Elon Musk takes over Twitter

I don't know the statutes in every location in the U.S. ... but generally a bar owner could be prosecuted in most places if he knowingly makes his bar available for drug sales or he is dealing drugs himself. But no, you haven't committed a crime if you own a business and someone else does something illegal on your premises. That doesn't take into account anything civilly (like a liability issue of some sort) that he might get sued for or any kind of local licsensing issues for his bar. But criminally? The drug dealer could be arrested (not that I think drug dealing should be illegal, but it is), but the bar owner can't unless he was involved or knows about it and was making his bar a place for it to happen.

 

As Ragu said, don't now about being prosecuted, but in my line of work, they can get shut down and have their liquor license revoked. It's a process, but it happens. In rare situations, they can get shut down immediately.

 

Not at all. He created a communications platform. He's not telling people to do illicit or illegal things via the platform.

He has simply created an app that allows for conversations, group chats and large broadcasting channels. You can do all kinds of things with technology like that. If you do something illegal, you should be responsible for your actions. In my opinion, the technology you availed yourself of should be completely agnostic. If you use a screw driver to break into my home, should Home Depot or Stanely be criminally liable for what you did?

 

I think it just makes you someone who sells advertising space. If a supermarket allows Pepsi to put up a display in the supermarket for a fee, the supermarket isn't a publisher. It's a supermarket. If I sell you a billboard over a highway, it doesn't make me a publisher. It makes me a guy who sells billboard space. If the Yankees sell an advertiser a small patch on the players' uniforms, they aren't a publisher. They're a sports team. Etc. etc.

 

Re: Telegram and it being a "free speech" issue. ... I do think there is a reason that governments (i.e. the EU) are going after a communications platform in such a specious way, but have never tried to create a similar rationale to go after others who sell things that strangers then turn around and use in illegal ways -- like my screwdriver example.

They want to be able to monitor and control people's behavior, and Telegram is a communications platform that is beyond their control. I think that is what is really at work here.