Twitter's Management Just Violated 18 U.S. Code §2384.Seditious conspiracy. Punishable by Prison Sentences up to 20 Years for Those Who Pushed to Obstruct Trump's Announcement.
18 U.S. Code § 2384.Seditious conspiracy: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2384
> If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.
What Twitter did is a violation. The "protesters" forming these "autonomous zones" are blatantly violating this law.
Another law worth mentioning: 18 U.S. Code § 2.Principals. Particularly, section (a). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2
> (a)Whoever commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal.
> (b)Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal.
This counters attempted excuses such as:
> * Twitter managers didn't themselves intend to use force against law enforcement.
> * Twitter is a "private service" with 1st amendment protections therefore Trump has no right to their platform.
Even if $TWTR (a publicly traded company) were a "private service", it's no defense.
Announcement that Twitter hindered: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1275409656488382465
> There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!
In this historical act of censorship, Twitter limited access under the pretense:
> This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about abusive behavior. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible. Learn more [https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/public-interest]
They impeded distribution and discussion of an important peace-keeping announcement. All Trump did was announce that the laws are going to be enforced (unlike what happened in Seattle). Although Trump's announcement was not completely removed, Twitter intentionally limited the distribution of it. Sharing, commenting, retweets, and likes are blocked by Twitter. Twitter's actions aided (and abeted) the anarchists in comission of crimes, as well as endangered the public.
This decision was not made by a lone employee. Far from it. A large segment of the companies mid to senior management was involved in committing this act:
< Process and teams involved
< 1. Our global enforcement team will escalate any Tweet that meets the criteria defined above for secondary review by our Trust & Safety team. We will not evaluate Tweets for the public interest exception if they do not violate the Twitter Rules or otherwise fail to meet the criteria above.
< 2. Our Trust & Safety team will evaluate the Tweet and prepare a recommendation on whether or not continued access to the Tweet is in the public interest.
< 3. The recommendation will be shared with a cross-functional set of leaders across different internal teams with diverse and multidisciplinary backgrounds in government, human rights, journalism, news, technology, and law, as well as in-market teams with an understanding of the cultural context in which the Tweet was posted.
< 4. After informing these cross-functional stakeholders of the recommendation and feedback from the cross-functional team, senior leaders from Trust & Safety will make the final decision to remove the Tweet or apply the notice.
For reference, their (inapplicable) policy on "abuse":
< Abuse / harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes:
< * Wishing or hoping serious harm on a person or group of people
< * Unwanted sexual advances
< * Using aggressive insults with the purpose of harassing or intimidating others
< * Encouraging or calling for others to harass an individual or group of people
I'm no lawyer, but the way I see it, the federal government has ample legal (and constitutional) grounds to imprison the anarchists/Antifa/BLM agitators as well as Twitter management. No extensive sleuthing, digging through old documents, fancy diagrams, etc are needed to get these people behind bars (and obtain search warrants that will help add to the rap sheets and implicate additional criminals).