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Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do. I think the expl

Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do. I think the explosion of hate speech on the Internet is entirely because someone else is basically paying for people to post whatever they want. They don't need to create their own newspaper and get advertisers. They don't need to print signs. It's all free for them. You can consume as much services as you possibly can given your free time and those with more free time, therefore, get more free (as in beer) speech.

andrewla 8y ago
> Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do. If they are going to get the benefit of _not paying_ for speech that they would ordinarily be penalized for (libel, copyright infringement) then that's the cost, yes. I think they should be able to impose arbitrary limits on the cost of serving content, either the size of the content or the bandwidth consumed by serving it, but by invoking any sort of copyright/libel safe harbor, they should lose their ability to curate based on content rather than metadata. Sort of like being able to opt in to being a common carrier -- it carries both benefits (immunity from most criminal and civil prosecution for content served) and obligations (complying with takedowns and not discriminating based on content).
- wvenable 8y ago
  > If they are going to get the benefit of _not paying_ for speech that they would ordinarily be penalized for (libel, copyright infringement) then that's the cost, yes. Why? That's an interesting statement, but I don't see how one follows from the other. If you create a community online, should you not have some control over that community? Hacker News frequently censors and bans people in order to maintain a certain community. What if you created EverybodyBeNice.com that wants only "nice" posts? Is it not that fair that these companies can enforce their own standards while also getting protection from libel and copyright infringement made by their users? I don't think there is a good argument why one should be tied to the other. I think arguing that every single website should be a common carrier takes that concept way too far.
  - andrewla 8y ago
    > Why? That's an interesting statement, but I don't see how one follows from the other. You're right, of course, I don't think there's a direct implication between the two. There's a difference of degree, not kind, to some extent. My intuition is that the value that YouTube derives from being a place where people can post videos (and, somewhat importantly, monetize them) is much higher than the value that HN derives from people posting content. EverybodyBeNice.com is an interesting thought experiment. It wouldn't be very convincing, though, as a shield, if there was no effort put into active moderation not only for "niceness" but also for copyrighted or libelous content. The idea lives in that grey area between "completely curated content" and "just a place where people can post content". I guess my feeling, roughly, is that at some point during EverybodyBeNice.com's rise to serving billions of videos, they can no longer credibly claim that they are preserving the "niceness" unless there is some sort of review process that by its nature must also police for other kinds of illegitimate content.
    - wvenable 8y ago
      > My intuition is that the value that YouTube derives from being a place where people can post videos (and, somewhat importantly, monetize them) is much higher than the value that HN derives from people posting content. I don't see how "value" contributes to the argument. YouTube makes money showing videos to people that other people have posted. Hacker News makes no money linking to articles that other people have written and showing comments other people have written. But in neither case is there a moral or legal imperative to allow any video or post on either platform based on any concept of value. Value doesn't (and shouldn't) matter. > It wouldn't be very convincing, though, as a shield, if there was no effort put into active moderation not only for "niceness" but also for copyrighted or libelous content. If such a site did or did not moderate for niceness, copyright, and libelous content I don't think it matters. You can't assume perfect moderation and some mean comment, copyrighted content, or libel might get through. As long the site makes an effort when discovered to remove copyrighted and libelous content then they should be shielded by the law. Furthermore, I think that's morally acceptable. It's incredibly difficult to filter for niceness or copyright. > The idea lives in that grey area between "completely curated content" and "just a place where people can post content". There is no such thing as "just a place where people can post content" in the sense that you are going for. Every place is owned and controlled by someone. They have no moral obligation to allow any content. It's also perfectly reasonable for them to also be shielded from copyright and libel if they make a good faith attempt to remove it.
brandonmenc 8y ago
> Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Facebook isn't an "anyone" - it's a thing. We can decide to do whatever we want to these things - they exist only because we permit them to. They have no natural rights.

andrewla 8y ago

> Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Because that is what you're asking these companies to do. If they are going to get the benefit of _not paying_ for speech that they would ordinarily be penalized for (libel, copyright infringement) then that's the cost, yes. I think they should be able to impose arbitrary limits on the cost of serving content, either the size of the content or the bandwidth consumed by serving it, but by invoking any sort of copyright/libel safe harbor, they should lose their ability to curate based on content rather than metadata. Sort of like being able to opt in to being a common carrier -- it carries both benefits (immunity from most criminal and civil prosecution for content served) and obligations (complying with takedowns and not discriminating based on content).

wvenable 8y ago
> If they are going to get the benefit of _not paying_ for speech that they would ordinarily be penalized for (libel, copyright infringement) then that's the cost, yes. Why? That's an interesting statement, but I don't see how one follows from the other. If you create a community online, should you not have some control over that community? Hacker News frequently censors and bans people in order to maintain a certain community. What if you created EverybodyBeNice.com that wants only "nice" posts? Is it not that fair that these companies can enforce their own standards while also getting protection from libel and copyright infringement made by their users? I don't think there is a good argument why one should be tied to the other. I think arguing that every single website should be a common carrier takes that concept way too far.
- andrewla 8y ago
  > Why? That's an interesting statement, but I don't see how one follows from the other. You're right, of course, I don't think there's a direct implication between the two. There's a difference of degree, not kind, to some extent. My intuition is that the value that YouTube derives from being a place where people can post videos (and, somewhat importantly, monetize them) is much higher than the value that HN derives from people posting content. EverybodyBeNice.com is an interesting thought experiment. It wouldn't be very convincing, though, as a shield, if there was no effort put into active moderation not only for "niceness" but also for copyrighted or libelous content. The idea lives in that grey area between "completely curated content" and "just a place where people can post content". I guess my feeling, roughly, is that at some point during EverybodyBeNice.com's rise to serving billions of videos, they can no longer credibly claim that they are preserving the "niceness" unless there is some sort of review process that by its nature must also police for other kinds of illegitimate content.
  - wvenable 8y ago
    > My intuition is that the value that YouTube derives from being a place where people can post videos (and, somewhat importantly, monetize them) is much higher than the value that HN derives from people posting content. I don't see how "value" contributes to the argument. YouTube makes money showing videos to people that other people have posted. Hacker News makes no money linking to articles that other people have written and showing comments other people have written. But in neither case is there a moral or legal imperative to allow any video or post on either platform based on any concept of value. Value doesn't (and shouldn't) matter. > It wouldn't be very convincing, though, as a shield, if there was no effort put into active moderation not only for "niceness" but also for copyrighted or libelous content. If such a site did or did not moderate for niceness, copyright, and libelous content I don't think it matters. You can't assume perfect moderation and some mean comment, copyrighted content, or libel might get through. As long the site makes an effort when discovered to remove copyrighted and libelous content then they should be shielded by the law. Furthermore, I think that's morally acceptable. It's incredibly difficult to filter for niceness or copyright. > The idea lives in that grey area between "completely curated content" and "just a place where people can post content". There is no such thing as "just a place where people can post content" in the sense that you are going for. Every place is owned and controlled by someone. They have no moral obligation to allow any content. It's also perfectly reasonable for them to also be shielded from copyright and libel if they make a good faith attempt to remove it.

brandonmenc 8y ago

> Should anyone be forced to pay for someone else's speech that you don't agree with? Facebook isn't an "anyone" - it's a thing. We can decide to do whatever we want to these things - they exist only because we permit them to. They have no natural rights.