't shut up about this shit in years. When the only path to power on the right is cultural grievance (and they have a politics absent anything tangible to help people) posting is their entire career. https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @theatlantic : “Under the tenets of the conservative right to post, ‘free speech’ just means the right controls the conversation,” @AdamSerwer writes: https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @jbouie : “The conservative conception of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ has come to resemble conservative views on elections—they are functioning properly only when they provide the desired results.” https://www.theatlantic.com/ ... @joyannreid : The Conservative Right to Post (including private, intimate pics belonging to someone else) Right to stalk Right to bully Right to harass Right to force media to amplify their narratives and conspiracy theories without curation This is what the right calls “free speech” https://twitter.com/... Adam Serwer / @adamserwer : Wrote about how the Conservative Right To Post swallowed the First Amendment, redefining “freedom of speech” to mean a right to say the things Republicans want you to say. https://t.co/IelFPkwQ4z Radley Balko / @radleybalko : This by @AdamSerwer is great. Conservatives once argued liberalism was so unpopular it could only be promoted with coercion (union dues, NPR, fairness doctrine, student fees, etc.). They now want government to force tech cos to publish conservatives. . https://www.theatlantic.com/ ...