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Thank you. Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society. If Facebook were a television station with limited air time fo

Thank you. Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society. If Facebook were a television station with limited air time for a single track, it would be perfectly valid for them to decide (reasonably) who gets air time. However, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have infinite tracks and time. I don't think the OPs argument is as strong, with that in mind.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
thieving_magpie 8y ago
Well now you're violating my free speech by telling me I can't decide what content I host on my website.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
  There is a huge difference between your website in which you post in your name, and Facebook which was created as a platform to allow billions of people to post in their name.
- vokep 8y ago
  the difference is that youtube/facebook are not publications themselves, but platforms that allow you to publish. So you already aren't deciding what to host, as a user-content driven site, you by default allow anything, then naturally hopefully for moral reasons but necessarily legal ones, you ban illegal content. Beyond that, it still is a privately hosted thing so I'd still agree that your self run user-content based site may ban whatever it likes. However when you reach a general use size, where people rely on your platform for free speech, things certainly feel different. I'm not sure what the right move is, but I don't think its as simple as "my private site is my private site, thats the end of it"
  - dr-detroit 8y ago
    What about the legal risk associated with letting the Frog Brigade post their terrorist cookbook on your platform? Does Zuckerberg have to come to their house and load the bullets into the gun for them so they can make a statement about how angry they are? Because he made an app for people to cheat? I fail to see the connection.
    - vokep 8y ago
      >What about the legal risk associated with letting the Frog Brigade post their terrorist cookbook on your platform? Like I said, banning illegal content is the first step that anyone ought to take. Generally this is done via moderation staff of the site + user submitted reports. If you're providing a free platform and terrorists start using it as their communication channel, then you're only at legal risk if you do nothing to stop them. However, I'm imagining things like the NZ shooter's 8chan post, where a direct threat is made or a direct implication of violent acts to come. Posting a "terrorist cookbook" actually is a good example, as its sort of right on the line. It seems to be the sort of information that only has negative uses, on the other hand its just information, as opposed to an actual threat. I'm not really sure if such things should be allowed... it could be helpful to terrorists which is bad, but also censoring information is nearly impossible and almost always seems the wrong way to go. >Does Zuckerberg have to come to their house and load the bullets into the gun for them so they can make a statement about how angry they are? Because he made an app for people to cheat? I fail to see the connection. As do I...I really don't get what you're trying to say here, can you restate?
  - thieving_magpie 8y ago
    >I'm not sure what the right move is, but I don't think its as simple as "my private site is my private site, thats the end of it" Well get back to me when you've worked out exactly when a private entity shouldn't be able to decide what content they allow. This ambiguity is really too difficult to figure out.
    - vokep 8y ago
      I don't know, or I'd know what the right move is! For this, its sort of a "you know it when you see it" thing, as facebook/youtube/twitter are major platforms used by everyone, and so they feel a lot more like an online town square than a private space. So they are definitely past the line, and ought to have different rules on what content is allowed/disallowed than smaller lower population platforms.
      - thieving_magpie 8y ago
        I can agree with you. It's something I've been thinking about lately and I keep coming back to how you'd define this in legal terms. It's tough.
        amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        The problem is, if they are forced to allow "any legal content", they'll be overrun with spammers and other no-goods, and the users who just want to keep up with their family will all leave.
- bjt2n3904 8y ago
  Absolutely not! I'd be interested in knowing how you came to the conclusion that was my argument. Rather, it is important for society to support free speech, not just the government. While society is under no obligation to, it's unhealthy to censor speech. It's even worse when society self censors free speech, and then pretends to still advocate it.
  - thieving_magpie 8y ago
    I was taking the point to an extreme. You're saying a society should support free speech so Facebook should let the white nationalist content stay on their site (by their own good will, not forced by government). Is that not accurate? Deciding what I allow on my site is an exercise of my free speech. Why is hosting white nationalist free speech more important than my free speech to not host racist content?
- busterarm 8y ago
  If your website's registered userbase is 1/4 of the population of the entire planet, then yes, that's what we're telling you. It's no longer _your_ free speech.
  - thieving_magpie 8y ago
    What's the exact threshold? Just curious so I can make sure to stifle my business growth so as not to give up my free speech to not host racist content.
    - charliesharding 8y ago
      It's the publisher vs platform debate. If you're curating content based off of promoting your company's vision of acceptable free speech, then you become a publisher and a whole different set of rules apply to you. You're liable for much more in the eyes of the law. You can't cherry pick the advantages of both and hide under the guise of being an open platform.
      - thieving_magpie 8y ago
        I think the terminology we have here for publisher and platform don't exactly fit this scenario. I think it'd be wise to find a new label and set of rules that better fits this type of company.
    - busterarm 8y ago
      If you want to take that tactic it's probably just better to reframe the argument. Most of the problems that come from being a massive social media juggernaut like facebook/twitter/etc come from those services being free. Being free is what makes them massive monopolies and gives them such broad reach. I think 99% of the problem cases AND the lack of competition in the market could be plugged by breaking the ad-supported/VC-supported model and forcing these companies to charge something to their customers.
- sb057 8y ago
  That's property infringement, not violating speech.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
How does the amount of bandwidth capable for carrying channels relate to whether something should be carried or not in a legal or constitutional sense? Carrying white supremacist content has a cost to both Comcast and YouTube/Facebook. Nobody expects Comcast to carry the KKK channel and yet they have hundreds of channels and clearly space to carry it. So why aren’t they compelled to do so if Facebook is?
- ams6110 8y ago
  Comcast is few-to-many model, Facebook is many-to-many. A few content producers create the content that Comcast could potentially carry. Comcast selects what they want to provide to their many customers. Comcast has never marketed themselves as a place where anyone can have their content provided to subscribers. Facebook has, in fact that is the essence of what they do.
- bjt2n3904 8y ago
  To answer your first question, the constitutional response would be "it doesn't". Legally, I'm unaware of any edge cases, except potentially some net neutrality related things. (I'm not very certain about NN.) My point, however, is that this is neither a legal nor constitutional obligation, but a social and voluntary obligation to a free society.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    Agreed. Just wanted to see if there was some precedent I was missing :)
ams6110 8y ago
Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter also have as their primary purpose the propagation of information and messages by and among their users. It's not some incidental or secondary feature. It's what they do. And they promote this to the public with almost zero barrier to entry. Yes they are still private entities, but like a hotel that is open to the public, they become constrained in the restrictions they can impose since they have chosen to be in that business.
Throwway32 8y ago
Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society. Please point out a single society that has upheld absolute Free Speech as a principle for any significant period of time. The United States has even killed its own citizens when their free speech collided with national security: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-anwar-al-awlaki.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-a...
- sisfs 8y ago
  Yelling fire in a crowded theater and calling for the killing of americans are not protected by the first amendment and never have been. They are calls to violence. So no, his free speech didn't collide with national security, his call to violence collided with the full weight of America's call to violence against him.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    "Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a quote from a Supreme Court decision that put American citizens in prison for the crime of protesting against the draft during WW1. That decision has since been overturned, thankfully. But it would be good if people who keep coming back to this phrase remembered where it came from, and what it was already used to justify.
CathedralBorrow 8y ago
What is the alternative to a private company making their own decisions on what to allow on their platform? A blanket order to not ban any content whatsoever?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

thieving_magpie 8y ago

Well now you're violating my free speech by telling me I can't decide what content I host on my website.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
There is a huge difference between your website in which you post in your name, and Facebook which was created as a platform to allow billions of people to post in their name.
vokep 8y ago
the difference is that youtube/facebook are not publications themselves, but platforms that allow you to publish. So you already aren't deciding what to host, as a user-content driven site, you by default allow anything, then naturally hopefully for moral reasons but necessarily legal ones, you ban illegal content. Beyond that, it still is a privately hosted thing so I'd still agree that your self run user-content based site may ban whatever it likes. However when you reach a general use size, where people rely on your platform for free speech, things certainly feel different. I'm not sure what the right move is, but I don't think its as simple as "my private site is my private site, thats the end of it"
- dr-detroit 8y ago
  What about the legal risk associated with letting the Frog Brigade post their terrorist cookbook on your platform? Does Zuckerberg have to come to their house and load the bullets into the gun for them so they can make a statement about how angry they are? Because he made an app for people to cheat? I fail to see the connection.
  - vokep 8y ago
    >What about the legal risk associated with letting the Frog Brigade post their terrorist cookbook on your platform? Like I said, banning illegal content is the first step that anyone ought to take. Generally this is done via moderation staff of the site + user submitted reports. If you're providing a free platform and terrorists start using it as their communication channel, then you're only at legal risk if you do nothing to stop them. However, I'm imagining things like the NZ shooter's 8chan post, where a direct threat is made or a direct implication of violent acts to come. Posting a "terrorist cookbook" actually is a good example, as its sort of right on the line. It seems to be the sort of information that only has negative uses, on the other hand its just information, as opposed to an actual threat. I'm not really sure if such things should be allowed... it could be helpful to terrorists which is bad, but also censoring information is nearly impossible and almost always seems the wrong way to go. >Does Zuckerberg have to come to their house and load the bullets into the gun for them so they can make a statement about how angry they are? Because he made an app for people to cheat? I fail to see the connection. As do I...I really don't get what you're trying to say here, can you restate?
- thieving_magpie 8y ago
  >I'm not sure what the right move is, but I don't think its as simple as "my private site is my private site, thats the end of it" Well get back to me when you've worked out exactly when a private entity shouldn't be able to decide what content they allow. This ambiguity is really too difficult to figure out.
  - vokep 8y ago
    I don't know, or I'd know what the right move is! For this, its sort of a "you know it when you see it" thing, as facebook/youtube/twitter are major platforms used by everyone, and so they feel a lot more like an online town square than a private space. So they are definitely past the line, and ought to have different rules on what content is allowed/disallowed than smaller lower population platforms.
    - thieving_magpie 8y ago
      I can agree with you. It's something I've been thinking about lately and I keep coming back to how you'd define this in legal terms. It's tough.
      - amanaplanacanal 8y ago
        The problem is, if they are forced to allow "any legal content", they'll be overrun with spammers and other no-goods, and the users who just want to keep up with their family will all leave.
bjt2n3904 8y ago
Absolutely not! I'd be interested in knowing how you came to the conclusion that was my argument. Rather, it is important for society to support free speech, not just the government. While society is under no obligation to, it's unhealthy to censor speech. It's even worse when society self censors free speech, and then pretends to still advocate it.
- thieving_magpie 8y ago
  I was taking the point to an extreme. You're saying a society should support free speech so Facebook should let the white nationalist content stay on their site (by their own good will, not forced by government). Is that not accurate? Deciding what I allow on my site is an exercise of my free speech. Why is hosting white nationalist free speech more important than my free speech to not host racist content?
busterarm 8y ago
If your website's registered userbase is 1/4 of the population of the entire planet, then yes, that's what we're telling you. It's no longer _your_ free speech.
- thieving_magpie 8y ago
  What's the exact threshold? Just curious so I can make sure to stifle my business growth so as not to give up my free speech to not host racist content.
  - charliesharding 8y ago
    It's the publisher vs platform debate. If you're curating content based off of promoting your company's vision of acceptable free speech, then you become a publisher and a whole different set of rules apply to you. You're liable for much more in the eyes of the law. You can't cherry pick the advantages of both and hide under the guise of being an open platform.
    - thieving_magpie 8y ago
      I think the terminology we have here for publisher and platform don't exactly fit this scenario. I think it'd be wise to find a new label and set of rules that better fits this type of company.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    If you want to take that tactic it's probably just better to reframe the argument. Most of the problems that come from being a massive social media juggernaut like facebook/twitter/etc come from those services being free. Being free is what makes them massive monopolies and gives them such broad reach. I think 99% of the problem cases AND the lack of competition in the market could be plugged by breaking the ad-supported/VC-supported model and forcing these companies to charge something to their customers.
sb057 8y ago
That's property infringement, not violating speech.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago

How does the amount of bandwidth capable for carrying channels relate to whether something should be carried or not in a legal or constitutional sense? Carrying white supremacist content has a cost to both Comcast and YouTube/Facebook. Nobody expects Comcast to carry the KKK channel and yet they have hundreds of channels and clearly space to carry it. So why aren’t they compelled to do so if Facebook is?

ams6110 8y ago
Comcast is few-to-many model, Facebook is many-to-many. A few content producers create the content that Comcast could potentially carry. Comcast selects what they want to provide to their many customers. Comcast has never marketed themselves as a place where anyone can have their content provided to subscribers. Facebook has, in fact that is the essence of what they do.
bjt2n3904 8y ago
To answer your first question, the constitutional response would be "it doesn't". Legally, I'm unaware of any edge cases, except potentially some net neutrality related things. (I'm not very certain about NN.) My point, however, is that this is neither a legal nor constitutional obligation, but a social and voluntary obligation to a free society.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Agreed. Just wanted to see if there was some precedent I was missing :)

ams6110 8y ago

Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter also have as their primary purpose the propagation of information and messages by and among their users. It's not some incidental or secondary feature. It's what they do. And they promote this to the public with almost zero barrier to entry. Yes they are still private entities, but like a hotel that is open to the public, they become constrained in the restrictions they can impose since they have chosen to be in that business.

Throwway32 8y ago

Free speech isn't just an amendment for the government, it's a principle for society. Please point out a single society that has upheld absolute Free Speech as a principle for any significant period of time. The United States has even killed its own citizens when their free speech collided with national security: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-anwar-al-awlaki.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/magazine/the-lessons-of-a...

sisfs 8y ago
Yelling fire in a crowded theater and calling for the killing of americans are not protected by the first amendment and never have been. They are calls to violence. So no, his free speech didn't collide with national security, his call to violence collided with the full weight of America's call to violence against him.
- int_19h 8y ago
  "Shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a quote from a Supreme Court decision that put American citizens in prison for the crime of protesting against the draft during WW1. That decision has since been overturned, thankfully. But it would be good if people who keep coming back to this phrase remembered where it came from, and what it was already used to justify.

CathedralBorrow 8y ago

What is the alternative to a private company making their own decisions on what to allow on their platform? A blanket order to not ban any content whatsoever?