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I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that priva

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-reach and almost unachievable to have both perfect free speech on these platforms and actually run them as a viable business. But let's lay that aside, those people who make the argument claim to be adhering to an even stronger dedication to free speech. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense.

thebouv 6y ago
They will never understand your point.
- latedecember 6y ago
  They will never understand the pain of having red hair either.
throwanem 6y ago
Why should that be clear? Judging them by their actions rather than their words, it's quite plain that "free speech extremists" are no such thing, except inasmuch as it applies to them. They demand to be free to say whatever they like, and they demand everyone else be required to listen while they do it.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is that they then have to face the consequences. I mean I can say whatever I want on this platform as well, but if I cross a line my posts will be hidden and eventually my account blocked. And that is fair, it's what I agreed to, and not only that but it's morally just. The free speech extremists confuse freedom of speech with protection from consequences. Interestingly, Trump and some other celebrities on Twitter have had special protection from said consequences.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - pinkfoot 6y ago
    > They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is that they then have to face the consequences. This is the definition of free speech that North Korea likes.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      Don't be absurd. One might with equal justice say that yours is the definition of free speech that Stormfront likes.
      - pinkfoot 6y ago
        Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want but you may have to face a firing squad" and different in experience to "you cannot say any of these things, if you do you will face a firing squad" ? The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no consequences. (And no you shouldn't be allowed to shout 'fire' in a theatre).
        throwanem 6y ago
        Your last two statements contradict one another, but also make clear that you recognize your appeal to absurdity for what it is. Do you think no one else will?
        pinkfoot 6y ago
        Er, because I am not a supporter of unfettered free speech. But I also wont bend the definition either. That’s where the problems start.
        dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want but you may have to face a firing squad" That's not the consequence here. The consequence is “other private parties might choose not to relay your speech or continue association with you, exercising their own rights to free speech and association.” Me not allowing you to use my resources to magnify the reach of your message isn't analogous to the state subjecting you to capital punishment. > The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no consequences. No, the whole point is that the state doesn't have their thumb on the scale, allowing ideas to succeed or fail by their ability, or not, to attract support from private actors. Legislation in which the state intervenes to prevent private consequences through the exercise of free speech are not only on their face contrary to free speech, but sabotage the operation of the marketplace of ideas.
0x5002 6y ago
I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds. It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that bases their philosophy on the 1st amendment, but in reality, all it did was to attract the polar opposite of the /r/politics subreddit (to put it lightly), rather than to facilitate free and open discourse. On the other hand, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al are undoubtedly massively influential on the public opinion and their corporate position on political topics - Yoel Roth's recent tweets serve as a decent example, showing clearly that this person cannot be an objective "fact checker" - essentially create a public forum where I am not able to exercise my first amendment rights (and, legally speaking, rightfully so). I cannot help but to find this very concerning. YouTube (despite numerous issues with their interpretation of free speech), for instance, starting linking Wiki articles under videos that cover certain topics or are uploaded by certain channels. Videos by the BBC show a notice that the BBC is a British public broadcast service, simply informing the viewer about the fact that any bias they might encounter can be easily identified (feel free to switch "BBC" with "RT"). I've found that to be a decent middle ground between outright suppressing views by a corporation pretending to be the authority on certain topics and broadcasting everything without any context.
- thebouv 6y ago
  > essentially create a public(1) forum where I am not able to exercise my first amendment rights(2) (and, legally speaking, rightfully so(3)). I cannot help but to find this very concerning. (1) Private forum, displayed in the public. (2) Those rights protect your speech from being suppressed BY THE GOVERNMENT. (3) Correct if you meant legally as a private company running a private forum, they can manage the content as they see fit, including fact checking the POTUS. Or incorrect if you meant you have a legal right to exercise your speech on their platform free of their rules.
  - anewdirection 6y ago
    Privately owned areas are still often public (as opposed to publicly owned) spaces in the physical relam. While the digital is indeed different, you seem overly dismissive of this fact by omission and unnessarry capitolization.
sparkie 6y ago
> dangerously factually incorrect information Here's the problem. Who is doing the fact checking? Who fact checks the fact checkers? The world isn't black and white. State press releases are not facts. There is no authority that is the arbitrator of truth.
- raziel2p 6y ago
  As long as the sources can be checked, challenged, and counter-opinions can be voiced, I personally don't think it matters that much. It's the blind acceptance of statements and accusations that match our existing world view that we need to combat, I think.
  - sparkie 6y ago
    And how do you challenge an opinion? By giving your own. In other words, we just need more speech, not more restrictions on speech. -- reply to below because I'm restricted and at comment limit (ironic, eh?) > Isn't that exactly what Twitter did? They left the speech up, and added a note below it expressing their opinion that a particular link demonstrates that the tweet was not factual. Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the ministry of truth. All Twitter had to do was create a @twitterfactchecks handle and reply to the posts in question - perhaps promoting their reply to the top so that it is most visible, but then people could reply to @twitterfactchecks contesting their opinion (a fact check is always an opinion, if you didn't get what I was hinting at above.)
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      Isn't that exactly what Twitter did? They left the speech up, and added a note below it expressing their opinion that a particular link demonstrates that the tweet was not factual.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      > Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the ministry of truth. Surely you see the irony of your trying to regulate how Twitter formats their free speech on their own platform?
seerbetter 6y ago
There’s tons of fraud and bad acts in mail in voting but I 100% support allowing it and fixing the systems.
threatofrain 6y ago
I feel that because web tech advanced more quickly than much of society, a vacuum of power developed and Google was forced to step in. If Google had its way, it wouldn't police any content and it would illegally host HBO shows like Game of Thrones -- when you try to hold them responsible, Google would pass off all burden to the offending individual. That's how YouTube used to run. Other industries have things like the FCC or the FDA where companies can say, "Look, we did our due diligence, the FDA approved our drug."
- dynamite-ready 6y ago
  Do you think digital media needs a state run mediator? I think it's probably time. We've become quite protective of the data that's collected by digital products for fear of a concentration of power. But then we all see the internet as a great 'leveller', and we don't want to disturb that balance. The likes of the FDA (or your local equivalent) work at a certain scale... Perhaps civilly agreed constraints can be applied to companies who have managed to cultivate a userbase of a certain size. Like a 'tax' of a kind on the amount of 'trash' you're allowed to ignore, before the police physically ensure you and your users can't abuse state infrastructure for whatever your nefarious purpose is.
  - intended 6y ago
    This is an argument that is being made - an FDA for information. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/a-toxic-web-what-the-victorians-can-teach-us-about-online-abuse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/a-toxic-w... One of the people making the argument is Nate Matias, the guy behind Civil servant, which is essentially the first open testing system to see the impact of content moderation rules on users - https://www.fastcompany.com/3068556/reminder-you-can-manipulate-algorithms-too https://www.fastcompany.com/3068556/reminder-you-can-manipul...
- nsgi 6y ago
  Didn't Google develop Content ID voluntarily, though? It's not like anyone forced them to. Though I guess it may have been to avoid the threat of regulation
craftinator 6y ago
I really appreciate your approach to this argument. You really cut through any strawman fallacies by pointing out that there's a debate along a spectrum about what protecting free speech entails, but that the President needs to have limitations in his power over private companies. I think this final point is not debatable in a legal context; he does not legally have that power.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Darn right he does not have the power. Either the president does not know the constitutional limits on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's a good idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not sure which is worse.
  - _-david-_ 6y ago
    >Either the president does not know the constitutional limits on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's a good idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not sure which is worse. Or he knows what he is allowed to do and is just saying stupid crap like he usually does. Trump doesn't have a filter and just says/tweets whatever pops into his head. This could be another example of that.
  - beart 6y ago
    Trump loves twitter. If he actually had a problem with it, he could just stop posting. So I think it's more of a third choice - He doesn't care if he has the power, he's just creating chaos and conflict to excite his base, as he has been doing for years.
    - goatherders 6y ago
      His followers love it. Hes an incompetent knob but he didnt elect himself. The morons - and they are ALL morons - that support him eat this up and care not that he has no authority to do anything like this.
      - 6y ago
cma 6y ago
> There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. The companies would also presumably have to allow commercial spam.
giancarlostoro 6y ago
I wasn't going to post anything because of the direction HN seems to lean and because they get enraged about these sort of discussions. Hear me out and feel free to respond instead of shunning me out. The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free speech protections because they're platforms. The moment they start editing content like this, they become editors to a publishing platform, and they should be held liable for all that they've published. You can't just have your cake and eat it too, today they make you happy to censor the evil orange man, tomorrow they may censor those you support. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We're seeing with YouTube that they're deleting posts against Communist China: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317570 Worse what happens when you cross Facebook imposing Chinese censorship on the whole world? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12479990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12479990 What happens when Google is used to push liberal bias? Vimeo deletes videos claiming such bias from Google despite clear evidence in video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302010 "If we break things up, we can't stop Trump" replace Trump with any political candidate you've ever supported by the way to understand why this sort of thing is dangerous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20265502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20265502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20697780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20697780 I am sure I will get into fire for this comment, considering my citations were flagged to death because people don't agree with others. But mark my words, if the tables were flipped and they were censoring all your favorite candidates, you'd be outraged and against anything that would hinder free speech. If you take away anything from this post be sure to be this: Twitter, Google, Facebook etc are considered "platforms" the moment they editorialize content, they become publishers. Platforms are protected for obvious reasons, they cannot reliably contain every single thing a user posts, but a publisher dictates what is published, and is definitely liable for what they publish. These platforms want to be hybrids, but that gives them dangerous power to push agendas as they claim they are trying to stop.
- root_axis 6y ago
dqpb 6y ago
Where does speech about religion fall? There are people on all sides who would consider the others to be spreading "dangerously factually incorrect information".
deleted 6y ago
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chlodwig 6y ago
Free speech for all political factions on major public forums is the cooperate-cooperate quadrant of the prisoner's dilemma. If forums controlled by the blue faction defect and start censoring the red faction, the red faction needs to threaten to retaliate in order to scare the blue faction into cooperating again. It's simple tit-for-tat. This is game theory 101. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies The United States President has neither the authority nor power to start censoring Twitter on his own. Right now, Jack Dorsey has far more power over allowed public speech in America than Donald Trump.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  A lot of people have been wrong about what the current President could or would do. Ann Coulter comes to mind. It's not really clear why other people enable the President, which is the underlying reason why you can't reassure people that he's ineffectual.
- likeclockwork 6y ago
  Why does the "red faction" control no forums? Doesn't that seem odd to you? There's no reason they couldn't. Why don't forums aligned with their values attract broad participation?
  - chlodwig 6y ago
    The inner party of the "blue faction" is the network of people who really like coordinating and taking over and running institutions. Here is a good article from just the other day on how it works: https://archive.vn/87OEG https://archive.vn/87OEG The "outer party" of the "blue faction" are those people who go along with what those institutions say and do. The "red faction" is the unwashed masses who are generally busy with their own lives, who haven't gotten with the program, haven't been bought off and whine about how the "blue faction" controlled institutions and bureaucracies are screwing them over.
- whateveracct 6y ago
  > The United States President has neither the authority nor power to start censoring Twitter on his own. Right now, Jack Dorsey has far more power over allowed public speech in America than Donald Trump. Exactly! This is American Civics 101. When you become President, you lose things because you have power. You and I have more legal authority to restrict speech than the President.
kgin 6y ago
I think it's even more concerning than that. Threatening to shut down private companies -- not for limiting speech, not for refusing to distribute speech -- but for exercising their own right to free speech alongside the free speech of others (in this case the president). There is no right to unchallenged or un-responded-to speech, regardless of how you interpret the right to free speech.
- prox 6y ago
  Because that would be the territory of authoritarian kings, the ideological reason the US was founded. Trump sees himself king, not president.
  - briefcomment 6y ago
    Can you read his mind? If not, how can you tell the difference between a tyrant and a troll (and even a savvy negotiator)? One way is to see what actually happens. My bet is that no social media company will be shut down because of this.
    - paulgb 6y ago
      Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief against the free speech of a private company is not "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling effect on speech whether he goes through with it or not. I doubt he would shut Twitter down (if only because he needs it more than it needs him), but I don't doubt for a second that he would use the executive branch to retaliate against them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
      - timsneath 6y ago
        To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding variables, this would suggest investors see a material effect of his words.
hadtodoit 6y ago
If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree with, you can do so for illegal content as well. If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premises I am held liable for that. I did not force that person to enter the store but the benefits of having a store outweighed the risks. Why should internet companies receive special treatment? They should be 100% liable for what happens on their "premises" if they are going to take the risk of allowing user-generated content.
- tootie 6y ago
  Do they have protection right now? Platforms are already held responsible for illegal activities and are subject to requests by law enforcement and copyright holders. They're generally given a chance to respond to a request, challenge requests through channels and listen to appeals. But they would eventually be culpable if they weren't compliant.
  - hadtodoit 6y ago
    Sounds like you're referring to DMCA where as I was referring to heinous crimes like drug/sex/child trafficking. They do have protection right now in either case.
    - tootie 6y ago
      I'm referring to both. But in both cases, the content hosts don't get punished instantly. They are served with notice of offending content and given a chance to comply. The host and the creator both have avenues of appeal. At least, in the US they do. It varies country to country.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Because the scale makes this nearly impossible. Or rather, extremely expensive to the point where only the biggest of companies can do so, and at the cost of real-time information.
centimeter 6y ago
I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc. themed cakes. There are plenty of examples along these lines. In general, the last 50-60 years have seen private individuals and businesses stripped of their rights to turn away customers, in the US mostly under the guise of the CRA, FHA, etc. YouTube finds itself remarkably (and unsurprisingly) unrestrained by these kind of (progressive) laws.
- tootie 6y ago
  There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism, religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people. There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism that can be viewed freely. I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid. People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily distinguish them.
  - defen 6y ago
    > The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. He offered to sell them a pre-made cake (in compliance with non-discrimination laws). The question was whether he could be compelled to perform an act of speech (custom-making a cake) that violated his sincerely-held religious beliefs.
    - 6y ago
scythe 6y ago
>private companies [...] free speech One thing that seems relevant in the discussion about speech restrictions on social media is the fact that most if not all of the major websites are deliberately set up to maximize user engagement. The site is designed, measured and iterated on in order to induce users to comment as much as possible. That practice seems to be incompatible with unrestricted speech. Eventually people run out of nice things to say. Facebook's policy is very obviously "if you don't have anything nice to say, say something anyway, we want money". Free speech has been sustainable historically because it's natural for people to think before they say something controversial, but now we have websites that actively undermine that built-in filter.
Mikeb85 6y ago
And on the flipside, these companies have grown to the point they could be considered a public utility or even monopoly. There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.
- learc83 6y ago
  There are companies that come close to that point (Google comes to mind), but Twitter certainly isn't at that level.
- thephyber 6y ago
  You are playing word salad with lots of different concepts and it looks like you are making hypotheticals with what we could make companies do. Companies growing does not make them into utilities. Utilities are providers of very specific commodity services which are specifically defined by statutory law. Monopolies (as in anti-trust law) are companies which abuse their power to hurt the consumer. Traditional anti-trust law doesn't work against social media companies because consumers pay no cash for the transactions. We could change anti-trust law, but since there is no analog, it's not clear what we would change it to. > There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily. There is also precedent for governments to uphold a concept of "decency" (the same government that defines it as "I know it when I see it") which communities can judge for themselves, without a written definition. I, personally, don't see the judgements that social media companies make as "arbitrary" (they do have written ToS and they attempt to give their content moderators guidelines/baselines for judging decisions).
  - Mikeb85 6y ago
    The law is basically word salad. And the idea of Twitter and other social networks being utilities isn't something I invented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_utility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_uti...
    - thephyber 6y ago
Consultant32452 6y ago
Of all the crazy shit Presidents say on the path to literally murdering hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, it amazes me that the thing that upsets people is Trump bloviating about doing something to a big evil capitalist mega-corp which he is clearly not going to do.
ibejoeb 6y ago
This is clearly incredibly complicated and hinges on all kinds of nuanced definitions that are not yet universally accepted, such as "what is twitter?" As a thought experiment, though, if Twitter is not a publisher, then I think it would be acceptable for the government to sanction it for failing to provide "equal time." That is not the same as the government sanctioning it for airing or failing to air the type of content that the government wants. The latter is clearly an overstep, but the former is currently accepted doctrine.
throwaway4715 6y ago
All these people who bought iphones for the curated app store talking about how Twitter shouldn't be allowed to curate their product. Perhaps Twitter is big _because_ it curates its product. That's what people want. The threat to force private entities to toe the line is the only speech issue here. If you think people want unedited speech then I believe Gab could use some of your money.
- mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
  Twitter has been increasing the amount of curation / censorship as they have grown. Arguing that Twitter users must prefer said curation / censorship because Gab exists doesn't hold up because Twitter has other obvious advantages, like a massive network effect.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Thats like comparing a car dealership to a debating club.
m0zg 6y ago
This right here gentleman is in charge of what Twitter deems "factually correct" and "safe" for you: https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/796186371408789505 https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/796186371408789505 Just wonderful, absolutely unbiased human being, 100% "site integrity" guaranteed: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8361349/Head-Twitters-fact-checking-history-anti-Trump-tweets.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8361349/Head-Twitte... So no, let's not "lay that aside".
- arrrg 6y ago
  It’s factually irrelevant since no facts are expressed. That’s just opinion. I guess the racist part could be arguable, but that’s more opinion than fact.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    That's factually very relevant, in fact, because you know which "facts" will be picked and chosen by this "executive", in spite of the pretense of impartiality.
    - croon 6y ago
      Extending benefit of the doubt: Are "some" facts worse than no facts? What facts (either real or hypothetical) do you believe are missing?
- croon 6y ago
  Can you point to any false fact-checks?
  - m0zg 6y ago
    I can easily point out the lack of fact checks on statements made by people from the "correct" side of the political spectrum. Charlottesville hoax is spoken of as a fact by the likes of Joe Biden, for example.
    - 6y ago
bilekas 6y ago
This is not to point fingers and be an ass but people in the US need to realize the difference between a right and a privilege when it comes to free speech. You have the right to free speech. That's not disputed. You are entitled to it. However you don't have the right to distribute that free speech on a private companies platform, that's a privilege offered by the owners not a entitlement. It's very simple. Like it or not, that's your constitution. Lets just play this out.. The president of the US (a supposed conservative) closes down one of the largest private companies in the US.. Not for doing something illegal as with `SilkRoad` for example.. But for practicing their own business policies. Does that sound right to anyone ?
clairity 6y ago
it's clearly impossible for trump to shut down twitter. he doesn't know how his own government works and doesn't care to know, because his goal is entirely self-promotion and personal profit. he's not a hard person to figure out. it's more concerning that people are taking it seriously enough to create so much chatter. it's not even a free speech issue, insofar as twitter is not a government entity. there's literally no 'there' there.
- wmeredith 6y ago
  This. He's selling to his base, not Twitter.
  - taylus 6y ago
    Exactly. This fits right into his playbook of (1) cry loudly about something and say you’re going to take action (2) do nothing while his base gets pumped on how Trump is “hard on Twitter” and not putting up with their obvious bias (3) the next scandal drops in a week, everybody moves on and forgets.
- RealityVoid 6y ago
  I think it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. He might not understand how to do it, but if he were to leverage the tools at his disposal, he definitely could do it. I initially thought that he could not gut the American administration _too_ much because of institutional inertia and the systems put in place that still had you country functioning pretty well once he took power. But now here we are, him having placed stoodges at the head most most institutions and gutted them of power. If he could do that, he most obviously could lead to Twitter falling apart. Another poster outlined here how that could work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463
  - clairity 6y ago
    no, even he's not dumb enough to try, but even so, he'd never get far enough to do any real damage. the courts would quickly strike down such obvious abuses of power. the framers were smart enough to anticipate someone like trump (more like nixon, but trump is a poor man's nixon). he also doesn't have the stamina or self-control to follow through before he'd be right back on twitter preaching to his choir. he's too addicted to the instant validation he gets from it. the massive federal bureaucracies don't turn on a dime and are still running fine (we have food, power, water, commerce, justice, etc.), despite trump's paranoia around having anyone around him stealing his limelight, including competent cabinet members and heads of other federal agencies. hopefully these next few months are the final season of reality tv government here.
SkyBelow 6y ago
>There are people who advocate the idea... One thing that I hope people remain aware of is that there are a number of different arguments in play and while sometimes they have similar outcomes in specific situations, they often wildly differ. For example, there is the argument that Twitter is not to be considered just a private company, as decided by a court when Trump was not allowed to block other accounts. The argument would be that twitter blocking a user entirely would be restricting their right to interact with their government officials through an official channel. Now, if Twitter blocked such a user from interacting with everyone except government officials, then that would be acceptable because the person is still allowed to interact with government officials through official channels. Also Twitter would be able to stop acting as an official government channel by ending any accounts that count as such and free to fully block a user thereafter. This is not the same argument that you are talking about, but I do commonly see people treating it as the same.
yibg 6y ago
Also, in this case no one is being censored. It's not like the president isn't allowed to post and is having his "freedom of speech" taken away. This is more like his speech is being responded to, and he doesn't like that others can challenge what he's saying. The very antithesis of free speech.
- isoskeles 6y ago
  Applied unequally. Reminds me of these old fact checks during the election: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-facts/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-fact... > Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump falsely claimed Clinton “acid washed” 33,000 personal emails to delete them, calling it “an expensive process.” The FBI said Clinton’s tech team used BleachBit, which is a free software program. It does not use chemicals. These sorts of "fact checks" are blatant horse shit that always go in one direction. Some "challenge", the very antithesis of any sort of good faith discussion on the facts.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - yibg 6y ago
    So fact check the fact check. The response to perceived violation of free speech (fact checking) isn’t blocking speech.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - amadeuspagel 6y ago
      How should this work exactly? In addition to the reply system - someone can post a reply, to which others can in turn reply - we have a fact-check system - someone can post a fact-check which others can in turn fact-check? Isn't that kind of redundant? The entire point of the "fact-check" - and what people object to - is the privileged position, that makes direct replies impossible.
rmtech 6y ago
A private company that has a monopoly on speech is no longer a private company, it's essentially an unelected and unaccountable part of the permanent government. You need to think about entities based on their properties, not the labels that are attached to them. That ought to be obvious to people who program for a living; think of a private company with a speech monopoly as the good old .txt.exe scam. You're attaching the label "not government" to Google, but in terms of properties it is like the government. YouTube has openly admitted to manipulating video results despite it costing them money to do so. Their monopoly position is so strong that the YouTube leadership rules us like a dictatorship. I would prefer it if these tech monopolies were simply broken up. But failing that, they need to obey the first amendment or be shut down in the US. Europe is a different beast, but I think the UK at least should adopt the US first amendment.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  No company has a monopoly on speech. Especially not twitter of all places...
  - banads 6y ago
    Has any group of people in history ever had so much control over public discourse at such a large scale as Facebook, or Twitter?
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Facebook and Twitter do not control public discourse.
      - asjw 6y ago
        They also do in the form of moderation, (secret) algorithms and suggestions based on (undisclosed) advertisers
      - banads 6y ago
        Then who controls the code that their platforms run on, and how is FB able to conduct emotional manipulation experiments? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...
rhizome 6y ago
Why do the opinions of hypothetical groups of people carry any weight? Make your arguments in concrete terms, like: Trump is full of shit whether people agree with him or not, and if Trump does try anything it is going to have so much splash damage against other websites that he would run the risk of being sent with a SpaceX capsule into the sun...by everybody.
ck2 6y ago
wait, how does this work, someone in power does something tyrannical and authoritarian and so we just step back and argue the finer points of why it may be okay to have certain regulations or not, thereby ignoring the whole point it's their tyranny dodging democracy? to be fair this has been going on for three years now, something insane is done, instead of focusing on the insanity, people pivot to the policy this is not how democracy works
- Rapzid 6y ago
  Yeah it's pretty interesting we are sitting here arguing about free speech nuance(with people who lack a basic understanding of it as would have been taught in high school civics TBH) and weak-man arguing if the POTUS tweet was really inaccurate based on the purposeful vagaries of the first sentence while rest contained straight up factual errors(lies?). While we are doing this the most astonishing thing happening is actually the extent to which the POTUS is constantly lying and spreading miss/disinformation. Every day. For more than three years now as you point out. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is the single greatest source of lies and otherwise false and purposefully misleading information in most peoples lives. Perhaps even greater than all other sources combined! That and the amount of effort spent discussing this for years is incredible.
randyrand 6y ago
The fundamental question is, do people have a right to free speech on the web? The web is nearly entirely privately owned, which makes answering this question difficult. On one hand, the web is where we do 90% of our communication these days and losing that right seems like losing most of the first amendment. I’m convinceable either way. Did telephone companies have a right to censor land line speech? Should they? Should ISPs be able to censor? Should cloudflair? AWS? It seems like industries like ISPs should be regulated to be “dumb pipes”. But where social networks fall is less clear.
- triceratops 6y ago
  ISPs and telco networks are on a different layer (physical, and transport layers) of the stack than social media (application layer). ISPs and telco networks can and do perform traffic routing shaping, and throttle or cut off abusive users who consume too much bandwidth, or run a high-traffic web server from their home network. Because these actions affect other users of their networks. But if someone uses Comcast to post a sweary rant on the interwebs - it makes no difference to other Comcast customers. So they don't (at present, though the repealing of net neutrality now allows it) and shouldn't moderate actions at the application layer. Social media is the opposite. Abusive users of those networks operate at the application layer, and can spoil the experience of other users at the application layer but (likely) not at the network layer. So they moderate user activity at the application layer. In each case it's about trying to ensure bad actors don't ruin other customers'/users' experience. It's just done in different ways depending on what part of the network stack the bad actors do their work in.
  - randyrand 6y ago
    What about Cloudflare/AWS? Cloudflare notably denied to service some unruly websites, and those websites got DDOSed off the web.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      Good question. I don't know the answer.
api 6y ago
One thing that gets me about the people who use "free speech" in this way is the sense of entitlement. 20-30 years ago mass media was only accessible to people with large amounts of money to purchase advertising or run their own media platform such as a TV or radio station or a newspaper. It was closed to everyone else unless you could pull off some stunt to get five minutes of fame and somehow leverage that to deliver a message. Now you have these vast platforms enabling anyone with a few bucks and cheap computer to potential address millions upon millions of people in near real time. It's completely unprecedented. In many cases these platforms are free as long as you comply with some minimal platform rules and regulations around what you can and cannot say. For most platforms the rules really are pretty minimal. Twitter is one of the least restrictive. You have to be a real obnoxious ass to get kicked off Twitter. Somehow people have become so accustomed to this free and ubiquitous open access mass media that what was just a few decades ago impossible is now seen as an entitlement. Refuse to let your platform be used to deliver my message? You're censoring me! Censorship refers to the use of force to prevent someone from speaking. The government has a legal monopoly on force, so generally this requires a law to be passed or perhaps an abuse of the civil court system to leverage the government to shut down someone's speech. I can't speak for every country but in the USA that is extremely rare. We take the first amendment very seriously around here. You've got to go pretty far to get actually censored. You can buy books on how to make illegal drugs for example, or slander public figures on social media with baseless accusations, or publish software designed to directly facilitate illegal activity, and rarely will anything happen to you. Being denied access to speak via someone else's privately owned and operated platform is not censorship. Nobody is preventing you from speaking. They're just refusing to assist you in delivering that speech. Imagine someone walking into a newspaper office 40 years ago and demanding to have their op-ed printed (for free!) and then shouting "censorship!" when the newspaper refused? It's ridiculous. I thought conservatives were skeptical of entitlements, especially when they involve other peoples' property.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Entitlement? First of all please credit the right people, reaching millions of people for free is not Twitter's\Facebook's accomplishment. You can host a webpage on a raspberri pi and reach millions of people. Secondly, media platforms affect the reat of society amd its perfectly reasomable that some standards be set for how they operate. Thats usually some form of fair treatment, and you should not be denied a platfork for fictitious or discriminatory reasons
dntbnmpls 6y ago
> There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. Firstly, stop qualifying it with "hate", "factually incorrect", etc. It's a cheap tactic by authoritarian types to justify censorship. The religious zealots, authoritarian governments, etc all use the same argument you do to censor. Free speech is free speech whether you like it or disagree with it or whether it is factually incorrect. Secondly, the question is whether a private company has a monopoly position. For example, we wouldn't allow power, water, telephone, etc companies from denying service based on what these companies feel are hateful or not. A christian ceo of these companies can't deny service to lgbt homes/companies/etc just because he doesn't like them or their speech. You get the idea? Thirdly, if a social media platform is a vehicle for communication by elected officials, should that platform be allowed to limit citizen's access to said politician. I believe the courts already ruled twitter cannot deny people access to trump's twitter. But I'm not sure. > Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense. Yes. It is a concern worthy of discussion. But so are the other aspects of this issue which you naively dismiss as "hate"/etc.
- RonaldRaygun 6y ago
  > Thirdly, if a social media platform is a vehicle for communication by elected officials, should that platform be allowed to limit citizen's access to said politician. I believe the courts already ruled twitter cannot deny people access to trump's twitter. But I'm not sure. How does this square with the fact that Donald Trump regularly blocks people from viewing his Twitter account for disagreeing with him or refusing to acknowledge his (apparent) infallibility? Is that not a much more egregious violation, and by an actual government official to boot?
  - dntbnmpls 6y ago
    > How does this square with the fact that Donald Trump regularly blocks people from viewing his Twitter account for disagreeing with him He can't block them. That's my point. "Trump can't block users from his Twitter feed, federal judge rules Blocking users from viewing his Twitter account is unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment, according to the judge." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-can-t-block-users-his-twitter-feed-federal-judge-n876831 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-can-t-block-users-his... I don't think he should be allowed to block americans from posting legal content on his feed.
sizzle 6y ago
Open source a transparent, government sponsored free-speech communication platform that clones Facebook functionality for organizing information in an intuitive way for the most tech unsaavy person. Outright ban all user tracking and profiling transparently with annual code audits and watchdog groups that can punish those in charge for not adhering to this, no advertisements, no selling data, and put 18f on the job of designing/developing it based off sound human principles, no army of behavioral researchers and Psychologists A/B testing bait-and-click engagement dark pattern metrics that penetrate deeply into the reward system of our neuroplastic brains and yanks on that lever of addiction formation with ease. Cut the bullshit and I'm on board. I'll even work for free on this if you promise to make it a reality, hell consider it a public utility if you have to so it stays funded and maintained. The Advertising industry needs to be lobotomized and severely scaled back to more traditional forms of reaching people where they are, not vacuuming up every ounce of data their movement, click, search, and vitals generate unbeknownst to them. Good riddance.
- yibg 6y ago
  While the general idea might be ok, and there are certainly concerns with the ad driven business model of the current popular “free” platforms, I don’t see how this solve this particular problem. Fundamentally you still have the choice of curating some content or not. On the extreme ends are things like hate speech and exploitive content. Then there are “false” or incorrect information. You either allow them unchecked or you don’t. This isn’t a technological problem.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  It's actually pretty hard to run an online platform that sets the bar at "free speech" and not have it kind of suck. Trolling is free speech, being a jerk is free speech, hate speech is free speech, pornography is free speech. Any forum that sets the bar at "free speech" is going to be filled with the dregs with depressing speed. There's a reason why Gab never really gained serious traction.
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    I don't think it is impossibly hard. The platform can just let users pick what they want to see. E.g. be it trolling, hate, or pornography (search engines already do the latter). Another concept is just following a set of moderators. Either way there is already Secure Scuttlebutt.
2019-nCoV 6y ago
Who fact checks the fact checkers?
Andrew_Quentin 6y ago
Twitter is not a private company, it's a publicly tradable company that can technically even fully be owned by the Chinese government itself through perfectly legally buying their shares on the open market. You don't see a problem here?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Are you saying public company is worse? At least they are reporting their ownership.
  - Andrew_Quentin 6y ago
    I'm saying there are laws against foreign interference in domestic politics for obvious reasons, so if some foreign government for example - which can openly buy Twitter stocks as there is no legal restriction and can do so either directly or like with Reddit indirectly by getting Tencent to buy it off - is moderating the speech of the president, then there's a big problem.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      But what if you turn that argument around - a US owned company is dominating media pandscape of other countries, and gets to decide who gets a loudspeaker and who does not. Is thay foreign interference?
- judge2020 6y ago
  Shares of a company being traded on different company's stock exchange (which is only regulated by the government, not operated by them) has nothing to do with whether free speech is enforced on their platform.
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Thorentis 6y ago
Entirely, 100% disagree. The Internet is now our primary form of communication. It is the information highway. Sticking to the whole "free speech only applies to the government" is adhering to the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. Posting on Twitter is now the equivalent of standing in a public square and yelling your protest. Allowing private companies to shut this down because we made the terrible mistake of handing over our primary means of communication to private companies, doesn't mean it has to always be that way. EDIT: Imagine if we allowed phone companies to listen to all calls and then censor the ones they didn't like. People would be outraged. This is what is happening on the Internet.
- ryanlol 6y ago
  > Posting on Twitter is now the equivalent of standing in a public square and yelling your protest Don’t you think it’s more akin to standing in a privately owned square and yelling your protest?
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    Not all at. The legal fact that it is privately owned goes against the spirit of the law in terms of freedom of speech. How many people used to stand in private squares and protest? Nobody sees Twitter as a private square. They see it as the Internet. I am taking issue with the fact that we have allowed private companies to be the gate-keepers of what should be public spaces.
  - missosoup 6y ago
    100% of the popular internet is a 'private square'. That's the problem. There doesn't exist any platform right now where one can share an idea and have that idea go viral, unless the idea is first gated through private censorship. Sure one could make their own blog or website to express their idea, but the chance of it spreading is then pretty much 0, because again any means for links or ideas to spread are all 'private squares' with their own censorship. This is how the internet broke free speech. This is where the law needs to catch up with technology.
- SllX 6y ago
missosoup 6y ago
> distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment Until everyone can agree on a universal arbiter for what those things mean in a concrete way, there will always be demographics who strongly disagree. The reason free speech exists as a concept is because of a historic understanding that there fundamentally cannot be an unbiased arbiter for 'good' or 'bad' speech. On the other side of this, the internet is increasingly controlled by a particular demographic with a particular definition of what things like 'hate speech' mean. Which suppresses and censors a wide range of topics that the other demographics do want to discuss. When the entire internet makes it impossible to express certain views, we can't claim to have free speech anymore. It's not good enough to say 'well if you don't like it then you can go and shout your views out on the street instead'. The weapon against 'incorrect information' is education, not censorship. Censorship has never worked to actually quash 'wrongthink', it only marginalises and energises demographics who are censored, and drives them to eventually revolt. See: trump winning presidency.
- spankalee 6y ago
  Moderation of non-state-managed platforms is not censorship. In fact, it would be a violation of free speech to limit private parties ability to moderate.
  - missosoup 6y ago
    This is where it gets tricky. Because 99.9% of the popular internet is 'non state-managed platforms'. There doesn't exist an avenue to meaningfully exercise free speech on the internet. You can make your own blog, but it will never go viral. Because the only means for something to go viral is that 99.9% composed of privately censored platforms. We've gotten into a situation where censorship has changed shape from 'one is prevented from expressing a view' to 'a view is prevented from reaching an audience'. Which is far worse than old school Stalin era censorship. This is not an easy question, but it is clearly a case of the law needing to be updated in light of how technology has evolved. We can't claim to have free speech if there's de-facto no way to exercise it on the primary communication channel of our time. Concrete example: it has recently come out that youtube has been silently censoring a wide array of comments that express anti-china views. Like most users, I was completely unaware that this is going on. Youtube distorted my perception of reality by suppressing an entire class of opinions from being visible. They didn't tell anyone that they're doing it, there was no transparency, and when they were caught, they said 'whoops it was a bug sorry lol'. That's crazy. What else are they suppressing? I do want laws to stop that even if it exposes me to comments I don't like. Or consider the degenerate case: Imagine Facebook takes over the entire internet. They buy Google, they buy Twitter, they buy pretty much everything than an average user will ever see. And Zucc comes along and says, from now on any mention of a certain political view on any of these platforms will be censored. This is ok by the rules you're proposing, but it's clearly not ok in terms of the spirit of free speech laws.
darepublic 6y ago
Yeah I hate social media platforms but Trump shutting them down would be crossing the Rubicon
fortran77 6y ago
Twitter distributes a lot of dangerous information unchecked. For example, today, thousands of people were tweeting fake or improperly captioned photos related to the horrible events in Minnesota this week. Just two examples: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-whites-great-again-hat/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-whites-great-again-ha... and https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-minnesota-trump-rally/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-minnesota-trump-ral... There were others; blaming people and nations that had nothing to do with this brutal horrible act for aiding and abetting. Twitter will do nothing about this very harmful behavior. I reported some of the most egregious fake information being tweeted or retweeted and nothing happens.
no-s 6y ago
This is about Twitter trying to pick winners and losers in the marketplace of attention. I don't think the Feds will have to dig very deep to find a cause for action. Twitter has conceivably already crossed the line to become a publisher. If they collude with other publishers they're running into the territory of anti-competitive agreements. Anti-trust action may be viable. Picking winners and losers and colluding with competitors is in the scope of illegal business. Double down with lobbying violations if the "fact-checkers" are unregistered foreign agents.
lliamander 6y ago
Social media companies are of course not obligated to distribute any content in particular, and in fact they are obligated to remove content which is illegal. They are however only protected from civil liability for good faith restriction of otherwise legal content on their platform. To the extent to which that moderation is done on content that is compliant with the TOS, or without prior notice and indication of what terms were violated, or only selectively with an agenda to influence the broader social discourse, they may not necessarily benefit from an assumption of good faith, and therefore may be subject to civil liability. And honestly, who wouldn't want social media companies to have a more fair and transparent TOS and moderation policy?

thebouv 6y ago

They will never understand your point.

latedecember 6y ago
They will never understand the pain of having red hair either.

throwanem 6y ago

Why should that be clear? Judging them by their actions rather than their words, it's quite plain that "free speech extremists" are no such thing, except inasmuch as it applies to them. They demand to be free to say whatever they like, and they demand everyone else be required to listen while they do it.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is that they then have to face the consequences. I mean I can say whatever I want on this platform as well, but if I cross a line my posts will be hidden and eventually my account blocked. And that is fair, it's what I agreed to, and not only that but it's morally just. The free speech extremists confuse freedom of speech with protection from consequences. Interestingly, Trump and some other celebrities on Twitter have had special protection from said consequences.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pinkfoot 6y ago
  > They ARE free to say whatever they like; their problem is that they then have to face the consequences. This is the definition of free speech that North Korea likes.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Don't be absurd. One might with equal justice say that yours is the definition of free speech that Stormfront likes.
    - pinkfoot 6y ago
      Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want but you may have to face a firing squad" and different in experience to "you cannot say any of these things, if you do you will face a firing squad" ? The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no consequences. (And no you shouldn't be allowed to shout 'fire' in a theatre).
      - throwanem 6y ago
        Your last two statements contradict one another, but also make clear that you recognize your appeal to absurdity for what it is. Do you think no one else will?
        pinkfoot 6y ago
        Er, because I am not a supporter of unfettered free speech. But I also wont bend the definition either. That’s where the problems start.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > Ok I'll bite: how is "you are free say what you want but you may have to face a firing squad" That's not the consequence here. The consequence is “other private parties might choose not to relay your speech or continue association with you, exercising their own rights to free speech and association.” Me not allowing you to use my resources to magnify the reach of your message isn't analogous to the state subjecting you to capital punishment. > The whole POINT of 'free speech' is that there are no consequences. No, the whole point is that the state doesn't have their thumb on the scale, allowing ideas to succeed or fail by their ability, or not, to attract support from private actors. Legislation in which the state intervenes to prevent private consequences through the exercise of free speech are not only on their face contrary to free speech, but sabotage the operation of the marketplace of ideas.

0x5002 6y ago

I have struggled with both points of the argument for a while now. In general, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment that this would be a glaring overreach on the side of the feds. It's also apparent that social networks have a tendency to cater massively to one side of the increasingly divided political spectrum, as proven with experiments like Gab. I've always liked the idea of having a Twitter clone that bases their philosophy on the 1st amendment, but in reality, all it did was to attract the polar opposite of the /r/politics subreddit (to put it lightly), rather than to facilitate free and open discourse. On the other hand, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube et al are undoubtedly massively influential on the public opinion and their corporate position on political topics - Yoel Roth's recent tweets serve as a decent example, showing clearly that this person cannot be an objective "fact checker" - essentially create a public forum where I am not able to exercise my first amendment rights (and, legally speaking, rightfully so). I cannot help but to find this very concerning. YouTube (despite numerous issues with their interpretation of free speech), for instance, starting linking Wiki articles under videos that cover certain topics or are uploaded by certain channels. Videos by the BBC show a notice that the BBC is a British public broadcast service, simply informing the viewer about the fact that any bias they might encounter can be easily identified (feel free to switch "BBC" with "RT"). I've found that to be a decent middle ground between outright suppressing views by a corporation pretending to be the authority on certain topics and broadcasting everything without any context.

thebouv 6y ago
> essentially create a public(1) forum where I am not able to exercise my first amendment rights(2) (and, legally speaking, rightfully so(3)). I cannot help but to find this very concerning. (1) Private forum, displayed in the public. (2) Those rights protect your speech from being suppressed BY THE GOVERNMENT. (3) Correct if you meant legally as a private company running a private forum, they can manage the content as they see fit, including fact checking the POTUS. Or incorrect if you meant you have a legal right to exercise your speech on their platform free of their rules.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  Privately owned areas are still often public (as opposed to publicly owned) spaces in the physical relam. While the digital is indeed different, you seem overly dismissive of this fact by omission and unnessarry capitolization.

sparkie 6y ago

> dangerously factually incorrect information Here's the problem. Who is doing the fact checking? Who fact checks the fact checkers? The world isn't black and white. State press releases are not facts. There is no authority that is the arbitrator of truth.

raziel2p 6y ago
As long as the sources can be checked, challenged, and counter-opinions can be voiced, I personally don't think it matters that much. It's the blind acceptance of statements and accusations that match our existing world view that we need to combat, I think.
- sparkie 6y ago
  And how do you challenge an opinion? By giving your own. In other words, we just need more speech, not more restrictions on speech. -- reply to below because I'm restricted and at comment limit (ironic, eh?) > Isn't that exactly what Twitter did? They left the speech up, and added a note below it expressing their opinion that a particular link demonstrates that the tweet was not factual. Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the ministry of truth. All Twitter had to do was create a @twitterfactchecks handle and reply to the posts in question - perhaps promoting their reply to the top so that it is most visible, but then people could reply to @twitterfactchecks contesting their opinion (a fact check is always an opinion, if you didn't get what I was hinting at above.)
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    Isn't that exactly what Twitter did? They left the speech up, and added a note below it expressing their opinion that a particular link demonstrates that the tweet was not factual.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    > Anybody can reply to a comment on twitter and cite the facts, and people can reply to those comments and contest or argue them. The specific difference is Twitter's "fact checking box" cannot be replied to - which makes them the ministry of truth. Surely you see the irony of your trying to regulate how Twitter formats their free speech on their own platform?

seerbetter 6y ago

There’s tons of fraud and bad acts in mail in voting but I 100% support allowing it and fixing the systems.

threatofrain 6y ago

I feel that because web tech advanced more quickly than much of society, a vacuum of power developed and Google was forced to step in. If Google had its way, it wouldn't police any content and it would illegally host HBO shows like Game of Thrones -- when you try to hold them responsible, Google would pass off all burden to the offending individual. That's how YouTube used to run. Other industries have things like the FCC or the FDA where companies can say, "Look, we did our due diligence, the FDA approved our drug."

dynamite-ready 6y ago
Do you think digital media needs a state run mediator? I think it's probably time. We've become quite protective of the data that's collected by digital products for fear of a concentration of power. But then we all see the internet as a great 'leveller', and we don't want to disturb that balance. The likes of the FDA (or your local equivalent) work at a certain scale... Perhaps civilly agreed constraints can be applied to companies who have managed to cultivate a userbase of a certain size. Like a 'tax' of a kind on the amount of 'trash' you're allowed to ignore, before the police physically ensure you and your users can't abuse state infrastructure for whatever your nefarious purpose is.
- intended 6y ago
  This is an argument that is being made - an FDA for information. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/a-toxic-web-what-the-victorians-can-teach-us-about-online-abuse https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/18/a-toxic-w... One of the people making the argument is Nate Matias, the guy behind Civil servant, which is essentially the first open testing system to see the impact of content moderation rules on users - https://www.fastcompany.com/3068556/reminder-you-can-manipulate-algorithms-too https://www.fastcompany.com/3068556/reminder-you-can-manipul...
nsgi 6y ago
Didn't Google develop Content ID voluntarily, though? It's not like anyone forced them to. Though I guess it may have been to avoid the threat of regulation

craftinator 6y ago

I really appreciate your approach to this argument. You really cut through any strawman fallacies by pointing out that there's a debate along a spectrum about what protecting free speech entails, but that the President needs to have limitations in his power over private companies. I think this final point is not debatable in a legal context; he does not legally have that power.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Darn right he does not have the power. Either the president does not know the constitutional limits on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's a good idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not sure which is worse.
- _-david-_ 6y ago
  >Either the president does not know the constitutional limits on his power, or he knows them but still thinks it's a good idea to claim power that he does not have. I'm not sure which is worse. Or he knows what he is allowed to do and is just saying stupid crap like he usually does. Trump doesn't have a filter and just says/tweets whatever pops into his head. This could be another example of that.
- beart 6y ago
  Trump loves twitter. If he actually had a problem with it, he could just stop posting. So I think it's more of a third choice - He doesn't care if he has the power, he's just creating chaos and conflict to excite his base, as he has been doing for years.
  - goatherders 6y ago
    His followers love it. Hes an incompetent knob but he didnt elect himself. The morons - and they are ALL morons - that support him eat this up and care not that he has no authority to do anything like this.
    - 6y ago

cma 6y ago

giancarlostoro 6y ago

I wasn't going to post anything because of the direction HN seems to lean and because they get enraged about these sort of discussions. Hear me out and feel free to respond instead of shunning me out. The bigger issue is these platforms only get those free speech protections because they're platforms. The moment they start editing content like this, they become editors to a publishing platform, and they should be held liable for all that they've published. You can't just have your cake and eat it too, today they make you happy to censor the evil orange man, tomorrow they may censor those you support. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We're seeing with YouTube that they're deleting posts against Communist China: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324695 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317570 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23317570 Worse what happens when you cross Facebook imposing Chinese censorship on the whole world? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13018770 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12479990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12479990 What happens when Google is used to push liberal bias? Vimeo deletes videos claiming such bias from Google despite clear evidence in video: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302010 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20302010 "If we break things up, we can't stop Trump" replace Trump with any political candidate you've ever supported by the way to understand why this sort of thing is dangerous: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20265502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20265502 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20697780 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20697780 I am sure I will get into fire for this comment, considering my citations were flagged to death because people don't agree with others. But mark my words, if the tables were flipped and they were censoring all your favorite candidates, you'd be outraged and against anything that would hinder free speech. If you take away anything from this post be sure to be this: Twitter, Google, Facebook etc are considered "platforms" the moment they editorialize content, they become publishers. Platforms are protected for obvious reasons, they cannot reliably contain every single thing a user posts, but a publisher dictates what is published, and is definitely liable for what they publish. These platforms want to be hybrids, but that gives them dangerous power to push agendas as they claim they are trying to stop.

root_axis 6y ago

dqpb 6y ago

Where does speech about religion fall? There are people on all sides who would consider the others to be spreading "dangerously factually incorrect information".

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

chlodwig 6y ago

Free speech for all political factions on major public forums is the cooperate-cooperate quadrant of the prisoner's dilemma. If forums controlled by the blue faction defect and start censoring the red faction, the red faction needs to threaten to retaliate in order to scare the blue faction into cooperating again. It's simple tit-for-tat. This is game theory 101. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies The United States President has neither the authority nor power to start censoring Twitter on his own. Right now, Jack Dorsey has far more power over allowed public speech in America than Donald Trump.

perl4ever 6y ago
A lot of people have been wrong about what the current President could or would do. Ann Coulter comes to mind. It's not really clear why other people enable the President, which is the underlying reason why you can't reassure people that he's ineffectual.
likeclockwork 6y ago
Why does the "red faction" control no forums? Doesn't that seem odd to you? There's no reason they couldn't. Why don't forums aligned with their values attract broad participation?
- chlodwig 6y ago
  The inner party of the "blue faction" is the network of people who really like coordinating and taking over and running institutions. Here is a good article from just the other day on how it works: https://archive.vn/87OEG https://archive.vn/87OEG The "outer party" of the "blue faction" are those people who go along with what those institutions say and do. The "red faction" is the unwashed masses who are generally busy with their own lives, who haven't gotten with the program, haven't been bought off and whine about how the "blue faction" controlled institutions and bureaucracies are screwing them over.
whateveracct 6y ago
> The United States President has neither the authority nor power to start censoring Twitter on his own. Right now, Jack Dorsey has far more power over allowed public speech in America than Donald Trump. Exactly! This is American Civics 101. When you become President, you lose things because you have power. You and I have more legal authority to restrict speech than the President.

kgin 6y ago

I think it's even more concerning than that. Threatening to shut down private companies -- not for limiting speech, not for refusing to distribute speech -- but for exercising their own right to free speech alongside the free speech of others (in this case the president). There is no right to unchallenged or un-responded-to speech, regardless of how you interpret the right to free speech.

prox 6y ago
Because that would be the territory of authoritarian kings, the ideological reason the US was founded. Trump sees himself king, not president.
- briefcomment 6y ago
  Can you read his mind? If not, how can you tell the difference between a tyrant and a troll (and even a savvy negotiator)? One way is to see what actually happens. My bet is that no social media company will be shut down because of this.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief against the free speech of a private company is not "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling effect on speech whether he goes through with it or not. I doubt he would shut Twitter down (if only because he needs it more than it needs him), but I don't doubt for a second that he would use the executive branch to retaliate against them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
    - timsneath 6y ago
      To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding variables, this would suggest investors see a material effect of his words.

hadtodoit 6y ago

If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree with, you can do so for illegal content as well. If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premises I am held liable for that. I did not force that person to enter the store but the benefits of having a store outweighed the risks. Why should internet companies receive special treatment? They should be 100% liable for what happens on their "premises" if they are going to take the risk of allowing user-generated content.

tootie 6y ago
Do they have protection right now? Platforms are already held responsible for illegal activities and are subject to requests by law enforcement and copyright holders. They're generally given a chance to respond to a request, challenge requests through channels and listen to appeals. But they would eventually be culpable if they weren't compliant.
- hadtodoit 6y ago
  Sounds like you're referring to DMCA where as I was referring to heinous crimes like drug/sex/child trafficking. They do have protection right now in either case.
  - tootie 6y ago
    I'm referring to both. But in both cases, the content hosts don't get punished instantly. They are served with notice of offending content and given a chance to comply. The host and the creator both have avenues of appeal. At least, in the US they do. It varies country to country.
azinman2 6y ago
Because the scale makes this nearly impossible. Or rather, extremely expensive to the point where only the biggest of companies can do so, and at the cost of real-time information.

centimeter 6y ago

I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc. themed cakes. There are plenty of examples along these lines. In general, the last 50-60 years have seen private individuals and businesses stripped of their rights to turn away customers, in the US mostly under the guise of the CRA, FHA, etc. YouTube finds itself remarkably (and unsurprisingly) unrestrained by these kind of (progressive) laws.

tootie 6y ago
There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism, religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people. There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism that can be viewed freely. I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid. People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily distinguish them.
- defen 6y ago
  > The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples. He offered to sell them a pre-made cake (in compliance with non-discrimination laws). The question was whether he could be compelled to perform an act of speech (custom-making a cake) that violated his sincerely-held religious beliefs.
  - 6y ago

scythe 6y ago

>private companies [...] free speech One thing that seems relevant in the discussion about speech restrictions on social media is the fact that most if not all of the major websites are deliberately set up to maximize user engagement. The site is designed, measured and iterated on in order to induce users to comment as much as possible. That practice seems to be incompatible with unrestricted speech. Eventually people run out of nice things to say. Facebook's policy is very obviously "if you don't have anything nice to say, say something anyway, we want money". Free speech has been sustainable historically because it's natural for people to think before they say something controversial, but now we have websites that actively undermine that built-in filter.

Mikeb85 6y ago

And on the flipside, these companies have grown to the point they could be considered a public utility or even monopoly. There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.

learc83 6y ago
There are companies that come close to that point (Google comes to mind), but Twitter certainly isn't at that level.
thephyber 6y ago
You are playing word salad with lots of different concepts and it looks like you are making hypotheticals with what we could make companies do. Companies growing does not make them into utilities. Utilities are providers of very specific commodity services which are specifically defined by statutory law. Monopolies (as in anti-trust law) are companies which abuse their power to hurt the consumer. Traditional anti-trust law doesn't work against social media companies because consumers pay no cash for the transactions. We could change anti-trust law, but since there is no analog, it's not clear what we would change it to. > There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily. There is also precedent for governments to uphold a concept of "decency" (the same government that defines it as "I know it when I see it") which communities can judge for themselves, without a written definition. I, personally, don't see the judgements that social media companies make as "arbitrary" (they do have written ToS and they attempt to give their content moderators guidelines/baselines for judging decisions).
- Mikeb85 6y ago
  The law is basically word salad. And the idea of Twitter and other social networks being utilities isn't something I invented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_utility https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_uti...
  - thephyber 6y ago

Consultant32452 6y ago

Of all the crazy shit Presidents say on the path to literally murdering hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, it amazes me that the thing that upsets people is Trump bloviating about doing something to a big evil capitalist mega-corp which he is clearly not going to do.

ibejoeb 6y ago

This is clearly incredibly complicated and hinges on all kinds of nuanced definitions that are not yet universally accepted, such as "what is twitter?" As a thought experiment, though, if Twitter is not a publisher, then I think it would be acceptable for the government to sanction it for failing to provide "equal time." That is not the same as the government sanctioning it for airing or failing to air the type of content that the government wants. The latter is clearly an overstep, but the former is currently accepted doctrine.

throwaway4715 6y ago

All these people who bought iphones for the curated app store talking about how Twitter shouldn't be allowed to curate their product. Perhaps Twitter is big _because_ it curates its product. That's what people want. The threat to force private entities to toe the line is the only speech issue here. If you think people want unedited speech then I believe Gab could use some of your money.

mandelbrotwurst 6y ago
Twitter has been increasing the amount of curation / censorship as they have grown. Arguing that Twitter users must prefer said curation / censorship because Gab exists doesn't hold up because Twitter has other obvious advantages, like a massive network effect.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Thats like comparing a car dealership to a debating club.

m0zg 6y ago

This right here gentleman is in charge of what Twitter deems "factually correct" and "safe" for you: https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/796186371408789505 https://twitter.com/yoyoel/status/796186371408789505 Just wonderful, absolutely unbiased human being, 100% "site integrity" guaranteed: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8361349/Head-Twitters-fact-checking-history-anti-Trump-tweets.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8361349/Head-Twitte... So no, let's not "lay that aside".

arrrg 6y ago
It’s factually irrelevant since no facts are expressed. That’s just opinion. I guess the racist part could be arguable, but that’s more opinion than fact.
- m0zg 6y ago
  That's factually very relevant, in fact, because you know which "facts" will be picked and chosen by this "executive", in spite of the pretense of impartiality.
  - croon 6y ago
    Extending benefit of the doubt: Are "some" facts worse than no facts? What facts (either real or hypothetical) do you believe are missing?
croon 6y ago
Can you point to any false fact-checks?
- m0zg 6y ago
  I can easily point out the lack of fact checks on statements made by people from the "correct" side of the political spectrum. Charlottesville hoax is spoken of as a fact by the likes of Joe Biden, for example.
  - 6y ago

bilekas 6y ago

This is not to point fingers and be an ass but people in the US need to realize the difference between a right and a privilege when it comes to free speech. You have the right to free speech. That's not disputed. You are entitled to it. However you don't have the right to distribute that free speech on a private companies platform, that's a privilege offered by the owners not a entitlement. It's very simple. Like it or not, that's your constitution. Lets just play this out.. The president of the US (a supposed conservative) closes down one of the largest private companies in the US.. Not for doing something illegal as with `SilkRoad` for example.. But for practicing their own business policies. Does that sound right to anyone ?

clairity 6y ago

it's clearly impossible for trump to shut down twitter. he doesn't know how his own government works and doesn't care to know, because his goal is entirely self-promotion and personal profit. he's not a hard person to figure out. it's more concerning that people are taking it seriously enough to create so much chatter. it's not even a free speech issue, insofar as twitter is not a government entity. there's literally no 'there' there.

wmeredith 6y ago
This. He's selling to his base, not Twitter.
- taylus 6y ago
  Exactly. This fits right into his playbook of (1) cry loudly about something and say you’re going to take action (2) do nothing while his base gets pumped on how Trump is “hard on Twitter” and not putting up with their obvious bias (3) the next scandal drops in a week, everybody moves on and forgets.
RealityVoid 6y ago
I think it's not as impossible as you make it out to be. He might not understand how to do it, but if he were to leverage the tools at his disposal, he definitely could do it. I initially thought that he could not gut the American administration _too_ much because of institutional inertia and the systems put in place that still had you country functioning pretty well once he took power. But now here we are, him having placed stoodges at the head most most institutions and gutted them of power. If he could do that, he most obviously could lead to Twitter falling apart. Another poster outlined here how that could work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463
- clairity 6y ago
  no, even he's not dumb enough to try, but even so, he'd never get far enough to do any real damage. the courts would quickly strike down such obvious abuses of power. the framers were smart enough to anticipate someone like trump (more like nixon, but trump is a poor man's nixon). he also doesn't have the stamina or self-control to follow through before he'd be right back on twitter preaching to his choir. he's too addicted to the instant validation he gets from it. the massive federal bureaucracies don't turn on a dime and are still running fine (we have food, power, water, commerce, justice, etc.), despite trump's paranoia around having anyone around him stealing his limelight, including competent cabinet members and heads of other federal agencies. hopefully these next few months are the final season of reality tv government here.

SkyBelow 6y ago

>There are people who advocate the idea... One thing that I hope people remain aware of is that there are a number of different arguments in play and while sometimes they have similar outcomes in specific situations, they often wildly differ. For example, there is the argument that Twitter is not to be considered just a private company, as decided by a court when Trump was not allowed to block other accounts. The argument would be that twitter blocking a user entirely would be restricting their right to interact with their government officials through an official channel. Now, if Twitter blocked such a user from interacting with everyone except government officials, then that would be acceptable because the person is still allowed to interact with government officials through official channels. Also Twitter would be able to stop acting as an official government channel by ending any accounts that count as such and free to fully block a user thereafter. This is not the same argument that you are talking about, but I do commonly see people treating it as the same.

yibg 6y ago

Also, in this case no one is being censored. It's not like the president isn't allowed to post and is having his "freedom of speech" taken away. This is more like his speech is being responded to, and he doesn't like that others can challenge what he's saying. The very antithesis of free speech.

isoskeles 6y ago
Applied unequally. Reminds me of these old fact checks during the election: https://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-facts/ https://www.factcheck.org/2016/09/trump-pence-acid-wash-fact... > Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump falsely claimed Clinton “acid washed” 33,000 personal emails to delete them, calling it “an expensive process.” The FBI said Clinton’s tech team used BleachBit, which is a free software program. It does not use chemicals. These sorts of "fact checks" are blatant horse shit that always go in one direction. Some "challenge", the very antithesis of any sort of good faith discussion on the facts.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- yibg 6y ago
  So fact check the fact check. The response to perceived violation of free speech (fact checking) isn’t blocking speech.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - amadeuspagel 6y ago
    How should this work exactly? In addition to the reply system - someone can post a reply, to which others can in turn reply - we have a fact-check system - someone can post a fact-check which others can in turn fact-check? Isn't that kind of redundant? The entire point of the "fact-check" - and what people object to - is the privileged position, that makes direct replies impossible.

rmtech 6y ago

A private company that has a monopoly on speech is no longer a private company, it's essentially an unelected and unaccountable part of the permanent government. You need to think about entities based on their properties, not the labels that are attached to them. That ought to be obvious to people who program for a living; think of a private company with a speech monopoly as the good old .txt.exe scam. You're attaching the label "not government" to Google, but in terms of properties it is like the government. YouTube has openly admitted to manipulating video results despite it costing them money to do so. Their monopoly position is so strong that the YouTube leadership rules us like a dictatorship. I would prefer it if these tech monopolies were simply broken up. But failing that, they need to obey the first amendment or be shut down in the US. Europe is a different beast, but I think the UK at least should adopt the US first amendment.

bananabreakfast 6y ago
No company has a monopoly on speech. Especially not twitter of all places...
- banads 6y ago
  Has any group of people in history ever had so much control over public discourse at such a large scale as Facebook, or Twitter?
  - root_axis 6y ago
    Facebook and Twitter do not control public discourse.
    - asjw 6y ago
      They also do in the form of moderation, (secret) algorithms and suggestions based on (undisclosed) advertisers
    - banads 6y ago
      Then who controls the code that their platforms run on, and how is FB able to conduct emotional manipulation experiments? https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/every...

rhizome 6y ago

Why do the opinions of hypothetical groups of people carry any weight? Make your arguments in concrete terms, like: Trump is full of shit whether people agree with him or not, and if Trump does try anything it is going to have so much splash damage against other websites that he would run the risk of being sent with a SpaceX capsule into the sun...by everybody.

ck2 6y ago

wait, how does this work, someone in power does something tyrannical and authoritarian and so we just step back and argue the finer points of why it may be okay to have certain regulations or not, thereby ignoring the whole point it's their tyranny dodging democracy? to be fair this has been going on for three years now, something insane is done, instead of focusing on the insanity, people pivot to the policy this is not how democracy works

Rapzid 6y ago
Yeah it's pretty interesting we are sitting here arguing about free speech nuance(with people who lack a basic understanding of it as would have been taught in high school civics TBH) and weak-man arguing if the POTUS tweet was really inaccurate based on the purposeful vagaries of the first sentence while rest contained straight up factual errors(lies?). While we are doing this the most astonishing thing happening is actually the extent to which the POTUS is constantly lying and spreading miss/disinformation. Every day. For more than three years now as you point out. I wouldn't be surprised if Trump is the single greatest source of lies and otherwise false and purposefully misleading information in most peoples lives. Perhaps even greater than all other sources combined! That and the amount of effort spent discussing this for years is incredible.

randyrand 6y ago

The fundamental question is, do people have a right to free speech on the web? The web is nearly entirely privately owned, which makes answering this question difficult. On one hand, the web is where we do 90% of our communication these days and losing that right seems like losing most of the first amendment. I’m convinceable either way. Did telephone companies have a right to censor land line speech? Should they? Should ISPs be able to censor? Should cloudflair? AWS? It seems like industries like ISPs should be regulated to be “dumb pipes”. But where social networks fall is less clear.

triceratops 6y ago
ISPs and telco networks are on a different layer (physical, and transport layers) of the stack than social media (application layer). ISPs and telco networks can and do perform traffic routing shaping, and throttle or cut off abusive users who consume too much bandwidth, or run a high-traffic web server from their home network. Because these actions affect other users of their networks. But if someone uses Comcast to post a sweary rant on the interwebs - it makes no difference to other Comcast customers. So they don't (at present, though the repealing of net neutrality now allows it) and shouldn't moderate actions at the application layer. Social media is the opposite. Abusive users of those networks operate at the application layer, and can spoil the experience of other users at the application layer but (likely) not at the network layer. So they moderate user activity at the application layer. In each case it's about trying to ensure bad actors don't ruin other customers'/users' experience. It's just done in different ways depending on what part of the network stack the bad actors do their work in.
- randyrand 6y ago
  What about Cloudflare/AWS? Cloudflare notably denied to service some unruly websites, and those websites got DDOSed off the web.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    Good question. I don't know the answer.

api 6y ago

One thing that gets me about the people who use "free speech" in this way is the sense of entitlement. 20-30 years ago mass media was only accessible to people with large amounts of money to purchase advertising or run their own media platform such as a TV or radio station or a newspaper. It was closed to everyone else unless you could pull off some stunt to get five minutes of fame and somehow leverage that to deliver a message. Now you have these vast platforms enabling anyone with a few bucks and cheap computer to potential address millions upon millions of people in near real time. It's completely unprecedented. In many cases these platforms are free as long as you comply with some minimal platform rules and regulations around what you can and cannot say. For most platforms the rules really are pretty minimal. Twitter is one of the least restrictive. You have to be a real obnoxious ass to get kicked off Twitter. Somehow people have become so accustomed to this free and ubiquitous open access mass media that what was just a few decades ago impossible is now seen as an entitlement. Refuse to let your platform be used to deliver my message? You're censoring me! Censorship refers to the use of force to prevent someone from speaking. The government has a legal monopoly on force, so generally this requires a law to be passed or perhaps an abuse of the civil court system to leverage the government to shut down someone's speech. I can't speak for every country but in the USA that is extremely rare. We take the first amendment very seriously around here. You've got to go pretty far to get actually censored. You can buy books on how to make illegal drugs for example, or slander public figures on social media with baseless accusations, or publish software designed to directly facilitate illegal activity, and rarely will anything happen to you. Being denied access to speak via someone else's privately owned and operated platform is not censorship. Nobody is preventing you from speaking. They're just refusing to assist you in delivering that speech. Imagine someone walking into a newspaper office 40 years ago and demanding to have their op-ed printed (for free!) and then shouting "censorship!" when the newspaper refused? It's ridiculous. I thought conservatives were skeptical of entitlements, especially when they involve other peoples' property.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Entitlement? First of all please credit the right people, reaching millions of people for free is not Twitter's\Facebook's accomplishment. You can host a webpage on a raspberri pi and reach millions of people. Secondly, media platforms affect the reat of society amd its perfectly reasomable that some standards be set for how they operate. Thats usually some form of fair treatment, and you should not be denied a platfork for fictitious or discriminatory reasons

dntbnmpls 6y ago

> There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. Firstly, stop qualifying it with "hate", "factually incorrect", etc. It's a cheap tactic by authoritarian types to justify censorship. The religious zealots, authoritarian governments, etc all use the same argument you do to censor. Free speech is free speech whether you like it or disagree with it or whether it is factually incorrect. Secondly, the question is whether a private company has a monopoly position. For example, we wouldn't allow power, water, telephone, etc companies from denying service based on what these companies feel are hateful or not. A christian ceo of these companies can't deny service to lgbt homes/companies/etc just because he doesn't like them or their speech. You get the idea? Thirdly, if a social media platform is a vehicle for communication by elected officials, should that platform be allowed to limit citizen's access to said politician. I believe the courts already ruled twitter cannot deny people access to trump's twitter. But I'm not sure. > Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense. Yes. It is a concern worthy of discussion. But so are the other aspects of this issue which you naively dismiss as "hate"/etc.

RonaldRaygun 6y ago
> Thirdly, if a social media platform is a vehicle for communication by elected officials, should that platform be allowed to limit citizen's access to said politician. I believe the courts already ruled twitter cannot deny people access to trump's twitter. But I'm not sure. How does this square with the fact that Donald Trump regularly blocks people from viewing his Twitter account for disagreeing with him or refusing to acknowledge his (apparent) infallibility? Is that not a much more egregious violation, and by an actual government official to boot?
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  > How does this square with the fact that Donald Trump regularly blocks people from viewing his Twitter account for disagreeing with him He can't block them. That's my point. "Trump can't block users from his Twitter feed, federal judge rules Blocking users from viewing his Twitter account is unconstitutional and a violation of the First Amendment, according to the judge." https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-can-t-block-users-his-twitter-feed-federal-judge-n876831 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/trump-can-t-block-users-his... I don't think he should be allowed to block americans from posting legal content on his feed.

sizzle 6y ago

Open source a transparent, government sponsored free-speech communication platform that clones Facebook functionality for organizing information in an intuitive way for the most tech unsaavy person. Outright ban all user tracking and profiling transparently with annual code audits and watchdog groups that can punish those in charge for not adhering to this, no advertisements, no selling data, and put 18f on the job of designing/developing it based off sound human principles, no army of behavioral researchers and Psychologists A/B testing bait-and-click engagement dark pattern metrics that penetrate deeply into the reward system of our neuroplastic brains and yanks on that lever of addiction formation with ease. Cut the bullshit and I'm on board. I'll even work for free on this if you promise to make it a reality, hell consider it a public utility if you have to so it stays funded and maintained. The Advertising industry needs to be lobotomized and severely scaled back to more traditional forms of reaching people where they are, not vacuuming up every ounce of data their movement, click, search, and vitals generate unbeknownst to them. Good riddance.

yibg 6y ago
While the general idea might be ok, and there are certainly concerns with the ad driven business model of the current popular “free” platforms, I don’t see how this solve this particular problem. Fundamentally you still have the choice of curating some content or not. On the extreme ends are things like hate speech and exploitive content. Then there are “false” or incorrect information. You either allow them unchecked or you don’t. This isn’t a technological problem.
ashtonkem 6y ago
It's actually pretty hard to run an online platform that sets the bar at "free speech" and not have it kind of suck. Trolling is free speech, being a jerk is free speech, hate speech is free speech, pornography is free speech. Any forum that sets the bar at "free speech" is going to be filled with the dregs with depressing speed. There's a reason why Gab never really gained serious traction.
- lostmsu 6y ago
  I don't think it is impossibly hard. The platform can just let users pick what they want to see. E.g. be it trolling, hate, or pornography (search engines already do the latter). Another concept is just following a set of moderators. Either way there is already Secure Scuttlebutt.

2019-nCoV 6y ago

Who fact checks the fact checkers?

Andrew_Quentin 6y ago

Twitter is not a private company, it's a publicly tradable company that can technically even fully be owned by the Chinese government itself through perfectly legally buying their shares on the open market. You don't see a problem here?

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Are you saying public company is worse? At least they are reporting their ownership.
- Andrew_Quentin 6y ago
  I'm saying there are laws against foreign interference in domestic politics for obvious reasons, so if some foreign government for example - which can openly buy Twitter stocks as there is no legal restriction and can do so either directly or like with Reddit indirectly by getting Tencent to buy it off - is moderating the speech of the president, then there's a big problem.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    But what if you turn that argument around - a US owned company is dominating media pandscape of other countries, and gets to decide who gets a loudspeaker and who does not. Is thay foreign interference?
judge2020 6y ago
Shares of a company being traded on different company's stock exchange (which is only regulated by the government, not operated by them) has nothing to do with whether free speech is enforced on their platform.

deleted 6y ago

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deleted 6y ago

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Thorentis 6y ago

Entirely, 100% disagree. The Internet is now our primary form of communication. It is the information highway. Sticking to the whole "free speech only applies to the government" is adhering to the letter of the law and not the spirit of the law. Posting on Twitter is now the equivalent of standing in a public square and yelling your protest. Allowing private companies to shut this down because we made the terrible mistake of handing over our primary means of communication to private companies, doesn't mean it has to always be that way. EDIT: Imagine if we allowed phone companies to listen to all calls and then censor the ones they didn't like. People would be outraged. This is what is happening on the Internet.

ryanlol 6y ago
> Posting on Twitter is now the equivalent of standing in a public square and yelling your protest Don’t you think it’s more akin to standing in a privately owned square and yelling your protest?
- Thorentis 6y ago
  Not all at. The legal fact that it is privately owned goes against the spirit of the law in terms of freedom of speech. How many people used to stand in private squares and protest? Nobody sees Twitter as a private square. They see it as the Internet. I am taking issue with the fact that we have allowed private companies to be the gate-keepers of what should be public spaces.
- missosoup 6y ago
  100% of the popular internet is a 'private square'. That's the problem. There doesn't exist any platform right now where one can share an idea and have that idea go viral, unless the idea is first gated through private censorship. Sure one could make their own blog or website to express their idea, but the chance of it spreading is then pretty much 0, because again any means for links or ideas to spread are all 'private squares' with their own censorship. This is how the internet broke free speech. This is where the law needs to catch up with technology.
SllX 6y ago

missosoup 6y ago

> distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment Until everyone can agree on a universal arbiter for what those things mean in a concrete way, there will always be demographics who strongly disagree. The reason free speech exists as a concept is because of a historic understanding that there fundamentally cannot be an unbiased arbiter for 'good' or 'bad' speech. On the other side of this, the internet is increasingly controlled by a particular demographic with a particular definition of what things like 'hate speech' mean. Which suppresses and censors a wide range of topics that the other demographics do want to discuss. When the entire internet makes it impossible to express certain views, we can't claim to have free speech anymore. It's not good enough to say 'well if you don't like it then you can go and shout your views out on the street instead'. The weapon against 'incorrect information' is education, not censorship. Censorship has never worked to actually quash 'wrongthink', it only marginalises and energises demographics who are censored, and drives them to eventually revolt. See: trump winning presidency.

spankalee 6y ago
Moderation of non-state-managed platforms is not censorship. In fact, it would be a violation of free speech to limit private parties ability to moderate.
- missosoup 6y ago
  This is where it gets tricky. Because 99.9% of the popular internet is 'non state-managed platforms'. There doesn't exist an avenue to meaningfully exercise free speech on the internet. You can make your own blog, but it will never go viral. Because the only means for something to go viral is that 99.9% composed of privately censored platforms. We've gotten into a situation where censorship has changed shape from 'one is prevented from expressing a view' to 'a view is prevented from reaching an audience'. Which is far worse than old school Stalin era censorship. This is not an easy question, but it is clearly a case of the law needing to be updated in light of how technology has evolved. We can't claim to have free speech if there's de-facto no way to exercise it on the primary communication channel of our time. Concrete example: it has recently come out that youtube has been silently censoring a wide array of comments that express anti-china views. Like most users, I was completely unaware that this is going on. Youtube distorted my perception of reality by suppressing an entire class of opinions from being visible. They didn't tell anyone that they're doing it, there was no transparency, and when they were caught, they said 'whoops it was a bug sorry lol'. That's crazy. What else are they suppressing? I do want laws to stop that even if it exposes me to comments I don't like. Or consider the degenerate case: Imagine Facebook takes over the entire internet. They buy Google, they buy Twitter, they buy pretty much everything than an average user will ever see. And Zucc comes along and says, from now on any mention of a certain political view on any of these platforms will be censored. This is ok by the rules you're proposing, but it's clearly not ok in terms of the spirit of free speech laws.

darepublic 6y ago

Yeah I hate social media platforms but Trump shutting them down would be crossing the Rubicon

fortran77 6y ago

Twitter distributes a lot of dangerous information unchecked. For example, today, thousands of people were tweeting fake or improperly captioned photos related to the horrible events in Minnesota this week. Just two examples: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-whites-great-again-hat/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/make-whites-great-again-ha... and https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-minnesota-trump-rally/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/police-minnesota-trump-ral... There were others; blaming people and nations that had nothing to do with this brutal horrible act for aiding and abetting. Twitter will do nothing about this very harmful behavior. I reported some of the most egregious fake information being tweeted or retweeted and nothing happens.

no-s 6y ago

This is about Twitter trying to pick winners and losers in the marketplace of attention. I don't think the Feds will have to dig very deep to find a cause for action. Twitter has conceivably already crossed the line to become a publisher. If they collude with other publishers they're running into the territory of anti-competitive agreements. Anti-trust action may be viable. Picking winners and losers and colluding with competitors is in the scope of illegal business. Double down with lobbying violations if the "fact-checkers" are unregistered foreign agents.

lliamander 6y ago

Social media companies are of course not obligated to distribute any content in particular, and in fact they are obligated to remove content which is illegal. They are however only protected from civil liability for good faith restriction of otherwise legal content on their platform. To the extent to which that moderation is done on content that is compliant with the TOS, or without prior notice and indication of what terms were violated, or only selectively with an agenda to influence the broader social discourse, they may not necessarily benefit from an assumption of good faith, and therefore may be subject to civil liability. And honestly, who wouldn't want social media companies to have a more fair and transparent TOS and moderation policy?