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He represents free speech. He is just one of several conservative leaning voices silenced by Big Tech in recent months. One of the most troubling aspects of th

by aviv 8y ago

He represents free speech. He is just one of several conservative leaning voices silenced by Big Tech in recent months. One of the most troubling aspects of the Alex Jones ban is the obvious coordination among Apple, Facebook, YouTube and others to completely take him off their platforms at the exact same time. How this doesn't bother HN is crazy. It's truly crazy how YouTube takes down Alex Jones easily but ElsaGate pedo like predatory channels are still thriving on their platform, with millions of views and comment threads full of cryptic information exchange of the worst kind one can imagine. And it's still up. Insanity prevails.

tomc1985 8y ago
If FANG were government institutions then yes I think a lot of the people here would be alarmed. But they aren't -- they are private companies, who can suppress or promote whatever they want. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I or anyone else likes it, that's just how it is. The courts have affirmed corporate personhood, and their resulting freedom of speech, and in this case they are free to suppress things they host on their platform. There is an interesting legal argument I heard recently that says that if you operate a private space much in the way as if it were a public space (like a privately-owned park open to the public) then there is a sliding scale regarding how much that space is legally considered 'public' (regardless of ownership), for the purposes of law enforcement, or whatever else (like being a venue for protected free speech). I wonder if, at some point, Google/YouTube et al could possibly be seen under such a lens. Maybe then you could argue private takesdowns are a violation of free speech.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  While you may genuinely believe what you're saying, I think many people saying as much are doing so out of cognitive dissonance. For instance, imagine if these tech companies decided to start removing all negative discussion of Trump. There would be quite the outrage, and very understandably so. I say understandably so not because of the topic in question, but because these companies have become monoliths of speech in the US. It's not like a local coffee shop or whatever kicking somebody out because of their views - removing direct access to hundreds of millions of people is something altogether different. One issue we have is that companies today, in the era of the internet, have grown well beyond any conceivable notion of what it meant to be a company in the past. Facebook now has more than 30% of the world's population in monthly users. They have more active users than any country has citizens. And they exercise more control over them (at least within the confines of the digital world) than nations do as these users' rights and privileges are dictated under a set of unidirectionally imposed terms as opposed to any sort of a public constitution or system of rights. In a way it almost feels like the digital era is perhaps echoing back our evolution from master-slave societies which gradually evolved to feudal societies and eventually onto democratic ones. Should companies begin to be treated more as we might think of governments once their reach begins to expand beyond that even of governments? I'm not sure, but I do think that we also can't simply appeal to former views. For instance the founding fathers certainly gave no consideration to how companies, with more users than the world population in the 18th century, ought be regarded.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    But there is no framework in the law for addressing gargantuan companies directly. Sure the government can take potshots with antitrust suits or financial investigations or whatever, but short of a black swan-type event-slash-legal-scandal there really aren't a lot of legal tools at the US gov's disposal to crush outsized corporations. Saying "companies are too big, we have to do something about them" is making a point grounded in concept, not concrete law or action. I too am worried about our current crop of megacorp but if history is indicator the US government will outlive them (as stable governments usually do).
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      Mostly agreed, but that's not the issue right? Whether people are "alarmed" or not (to use your phrasing) by something has little to do with whether it's legal or not. The reason some, and I think most, people of certain views are not alarmed is not because the behavior is acceptable, or legal, but because the "victims" are. Engage in the exact same behavior with different "victims" and they would swap their views 180 degrees. However, this is a major problem because people of both 'sides' of the issue engage in the exact same behavior, ignoring bad behavior when the victims are people they dislike. In our little parallel world where the victims are swapped, suddenly those currently "alarmed" by the behavior would be appealing to "Well, it's not technically illegal - so whatever." This results in bad behavior never being constrained because, so long as society is sufficiently divided, somewhere around half of people will be okay with even quite awful actions. On corporations, I do disagree with you however. I see no reason to think that the trend of megacorps will end. On the contrary, I see no reason to think that they will not continue to grow in power and influence until they are effectively more powerful than governments and eventually may even begin to supplant governments as the effective ruling forces of the world, even if governments remain as a proxy.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        On corporations, I do disagree with you however. I see no reason to think that the trend of megacorps will end. On the contrary, I see no reason to think that they will not continue to grow in power and influence until they are effectively more powerful than governments and eventually may even begin to supplant governments as the effective ruling forces of the world, even if governments remain as a proxy. 20 years ago, Yahoo was king, Amazon was a minor bookseller, Microsoft was thought to be unstoppable, Apple was nearly bankrupt and BlockBuster was king of video rentals. 15 years ago MySpace was king. The old guard especially in technology can get “disrupted” quickly.
- sheepmullet 8y ago
  > There is an interesting legal argument Back when we had private company towns they tried to restrict speech claiming they owned the roads, sidewalks, parks, etc. They were stopped by the Supreme Court who ruled it was a de-facto public space.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Or maybe we should just conclude that if a company is in such a position where its private rules have such a strong and broad effect, that is prima facie evidence of it being a monopoly that is distorting the market, and break it up.

by aviv 8y ago

tomc1985 8y ago

If FANG were government institutions then yes I think a lot of the people here would be alarmed. But they aren't -- they are private companies, who can suppress or promote whatever they want. It doesn't matter whether or not you or I or anyone else likes it, that's just how it is. The courts have affirmed corporate personhood, and their resulting freedom of speech, and in this case they are free to suppress things they host on their platform. There is an interesting legal argument I heard recently that says that if you operate a private space much in the way as if it were a public space (like a privately-owned park open to the public) then there is a sliding scale regarding how much that space is legally considered 'public' (regardless of ownership), for the purposes of law enforcement, or whatever else (like being a venue for protected free speech). I wonder if, at some point, Google/YouTube et al could possibly be seen under such a lens. Maybe then you could argue private takesdowns are a violation of free speech.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
While you may genuinely believe what you're saying, I think many people saying as much are doing so out of cognitive dissonance. For instance, imagine if these tech companies decided to start removing all negative discussion of Trump. There would be quite the outrage, and very understandably so. I say understandably so not because of the topic in question, but because these companies have become monoliths of speech in the US. It's not like a local coffee shop or whatever kicking somebody out because of their views - removing direct access to hundreds of millions of people is something altogether different. One issue we have is that companies today, in the era of the internet, have grown well beyond any conceivable notion of what it meant to be a company in the past. Facebook now has more than 30% of the world's population in monthly users. They have more active users than any country has citizens. And they exercise more control over them (at least within the confines of the digital world) than nations do as these users' rights and privileges are dictated under a set of unidirectionally imposed terms as opposed to any sort of a public constitution or system of rights. In a way it almost feels like the digital era is perhaps echoing back our evolution from master-slave societies which gradually evolved to feudal societies and eventually onto democratic ones. Should companies begin to be treated more as we might think of governments once their reach begins to expand beyond that even of governments? I'm not sure, but I do think that we also can't simply appeal to former views. For instance the founding fathers certainly gave no consideration to how companies, with more users than the world population in the 18th century, ought be regarded.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  But there is no framework in the law for addressing gargantuan companies directly. Sure the government can take potshots with antitrust suits or financial investigations or whatever, but short of a black swan-type event-slash-legal-scandal there really aren't a lot of legal tools at the US gov's disposal to crush outsized corporations. Saying "companies are too big, we have to do something about them" is making a point grounded in concept, not concrete law or action. I too am worried about our current crop of megacorp but if history is indicator the US government will outlive them (as stable governments usually do).
  - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
    Mostly agreed, but that's not the issue right? Whether people are "alarmed" or not (to use your phrasing) by something has little to do with whether it's legal or not. The reason some, and I think most, people of certain views are not alarmed is not because the behavior is acceptable, or legal, but because the "victims" are. Engage in the exact same behavior with different "victims" and they would swap their views 180 degrees. However, this is a major problem because people of both 'sides' of the issue engage in the exact same behavior, ignoring bad behavior when the victims are people they dislike. In our little parallel world where the victims are swapped, suddenly those currently "alarmed" by the behavior would be appealing to "Well, it's not technically illegal - so whatever." This results in bad behavior never being constrained because, so long as society is sufficiently divided, somewhere around half of people will be okay with even quite awful actions. On corporations, I do disagree with you however. I see no reason to think that the trend of megacorps will end. On the contrary, I see no reason to think that they will not continue to grow in power and influence until they are effectively more powerful than governments and eventually may even begin to supplant governments as the effective ruling forces of the world, even if governments remain as a proxy.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      On corporations, I do disagree with you however. I see no reason to think that the trend of megacorps will end. On the contrary, I see no reason to think that they will not continue to grow in power and influence until they are effectively more powerful than governments and eventually may even begin to supplant governments as the effective ruling forces of the world, even if governments remain as a proxy. 20 years ago, Yahoo was king, Amazon was a minor bookseller, Microsoft was thought to be unstoppable, Apple was nearly bankrupt and BlockBuster was king of video rentals. 15 years ago MySpace was king. The old guard especially in technology can get “disrupted” quickly.
sheepmullet 8y ago
> There is an interesting legal argument Back when we had private company towns they tried to restrict speech claiming they owned the roads, sidewalks, parks, etc. They were stopped by the Supreme Court who ruled it was a de-facto public space.
int_19h 8y ago
Or maybe we should just conclude that if a company is in such a position where its private rules have such a strong and broad effect, that is prima facie evidence of it being a monopoly that is distorting the market, and break it up.