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> Nobody has articulated that this restriction is harmful; nor protected; and certainly not why. By contrast, the harms of the messages limited thusly are rathe

> Nobody has articulated that this restriction is harmful; nor protected; and certainly not why. By contrast, the harms of the messages limited thusly are rather more clear. The very first comment in this thread: "A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit" Yes, there are limits to the freedom of speech (and technically, there is not even freedom of speech in the German constitution, but rather freedom to express one's opinions). But satire is generally very firmly within the bounds of protected speech, the constitutional court has had to deal with such cases many times, and it has found over and over and over, some of the cases involving just the satirical magazine referred to above, that satire is almost always within the bounds of where the state may not interfere with the freedom to speak. The constitutional court has explained at length the importance of satire and controversial art for political discourse. So, no, the harm of the messages limited is not clear at all. > Furthermore, you're trying to draw some really broad analogy, and find that facebook is the government and thus that constitutional protections apply to enforcement by facebook. No, nothing like that. Facebook is not bound by the constitution. The constitution only binds the state. Facebook may delete satire as much as they like. But the state may not incentivize Facebook to delete satire, because the state is bound by the constitution, and the state is forbidden from restricting satirical speech (for example), and by extension from making other parties restrict satirical speech. It's not Facebook's actions that go against the constitution, it's the state's actions that incentivize Facebook that go against the constitution. > and note that even if this were direct government censureship it's not even clear this would be a bad idea or whether the hypothetical governmental corolloray would be constitutionally prohibited (which is particularly unclear since nobody knows exactly what that might be). Well, except that it is. The constitutional court has dealt with that. Restricting satirical speech is an almost total no-go for the German state, the constitutional court will not have that. > Facebook is excercising disgression in which content to publish to whom, and when. That's indeed a good point, though on the other hand, they probably will say that they try to act as agents finding useful information for their respective users rather than as publishers selecting what they consider interesting. That's also a lie, of course, but still with some truth to it. Really, what they are doing doesn't really fit directly any traditional roles. > So regardless of the original authors rights; But you cannot disregard the constitutional rights of the authors because you want to achieve some other goal, that's the point of constitutional rights. > I think we as societies still need to figure out what the heck the age of data science means for free speech. Well, yeah, I guess society still needs to figure it out, but the answer really isn't that difficult: Communication needs to be freed of surveillance/advertisement needs to be separated from communication. Probably not really possible, but this fusion of communication technology with advertisement/marketing/manipulation technology is a huge problem and ultimately at the heart of all of this. The need to get people to pay attention to their advertisers corrupts all other actions of Facebook, Twitter, and the whole bunch.

emn13 9y ago
It's almost certainly not true that "A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit" if you're implying that legal content was required to be removed. In effect, the state is saying: we'll exempt you from the normal responsibilities you have when you say something, as long as you're just forwarding a message. The change is now that there's a caveat: you must now (sometimes) make reasonable efforts to avoid forwarding illegal content. Frankly: as long as facebook (e.g.) is more than a dumb pipe this isn't merely a question of getting the laws right; it's intrinsic. You cant exercise editorial control (which they do, even if it's sometimes algorithmic) without being responsible for what you decide to publish. So we get to choose: either platforms need to really be dumb pipes (i.e. facebook's entire model is essentially completely illegal), or they need to take responsibility for what they say, even if its forwarded content. I think we'd have much more constructive speech online if platforms were forced to make such a choice: to the extent that they filter, they're responsible for what they let through.
- zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
  > It's almost certainly not true that "A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit" if you're implying that legal content was required to be removed. I am not. I am talking about incentives. > In effect, the state is saying: we'll exempt you from the normal responsibilities you have when you say something, as long as you're just forwarding a message. The change is now that there's a caveat: you must now (sometimes) make reasonable efforts to avoid forwarding illegal content. As far as the constitution is concerned, there are no "normal responsibilities". The normal responsibility is for the state to not interfere with speech, everything beyond that is subject to the boundaries set by the constitution, not the other way around. > Frankly: as long as facebook (e.g.) is more than a dumb pipe this isn't merely a question of getting the laws right; it's intrinsic. You cant exercise editorial control (which they do, even if it's sometimes algorithmic) without being responsible for what you decide to publish. Either it is intrinsic or you have to get the laws right. Laws are what defines responsibilities, so I would say it's pretty obviously not intrinsic. > So we get to choose: either platforms need to really be dumb pipes (i.e. facebook's entire model is essentially completely illegal), or they need to take responsibility for what they say, even if its forwarded content. ... or they get to exercise editorial control of sorts without being held responsible. I mean, there might be arguments in favor of that approach, but just claiming that it's so isn't one. Also, I think it's really unhelpful to insist on a binary distinction between "publisher" and "transport service". A newspaper was a publisher. The post service was a transport service. A Facebook really just is neither, and there is no reason why everything has to fit into one of these two categories. A car is not either new type of horse or a new type of factory. It's just a car. > I think we'd have much more constructive speech online if platforms were forced to make such a choice: to the extent that they filter, they're responsible for what they let through. I'm not so sure, I suspect that just leads to two extremes with nothing in between: Completely unmoderated exchanges where trolls reign and strictly regulated ones where nothing remotely controversial can be said. Rather I would think that deletion/blocking should be required only when ordered by a judge (or possibly a sort of low-level judge for preliminary decisions on such matters), where you have legal options to defend your right to speak, and where the judge has no incentive to decide one way or the other. So, there could be a penalty for when Facebook doesn't follow the order, but not for when they don't recognize something illegal as illegal.

emn13 9y ago

It's almost certainly not true that "A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit" if you're implying that legal content was required to be removed. In effect, the state is saying: we'll exempt you from the normal responsibilities you have when you say something, as long as you're just forwarding a message. The change is now that there's a caveat: you must now (sometimes) make reasonable efforts to avoid forwarding illegal content. Frankly: as long as facebook (e.g.) is more than a dumb pipe this isn't merely a question of getting the laws right; it's intrinsic. You cant exercise editorial control (which they do, even if it's sometimes algorithmic) without being responsible for what you decide to publish. So we get to choose: either platforms need to really be dumb pipes (i.e. facebook's entire model is essentially completely illegal), or they need to take responsibility for what they say, even if its forwarded content. I think we'd have much more constructive speech online if platforms were forced to make such a choice: to the extent that they filter, they're responsible for what they let through.

zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC 9y ago
> It's almost certainly not true that "A couple of comedians and satire magazines have been hit" if you're implying that legal content was required to be removed. I am not. I am talking about incentives. > In effect, the state is saying: we'll exempt you from the normal responsibilities you have when you say something, as long as you're just forwarding a message. The change is now that there's a caveat: you must now (sometimes) make reasonable efforts to avoid forwarding illegal content. As far as the constitution is concerned, there are no "normal responsibilities". The normal responsibility is for the state to not interfere with speech, everything beyond that is subject to the boundaries set by the constitution, not the other way around. > Frankly: as long as facebook (e.g.) is more than a dumb pipe this isn't merely a question of getting the laws right; it's intrinsic. You cant exercise editorial control (which they do, even if it's sometimes algorithmic) without being responsible for what you decide to publish. Either it is intrinsic or you have to get the laws right. Laws are what defines responsibilities, so I would say it's pretty obviously not intrinsic. > So we get to choose: either platforms need to really be dumb pipes (i.e. facebook's entire model is essentially completely illegal), or they need to take responsibility for what they say, even if its forwarded content. ... or they get to exercise editorial control of sorts without being held responsible. I mean, there might be arguments in favor of that approach, but just claiming that it's so isn't one. Also, I think it's really unhelpful to insist on a binary distinction between "publisher" and "transport service". A newspaper was a publisher. The post service was a transport service. A Facebook really just is neither, and there is no reason why everything has to fit into one of these two categories. A car is not either new type of horse or a new type of factory. It's just a car. > I think we'd have much more constructive speech online if platforms were forced to make such a choice: to the extent that they filter, they're responsible for what they let through. I'm not so sure, I suspect that just leads to two extremes with nothing in between: Completely unmoderated exchanges where trolls reign and strictly regulated ones where nothing remotely controversial can be said. Rather I would think that deletion/blocking should be required only when ordered by a judge (or possibly a sort of low-level judge for preliminary decisions on such matters), where you have legal options to defend your right to speak, and where the judge has no incentive to decide one way or the other. So, there could be a penalty for when Facebook doesn't follow the order, but not for when they don't recognize something illegal as illegal.