Justice Clarence Thomas’ Social Media Opinion: Read It For Yourself
Justice Clarence Thomas’ Social Media Opinion has been getting lots of play, so what exactly did the Justice write that got folks so fired up?
The decision by social media giants Twitter and Facebook to ban former President Donald Trump from their platforms appears to have drawn the ire of one of America’s most prominent jurists: Justice Clarence Thomas.
As the Supreme Court issued an order Monday declaring moot a lawsuit over Trump’s blocking of some Twitter users from commenting on his feed, Thomas weighed in with a 12-page lament about the power of social media firms like Twitter.
“Today’s digital platforms provide avenues for historically unprecedented amounts of speech, including speech by government actors. Also unprecedented, however, is control of so much speech in the hands of a few private parties,” Thomas wrote. “We will soon have no choice but to address how our legal doctrines apply to highly concentrated, privately owned information infrastructure such as digital platforms.”
Thomas singled out the owners of Google and Facebook by name, arguing that the firms are currently unaccountable personal fiefdoms with massive power.
“Although both companies are public, one person controls Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), and just two control Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin),” Thomas wrote.
Read the full ruling here, Justice Thomas’ opinion starts on page 9:
Clarence Thomas Social Media
You know, I’d like to know just what speech it is that Google controls. Particularly political speech. I mean, I guess they could refuse to carry Trump banner ads.
I guess it’s about YouTube, not Google, per se. Many conservatives are convinced that YouTube discriminates against them, and yet, when you dig into it, there’s always violations of terms of service involved in the high-profile cases.
It said right there that you couldn’t make violent threats. And you did it anyway, and then screamed “discrimination”. Thereby drawing lots of attention from other conservatives and maybe fundraising far better than you could just running your channel, which was mediocre at best.
Today I learned that Justices Thomas is considered quite expert on copyright law, and that his dissent to Google v. Oracle would probably be worth reading. But of course, stuff like this, vague finger shaking at people that don’t agree with him, is much more in line with my impression of him.
OTOH, I will not defend Facebook. I can’t stand it. I spend no time there. I may have to cave at some point and look at it, but I hope not. Their hold on free speech and influence over it is obvious, as is their attempts to silo and destroy any other way of communicating with people online.
The truly bizarre part of this is that for decades it was conservatives that bore the banner of “private companies should be able to do what they want”.Report
“I’d like to know just what speech it is that Google controls.”
They control as much speech as Masterpiece Cakeshop controls pastry.Report
For comparison:
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Remember when “billion dollar company” meant something real?Report
1000 Bitcoin Companies!Report
To be fair, she does have a history of making libelous claims about the content of Clubhouse conversations.Report
Edit gone wrong. Nothing to see here.Report