4 ms·

> At least in the US, this is not possible without a change in the 1st Amendment. Hate speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Right, which is why I'm person

> At least in the US, this is not possible without a change in the 1st Amendment. Hate speech is protected by the 1st Amendment. Right, which is why I'm personally mostly worried about service providers being wink-wink nudge-nudge deputized into performing a mostly-effective end run around legal protections on speech. Threaten regulation, accept a proposal to self-regulate (so we don't have to pass any laws directly forcing censorious action) and work from there. If we're assuming that the goal is widespread manipulation of the political narrative, black-bagging dissidents isn't necessary to have a significant effect. Heck, this thread's Tiananmen example is the sort of thing that could be accomplished without any sort of overtly totalitarian stuff at all: you need a willing mouthpiece and an understanding with the folks running search results at Baidu that "not fake news from well-reputed outlets" gets bumped in the list. Consider how infrequently most users get past the first page of search results. I don't have stats, but I bet a similar thing is true just for whatever's the first result. Even if it's totally possible for someone to go off to another source and get their facts there, you've just rewritten history for everyone who didn't read past the top result. I think this story is particularly interesting because it's an example of a method of government speech control and propaganda that, unlike many of China's heavy-handed measures, has a nonzero chance of being applicable in a Western democracy without being an overt violation of protections around political speech.

manfredo 7y ago
> Right, which is why I'm personally mostly worried about service providers being wink-wink nudge-nudge deputized into performing a mostly-effective end run around legal protections on speech. This is totally within their right - in fact the 1st Amendment guarantees it. Freedom of speech isn't just freedom to say what you want, it's also freedom from compelled speech - freedom from the government saying "you have to say X, Y, and Z". To mandate that platforms host content isn't an "end run around legal protections on speech", their ability to refuse content is guaranteed by the legal protections on speech. I assume you're talking about platforms here. Telecoms are utilities and are required to transmit content because they're government-backed. While I think there's a debate to be had about what parts of internet infrastructure should be regulated as utilities (I think hosting providers or at least domain providers should, they're filling a similar infrastructure role as ISPs in my view) it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech.
- livueta 7y ago
  > it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech. I think there's an argument to be made that this stance is incompatible with Marsh v. Alabama given the reach and impact of certain platforms, but I digress. My real point was less that platforms should be mandated to host speech and more that extra-legal pressure from governments is a convenient method for suppressing or promoting information, especially when mechanisms for doing that within platforms already exist. These aren't incompatible- you could, for instance, really trust the moderation team of a particular platform and want them to be able to implement their moderation decisions (i.e not engage in compelled speech by being forced to not delete white supremacist content) while also not wanting those moderation decisions to be unduly influenced by government pressure.

manfredo 7y ago

> Right, which is why I'm personally mostly worried about service providers being wink-wink nudge-nudge deputized into performing a mostly-effective end run around legal protections on speech. This is totally within their right - in fact the 1st Amendment guarantees it. Freedom of speech isn't just freedom to say what you want, it's also freedom from compelled speech - freedom from the government saying "you have to say X, Y, and Z". To mandate that platforms host content isn't an "end run around legal protections on speech", their ability to refuse content is guaranteed by the legal protections on speech. I assume you're talking about platforms here. Telecoms are utilities and are required to transmit content because they're government-backed. While I think there's a debate to be had about what parts of internet infrastructure should be regulated as utilities (I think hosting providers or at least domain providers should, they're filling a similar infrastructure role as ISPs in my view) it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech.

livueta 7y ago
> it's incorrect to say that platforms' refusal to host certain content is circumventing freedom of speech. I think there's an argument to be made that this stance is incompatible with Marsh v. Alabama given the reach and impact of certain platforms, but I digress. My real point was less that platforms should be mandated to host speech and more that extra-legal pressure from governments is a convenient method for suppressing or promoting information, especially when mechanisms for doing that within platforms already exist. These aren't incompatible- you could, for instance, really trust the moderation team of a particular platform and want them to be able to implement their moderation decisions (i.e not engage in compelled speech by being forced to not delete white supremacist content) while also not wanting those moderation decisions to be unduly influenced by government pressure.