Facebook's Latest Fake News 'Purge' Terminates Several Accounts Known For Their Criticism Of Law Enforcement

from the something-else-that-works-in-theory,-but-is-a-complete-abortion-in-practice dept

Moderating at scale is a nightmare. Anything you do will be wrong. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try. This doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to criticism. Just be aware every move you make will cause unintended collateral damage. Making everyone happy is impossible. Making everyone angry is inevitable.

Mike Masnick's long, thoughtful post -- springing from multiple platforms' booting of Alex Jones -- pointed out two things that seem to get forgotten when discussing social media moderation:

1. Platforms can remove users with impunity without raising legal or ethical issues.

2. This shouldn't prevent us from expressing our concern about how these moderation issues are handled.

This is raising its head again because Facebook's efforts to eradicate fake news and untrustworthy news sources has removed several pages belonging to controversial news sources. For whatever reason, most of these sites are strongly associated with police accountability efforts. Radley Balko listed these sites on Twitter:

If you can't read/see the tweet, it says:

As part of its purge, Facebook has removed the pages of several police accountability/watchdog/critic groups, including Cop Block, the Free Thought Project, and Police the Police. They've also apparently severely restricted activity for the Photography Is Not a Crime page.

To critics of cop critics, this tweet seemed like hypocrisy. Several quoted an earlier tweet by Balko about platform moderation. That one said:

Private companies like FB and Google have every right to remove content they find objectionable. No one owes Alex Jones a platform.

This is where critics of Balko and others stopped reading. This was the supposed hypocrisy of the anti-Jones, anti-Trump, anti-cop, anti-whatever on full display. But that wasn't the end of the tweet. Here's the rest:

But when politicians demand removal with implied threats, I start to worry. Senators shouldn't be deciding what's offensive.

That's the real issue. When the government starts guiding moderation efforts of private companies, the First Amendment comes under fire. But it seems politicians on both sides would rather see speech they don't like disappear than uphold the Constitution. Case in point, Senator Mark Warner, who took to Twitter to applaud Facebook's purge.

If you can't read/see the tweet, it says:

Good step by Facebook. Now that Russia's playbook is out in the open, more bad actors are going to take advantage. Social media companies are going to have to continue being proactive in identifying and responding to bad actors using their platforms.

Maybe so, but the vanishing of a handful of cop accountability-focused pages isn't exactly what comes to mind when someone's talking about Russian interference. Encouraging platforms to engage in further moderation may seem innocuous, but the reality of the situation is there is constant pressure -- applied by people like Senator Warner -- for platforms to do more, more, more because some speech they don't care for can still be found on the internet.

The more politicians push for action, the more collateral damage they will cause. They may feel there's no Constitutional problem since they're not directly mandating moderation efforts. But they are harming free speech, if only indirectly at this point.

Certainly Facebook is free to nuke accounts it finds questionable, but each moderation move expands the definition of untrustworthy to encompass entities who present newsworthy items with biased reporting. Anyone using the platform is free to find more balanced reporting. Senators standing back and applauding bad moderation moves helps no one.

Filed Under: content moderation, criticism, election interference, fake news, law enforcement, moderation at scale
Companies: cop block, facebook, free thought project, photography is not a crime, pinac, police the police

Florida Judge Sued After Banning Protestors From 'Questioning Integrity Of The Court'

from the that-old-first-amendment... dept

Florida certainly has its reputation for general nuttiness, and sometimes it goes beyond the prototypical "Florida Man" to the "Florida Judge." Last week, Florida judge Mark Mahon decided that because he personally couldn't take a little criticism from protestors outside the courtroom, he could unilaterally suspend the First Amendment of the Constitution, leading him to issue a hilarious order barring people from demonstrating anywhere near the courthouse if those demonstrations included mocking judges:

Demonstrations or dissemination of materials that degrade or call into question the integrity of the Court or any of its judges (e.g., claiming the Courts, Court personnel or judges are “corrupt,” biased, dishonest, partial, or prejudiced), thereby tending to influence individuals appearing before the Courts, including jurors, witnesses, and litigants, shall be prohibited on the Duval County Courthouse grounds….

The order further stated that anyone exercising such a First Amendment right could be "found in criminal contempt of Court." Considering that he's already stomping on the First Amendment, perhaps it's no surprise that he falls back on the misleading-to-wrong anti-free speech trope of "yelling fire in a crowded theater."

[T]he proper procedure for challenging a court’s decision is to file an appeal with the appropriate appellate court. Shouting out on the Courthouse grounds that the Court and judges are “corrupt” during business hours while people are entering the Courthouse is entirely inappropriate and disruptive and is analogous to falsely shouting “fire” in a crowded theater....

Eugene Volokh quickly pointed out how ridiculous this order is and Popehat followed up as well:

This is flatly unconstitutional. Demonstrations and leafleting are protected speech under the First Amendment. So, for that matter, is flag-burning and walking around on stilts as a giant puppet of Uncle Sam. Burning a giant photograph of Judge Mahon, a public figure and a judge no less, would be protected speech.

And sidewalks surrounding a courthouse are a public forum, the sort of place the founders envisioned protest, and flag-burning, and giant puppets, and burning giant photographs of Judge Mark Mahon. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court has held that its own adjoining sidewalks are a public forum where demonstrations, leafleting, and giant puppets are allowed.

The sidewalks comprising the outer boundaries of the Court grounds are indistinguishable from any other sidewalks in Washington, D.C., and we can discern no reason why they should be treated any differently. Sidewalks, of course, are among those areas of public property that traditionally have been held open to the public for expressive activities, and are clearly within those areas of public property that may be considered, generally without further inquiry, to be public forum property.

Demonstrations, signs, and leaflets outside public courthouses may be quite triggering for the sensitive souls who work there, but they have an alternative: GET A REAL JOB IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR. You can put black robes on a goon like Mark Mahon, but a goon he remains. He has no business enforcing the law, much less making up new law of his own goonish devising.

So who were these demonstrators that Judge Mahon was so upset about that it made him completely forget the very First Amendment to the Constitution? They were associated with the site Photography Is Not A Crime, better known as PINAC, and who we've written about/linked to many times for exposing ridiculous efforts to bully photographers/journalists/citizens exercising their rights to photograph and videotape in public (including the actions of public officials). Mahon was hearing a case involving a PINAC reporter who had been arrested concerning a demonstration against the TSA. Other PINAC folks were demonstrating outside of this case, leading to Mahon's order.

In response, PINAC has filed a lawsuit against Mahon in which they argue that Mahon's order violates their First Amendment rights and asks for a temporary restraining order against Mahon's order.

In response, Mahon quickly "scaled back" his original order, but didn't get rid of it completely.

Mahon wrote a new administrative order that “vacates and supersedes” the previous one. It continues the ban against photography of secure areas and security features, but he eliminated the ban against protests that question the court’s integrity.

The new order is certainly better and appears to remove the reference to "fire in a crowded theater" along with the clearly unconstitutional ban on calling the integrity of the court into question. But it still seems pretty clearly targeted at protected activity that the judge doesn't like. He tries to present it as being all about safety, but that seems like a tortured attempt to ban a form of protest that he doesn't like. PINAC claims it will continue to fight the new order as well. One hopes, as part of this process, Judge Mahon familiarizes himself with the Constitution that he's supposed to be enforcing.

Filed Under: courts, demonstrations, first amendment, florida, free speech, judge, mark mahon, pinac, protests
Companies: pinac