4 ms·

The big, ostensibly neutral, communications monopolies need their censorship practices heavily regulated. People with private blogs needs to be absolutely free

The big, ostensibly neutral, communications monopolies need their censorship practices heavily regulated. People with private blogs needs to be absolutely free to control commenting however they would like. I believe that we can respect both of these positions easily, 99% of the time, with our court systems deciding on some of the grey in the middle.

nradov 7y ago
Twitter doesn't even remotely have a monopoly on political communications. What counts as a "private" blog? That seems like an arbitrary distinction.
- 12thsie34 7y ago
  I dont think you know what a monopoly actually is.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Actually I am very familiar with what monopolies are. But if you disagree then please enlighten us rather than posting low-effort comments.
- coldtea 7y ago
  Seems like a very pertinent distinction to modern democracy / society. Unlike in the 1800 when everyone could just go the the town square or publish their own pamphlet and have almost equal reach, today most discussion happens in 2-3 outlets: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Whether those started as private companies, whether those are not public goods, etc, should be irrelevant. They have de facto captured a big chunk of the conversation that shapes the public opinion. I'd argue the same was true for TV and newspapers in the 1900-2000 -- they had a disproportionate power of shaping public opinion, and a monopoly of control on it. That was bad -- and it was already said that "he who controls the mass media, controls democracy". Even if people still had the "first amendment right" to open their own newspaper (as if that's practical), or whatever. But at the time, at least, newspapers and tv stations had limited pages and run time, expensive production costs, and it was at least reasonable that they couldn't include everybody's voice. Today, services like Twitter, Facebook, etc, not only have small marginal costs for including another voice, but they encourage and actively want to add more (all) people in their platform. So there's no excuse (from that point) of censoring people.
  - nradov 7y ago
    There are a lot more than 2-3 outlets some of which have completely different and less restrictive acceptable use policies. For example I understand Reddit is huge, although I don't use it myself. And there's always email.
    - coldtea 7y ago
      >There are a lot more than 2-3 outlets some of which have completely different and less restrictive acceptable use policies. For example I understand Reddit is huge, although I don't use it myself. That's mostly a reason why Reddit (and others) should also be included in the list. But even if we don't have all outlets, enforcing freedom of speech to say, the top-3 by users, is good enough for a start... >And there's always email. Yes, just like one is always free to think what they want inside their head, or tell it like it is, within their home. I'm not talking about that, nor care about that "freedom".
    - SmartJerry 7y ago
      The most popular websites in the U.S. where users share content are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram (Facebook's subsidiary), Reddit, Twitch, then arguably Imgur which is more a hosting site of images for other services, and maybe even iTunes for podcasts. You can monetize your content on most of these sites but if you get banned from say YouTube, your audience just dropped from the whole country to say half of the country. To compare to the real world, imagine if you were banned from speaking where half of the country lives. Besides the fact you can't get your message out even to those who want to hear it, but that your income is earned from speaking and now you can't reach your audience. These are real concerns for most content creators now that their voice and livelihood relies on these services. There is a point where we can decide these companies have too much control. Whether it be by site visits, % of total internet audience, or number of accounts/reach... YouTube has more accounts than the entire population of the U.S. Maybe that could be the threshold where we consider a company should be a 'public forum' or subject to meet certain free speech standards/regulations with their policies.
      - 7y ago

nradov 7y ago

Twitter doesn't even remotely have a monopoly on political communications. What counts as a "private" blog? That seems like an arbitrary distinction.

12thsie34 7y ago
I dont think you know what a monopoly actually is.
- nradov 7y ago
  Actually I am very familiar with what monopolies are. But if you disagree then please enlighten us rather than posting low-effort comments.
coldtea 7y ago
Seems like a very pertinent distinction to modern democracy / society. Unlike in the 1800 when everyone could just go the the town square or publish their own pamphlet and have almost equal reach, today most discussion happens in 2-3 outlets: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Whether those started as private companies, whether those are not public goods, etc, should be irrelevant. They have de facto captured a big chunk of the conversation that shapes the public opinion. I'd argue the same was true for TV and newspapers in the 1900-2000 -- they had a disproportionate power of shaping public opinion, and a monopoly of control on it. That was bad -- and it was already said that "he who controls the mass media, controls democracy". Even if people still had the "first amendment right" to open their own newspaper (as if that's practical), or whatever. But at the time, at least, newspapers and tv stations had limited pages and run time, expensive production costs, and it was at least reasonable that they couldn't include everybody's voice. Today, services like Twitter, Facebook, etc, not only have small marginal costs for including another voice, but they encourage and actively want to add more (all) people in their platform. So there's no excuse (from that point) of censoring people.
- nradov 7y ago
  There are a lot more than 2-3 outlets some of which have completely different and less restrictive acceptable use policies. For example I understand Reddit is huge, although I don't use it myself. And there's always email.
  - coldtea 7y ago
    >There are a lot more than 2-3 outlets some of which have completely different and less restrictive acceptable use policies. For example I understand Reddit is huge, although I don't use it myself. That's mostly a reason why Reddit (and others) should also be included in the list. But even if we don't have all outlets, enforcing freedom of speech to say, the top-3 by users, is good enough for a start... >And there's always email. Yes, just like one is always free to think what they want inside their head, or tell it like it is, within their home. I'm not talking about that, nor care about that "freedom".
  - SmartJerry 7y ago
    The most popular websites in the U.S. where users share content are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram (Facebook's subsidiary), Reddit, Twitch, then arguably Imgur which is more a hosting site of images for other services, and maybe even iTunes for podcasts. You can monetize your content on most of these sites but if you get banned from say YouTube, your audience just dropped from the whole country to say half of the country. To compare to the real world, imagine if you were banned from speaking where half of the country lives. Besides the fact you can't get your message out even to those who want to hear it, but that your income is earned from speaking and now you can't reach your audience. These are real concerns for most content creators now that their voice and livelihood relies on these services. There is a point where we can decide these companies have too much control. Whether it be by site visits, % of total internet audience, or number of accounts/reach... YouTube has more accounts than the entire population of the U.S. Maybe that could be the threshold where we consider a company should be a 'public forum' or subject to meet certain free speech standards/regulations with their policies.
    - 7y ago