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If we look at some differences between Twitter (or insert your favorite social media platform here) and email: * Email providers have zero responsibility for f

If we look at some differences between Twitter (or insert your favorite social media platform here) and email: * Email providers have zero responsibility for filtering information * Email users form their own networks dynamically through actual relationships rather than some artificial structure of "followers"/"friends" * Email users never get banned from sending email (although maybe in some cases an individual service may ban extreme abusers) * Email's operation is totally independent of irrational mobs/corporate interests/whatever In short, I think the core problem with this situation is in your first line: social media has become a "main communication provider" and it's fundamentally unfit for purpose. Email and other protocol-based communication independent of platforms (IRC is another good example) is still the best solution for a primary communication provider.

taneq 7y ago
From your last paragraph the term you are looking for is "common carrier". Email goes over common carrier networks between private hosts and so is pretty close to a common carrier network. Twitter isn't and doesn't. Maybe there should be a way for web services to provide a similar service with similar protections.
- zenexer 7y ago
  In the US, at least, this isn't true. ISPs aren't considered common carriers--you can thank Ajit Pai for that. If it were true, it would be true for both Twitter and email. Messages from both systems hop between neutral providers in the exact same manner.
  - tremon 7y ago
    Let's avoid the contorted legal definition here, and instead use the real-world definition where "common carrier network" means using an established protocol for routing and delivery, in which many separate entities work together to establish network reach.
    - zenexer 7y ago
      In that case, it's true for both Twitter and email. The exact same network is used.
- DiseasedBadger 7y ago
  Twitter has denied that it is a publisher in court. It is a Common Carrier in effect, and has benefited - to the detriment of its competitors - from common carrier protections. Any time Twitter has been called to account for what it publishes, it claims it's not a publisher. Give them what they want.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    They are a platform distributing UGC protected by the CDA. Any discussion of “common carrier” is entirely orthogonal, and basically nonsensical in the context of something like Twitter. “Common carrier” generally arises as a trade-off for a government granted monopolies based on limited access right-of-ways. This was true for railways, and true for telephone wires. Why would this apply to a random service like Twitter?
zaroth 7y ago
The answer is much simpler than you are making this appear. Sending an email is a private communication. Sending a tweet is a public communication. Your email provider is not a publishing platform any more than the paper store or the USPS is a publishing platform. Twitter is a publisher, although as an Internet publisher disseminating user generated content, they are protected by law from the typical liability that publishers sometimes face for the communications that they publish. To say twitter is not for fit for its purpose is bizarre. Twitter is one of the most powerful publishing tools ever created.
- heisenbit 7y ago
  A publishing tool that can mimic private communication tools. Not for well thought out letters but for words spoken in a conversation. Which makes it so powerful. Which makes it so problematic.
- lr4444lr 7y ago
  I believe that's an artificial distinction. Companies like Mailchimp have already started implementing protections like mandatory opt-out mechanisms to protect themselves from liability. If networks of mailing lists around political rather than business interests were more common, I'd expect no less this kind of self-policing. The OP hits at a fundamental problem. I'm not sure there's a clear path forward.
  - frenchyatwork 7y ago
    I think the more relevant distinction here is that email is federated. Once Mailchimp has sent out the emails, there's not much it can do, and it would be pretty unreasonable to force Mailchimp to review filter all their emails. Twitter, on the other hand, is publishing these messages on their site. It's very easy for them to simply stop publishing those messages. Because Twitter is in charge of Twitter, it also has to be concerned about it's brand. The more public nature of Twitter also help this along, of course. If something like this was to happen in the ActivityPub or XMPP space, the way of handling it would probably be something in closer to email than twitter.
hbosch 7y ago
I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate here, because I think your comment has the beginning of a good conversation. >* Email providers have zero responsibility for filtering information Not necessarily true. Spam filtering is an expected feature nowadays, I would say, bit you're right that e-mail providers aren't required to do that sort of thing. Still, known spam IPs are regularly blacklisted from major e-mail providers. >* Email users form their own networks dynamically through actual relationships rather than some artificial structure of "followers"/"friends" Mailing lists and newsletters are more like a social network than typical e-mail. But the fundamental difference isn't how users form their networks, it's how the networks are structured: on Twitter, I take a message and broadcast it to everyone and Twitter puts ads around it, and other people see it even if they don't "know" me. The equivalency is e-mail:Twitter DMs :: massive mailing list:Twitter. >* Email users never get banned from sending email (although maybe in some cases an individual service may ban extreme abusers) You can get booted from a mailing list, and other users can block you, but more or less it's true that Microsoft won't ban me from Exchange servers. And that's kind of the thing, e-mail isn't centrally hosted. Mastodon has attempted this with a Twitterlike social media platform. >* Email's operation is totally independent of irrational mobs/corporate interests/whatever E-mails killer feature, for sure. >In short, I think the core problem with this situation is in your first line: social media has become a "main communication provider" and it's fundamentally unfit for purpose. Email and other protocol-based communication independent of platforms (IRC is another good example) is still the best solution for a primary communication provider. Agree, and I think this is why lots of online communities treat traditional social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) like little broadcast hubs where you basically show the world your best in little snippits. On Twitter: post a joke or a funny thread; on Instagram: post your outfit, or your view, or your dinner; on Facebook: post your graduation and family photos; on Snapchat(/Instagram Stories): post about the little things you encounter throughout your day. Once you deviate from this framework – e.g. posting "politically incorrect" or intentionally controversial content – then you are subverting and ultimately trying to dismantle the cultural expectations for those platforms. The culturally accepted place for controversial content is in private conversations: Discord, WhatsApp, iMessage, e-mail, phone calls. Because then your victims have a way to defend themselves. The argument over "free speech" on Twitter is undertaken, almost 100% of the time, in bad faith. Twitter is a bullhorn, P2P messaging is where free speech is truly (and should always be) protected. If you take a megaphone into Union Square, and start hurling slurs and threats at people, you will be removed or arrested the same way you'd be removed from Twitter for the same actions. On Twitter you're not talking to "somebody", you're talking to "everybody". If you want to be controversial, take it to private conversation. Causing people pain in public isn't related at all to free speech – it's just another form of harassment.
cc439 7y ago
Email as a standard is a neutral vector for mass communication but email in it's real-world form as a service provided by large 3rd-parties is not. Email service providers have monopolized the market for personal emails for two reasons, the first being the difficulty of setting up and maintaining a personal email server, and second being the enormously difficult challenge of filtering "spam". Google's Gmail service has a near monopoly over the personal email market and their highly effective spam filters played a huge role in the early success of that platform (large amounts of free storage was the primary reason but their spam filters were also the best at the time). Yes, that's plausible but the context in which it occured does raise questions. On a more anecdotal note, I have noticed that particular emails (membership renewal reminders, specific call-to-action campaign emails, etc) coming from 2nd Amendment groups wind up in my spam folder whereas other, less activity inducing emails from the same groups pass through without issue. The manner in which emails are classified as spam is something that will always be highly subjective, leaving room for malevolent manipulation to occur. I'm fact, there may be precedent for this dating back to the 2016 election. There was a brief period where all Trump campaign emails were being flagged as spam by Gmail's filter algorithms. Google had plausible deniability in stating that it was a glitch caused by their algorithm's ability to globally flag senders whose emails are overwhelmingly deleted before being opened by users.

taneq 7y ago

From your last paragraph the term you are looking for is "common carrier". Email goes over common carrier networks between private hosts and so is pretty close to a common carrier network. Twitter isn't and doesn't. Maybe there should be a way for web services to provide a similar service with similar protections.

zenexer 7y ago
In the US, at least, this isn't true. ISPs aren't considered common carriers--you can thank Ajit Pai for that. If it were true, it would be true for both Twitter and email. Messages from both systems hop between neutral providers in the exact same manner.
- tremon 7y ago
  Let's avoid the contorted legal definition here, and instead use the real-world definition where "common carrier network" means using an established protocol for routing and delivery, in which many separate entities work together to establish network reach.
  - zenexer 7y ago
    In that case, it's true for both Twitter and email. The exact same network is used.
DiseasedBadger 7y ago
Twitter has denied that it is a publisher in court. It is a Common Carrier in effect, and has benefited - to the detriment of its competitors - from common carrier protections. Any time Twitter has been called to account for what it publishes, it claims it's not a publisher. Give them what they want.
- zaroth 7y ago
  They are a platform distributing UGC protected by the CDA. Any discussion of “common carrier” is entirely orthogonal, and basically nonsensical in the context of something like Twitter. “Common carrier” generally arises as a trade-off for a government granted monopolies based on limited access right-of-ways. This was true for railways, and true for telephone wires. Why would this apply to a random service like Twitter?

zaroth 7y ago

The answer is much simpler than you are making this appear. Sending an email is a private communication. Sending a tweet is a public communication. Your email provider is not a publishing platform any more than the paper store or the USPS is a publishing platform. Twitter is a publisher, although as an Internet publisher disseminating user generated content, they are protected by law from the typical liability that publishers sometimes face for the communications that they publish. To say twitter is not for fit for its purpose is bizarre. Twitter is one of the most powerful publishing tools ever created.

heisenbit 7y ago
A publishing tool that can mimic private communication tools. Not for well thought out letters but for words spoken in a conversation. Which makes it so powerful. Which makes it so problematic.
lr4444lr 7y ago
I believe that's an artificial distinction. Companies like Mailchimp have already started implementing protections like mandatory opt-out mechanisms to protect themselves from liability. If networks of mailing lists around political rather than business interests were more common, I'd expect no less this kind of self-policing. The OP hits at a fundamental problem. I'm not sure there's a clear path forward.
- frenchyatwork 7y ago
  I think the more relevant distinction here is that email is federated. Once Mailchimp has sent out the emails, there's not much it can do, and it would be pretty unreasonable to force Mailchimp to review filter all their emails. Twitter, on the other hand, is publishing these messages on their site. It's very easy for them to simply stop publishing those messages. Because Twitter is in charge of Twitter, it also has to be concerned about it's brand. The more public nature of Twitter also help this along, of course. If something like this was to happen in the ActivityPub or XMPP space, the way of handling it would probably be something in closer to email than twitter.

hbosch 7y ago

I'm going to play a little bit of devil's advocate here, because I think your comment has the beginning of a good conversation. >* Email providers have zero responsibility for filtering information Not necessarily true. Spam filtering is an expected feature nowadays, I would say, bit you're right that e-mail providers aren't required to do that sort of thing. Still, known spam IPs are regularly blacklisted from major e-mail providers. >* Email users form their own networks dynamically through actual relationships rather than some artificial structure of "followers"/"friends" Mailing lists and newsletters are more like a social network than typical e-mail. But the fundamental difference isn't how users form their networks, it's how the networks are structured: on Twitter, I take a message and broadcast it to everyone and Twitter puts ads around it, and other people see it even if they don't "know" me. The equivalency is e-mail:Twitter DMs :: massive mailing list:Twitter. >* Email users never get banned from sending email (although maybe in some cases an individual service may ban extreme abusers) You can get booted from a mailing list, and other users can block you, but more or less it's true that Microsoft won't ban me from Exchange servers. And that's kind of the thing, e-mail isn't centrally hosted. Mastodon has attempted this with a Twitterlike social media platform. >* Email's operation is totally independent of irrational mobs/corporate interests/whatever E-mails killer feature, for sure. >In short, I think the core problem with this situation is in your first line: social media has become a "main communication provider" and it's fundamentally unfit for purpose. Email and other protocol-based communication independent of platforms (IRC is another good example) is still the best solution for a primary communication provider. Agree, and I think this is why lots of online communities treat traditional social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) like little broadcast hubs where you basically show the world your best in little snippits. On Twitter: post a joke or a funny thread; on Instagram: post your outfit, or your view, or your dinner; on Facebook: post your graduation and family photos; on Snapchat(/Instagram Stories): post about the little things you encounter throughout your day. Once you deviate from this framework – e.g. posting "politically incorrect" or intentionally controversial content – then you are subverting and ultimately trying to dismantle the cultural expectations for those platforms. The culturally accepted place for controversial content is in private conversations: Discord, WhatsApp, iMessage, e-mail, phone calls. Because then your victims have a way to defend themselves. The argument over "free speech" on Twitter is undertaken, almost 100% of the time, in bad faith. Twitter is a bullhorn, P2P messaging is where free speech is truly (and should always be) protected. If you take a megaphone into Union Square, and start hurling slurs and threats at people, you will be removed or arrested the same way you'd be removed from Twitter for the same actions. On Twitter you're not talking to "somebody", you're talking to "everybody". If you want to be controversial, take it to private conversation. Causing people pain in public isn't related at all to free speech – it's just another form of harassment.

cc439 7y ago

Email as a standard is a neutral vector for mass communication but email in it's real-world form as a service provided by large 3rd-parties is not. Email service providers have monopolized the market for personal emails for two reasons, the first being the difficulty of setting up and maintaining a personal email server, and second being the enormously difficult challenge of filtering "spam". Google's Gmail service has a near monopoly over the personal email market and their highly effective spam filters played a huge role in the early success of that platform (large amounts of free storage was the primary reason but their spam filters were also the best at the time). Yes, that's plausible but the context in which it occured does raise questions. On a more anecdotal note, I have noticed that particular emails (membership renewal reminders, specific call-to-action campaign emails, etc) coming from 2nd Amendment groups wind up in my spam folder whereas other, less activity inducing emails from the same groups pass through without issue. The manner in which emails are classified as spam is something that will always be highly subjective, leaving room for malevolent manipulation to occur. I'm fact, there may be precedent for this dating back to the 2016 election. There was a brief period where all Trump campaign emails were being flagged as spam by Gmail's filter algorithms. Google had plausible deniability in stating that it was a glitch caused by their algorithm's ability to globally flag senders whose emails are overwhelmingly deleted before being opened by users.