Comments on: Ninth Circuit: Elected Officials Violated the First Amendment by Blocking Constituents on Social Media–Garnier v. O’Connor-Ratcliff https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/07/ninth-circuit-elected-officials-violated-the-first-amendment-by-blocking-constituents-on-social-media-garnier-v-oconnor-ratcliff.htm Fri, 29 Jul 2022 10:01:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: Zatar Zarvati https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2022/07/ninth-circuit-elected-officials-violated-the-first-amendment-by-blocking-constituents-on-social-media-garnier-v-oconnor-ratcliff.htm#comment-3331 Fri, 29 Jul 2022 10:01:00 +0000 https://blog.ericgoldman.org/?p=24239#comment-3331 In its current incarnation, Martillo v. Twitter does not address abridgment of user First Amendment rights under State Action Doctrine because Justice Thomas did not address State Action Doctrine in his blueprint for attacking the caselaw, which has become associated with 47 U.S. Code § 230, but I wonder why Burton v. Wilmington Pkg. Auth, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S. Ct. 856 (1961) does not apply to this issue. Burton addresses State Action Doctrine and the 14th Amendment, but shouldn’t it apply to State Action Doctrine and the 1st Amendment?

It’s pointless for a social medium platform, whose service is wholly within and integrated into the Internet, to argue that the US government did not build the initial version of the Internet. It is possible to account for every last dime (slight exaggeration) that has bee spent on building the Internet through 1984. Since 1984 US government funding of the Internet has been and continues to be substantial.

It’s far from obvious that Burton requires that funding, maintenance, management, and expansion be totally under the control of a governmental organization. SCOTUS will probably only require that the control or the funding be substantial — not a high bar.

Each social medium platform has made a legal error that neither a public phone company nor a cable company ever made.

AT&T (in the days of POTS) and Comcast always owned their own network/distribution system right down to the CPE (Customer Premises Equipment). In the case of the Internet, CPE is owned by the end-user. Like many corporations and members of the public, I built or added my own pieces of the structure, facility, or establishment of the Internet.

I can strongly argue that a social medium platform not only sponges off the federal government but also off the public including me. Maybe the argument for applying State Action Doctrine is even stronger with respect to a service, which like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn is wholly within the Internet.

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