8 ms·
I don't see the problem, just reject the special privs for twitter and treat it like a publisher. It should be fairly simple, either you do not moderate at all
by gabordemooij 6y ago
I don't see the problem, just reject the special privs for twitter and treat it like a publisher. It should be fairly simple, either you do not moderate at all (and your not responsible for whatever people say on your platform) or you moderate and therefore you publish. It aint that hard. Twitter clearly moderates, that's fine, so it should be treated as a publisher, not as a public 'facility'. Simple.
- pps43 6y agoTwitter does not want to be a publisher, because then lots of people will sue it for libel and other nasty stuff in twits.
- NeverFade 6y agoSo it should stop editorializing and moderating.
- JakeTheAndroid 6y agoBut they aren't generating the content, users are. Why should they be responsible for what you say? And it's their platform, why are you entitled to it insofar they can't moderate? Can Amazon not kick people off their servers without being responsible as a publisher? At what point can a company no longer decide what happens within their ecosystem? I thought we appreciated freedom of speech in the US, and that includes freedom to ignore speech.
- NeverFade 6y ago> I thought we appreciated freedom of speech in the US, and that includes freedom to ignore speech. That's precisely the problem: freedom of speech. It's starting to seem pretty clear that people with certain views are getting moderated, censored, sanctioned, and generally have their speech policed and restricted on Twitter. People with different views are not being policed in the same way, even when they violate the same rules (see for example the Iranian president who never got moderated despite tweeting genocide ethnic cleansing threats on a regular basis). Freedom of speech is precisely the issue, precisely what's at stake here. Twitter is restricting the freedom of speech of right-wing users, then pretending they're just a neutral user-content platform. They can't have it both ways. Personally, I think free speech protections should apply to big platforms like Twitter, or else we risk the de-facto elimination of free speech in our time, since the contemporary town square happens to be owned by a private corporation.
- gabordemooij 6y agoThey are generating content because they process it by filtering 'unwanted' parts.
- hellomyguys 6y agoSo all platforms that have moderators (reddit, 4chan, FB, etc) are considered publishers now? What would actually be defined as a platform in your model?
- gabordemooij 6y ago4chan hardly moderates. If Twitter wants to cater to people that want some kind of filtering just allow those people to enable a filter. Problem solved. A platform should not moderate at all. Only remove clearly illegal stuff. For the rest, offer filters for people that want to have them (or better, design a protocol: <content-label type="trump">) so it can be built into browsers. That way you can have both: free speech and optional filtering. And you can be a platform instead of a publisher. (edit: I added some elaboration on a possible solution )
- khaledtaha 6y agoOr perhaps we should take a step back and design a new set of rules that can allow Twitter and other companies to moderate without having to be responsible for the content. I feel like there’s a false dichotomy being portrayed here that’s unnecessary.
- gabordemooij 6y agoThis kind of logic makes life hopelessly complex. It's a very simple rule that does not need 'special adjustments'. Just stick to the rules we agreed upon and face the facts. Twitter is now a publisher. You cannot bend the rules everytime you don't agree with them.
- gabordemooij 6y agoDownvoted? O dear, did I say something that isn't allowed by Marx?