5 ms·

> People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platform is meaningless in reality. It

by zamfi 7y ago

> People are doing the "yada yada not entitled to a platform" thing, but the distinction between free speech and having a platform is meaningless in reality. It's like saying "you can say anything you want, but we won't let you use the atmosphere to propagate the sound waves". But the size of the platform is commensurate with the tolerability of the speech, right? No one is preventing you from standing in a public place making whatever objectionable claims you want. But reddit/facebook/cloudflare/whoever don't have an obligation to let you use their platform to publish it if they don't like it. This is certainly not a meaningless distinction. In the age of print media, some random guy's fringe opinions were not "required to be published" -- you couldn't even buy a classified ad espousing objectionable content in large publications. No "ban" required. > We now live in a society where it is acceptable for private companies to essentially completely ban individuals from exercising their free speech We have always lived in such a society. And it's not "private companies" it's people. Some person makes this decision.

Thorentis 7y ago
> no one is preventing you from standing in a public place Social media is now the equivalent of standing in a public place. Times have changed. The town crier that used to tell people that latest headline? That's now the Facebook news feed. Public library/coffee shop where people can go discuss whatever new subversive political idea they've had? That's now online chat rooms. Sticking our heads in the sand and thinking that the Internet is anything other than the new public square is disingenuous. People need to wake up and realise that at present, the "public space" once protected by our rights has become almost entirely controlled by private monopolies.
- danem 7y ago
  Using Twitter and speaking in a public place are not at all equivalent. You are not entitled to use Twitter's resources that they pay money for to amplify your speech. You simply aren't. Just because we have the means of broadcasting speech more widely and cheaply than ever before in no way entitles you to those resources. Just as the Wall Street Journal is in no way obligated to publish your letter to the editor, Twitter is allowed to broadcast what they wish. Nothing at all is stopping 8chan from hosting their content on their own infrastructure.
  - Thorentis 7y ago
    The Wall Street Journal and Twitter are not equivalent. Due to the monopoly of control on social media right now, companies like Facebook, Twitter, et. al. are the new public spaces. Due to their unique position as monopolies over the popular communication mediums of the day, they are able to make decisions about what very large segments of the population have access to. Google even moreso. If the WSJ was one of 2 or 3 news publications in the entire world that people got their information from, them choosing to not a run a story or firing a particular journalist would be a big deal.
    - danem 7y ago
      > Due to the monopoly of control on social media right now, companies like Facebook, Twitter, et. al. are the new public spaces. Just because you want them to be considered "public spaces" doesn't make them so. These are private companies using private funding, nothing public about them. Go to the countless other forums to post your opinions. Make your own Twitter alternative. Nothing is stopping you. The ideas being promoted on 8chan and the like have lost in the "marketplace of ideas". The only free speech issue here is that you seem to want government intervention to promote hugely unpopular ideas, and force private companies to use their resources to broadcast content against their wishes, clearly violating the first amendment. > If the WSJ was one of 2 or 3 news publications in the entire world that people got their information from, them choosing to not a run a story or firing a particular journalist would be a big deal. How many major publications do you see running white supremacist content? How many major publications do you see running anti-vax conspiracy theories? What you describe has been happening for the entirety of media's existence. Ideas largely fall out of favor and people no longer wish to pay the cost of broadcasting them.
      - zaroth 7y ago
        Actually there is quite a bit of merit in discussing the limits that are placed, or could/should be placed, on the mega-platforms in terms of what content they are allowed to censor. This is not a definitively answered question, and is something that the courts are indeed struggling with. It is actually not as simple as having a ToS which says “we can deny service to anyone for any reason”. Twitter, for example, advertised itself as a neutral platform. Therefore it would be an unfair and deceptive business practice (per the FTC) for it to institute politically motivated account terminations. Similarly, Google certainly has the capability to influence both election turnout and perhaps even voting itself through the type of content it surfaces, and Congress has held many hearings and even heard testimony from Pichai on this exact topic.

by zamfi 7y ago

Thorentis 7y ago

> no one is preventing you from standing in a public place Social media is now the equivalent of standing in a public place. Times have changed. The town crier that used to tell people that latest headline? That's now the Facebook news feed. Public library/coffee shop where people can go discuss whatever new subversive political idea they've had? That's now online chat rooms. Sticking our heads in the sand and thinking that the Internet is anything other than the new public square is disingenuous. People need to wake up and realise that at present, the "public space" once protected by our rights has become almost entirely controlled by private monopolies.

danem 7y ago
Using Twitter and speaking in a public place are not at all equivalent. You are not entitled to use Twitter's resources that they pay money for to amplify your speech. You simply aren't. Just because we have the means of broadcasting speech more widely and cheaply than ever before in no way entitles you to those resources. Just as the Wall Street Journal is in no way obligated to publish your letter to the editor, Twitter is allowed to broadcast what they wish. Nothing at all is stopping 8chan from hosting their content on their own infrastructure.
- Thorentis 7y ago
  The Wall Street Journal and Twitter are not equivalent. Due to the monopoly of control on social media right now, companies like Facebook, Twitter, et. al. are the new public spaces. Due to their unique position as monopolies over the popular communication mediums of the day, they are able to make decisions about what very large segments of the population have access to. Google even moreso. If the WSJ was one of 2 or 3 news publications in the entire world that people got their information from, them choosing to not a run a story or firing a particular journalist would be a big deal.
  - danem 7y ago
    > Due to the monopoly of control on social media right now, companies like Facebook, Twitter, et. al. are the new public spaces. Just because you want them to be considered "public spaces" doesn't make them so. These are private companies using private funding, nothing public about them. Go to the countless other forums to post your opinions. Make your own Twitter alternative. Nothing is stopping you. The ideas being promoted on 8chan and the like have lost in the "marketplace of ideas". The only free speech issue here is that you seem to want government intervention to promote hugely unpopular ideas, and force private companies to use their resources to broadcast content against their wishes, clearly violating the first amendment. > If the WSJ was one of 2 or 3 news publications in the entire world that people got their information from, them choosing to not a run a story or firing a particular journalist would be a big deal. How many major publications do you see running white supremacist content? How many major publications do you see running anti-vax conspiracy theories? What you describe has been happening for the entirety of media's existence. Ideas largely fall out of favor and people no longer wish to pay the cost of broadcasting them.
    - zaroth 7y ago
      Actually there is quite a bit of merit in discussing the limits that are placed, or could/should be placed, on the mega-platforms in terms of what content they are allowed to censor. This is not a definitively answered question, and is something that the courts are indeed struggling with. It is actually not as simple as having a ToS which says “we can deny service to anyone for any reason”. Twitter, for example, advertised itself as a neutral platform. Therefore it would be an unfair and deceptive business practice (per the FTC) for it to institute politically motivated account terminations. Similarly, Google certainly has the capability to influence both election turnout and perhaps even voting itself through the type of content it surfaces, and Congress has held many hearings and even heard testimony from Pichai on this exact topic.