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I was at Joyent when we deplatformed some group. The vast majority of the company was for this action, based upon what they interpreted as "their values." The
by hpcjoe 7y ago
I was at Joyent when we deplatformed some group. The vast majority of the company was for this action, based upon what they interpreted as "their values." Their values were not shared in whole across the entire company. Some of us believed that speech, no matter how repugnant it is, should not be constricted.
This is the nature of the 1st amendment in the US. The government cannot restrain speech.
A private company was another matter. They can do whatever they want, within the boundaries of law. 1st amendment doesn't apply in this case.
The concern I had was that this would become "easier", and more frequent.
It has. This was the nature of my concern, that the slope would be more slippery.
Justifications for banning are getting "easier". Groups celebrate this deplatforming as "victories."
No one seems to worry much about the long term consequences of this. Well, Cloudfare did for a while, but then it stopped.
Right now, its hard for me to tell if bans are for ToS violations, or political wrongthink. I am troubled by this. ToS violations are generally fine, as long as the ToS aren't onerous. Most aren't. Wrongthink violations ... think of when the political winds shift, and when current rightthink becomes wrongthink.
Niemöller's poem[1] becomes an apt metaphor in this case.
[1] https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-niemoeller-first-they-came-for-the-socialists https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/martin-nie...
- dredmorbius 7y agoGovernment can and does restain speach. It issues gag orders, classifies information, places and enforces injunctions, and facilitates private bounds on speech through patent, trademark, and copyright law, trade secrets, and recognition and enforcement of nondisclosure and nondisparagement contracts. Even forms of observation may be limited under espionage or treason laws. Limits are placed on incitement, inflammatory speech, pornography, indecency, and "fighting words". Freedom of speech, as with other legal and civil rights, is an ideal, not an absolute. It has evolved tremendously within the US, arriving at a form we'd recognise currently only in the 1950s and 60s, about 60 years ago. The famous "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre" objection was raised in a case (Schenck) in free speech was found not to apply to anti-draft advocates during WWI, barely over a century ago. And the US Supreme Court's "marketplace of ideas" standard is similarly quite problematic, owing far more to free-market fundamentalist advocacy than some doctrine of prevailing truth. Turns out it was always more a bit of pro-free-market-fundamentalism propaganda than a pro-truth notion. See Jill Gordon, “John Stuart Mill and the ‘Marketplace of Ideas’" https://philpapers.org/rec/GORJSM https://philpapers.org/rec/GORJSM Or Stanley Ingber, “The Marketplace of Ideas: A legitimizing myth”. https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2867&context=dlj https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... (PDF).
- apostacy 7y agoWhat big tech is doing so clearly violates the principles of free speech that I can't see an argument for it. It goes well beyond people expressing unpopular opinions, to the point of interfering with markets and elections. Twitter has been interfering in elections by selectively deplatforming candidates that they don't like. It is so obvious that the biggest threat to the integrity of American elections is big tech. I can't believe that there are some that think that Russia buying a few thousand dollars worth of Facebook ads is a bigger threat than Google.
- specialist 7y agoToday, we have autonomous engagement driven feedback loops that are easily, trivially gamed. A little money can make a huge difference.