4 ms·

why not just have their policy be the first amendment and they abide by the same rules as the country that created them? Why should corporations take on censors

why not just have their policy be the first amendment and they abide by the same rules as the country that created them? Why should corporations take on censorship powers that are prohibited for the government? Why should a private for-profit corporation controlled by one man have more power than a transparent institution controlled by democracy?

BalinKing 8y ago
I think the standard answer is that corporations are less restricted because they are not able to enact those policies through force. The government can fine you, imprison you, etc. regardless of what you think; however, you don't have to use Facebook in the first place.
- carnagii 8y ago
  that is the default answer but there comes a point when you have to reconsider it in light of the facts of a particular situation. Take email for instance: first class mail is protected by the 5th amendment, and a warrant is required to open and read first class mail. Move communications to a private digital platform and the presumption of privacy is completely flipped into a presumption that all your emails will be read and stored for future reading. When all communications go online that leads to a very significant change in how the law applies to private communications and that is exploited by the government just as much as it is exploited by the corporations. After many years of there being a free-for-all where law enforcement and intelligence claimed they could view anything online without a warrant there was finally some push back by courts to reassert the rule of law, but email still has substantially less privacy than first class mail. Speech on public forums is a similar case. The 1st amendment applies to the town square but if a corporation creates a digital town square then it gets the right of censorship. Then the government applies pressure on the corporation to censor on their behalf and the government begins to exercise a power it did not previously have. That was not a problem when online platforms were small and inconsequential, but when they grow to billions of users globally, then the power to censor speech on those platforms becomes quite influential on the exercise of real world power. Corporations do not have police powers but they are subjects of governments that do, so once they get power they can always be made tools of the people that hold power over them.
betterunix2 8y ago
Governments have vastly more power over their citizens than any corporation. Facebook cannot imprison or kill users that violate their rules, and being banned from Facebook is not all that big of a deal (I have not had a Facebook account for more than a decade, and honestly I feel no particular need to go back). Moreover, if you required private for-profit corporations to adhere to the first amendment, you would quickly run into problems. Scientific journals could not exist -- the first amendment comes with no requirement for scientific rigor. Newspapers could not exist -- the first amendment has no requirement for journalistic quality (hence the legality of fake news). The framers of the constitution could certainly have included a requirement that private institutions follows the same rules as the government. There were certainly big and powerful non-governmental organizations at the time -- the Catholic Church, for example.

BalinKing 8y ago

I think the standard answer is that corporations are less restricted because they are not able to enact those policies through force. The government can fine you, imprison you, etc. regardless of what you think; however, you don't have to use Facebook in the first place.

carnagii 8y ago
that is the default answer but there comes a point when you have to reconsider it in light of the facts of a particular situation. Take email for instance: first class mail is protected by the 5th amendment, and a warrant is required to open and read first class mail. Move communications to a private digital platform and the presumption of privacy is completely flipped into a presumption that all your emails will be read and stored for future reading. When all communications go online that leads to a very significant change in how the law applies to private communications and that is exploited by the government just as much as it is exploited by the corporations. After many years of there being a free-for-all where law enforcement and intelligence claimed they could view anything online without a warrant there was finally some push back by courts to reassert the rule of law, but email still has substantially less privacy than first class mail. Speech on public forums is a similar case. The 1st amendment applies to the town square but if a corporation creates a digital town square then it gets the right of censorship. Then the government applies pressure on the corporation to censor on their behalf and the government begins to exercise a power it did not previously have. That was not a problem when online platforms were small and inconsequential, but when they grow to billions of users globally, then the power to censor speech on those platforms becomes quite influential on the exercise of real world power. Corporations do not have police powers but they are subjects of governments that do, so once they get power they can always be made tools of the people that hold power over them.

betterunix2 8y ago

Governments have vastly more power over their citizens than any corporation. Facebook cannot imprison or kill users that violate their rules, and being banned from Facebook is not all that big of a deal (I have not had a Facebook account for more than a decade, and honestly I feel no particular need to go back). Moreover, if you required private for-profit corporations to adhere to the first amendment, you would quickly run into problems. Scientific journals could not exist -- the first amendment comes with no requirement for scientific rigor. Newspapers could not exist -- the first amendment has no requirement for journalistic quality (hence the legality of fake news). The framers of the constitution could certainly have included a requirement that private institutions follows the same rules as the government. There were certainly big and powerful non-governmental organizations at the time -- the Catholic Church, for example.