The Board of Directors of the Libertarian Party of Colorado recently issued a cease and desist notice to X owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccirino, urging the social media platform to promptly halt its “ongoing censorship” of the Colorado affiliate.
In a post on the platform on Wednesday evening, Centennial State Libertarians shared a lengthy document asserting that X was violating the party’s constitutional rights and neglecting to offer an opportunity for negotiation or resolution. This letter was in response to the suspension of the organization’s Twitter account on July 6 and their subsequent appeal on July 7.
https://twitter.com/LPofColorado/status/1702074710903660583
“LPCO represents over 40,000 registered libertarians in Colorado and this overstep has caused irreparable harm to the party and its members,” the letter opens. “X did not give LPCO the opportunity to negotiate and/or remedy this dispute, and failed to properly notify of the offense.
Party leadership also contended that the suspension has significantly impacted the organization’s ability to exercise its fundamental rights. They assert that they no longer enjoy equal access to what they refer to as “the public space and town square.” Furthermore, they argued that this suspension infringes upon their constitutional rights and contradicts the principles of free expression.
“Your platform, while widely utilized for public discourse has been engaged in a systematic pattern of censoring and suppressing the content of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, which culminated in the suspension of the @LPCO account on July 6th, 2023, and the denial of our appeal on July 7th, 2023,” the letter added. “This unjust action by your company is a clear violation of your terms of service and, considering that X holds itself out as a “global town square,” an infringement of our constitutional rights and the principles of free expression that underpin the democratic political process of our Republic.”
In early July, X suspended the organization’s Twitter account at that time due to violations of its policies related to “violent speech.” The social media platform enforces a zero-tolerance policy concerning different forms of violence, which encompasses making threats, expressing desires for harm, inciting violence, and glorifying violent acts or entities. This policy also extends to coded language and the promotion of animal abuse.
The Board of Directors clarified that they were unaware of the specific content that led to the suspension. However, a screenshot initially shared during the suspension indicated that it was related to a specific image. Because of the way X presents information in suspensions, only the initial part of a URL is visible. For more details on the initial suspension, readers can find additional information on Independent Political Report
With no recourse since the initial process, Colorado Libertarians are now considering legal action if their cease and desist notice goes unanswered. “Failure to comply with this notice to rectify this situation will leave us with no choice but to explore all available legal remedies, including legal proceedings to seek damages and injunctive relief,” they wrote.
Government involvement is not the same as coercion. The government made many requests to censor content. It is known that both Facebook and Twitter ignored at least some of those requests, which means both companies understood them to be requests, not demands. Contrary to your assertion, the government did not ORDER the social media companies to do anything.
The only actual acts of coercion by the government, that I have seen, are the threat to revoke Section 230, mostly pushed by the Republicans, and the threat to break up the large tech companies, mostly pushed by the Democrats. But, those threats weren’t being made by the government agencies actually in contact with the social media companies. They were made by politicians.
As such, those threats were no more or less a threat than, for example, Trump threatening to alter libel laws so that he could sue everyone who insulted him. Or Trump starting a global tariff war with the intent to destroy business models he doesn’t like. In other words, the social media companies are in the same boat as everyone else. So, if you consider other companies to be private, then so is Twitter. Twitter and certain other social media companies are just being singled out by Republicans and Mises Caucus “libertarians” because those groups are more likely to violate content policies.
Like Comrade Rick, the Left often uses the implication that a private business got a government benefit – maybe just parking spaces in front of a shop – to justify the onerous interventions by government into private business. If you wish to join these anti-capitalists in their justification for expansive government – go ahead, this is a free country.
But don’t say you are in any way defending private enterprise or private individuals.
Lmao – at so called “libertarians” wanting to use the force of government to control the decisions made by a private business.
Did you read the Twitter files? There was obvious government involvement. I’m not convinced that has changed.
Violent speech is a subjective term.
The government has no more influence or regulation over twitter than it does over every other company.
The Sarwark faction wouldn’t have had their account suspended for violent speech in the first place.
Companies heavily influenced and even ordered by government aren’t really private except in name.
This is just for PR, but I like Colorado is getting it out there. The Prags and Sarwark factions would do nothing.
That’s not a C&D order. That’s a tweet. But I expect little else these days from the kiddy crews that took over in so many places. Put your letter in the mail, registered w/return receipt. Or even certified. There are 5 million+ tweets per day. This tweet isn’t even registering as a gnats fart in in a Cat 5 hurricane.
In their minds, any past collusion or funding from government makes a business fair game. Which ultimately means every large business and many smaller ones are potential targets. Better get started baking that cake!
What Jeff said. Twitter (&*(&(&* royally, but it is a private business. I know Rethuglicans ignore this about social media companies, but …
They can explore all they want, as long as it’s free. All of their exploration will boil down to “too bad, so sad.” It’s also instructive to see which so-called libertarians have no respect for the rights of private property owners.