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Yeah. This is ridiculous.

If you want to enter the land of the pedantic-literal:

She didn't say she wanted to stop them from criticizing them - she -said- she wanted to break them up so they couldn't heckle.

How does one take that to mean that she wants to prevent their free speech? Breaking them up does not stop them from criticizing her before, during, or after that breakup.

You're inferring a whole lot from one trailing sentence - and ignoring both a.) common sense and b.) the substance of the rest of the tweet - which YES does modify the meaning of that last sentence when you consider it all together.

Boo. I boo you sir.

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Hm.

One of the things that will be happening in this Congress is debate over Section 230. A likely approach that progressives will take is to demand that Google Facebook Twitter moderate certain speech to retain 230 protection. They will use examples that nail them permanently. AOC will tweet about hateful speech directed at her. Maybe she says "We have to take action against Google because Google lets this awful speech happen."

Under Patterico's analysis, I think we end up with a First Amendment violation. Which would trouble me -- surely the First Amendment is not meant to be an inhibitor of debate.

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founding

Given the contents of her tweet, I could see how any actions she takes against Amazon from here could be considered or at least characterized as attacks on their 1st Amendment rights.

The funniest thing about her tweet was when she noted she did not write these particular loopholes- unlike those she did write

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How does anyone defend Warren in this? She is a sitting senator who has publicly warned a private entity not to heckle her or there could be *consequences*. How is this not an abuse of power? While I understand that tribal affiliation (and hate of big corporations) too frequently determines how people respond, I cannot take seriously anyone who defends Warren in this.

The best response to this is more public heckling of Senator Warren.

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Great article. I really like how to explained, with reference how her tweet was itself a violation of the first amendment.

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Still not sure if Warren's tweet is necessarily a First Amendment violation, but Patterico's citation to the Backpage decision makes a pretty good argument that it is. But regardless of that, Warren's tweet comes very close to violating, and may violate, the legal ethics rule that a lawyer may not threaten someone with criminal prosecution in order to gain an advantage in a civil matter. As a former law professor Warren surely is aware of the rule. Not to get all cynical or anything, but if Warren were an (R) senator instead of a (D) the state bar in Massachusetts (assuming that's where she is admitted) would probably open an investigation. But I hope they don't -- there are too many threats and investigations these days, we don't really need another one. Maybe a simple admonition that she go and tweet no more?

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Her comments are ridiculous and I have no idea why anyone would defend them.

I'm a lot more interested in whether it's an actual First Amendment violation on its own. Your view is certainly plausible, but based just on this one case discussed it doesn't seem as clear cut to me. The quote about "threatened imposition" must as always be considered against the facts of the case.

In that case, the sheriff is threatening credit card companies by telling them they better stop doing something they're otherwise lawfully entitled to do or else they'll face consequences. Do not accept business from Backpage, or bad things will happen.

That's dissimilar from this, I think. Warren seems intent on taking down Amazon and Big Tech with or without regard to whether they do or don't do certain things. It's like if a prosecutor says about a obstreperous defendant, "This defendant is going to be convicted of murder and then he can keep making his empty threats from the cell where he'll spend the rest of his life." The "threat" of spending life in prison is a consequence that flows from what I'm already planning to do, and which I have the power to do for reasons unrelated to speech.

In that sense, Warren's already intending to take down Big Tech via legal means. So their "inability" to criticize her is just a consequence of what she already plans to do, which is itself lawful. That doesn't have a ready parallel to the Backpage case.

Moreover, Warren's claim is just so stupid that I'm not sure it could be construed as threatening. (Relatedly, is there some intent requirement with respect to the threat?) Even if her plans to dismantle Big Tech succeed, Amazon is still free to criticize Senators.

Anyway, I'm not at all sure I'm right. Just pointing out the sorts of things I would be thinking of exploring if I were to write a brief in opposition.

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i remain unimpressed yet leery of her bullshit. i think she's a power-hungry socialist that cloaks it fairly well, at least enough to seem "for the people."

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