6 ms·

> What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector. I

by ardy42 6y ago

> What's surprising is how often I encounter fellow Americans mistakenly asserting the first amendment extends beyond government and into the private sector. It's a confusion between the First Amendment and the principle of free expression, which is kinda forgivable given how closely they are related.

joshuamorton 6y ago
Not at all, they're directly at odds in this case. The President using presidential authority to restrict what twitter can say on their own platform is directly violating the first amendment to restrict twitter's free expression. You can argue that twitter is also restricting others' free expression, but that is their right, while the government preventing twitter from doing so is a 1A violation.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish, but they don't. For a long time they are picking and choosing the laws they want to abide by.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish What do social media companies "publish"? In this case, the only thing twitter published was a link to information about mail-in voting[0]. That's it. They did so in the context of a tweet. So at worst, twitter would be liable for any illegal content in either President Trump's original tweet, or in the content I linked at [0]. That is what current US law says. To change that would require an act of congress or a supreme court ruling. The court is unlikely to rule in favor of Trump[1], as the conservative justices favor businesses rights. So that leaves a new law/amendment to the existing law. That would need to pass the house, which seems unlikely as well. [0]: https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384 https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384 [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200528/01321044592/two-things-to-understand-about-trumps-executive-order-social-media-1-distraction-2-legally-meaningless.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200528/01321044592/two-t...
    - xiphias2 6y ago
      Twitter is publishing everything any person tweets. Those 2 comments are nothing compared to the power of selectively blocking/publishing users tweets (which communication companies are not allowed to do), but at the same time not be responsible for copyright violations (which other types of media companies are).
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        Are you familiar with section 230? Which says that under current US law, twitter is not a publisher of the tweets it hosts. It would require an act of congress to change that.
      - space_fountain 6y ago
        Not to pile on but really do read it. I see how you get to the White House's position but it's a stretch. There don't seem to be any condions tacked on. They don't publish other people's tweats. I think they could maybe be held liable for illegally removing tweats. The protection afforded for filtering does seem dependent on the motivation but I'm not aware of any laws restricting what content they're allowed to remove and again in this case they didn't remove anything
        xiphias2 6y ago
        I was working at Google in 2007, and the type of filtering we had was very different from what Google does right now. We had automated filtering of word lists that took down sites, that were hate words / porn related for protecting children. Right now I'm paying monthly for Youtube Premium, but I see that the people I'm watching have to be extremely careful to not say a swear word by chance, or even say the name of the COVID-19 virus, because they are scared of losing their revenue stream. I don't see this as fair, because Youtube got so popular _because_ it was allowed to publish anything without being responsible for copyright violations. It would be great for them to do fact checking as long as they are politically consistent. In EU at least we have the GDPR that limits companies from using our data however they want to, but in the US at this point they need some kind of counterbalance.
  - FireBeyond 6y ago
    What law did Twitter fail to abide by in linking a tweet to factual information?
    - olivermarks 6y ago
      The fatal mistake which will cost the FAANGs billions is in becoming editors rather than facilitators by appending links to Twitter users posts. This doesn't scale (will all posts not edited/ appended to/rubber stamped by Twitter be considered 'true?) and also blows out the already stretched meaning of Section 230. This opens the door to much greater regulation of BigTech internationally. 'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish'. https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
      - olivermarks 6y ago
        Section 230 co author twitter (sic) thread https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1266052221072019456 https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1266052221072019456
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      >factual information Well... if you really want to get into it. Twitter can’t “fact check” the original statement. Because it was a prediction. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s unlikely to be mass scale fraud, of course, but it’s a future event. It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”. Twitter picked a really bad tweet to make a stand on. Like it or not, they chose to editorialize someone else’s content, that’s a publisher. They didn’t have to “break a law” to now be liable for other content they “publish”. That’s all the EO is, that Section 230 doesn’t apply to publishers.
  - closeparen 6y ago
    What exactly would be the public benefit of social media companies taking responsibility for user content? As far as I can see this framework does a fair job of making the same remedies available, just against the authors instead of the social media companies.
    - Fjolsvith 6y ago
      They will be able to silence those views they don't like and promote the ones they do. It will become readily apparent which side of the fence a social media company is on.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaways1232 6y ago
  If I own Google and refuse to index and show in search results anything from Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not! Technically, Google is a private entity and can do whatever it wants. Once a company becomes too big like Twitter, Google, Facebook, they have a moral obligation to stay neutral. Interesting how opinions expressing a viewpoint that differs from the hive mind gets down-voted.
  - balls187 6y ago
    > Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not! This happens. Frequently. Replace "Huff post et al" with "Tiananmen Square" and search while inside China. Specific to the US, the 1st amendment prevents the restriction of speech by government, which in some cases overlaps into private enterprise.
  - akoncius 6y ago
    there are numerous examples when google removes websites from search results because of violating SEO rules and other rules of google. numerous examples when google removes apps from their appstore. even numerous examples when they are abusing search and prioritise their own products instead of competitors. same for amazon. corporate interests are not moral, dont forget that.
    - throwaways1232 6y ago
      Violating SEO rules is bad and these sites should be removed that can be understood. Is it good for the democracy if Google removes all results from new sites it doesn't agree with? It should remain neutral as much as possible and not tamper with its search results.
      - thomaslord 6y ago
        This is not what's happening on Twitter. They're not removing tweets.
        6y ago

by ardy42 6y ago

joshuamorton 6y ago

Not at all, they're directly at odds in this case. The President using presidential authority to restrict what twitter can say on their own platform is directly violating the first amendment to restrict twitter's free expression. You can argue that twitter is also restricting others' free expression, but that is their right, while the government preventing twitter from doing so is a 1A violation.

xiphias2 6y ago
It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish, but they don't. For a long time they are picking and choosing the laws they want to abide by.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > It would be as simple as you write if social media companies would take responsibility for the publishing rights for what they publish What do social media companies "publish"? In this case, the only thing twitter published was a link to information about mail-in voting[0]. That's it. They did so in the context of a tweet. So at worst, twitter would be liable for any illegal content in either President Trump's original tweet, or in the content I linked at [0]. That is what current US law says. To change that would require an act of congress or a supreme court ruling. The court is unlikely to rule in favor of Trump[1], as the conservative justices favor businesses rights. So that leaves a new law/amendment to the existing law. That would need to pass the house, which seems unlikely as well. [0]: https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384 https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384 [1]: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200528/01321044592/two-things-to-understand-about-trumps-executive-order-social-media-1-distraction-2-legally-meaningless.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200528/01321044592/two-t...
  - xiphias2 6y ago
    Twitter is publishing everything any person tweets. Those 2 comments are nothing compared to the power of selectively blocking/publishing users tweets (which communication companies are not allowed to do), but at the same time not be responsible for copyright violations (which other types of media companies are).
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Are you familiar with section 230? Which says that under current US law, twitter is not a publisher of the tweets it hosts. It would require an act of congress to change that.
    - space_fountain 6y ago
      Not to pile on but really do read it. I see how you get to the White House's position but it's a stretch. There don't seem to be any condions tacked on. They don't publish other people's tweats. I think they could maybe be held liable for illegally removing tweats. The protection afforded for filtering does seem dependent on the motivation but I'm not aware of any laws restricting what content they're allowed to remove and again in this case they didn't remove anything
      - xiphias2 6y ago
        I was working at Google in 2007, and the type of filtering we had was very different from what Google does right now. We had automated filtering of word lists that took down sites, that were hate words / porn related for protecting children. Right now I'm paying monthly for Youtube Premium, but I see that the people I'm watching have to be extremely careful to not say a swear word by chance, or even say the name of the COVID-19 virus, because they are scared of losing their revenue stream. I don't see this as fair, because Youtube got so popular _because_ it was allowed to publish anything without being responsible for copyright violations. It would be great for them to do fact checking as long as they are politically consistent. In EU at least we have the GDPR that limits companies from using our data however they want to, but in the US at this point they need some kind of counterbalance.
- FireBeyond 6y ago
  What law did Twitter fail to abide by in linking a tweet to factual information?
  - olivermarks 6y ago
    The fatal mistake which will cost the FAANGs billions is in becoming editors rather than facilitators by appending links to Twitter users posts. This doesn't scale (will all posts not edited/ appended to/rubber stamped by Twitter be considered 'true?) and also blows out the already stretched meaning of Section 230. This opens the door to much greater regulation of BigTech internationally. 'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of "interactive computer service providers," including basically any online service that publishes third-party content. Though there are important exceptions for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, CDA 230 creates a broad protection that has allowed innovation and free speech online to flourish'. https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
    - olivermarks 6y ago
      Section 230 co author twitter (sic) thread https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1266052221072019456 https://twitter.com/RonWyden/status/1266052221072019456
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    >factual information Well... if you really want to get into it. Twitter can’t “fact check” the original statement. Because it was a prediction. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s unlikely to be mass scale fraud, of course, but it’s a future event. It’s his opinion / prediction. As wrong as it is, that isn’t something they should “fact check”. Twitter picked a really bad tweet to make a stand on. Like it or not, they chose to editorialize someone else’s content, that’s a publisher. They didn’t have to “break a law” to now be liable for other content they “publish”. That’s all the EO is, that Section 230 doesn’t apply to publishers.
- closeparen 6y ago
  What exactly would be the public benefit of social media companies taking responsibility for user content? As far as I can see this framework does a fair job of making the same remedies available, just against the authors instead of the social media companies.
  - Fjolsvith 6y ago
    They will be able to silence those views they don't like and promote the ones they do. It will become readily apparent which side of the fence a social media company is on.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaways1232 6y ago
If I own Google and refuse to index and show in search results anything from Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not! Technically, Google is a private entity and can do whatever it wants. Once a company becomes too big like Twitter, Google, Facebook, they have a moral obligation to stay neutral. Interesting how opinions expressing a viewpoint that differs from the hive mind gets down-voted.
- balls187 6y ago
  > Huffington Post, CNN, Washington Post is that okay? It is not! This happens. Frequently. Replace "Huff post et al" with "Tiananmen Square" and search while inside China. Specific to the US, the 1st amendment prevents the restriction of speech by government, which in some cases overlaps into private enterprise.
- akoncius 6y ago
  there are numerous examples when google removes websites from search results because of violating SEO rules and other rules of google. numerous examples when google removes apps from their appstore. even numerous examples when they are abusing search and prioritise their own products instead of competitors. same for amazon. corporate interests are not moral, dont forget that.
  - throwaways1232 6y ago
    Violating SEO rules is bad and these sites should be removed that can be understood. Is it good for the democracy if Google removes all results from new sites it doesn't agree with? It should remain neutral as much as possible and not tamper with its search results.
    - thomaslord 6y ago
      This is not what's happening on Twitter. They're not removing tweets.
      - 6y ago