5 ms·

> I would definitely not want the government to be able to control what ideas/speech is allowed on these platforms and what isn't. Nor do I want a single entity

> I would definitely not want the government to be able to control what ideas/speech is allowed on these platforms and what isn't. Nor do I want a single entity (as Facebook/Twitter exist today) to have that control. I have come to the admittedly sad conclusion that you can't reside in the middle here. I mean, you can idealistically, but slope will slide to one side or the other in practice. At least at this time I think you can ask for government interference or not. I would like to think that you could trust each side to know its boundaries, as we see in other regulated industries, but time has shown either side cannot. Which side would you want to give an inch to, because a mile will be taken (or according to some doomsayers it already has)?

kokokokoko 8y ago
The US government has censored the broadcast media(tv, radio) since their formation. So we do have some fairly solid evidence that the US government has not wildly abused that power. I'm not sure this has to be an all or nothing thing. We have some reasonable protections built into the Constitution and case law that back that up. I understand your hesitation about having the government involved as there are plenty of examples of government influence on the media around the world. I share the same fears. With that said, do we really have any real world proof that the US government in recent years has over stepped its boundaries in regards to media restrictions?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kodablah 8y ago
  We don't all publish TV content. We can see from retransmission fees for over-the-air content to the decimation of business models like Aereo what happens when content is governed. I see the Aereo business model as very similar to what's happening w/ article 13 in the EU right now. But in general I don't think you can compare broadcast mediums to bidirectional ones (e.g. words on the telephone or text on the internet).
  - pjc50 8y ago
    That's not really driven by the government so much as the media companies.
    - cobbzilla 8y ago
      Big media companies have weaponized the government to serve their interests, it makes sense that social media companies will do the same. They’ll write the rules together, make the barriers to entry even higher, and pat each other on the back. Then it’s on to the next moral panic, this one’s been fixed!
    - blotter_paper 8y ago
      Strongly disagree. The spectrum of transmission is regulated and parcelled out by the government, and it could be used differently. Indeed it is, with whitespace wifi devices. The battle over how many empty adjacent channels should be required for these devices is real, and ongoing. Take away the regulation and TV broadcasters lose. People who have televisions but no working knowledge of computers lose (if spending less time on the TV is a lose). People broadcasting to each other bi-directionally, over longer distances and through thicker obstacles than the current wifi bands allow, win hugely. The media companies are intertwined with the government, sure, but this is fundamentally a government problem.
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  But the internet is international - no local censorship is localized. You won't want a random foreign government censor your speech.
  - ionised 8y ago
    The US does it all the time. Why is okay when the US authorities shut down a site because of some bullshit DMCA violation that the rest of the world shouldn't be subject to?
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  The US government does have a history of cenorship - the banning of Henry Miller's novels and Wilhelm Reich's writing are the most prominent cases. The US government hasn't censor broadcast media much given that most broadcast media owned by large corporations with ties to the state themselves. And there's no reason that government wading into regulating Facebook could do anything remotely sane. A lot of Facebook's scandals have nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with filtering bias. When state agency is going to be qualified to regulate that?
yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago
“Government interference” is strange terms for this and always has been. The social internet is a virtual plaza. It’s inevitable. The writing on the wall isn’t new. Artists have been talking about this for decades, just waiting around for the powerful and controlling to give way to entropy. At the end of the day, we need public streets and sidewalks because we all benefit when we can all get where we need without harrassing the poor and uninformed as a way of life. A republic necessitates that citizens can traverse it’s meins with dignity intact. Reword as necessary to adapt. We live as one. This is all just a will to deny that at the cost of others’ pain. Companies didn’t even build this stuff. You just profited on forcing others to use it by negotiating the removal of previous means or by waving the hand of psychological manipulation. The people depend on it now, so please hurry up.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
> but time has shown either side cannot. I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Off the top of my head, a number of industries are regulated / heavily regulated and thrive: media; air travel; automotive; transportation of dangerous goods; medicine / dental / veterinary; legal practice.
- kodablah 8y ago
  I mentioned that other industries are successfully regulated (and many are unsuccessful, preventing inclusion by outsiders). I find the internet however so open a medium, regulating that data is like regulating what you can write, say on the phone, etc. We accept that there are downsides to openness on those fronts because we have chosen that tradeoff. I think the error is comparing it to something like air travel instead of comparing it to what you can write in a book. The more we use these analogies the more we strain to choose ones we like, and I personally liken internet data to writing something down due to ease and the sheer amount of people that can do it. Sure there are differences in reach, which is why it's incomparable.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    I think regulating the internet, as you put it, is a different case than regulating these companies. Facebook etc are more akin to broadcasters in terms of sharing ideas than they are akin to a telecom company offering communications infrastructure. It’s not difficult to create a website to share the same ideas. In fact, it’s already done. Openness is already there. Otherwise I agree.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Industries want to be regulated. Regulation favors the big players and keeps out any newcomers. The internet is now at the maturity level where it's ready to be locked down so Facebook, Google and maybe 1-2 other players can be cemented as the dominant players for decades to come through regulations ostensible there to stop them from becoming too powerful. It's called "Regulatory Capture", and it's one of the most important concepts to understand to grasp how the modern world works.
joe_the_user 8y ago
I have come to the admittedly sad conclusion that you can't reside in the middle here. I mean, you can idealistically, but slope will slide to one side or the other in practice. I don't see evidence that there is no middle ground here. Facebook and Google filter a lot of content. But that is filtering and not absolute control and there are significant other sources for those who want them. State regulation would, however, produce a situation where everything remotely like a filter would be exposed to whatever regulation was implemented and that would in fact be a tremendous advantage for these same large players.
- aeternus 8y ago
  That filtering is not absolute control, but it is enough to control an election, consider these stats: http://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/ http://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-... Especially with 'AI-based filtering', which blurs the lines on what is filtered and why, these companies have both significant discretion and plausible deniability when it comes to censoring content.

kokokokoko 8y ago

The US government has censored the broadcast media(tv, radio) since their formation. So we do have some fairly solid evidence that the US government has not wildly abused that power. I'm not sure this has to be an all or nothing thing. We have some reasonable protections built into the Constitution and case law that back that up. I understand your hesitation about having the government involved as there are plenty of examples of government influence on the media around the world. I share the same fears. With that said, do we really have any real world proof that the US government in recent years has over stepped its boundaries in regards to media restrictions?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
kodablah 8y ago
We don't all publish TV content. We can see from retransmission fees for over-the-air content to the decimation of business models like Aereo what happens when content is governed. I see the Aereo business model as very similar to what's happening w/ article 13 in the EU right now. But in general I don't think you can compare broadcast mediums to bidirectional ones (e.g. words on the telephone or text on the internet).
- pjc50 8y ago
  That's not really driven by the government so much as the media companies.
  - cobbzilla 8y ago
    Big media companies have weaponized the government to serve their interests, it makes sense that social media companies will do the same. They’ll write the rules together, make the barriers to entry even higher, and pat each other on the back. Then it’s on to the next moral panic, this one’s been fixed!
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    Strongly disagree. The spectrum of transmission is regulated and parcelled out by the government, and it could be used differently. Indeed it is, with whitespace wifi devices. The battle over how many empty adjacent channels should be required for these devices is real, and ongoing. Take away the regulation and TV broadcasters lose. People who have televisions but no working knowledge of computers lose (if spending less time on the TV is a lose). People broadcasting to each other bi-directionally, over longer distances and through thicker obstacles than the current wifi bands allow, win hugely. The media companies are intertwined with the government, sure, but this is fundamentally a government problem.
j16sdiz 8y ago
But the internet is international - no local censorship is localized. You won't want a random foreign government censor your speech.
- ionised 8y ago
  The US does it all the time. Why is okay when the US authorities shut down a site because of some bullshit DMCA violation that the rest of the world shouldn't be subject to?
joe_the_user 8y ago
The US government does have a history of cenorship - the banning of Henry Miller's novels and Wilhelm Reich's writing are the most prominent cases. The US government hasn't censor broadcast media much given that most broadcast media owned by large corporations with ties to the state themselves. And there's no reason that government wading into regulating Facebook could do anything remotely sane. A lot of Facebook's scandals have nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with filtering bias. When state agency is going to be qualified to regulate that?

yyyymmddhhmmss 8y ago

“Government interference” is strange terms for this and always has been. The social internet is a virtual plaza. It’s inevitable. The writing on the wall isn’t new. Artists have been talking about this for decades, just waiting around for the powerful and controlling to give way to entropy. At the end of the day, we need public streets and sidewalks because we all benefit when we can all get where we need without harrassing the poor and uninformed as a way of life. A republic necessitates that citizens can traverse it’s meins with dignity intact. Reword as necessary to adapt. We live as one. This is all just a will to deny that at the cost of others’ pain. Companies didn’t even build this stuff. You just profited on forcing others to use it by negotiating the removal of previous means or by waving the hand of psychological manipulation. The people depend on it now, so please hurry up.

TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago

> but time has shown either side cannot. I wouldn't be so pessimistic. Off the top of my head, a number of industries are regulated / heavily regulated and thrive: media; air travel; automotive; transportation of dangerous goods; medicine / dental / veterinary; legal practice.

kodablah 8y ago
I mentioned that other industries are successfully regulated (and many are unsuccessful, preventing inclusion by outsiders). I find the internet however so open a medium, regulating that data is like regulating what you can write, say on the phone, etc. We accept that there are downsides to openness on those fronts because we have chosen that tradeoff. I think the error is comparing it to something like air travel instead of comparing it to what you can write in a book. The more we use these analogies the more we strain to choose ones we like, and I personally liken internet data to writing something down due to ease and the sheer amount of people that can do it. Sure there are differences in reach, which is why it's incomparable.
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  I think regulating the internet, as you put it, is a different case than regulating these companies. Facebook etc are more akin to broadcasters in terms of sharing ideas than they are akin to a telecom company offering communications infrastructure. It’s not difficult to create a website to share the same ideas. In fact, it’s already done. Openness is already there. Otherwise I agree.
BurningFrog 8y ago
Industries want to be regulated. Regulation favors the big players and keeps out any newcomers. The internet is now at the maturity level where it's ready to be locked down so Facebook, Google and maybe 1-2 other players can be cemented as the dominant players for decades to come through regulations ostensible there to stop them from becoming too powerful. It's called "Regulatory Capture", and it's one of the most important concepts to understand to grasp how the modern world works.

joe_the_user 8y ago

I have come to the admittedly sad conclusion that you can't reside in the middle here. I mean, you can idealistically, but slope will slide to one side or the other in practice. I don't see evidence that there is no middle ground here. Facebook and Google filter a lot of content. But that is filtering and not absolute control and there are significant other sources for those who want them. State regulation would, however, produce a situation where everything remotely like a filter would be exposed to whatever regulation was implemented and that would in fact be a tremendous advantage for these same large players.

aeternus 8y ago
That filtering is not absolute control, but it is enough to control an election, consider these stats: http://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/ http://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-... Especially with 'AI-based filtering', which blurs the lines on what is filtered and why, these companies have both significant discretion and plausible deniability when it comes to censoring content.