Will Florida Social Media Bill Allow Trump back Online? Does the Florida Social Media Bill Allow Trump to Be Back on Twitter and Facebook? It prohibits internet companies from banning Politicians on social media. &quot;SB 7072 also bars social media platforms from restricting “journalistic enterprises,” which the bill defines as entities that do business in Florida and have at least 100,000 monthly active users or 50,000 paid subscribers.&quot; Florida set to fine social media firms up to $250,000 a day for knowingly deplatforming politicians Florida bill would fine social media platforms for banning politicians
There are two reasons why this will probably not work. First, the law is likely to be considered unconstitutional. Forcing a private entity to host views that they do not want to violates their first amendment rights. If Facebook or Twitter are fined, they can ignore it, have it taken to the supreme court, and win. Second, Florida cannot prevent Facebook from operating there and do not want a situation where that happens. Not only are there potential first amendment issues but Florida are too insignificant. Whereas larger entities such as the EU can dictate terms, Florida would simply be bluffing.
Wave Broadband is a private company; they can probably decide to not provide service to an address that is in arrears or collections. I'm sure there is a clause in their service contract that states they can do that, and there would be local or state laws to support that. Whatever public service commission governs the state may also allow that. It's possible that Wave is breaking the law by denying service to a whole address, but doubtful. You can check with the state level public service commission.
The Quora statement that the word &quot;facebook&quot; cannot be used in a domain name without permission is incorrect, or at least too broad. If a site or app is intended to work with Facebook, it may say so. However it may not use the word &quot;Facebook&quot; whch is trademark, in such a way as to suggest that it is an official Facebook product, or that it is endorsed, authorized, or sponsored by the makers of Facebook, or to cause confusion with the original Facebook. Whether a domain name containing &quot;facebook&quot; does that depends on the details. There are multiple precedents for criticism sites. A domain such as &quot;facebooksucks.com&quot; would not be trademark infringement, and there is caselaw to support this. But that is not what might be wanted here. Perhaps &quot;unofficialfacebookhelper.com&quot; would suffice. But to return to the question asked, use of a word in the hypertext metadata in the &quot;Head&quot; element is a reasonable way of indicating that the site is to be used in connection with Facebook, but there would need to be some additional notice or disclaimer making it very clear to any user that the site is in no way affiliated, endorsed, authorized, or sponsored by the makers of Facebook. The use of a trademark to identify another product with which a given product works is known as nominative use. The law specifically allows it, providing it is not done in such a way as to cause confusion, or to falsely suggest sponsorship, approval, or some relationship that does not exist. However, large corporate trademark owners are known to claim more rights than the law allows them. Such owners may try to suppress nominative use that they hae not approved, although they could not win a trademark lawsuit over such use. US Law 15 U.S. Code § 1125 (c)(3) provides the relevant part: The following shall not be actionable as dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment under this subsection: (A) Any fair use, including a nominative or descriptive fair use, or facilitation of such fair use, of a famous mark by another person other than as a designation of source for the person’s own goods or services
Governments have power to do whatever their constitutions (written or unwritten) allow them to do. For example, the constitution of Australia provides: The federal Parliament can make laws only on certain matters. These include: ... post and telecommunications; ... The telecommunications power covers VPN and any software that uses the Internet for delivery or communication (i.e. virtually all modern software). In addition the federal government has power over inter-state and international trade (any software that crosses state or international borders) and corporations (any software made, sold or used by companies). If they want to ban a piece of software they have pretty strong constitutional power to do so.
Yes Presidential pardons only deal with breaches of Federal law. So, if the punishment is a fine then that penalty is waived. However, if the fine is punishment for breach of state law, the pardon does not touch it - he would need a pardon from the relevant state Governor(s). But Anthony Levandowski is not being punished with a fine, he was punished with a jail term. What he owes Google is damages for breach of contract or a tort, both civil matters and almost certainly under California law, not a punishment for an offence. This is not something he can be pardoned for by a President (if under Federal law which is unlikely) or a Governor (if under state law). His actions constituted both an offence against the state, which can be pardoned, and caused damage to another person (Google) which can’t. He owes this money as a debt just as if he had bought something from them or borrowed money from them.
There are several House rules and laws that prohibit Members from using their time on the floor or in committee meetings for campaign activities, including rallies. These prohibitions are discussed in detail in Chapter 4 of the House Ethics Manual, on "Campaign Activity." The general rule covering which resources can be used for campaigns is simple: "official resources of the House must...be used for the performance of official business of the House..., and may not be used for campaign or political purposes." p. 123 The "basic principle" underlying this rule is also simple: "government funds should not be spent to help incumbents gain reelection." p. 123 The ban extends to the use of "House buildings, rooms and offices – including district offices." Since these are "supported with official funds," they "are considered official resources," and, "as a general rule, they may not be used for the conduct of campaign or political activities, and...are not to be used for events that are campaign or political in nature..." p. 127. These rules obviously prohibit members from using the floor or committee meetings for campaign rallies. The House rules also prohibit using tv footage of "House floor...or committee proceedings" in "partisan political campaign material to promote or oppose the candidacy of any person for public office." p. 128. It is also a federal crime to solicit campaign contributions while on government property. In many cases, it is relatively easy to tell when these laws and rules have been broken. Either the Senator called a donor from her office, or she didn't; either she held a campaign rally or she didn't. But in other cases, it may not be so easy to tell when these laws have been broken. For example, suppose a Member throws in several partisan soundbites while speaking on the floor, hoping to make the nightly news. Could this be considered using the House floor for "political purposes"?
The constitution does not actually forbid "abusing a position for financial gain", and thus it is left to the political process to address any such actions (voting for a different candidate), or the legislative process (defining certain acts as forbidden) – or, the impeachment process. The court system in the US does not have the power to decide on their own what politicians can and can't do, if there is no underlying law. It is within congressional power to define limits on the act of any politician, for example Congress could pass a law requiring the President and Vice-President to have no business interests or stocks during their term of office; they could require that of cabinet members or members of Congress. Such a law would, of course, either require presidential approval or else sufficient support in the houses of congress to override a veto. There are various limits on what government folks can do. 18 USC 202(c) is an example of a limit on the limits: Except as otherwise provided in such sections, the terms “officer” and “employee” in sections 203, 205, 207 through 209, and 218 of this title shall not include the President, the Vice President, a Member of Congress, or a Federal judge It is possible that a president could engage in a criminal act such as theft, and that is not permitted and would be grounds for impeachment. The president does not, however, have the power to e.g. unilaterally send all government hotel business to a certain hotel company, nor can he declare that 10% of all government expenditures must be deposited in his personal bank account, so the mechanisms whereby corrupt rules of certain other nations can get away with that is that those executives have vastly more power in their countries than POTUS does. With congressional support, though, such acts could come about. If it did, it would not be too surprising if SCOTUS ruled based on common law and considerations of justice that such a law / act was illegal, but it would not be a textualist argument.
Short answer: It depends on the state and exactly how you do so. Stating how you voted, by itself, is fine; however, taking a photo of your ballot instead of just saying how you voted is illegal in some states, especially if the photo was taken within a polling place. Laws banning these so-called &quot;ballot selfies&quot; may be unconstitutional, and have been successfully challenged under the first amendment in some cases. There is not a general ban on simply saying who you voted for. This is an extremely common practice, and it is the basis for &quot;exit polling,&quot; where voters leaving a polling place are asked whom they voted for in order to collect voting statistics to predict the winner of the election. This type of polling has been upheld by courts, and it sounds like laws banning it were primarily concerned with voter intimidation rather than vote-buying. As of 2016, 18 states banned sharing any photograph of a ballot, while an additional 6 ban photography in polling places. The rationale for such laws is to prevent vote-buying, because if you can't take a photo of your ballot, you can't prove whom you voted for (whereas without the photo, you could simply vote however you like, then lie). However, at least one such law has been challenged in federal court and invalidated as a violation of the first amendment (in Rideout v. Gardner) &quot;because it is a content-based restriction on speech that cannot survive strict scrutiny.&quot; If such first-amendment challenges continue to be upheld, it is possible that this practice will be legal throughout the United States.