9 ms·

Twitter is a public company ok?

by mcrad 4y ago

dragonwriter 4y ago
> Twitter is a public company ok? (1) it is, in fact, not a public company, and (2) it used to be a “public comoany” in the sense of “has shares traded on open stock markets rather than exclusively in individual off-market trades”, but that sense of “public” is still not a government actor covered by tbe restriction on the federal government in 1A or that on state governments in 14A. That is simply a different sense of the words “public” and “private” then is relevant here.
- mcrad 4y ago
  I do believe public vs. private is relevant in terms of legal responsibility, which you any many in the tech community are dismissing.
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > I do believe public vs. private is relevant in terms of legal responsibility The kind of “public vs. private” by which Twitter was once public is relevant in terms of whether or not they are subject to, say, certain SEC regulations, which are a form of “legal responsibility”, but it is not relevant to whether or not they are legally considered to be federal or state government entities under the 1st and 14th Amendments, such that they would be restricted from the kind of content-based restrictions the government is prohibited from imposing.
    - mcrad 4y ago
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > Citizens united supporter are ya? Citizen’s United is irrelevant. This isn't an issue of whether or not Twitter is a person protected by the 14th Amendment, but whether it is the federal or state government, and thuse restricted by the 1st and/or 14th amendments. And–as I would think would be obvious–Twitter is neither the federal government nor a state government. (And, if you wanted to make the argument that it was an agency of state government because corporations are created by states through law, that would be more interesting, but then the "private company" vs. "public company" issue would still be moot, because that would apply to all corporations regardless of whether their stock was publicly traded.) > I can’t wrap my head around this notion that an agent of $40B public company constitutes “private censorship” do some research. I have an undergraduate degree and some professional study (abandoned midway for an IT career) in this field. What you are doing is called “equivocation”; making an argument that attaches the import of one meaning of a word to a circumstance in which a different meaning applies. A “public company” in the sense that Twitter used to be one is a short way of saying “A private corporation with stock traded on a public stock exchange”. It is not the same thing as a government entity subject to the 1st (federal) or 14th (state, and consequently subdivisions thereof) amendments to the US Constitution.

Twitter is a public company ok?

by mcrad 4y ago

Twitter is a public company ok?

> Twitter is a public company ok? (1) it is, in fact, not a public company, and (2) it used to be a “public comoany” in the sense of “has shares traded on open stock markets rather than exclusively in individual off-market trades”, but that sense of “public” is still not a government actor covered by tbe restriction on the federal government in 1A or that on state governments in 14A. That is simply a different sense of the words “public” and “private” then is relevant here.

mcrad 4y ago
I do believe public vs. private is relevant in terms of legal responsibility, which you any many in the tech community are dismissing.
- dragonwriter 4y ago
  > I do believe public vs. private is relevant in terms of legal responsibility The kind of “public vs. private” by which Twitter was once public is relevant in terms of whether or not they are subject to, say, certain SEC regulations, which are a form of “legal responsibility”, but it is not relevant to whether or not they are legally considered to be federal or state government entities under the 1st and 14th Amendments, such that they would be restricted from the kind of content-based restrictions the government is prohibited from imposing.
  - mcrad 4y ago
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Citizens united supporter are ya? Citizen’s United is irrelevant. This isn't an issue of whether or not Twitter is a person protected by the 14th Amendment, but whether it is the federal or state government, and thuse restricted by the 1st and/or 14th amendments. And–as I would think would be obvious–Twitter is neither the federal government nor a state government. (And, if you wanted to make the argument that it was an agency of state government because corporations are created by states through law, that would be more interesting, but then the "private company" vs. "public company" issue would still be moot, because that would apply to all corporations regardless of whether their stock was publicly traded.) > I can’t wrap my head around this notion that an agent of $40B public company constitutes “private censorship” do some research. I have an undergraduate degree and some professional study (abandoned midway for an IT career) in this field. What you are doing is called “equivocation”; making an argument that attaches the import of one meaning of a word to a circumstance in which a different meaning applies. A “public company” in the sense that Twitter used to be one is a short way of saying “A private corporation with stock traded on a public stock exchange”. It is not the same thing as a government entity subject to the 1st (federal) or 14th (state, and consequently subdivisions thereof) amendments to the US Constitution.