4 ms·

There's an inherent contradiction in the arguments here. You can't on the one hand say "people have the right to use Twitter free of harassment" because it's u

There's an inherent contradiction in the arguments here. You can't on the one hand say "people have the right to use Twitter free of harassment" because it's ubiquitous, but then on the other hand say Twitter has the right to censor or ban people whose views it as a company doesn't like. These are contrary positions. Either Twitter is a "common carrier" and thus has the responsibility to ensure its users have a common standard of experience and ability to access regardless of their political views, or it's not and thus it can both censor users _and_ not respond to their specific concerns because nobody has an inherent right to access it. You need to choose one of those two.

duckMuppet 10y ago
That's wrong though. Even if Twitter were common carrier, the rules of experience and ability to access is still open to rules and interpretation. Under common carrier, some content can be and is censored for certain groups of individuals. Common carrier also specifically lists certain communications as being prohibited, namely, that which obscene, intent to abuse, threaten, or harass another person. At that point, it becomes the interpretation of what is harassment? Is it being swatted or stalked, or as it seems to be the trend that now, language or the crime of non similar thought can be considered harassment.
fao_ 10y ago
You're enforcing a false binary here. Twitter as a private company has the right to remove things that it finds abhorrent, such as hate speech (i.e. stating that jews should be killed, black people should be bred out of existence, etc.). People can put pressure on twitter to change their policies on what they find abhorrent. The people with those views can find or create other places to express them. The argument with 'Twitter as a common carrier' is null and void, because twitter is not an ISP. Twitter clearly falls under "public forum", and is therefore able to state what sort of content it wants to host, and what sort of content it does not. This does not preclude the neonazis finding somewhere else to host their views, like /pol/. Because they can host their views somewhere else, it is not censorship. Think of it like publishing. If a publishing company does not want to publish my book, that is not censorship. I can go to another publishing company, or start my own. If the government states that what I say is wrong, and enforces a purge of it from all libraries, servers, bookshops, media, etc. then that is censorship.

duckMuppet 10y ago

That's wrong though. Even if Twitter were common carrier, the rules of experience and ability to access is still open to rules and interpretation. Under common carrier, some content can be and is censored for certain groups of individuals. Common carrier also specifically lists certain communications as being prohibited, namely, that which obscene, intent to abuse, threaten, or harass another person. At that point, it becomes the interpretation of what is harassment? Is it being swatted or stalked, or as it seems to be the trend that now, language or the crime of non similar thought can be considered harassment.

fao_ 10y ago

You're enforcing a false binary here. Twitter as a private company has the right to remove things that it finds abhorrent, such as hate speech (i.e. stating that jews should be killed, black people should be bred out of existence, etc.). People can put pressure on twitter to change their policies on what they find abhorrent. The people with those views can find or create other places to express them. The argument with 'Twitter as a common carrier' is null and void, because twitter is not an ISP. Twitter clearly falls under "public forum", and is therefore able to state what sort of content it wants to host, and what sort of content it does not. This does not preclude the neonazis finding somewhere else to host their views, like /pol/. Because they can host their views somewhere else, it is not censorship. Think of it like publishing. If a publishing company does not want to publish my book, that is not censorship. I can go to another publishing company, or start my own. If the government states that what I say is wrong, and enforces a purge of it from all libraries, servers, bookshops, media, etc. then that is censorship.