20 ms·

Twitter, Reddit support challenge of visa applicant social media requirement

344 points by cglong 6y ago

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thaumasiotes 6y ago
And people said I was crazy to claim that challenges are mounted to US laws based on the first amendment rights of foreigners living abroad.
- klipt 6y ago
  Foreigners living in the US also have to renew their visas or even green cards. Do you think giving USCIS their social media accounts doesn't have a chilling effect on their ability to criticize the government? Should green card holders not be allowed to criticize the government?
  - booboolayla 6y ago
    They are allowed to criticize the government, but they are not free from the consequences of it. We will stop importing haters of America whether you feel OK with it or not.
not_a_moth 6y ago
Nice PR move, tacking onto a lawsuit from a year ago in support of free speech. That aside I personally think Reddit has far more serious speech challenges to overcome than Twitter. It's too easy to manipulate certain viewpoint to always appear on the front page. Especially blatant during election years. Too weird for me to visit.
- nilkn 6y ago
  I enjoy Reddit when logged in and unsubscribed from all the large default subreddits. I’m always shocked at how different it is when I accidentally view it logged out. The home page feels almost like a piece of carefully curated political performance art in order to somehow get a result allegedly from folks across the nation that is so perfectly aligned with a very specific agenda and advertising platform.
  - martiuk 6y ago
    It's so different you immediately think it's orchestrated from behind the scenes, other subreddits with politics banned are so much more bearable.
    - foota 6y ago
      I assume you believe it to be left orchestrated. My guess? The overwhelming majority of young people (and people overall, though not by nearly the same margin) are left leaning or very left. It's probably just a demographics thing.
      - tasogare 6y ago
        Sure, bans such as the board dedicated to support the current US president is "due to demographic".
        sgift 6y ago
        It is due to systematic rule breaking even after multiple warnings. If you break the rules of HN you get banned after a while. And if there were sub-HNs here and one would take almost all the moderation time it wouldn't exist for long. Also, if it is about a board usually called "TD" that one is quarantined, not banned.
      - nilkn 6y ago
        I would argue this is precisely the impression they’re trying to manufacture. There’s a vast and stark difference between the Reddit of today and the Reddit of 2016. The viewpoints of tens or hundreds of millions of people have been systematically removed from the site in the last 4 or so years in one of the most aggressive and vast campaigns of censorship and manipulation I’ve ever personally seen on the internet.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That’s certainly a good argument for not using Reddit, but there is absolutely no requirement that Reddit be neutral in the law or in the first amendment.
  - syshum 6y ago
    That is the debate over Sec 230 though, with many people saying that if a platform wants to enjoy the immunity granted under sec 230 they need to be neutral, failure to do so means they lose that Sec 230 Immunity. This would mean any moderation makes them liable as a publisher as under current law if you do not have Sec 230 immunity then the only other way to avoid liability to not do any moderation at all of user generated content (or to prohibit user generated content)
    - pjc50 6y ago
      > any moderation makes them liable as a publisher Quite a lot of moderation is required either by law or other forms of liability. And then you have the international jurisdiction question: if a social media platform removes posts to comply with French or German anti-Nazi law, or UK defamation law, does that make them liable under s230?
      - syshum 6y ago
        >> international jurisdiction question: Those should only apply to users accessing from those nations It is a complex issue for a global company for sure, but I do not want the internet to be censored down to the lowest common denominator of Government regulations. A Person in nation X should not have to be censored under the laws of nation Y
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > with many people saying that if a platform wants to enjoy the immunity granted under sec 230 they need to be neutral, failure to do so means they lose that Sec 230 Immunity. Who's saying that? That's very much not what section 230 says. And as a change to the law to do this would eliminate all social networks (along with newspaper comment sections and similar) it is highly unlikely to ever go anywhere.
- Darmody 6y ago
  Reddit is the biggest echo champer I've ever seen. You can literally see hundreds of posts and thousand of comments about a certain topic and when you get out, you see that they take the bits of information that pushes their agenda. The last big example I've seen is during the democratic primaries. I didn't really care at all about it but everyday I could see how Bernie was killing it. Then I saw somewhere else that Biden was the candidate getting the most delegates and was probably going to be the nominee. Not a single word about this in none of the main big subreddits.
- devilmoon 6y ago
  Also consider the fact that 5 mods control 92 of the top 500 subreddits. https://www.reddit.com/r/awfuleverything/comments/gjafqw/5_people_control_92_of_the_top_500_subs_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/awfuleverything/comments/gjafqw/5_p... Now imagine if a handful of people controlled 1/5th of the top 500 twitter accounts, instagram accounts, facebook pages
trashburger 6y ago
It's not like these companies particularly care about the First Amendment, seeing their actions when it comes to things protected by 1A but too icky for their platforms. I expect a blog post(s) to come out of this containing the words "As $COMPANY, we believe the right to freedom of expressing yourself." Bonus points if they include the term "responsible speech".
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > not like these companies particularly care about the First Amendment Free speech versus the First Amendment. One can believe private platforms have the right to regulate their content while holding the government doesn’t.
  - coldcode 6y ago
    People always forget that the Bill Of Rights is about the relationship between the Federal government and the people within the US. Applicability to the relationship between businesses and the people can be extended by Congress and the Courts but is not the reason the Bill Of Rights exists.
  - Hermel 6y ago
    Of course, Reddit has the right to fight for free speech while at the same time suppressing it on its own platform, or at least tolerating the suppression of a free discourse in the most popular subreddit. But doing so makes it seem reddit cares first and foremost about its own freedom, and less about freedom of speech in general. It also means reddit is a poor choice if you want to run a forum that leans conservative.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > doing so makes it seem reddit cares first and foremost about its own freedom, and less about freedom of speech in general It’s a company. Of course that’s its motive. I’d argue this is true for most people, too. Which is fine. It is incumbent upon those users whose free speech Reddit impinges upon to rectify the situation, but bringing other users to support their cause or setting up a competitor. Either way, this is all orthogonal to the First Amendment concern of this case.
badrabbit 6y ago
How would a decentralized platform be registered? Things are about to get insane when they start banning foreign social media!
- nkozyra 6y ago
  Which is decentralized? Certainly not Reddit. And it isn't about the "platform" being registered, it's about users: > that require nearly all visa applicants to register their social media handles with the U.S. government and connected policies permitting the retention and dissemination of that information.
  - badrabbit 6y ago
    Mastodon,activitypub
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Weird, +2 points and collapsed.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
klmadfejno 6y ago
I've seen many people discuss how this ruling could kill small internet communities. Curious how people would react to simply making a separate class for excessively large websites that are effectively public spaces due to scale and likelihood of frequent encounter.
- trashburger 6y ago
  Basically this. I run a small moderated community and the repealing of Section 230 would mean I would become responsible for everything my site's users say if I dare to moderate anything beyond illegal content. There needs to be a separation under law of social media giants which permeate every corner of social life and small communities.
  - dTal 6y ago
    Serious question - if what your users are saying isn't illegal (because you moderate that away), what's the problem in being "responsible" for it?
    - PeterisP 6y ago
      The problem is that it's not enough anymore to try to moderate away illegal content on a best-effort basis and you're required to be perfect. In the earlier situation, if the moderation misses some violating content and leaves it there, it's still the sole liability of the poster. With the recent changes, if you don't want to be liable for less-than-perfect moderation, the prudent choice seems to be to avoid any moderation at all; you'll leave all the illegal content alone but at least that won't be your liability.
    - belltaco 6y ago
      Illegal is nebulous, there are two aspects to it, criminal and civil. Civil liability is the one that's most in play here, since criminal content like CP or threats of violence are more easily recognizable. Defamation and libel lawsuits can be problematic, and you can be sued by celebrities and politicians for defamation. Even if you win it, the lawyer fees, and the inconvenience of dealing with the courts etc. isn't worth it at all.
usr1106 6y ago
Media registration is clearly an argument for me not to travel to the US. What an orwellian, totalitarian country. Or should I say xenophobic, because it affects only foreigners? I visited the US dozens of times for work and conferences. But it has heen decreasing steadily with only 3 visits since 9/11. There might be no future one at all, particularly not under the current administration.
- moduspol 6y ago
  This might be a little hyperbolic.
  - phyrex 6y ago
    Care to explain why? There's riots in the streets because of police brutality, browser history can now be requested by law enforcement without a warrant, .. i mean OP has a point?
    - moduspol 6y ago
      > There might be no future one at all, particularly not under the current administration. If "browser history" is even on your radar when responding to a claim like this, things may not be as bad as you think they are.
      - scrollaway 6y ago
        If "browser history" is already off your radar when responding to a claim like this, you're beyond saving. What is it with this absurd need to defend how poorly your country is doing by essentially saying "hey at least we're not North Korea!"? Get your head out of the clouds here: Your country elected an atrocious president, who, with both some poor timing and some atrociously bad decision-making got handed a platter of crises that are completely beyond the capabilities of his administration. Now, as a direct result, your country is more divided than it has ever been in recent history. People are rioting while a pandemic is happening. Civilians are being shot, journalists are being arrested, and you're here, pretending everything is fine because you're not literally starving in a prison right now. Like, what? You want to wait&see even longer until this fully develops or you want to start fixing? Let that sink in: The people who say "it could be worse" are part of the problem.
nojito 6y ago
Ah yes...two websites that do not and will never become profitable. I hope everyone realizes that this was never about free speech and everything about cost avoidance.
- marcinzm 6y ago
  Twitter has been profitable or neutral for over a year now. It's a public company, you can Google their finances.
fareesh 6y ago
The newspaper and news channel can be held liable for what they publish. If social media companies want to editorialize the content that users are seeing then they are no longer a platform, and they should play by the same rules as the newspapers and news channels. They could always choose not to do that and allow users to post whatever they like, within the bounds of the law. Again, this only came up because Twitter is taking an active role in the election process. The election process is adversarial. There is already someone on Twitter who can hold a candidate accountable - their opponent. Twitter can just pin Joe Biden's reply and fact check below any Trump tweet and vice versa. Instead they have chosen to insert a platform specific feature to qualify what someone else is publishing. Their insertion is not accountable to anyone, and as such can be constituted as a canonical truth. If they apply their insertions selectively, then they are basically manipulating the audience. If this is allowed then you no longer have a democracy. The social media platform will just pick your winner.
- mikro2nd 6y ago
  False argument. News organisations exercise editorial, budgetary and managerial control over the reporters they hire to investigate and write the news they report. There is a tradition/expectation (sadly in very poor condition in these times, better/worse for some media organisations) of fact-checking before publication, with editor oversight of that investigative process. This is not, and can not be the case for social-media platforms. Drawing any equivalency between the two is simply bogus.
paulgb 6y ago
It seems like 90% of the comments here didn't read the article and think it has to do with section 230, which Twitter is also in the news for right now. Regardless of how you feel about their moderation policies, if you care about free speech you should at least be on their side with this one. Requesting social media handles from visa applicants does chill speech. As a visa holder, I've thought long and hard over whether I should post political comments or photos from protests on social media. If you truly care about free speech, be consistent and care about that too.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > As a visa holder, I've thought long and hard over whether I should post political comments or photos from protests on social media. You should consider using Tor. It was first and foremost designed for this very purpose.
  - paranoidrobot 6y ago
    Using Tor doesn't really change much. You are still left with a choice: a - give up your details when required to do so by the government. b - lie on a government form and/or to a government official If you choose b, then at any point in the future it's discovered that you did lie, then this can make life very very difficult. Not only can your Visa be cancelled, it can mean you're never again able to visit the US. It means uprooting your entire life to return to the country you were born in. There's been plenty of stories, some posted here, where this has happened to someone who either through a mistake, or even no fault of their own - has ended up in hot water and their Visa withdrawn. Using Tor and successfully remaining truly anonymous are non-trivial things, and endangering your livelihood and ability to remain in the US is a large risk. This ignores the genuine possibility of prosecution for making false statements and/or lying to a government official.
  - billme 6y ago
    At the point your threat model includes nation states of note — in my opinion, any recommendation of Tor should acknowledge why Tor would not increase threats instead of reducing them.
alexmingoia 6y ago
Good. The entire visa system is unconstitutional and a violation of human rights. Anything that curtails it is a victory for freedom.
- nine_k 6y ago
  What articles of the Constitution does the visa system contradict?
  - 7leafer 6y ago
    Human rights are not the constitution.
    - alexmingoia 6y ago
      I know. What’s also not in the constitution: Power to restrict the movement and work of foreigners.
  - alexmingoia 6y ago
    The 10th amendment. Nowhere in the constitution is the Federal government granted power to restrict non-citizens from movement or employment. The constitution only delegates to the Federal government the power to determine rules for naturalization. You might find useful this overview of the unconstitutionality of Federal immigration restrictions: https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/12/13/the-constitutional-solution-to-immigration/ https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/12/13/the-constitution...
    - gpm 6y ago
      Wouldn't visas be interstate commerce?
      - alexmingoia 6y ago
        No. A non-citizen moving from one place to another isn’t commerce among the states. A non-citizen working at a restaurant is also not commerce among the states. The purpose of the interstate commerce clause was to prevent states from enacting tariffs or banning goods from other states or nations. There’s plenty of analysis of the origin and intent of the commerce clause online if you’re interested.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
egberts1 6y ago
This is E.O., and not about FCC Section 230. Court case filing is here: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/CRF_amicus_Knight_v_Trump.pdf https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/up... It boils down to who has the right to block users. And how to regulate such blocking of online users and by who. That’s the gist of it. What we are seeing by Coolidge-Reagan Foundation is long-tail legal fight to keep the First Amendment from eroding on the Internet.
1cvmask 6y ago
This already exists with rubber stamp FISA courts (a rejection rate of 0.03 percent) for citizens and non-citizens. It is just a difference of degree and scale (the APIization of everything). There are also other workarounds to FISA courts including the “willful“ volunteering of information and tools (or else), using the NSA and their tools, and other foreign “friendly” collaborators like the Five Eyes, or German intelligence etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://www.dw.com/en/report-us-germany-spied-on-countries-for-decades-via-swiss-encryption-firm/a-52344255 https://www.dw.com/en/report-us-germany-spied-on-countries-f... https://www.rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/ https://www.rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/ Here is some details on historical spying (a much smaller scale because of the smaller digital footprint)for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  >a rejection rate of 0.03 percent I agree that this is too low and is a sign of rubber stamp-iness, but what would be the right rejection rate to make you feel more comfortable about the FISA process? Agencies come to the court with what they think is a rock solid case, so it's not entirely outrageous that the court would have a very high approval rate. See other similar stats like the conviction rate by federal prosecutors (93%+), where they only drag a defendant into court with very good reason.
  - DataWorker 6y ago
    The conviction rate is a great example. “Very good reason” like Aaron Swartz trying to share scientific literature with the public?
    - albntomat0 6y ago
      The word choice "very good reason" in the parent comment isn't in regards to anyone's view of the ethics of a particular case. A different way of phrasing the parent comment would be prosecutors only pursue cases that they think are winnable, given the evidence available.
mfer 6y ago
This shows a double sided approach to the services like Twitter and Reddit. The social media companies argue they are not common spaces where free speech is required. This way they can moderate as they choose. It serves them. But, they also argue that visa applicants sharing their social media details chills first amendment free speech. The social media companies are inconsistent here and it appears they are looking out for their best financial interests.
- anewdirection 6y ago
  Bingo. This exemplifies why the current situation, however you feel about it, is untennable from both sides of the issue.
  - amerine 6y ago
    Exemplifies what exactly?
- nightcracker 6y ago
  No it's not inconsistent. You simply do not understand. The first amendment protects you from censorship by the government: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The social media companies argue they are not common spaces so they can maintain 'jurisdiction' over their own sites. This isn't related to the first amendment at all, as they are not a government entity. Being asked to share social media does chill first amendment free speech, because it's the government that gets to see everything you do and say online and thus there is an incentive to self-censor in fear of later retaliation. The whole point of the first amendment isn't that you can say anything you want at any time anywhere, it's that you don't have to fear retaliation from the government. But let's assume that your issue is with 'free speech' online in general, not just in the context of the first amendment. Then there is still a huge difference between the two. If, say, Reddit censors the speech you wish to spread, you don't suffer any consequences beyond being unable to use Reddit as your platform. You're free to use any other social media to spread your message. If the government requests all social media accounts your speech is chilled everywhere, effectively censoring you, the person.
7leafer 6y ago
So if I don't have any accounts in sociopathological networks, will the morons deny my visa? What a br.., I mean, a cowardly new world!
- kube-system 6y ago
  > Visa applicants who have never used social media will not be refused on the basis of failing to provide a social media identifier, and the form does allow the applicant to respond with "None." https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vetting/CA%20-%20FAQs%20on%20Social%20Media%20Collection%20-%206-4-2019%20(v.2).pdf https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
  - grishka 6y ago
    So if you do respond with "none", how would they know you do actually have social media accounts?
    - gpm 6y ago
      Chances are they wouldn't (if you were reasonably cautious with, e.g., your phone). But if they find out you don't later they can throw you in jail and deport you. Lying to federal officers while getting a visa over something as innocuous as a social media account really doesn't seem to be worth it under basically any circumstances.
    - kube-system 6y ago
      I have no idea what they actually do, but I'm guessing they could simply search for the accounts, or ask other people you know.
  - BeetleB 6y ago
    They also say the same thing when they ask if you are part of a terrorist group.
    - kube-system 6y ago
Marsymars 6y ago
If I'm ever required to provide social media handles when entering the USA, I'll be deleting any relevant social media accounts.
- dntbnmpls 6y ago
  Just because you "delete" the accounts doesn't necessarily mean they are deleted. The social media companies most likely just set the flag in the "deleted" column. Not only that, it's almost a certainty that some government entity is vacuuming all the social media data anyways. So even if you delete it, the government would still have your social media data. If people you know visit the US and they hand over their social media info, then your interaction with these people will be visible to the government. Social media is a very insidious beast. Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags.
  - Marsymars 6y ago
    My goal isn't to make it impossible for the US government to get the information I've already given to social media companies - it's to do my part to remove the incentive for the US government to ask for social media details in the first place. If everyone outside of the USA had the same policy, it would devastate American social media companies, and cause the government policy to be entirely counterproductive. By not closing my social media accounts, I'd be complicit in incentivizing the government to ask for their details. > Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags. I'd delete my social media accounts as soon as the policy is changed, which is likely to be months or years prior to my next visit to the US.
- cbhl 6y ago
  The current rules for immigrants require "any account names ... over the previous five years" so an immigrant could be denied entry for failing to provide the account name for a deleted account.
  - verganileonardo 6y ago
null0pointer 6y ago
I hadn't heard about this law. Seems it came into effect after I last filed a DS-160 in June 2019. Can anyone provide a reasonable justification for any non-nefarious reason for requiring the social media handles of all visa applicants? It seems pointless at best. Downright evil at worst.
- CobrastanJorji 6y ago
  You might be Facebook friends with someone linked to terrorism, or you might have Liked posts from terrorism-linked groups. Or maybe there's a specific person who the government suspects has recently joined on with some terrorist cell, and if you're their Facebook friend, that is likely fairly interesting to some investigators. I don't expect that this sort of question catches a lot of serious terrorists, but if they don't ask, you come blow something up, and you did have such immediately discoverable information on social media, it'd be really bad press for the folks who are supposed to stop that sort of thing. I don't think it's a particularly controversial statement that lots of extra information about who you know and what your interests are would be at least a mildly useful signal for determining if you're a threat, but I doubt it's worth the intrusion and the risk of more nefarious uses.

344 points by cglong 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

And people said I was crazy to claim that challenges are mounted to US laws based on the first amendment rights of foreigners living abroad.

klipt 6y ago
Foreigners living in the US also have to renew their visas or even green cards. Do you think giving USCIS their social media accounts doesn't have a chilling effect on their ability to criticize the government? Should green card holders not be allowed to criticize the government?
- booboolayla 6y ago
  They are allowed to criticize the government, but they are not free from the consequences of it. We will stop importing haters of America whether you feel OK with it or not.

not_a_moth 6y ago

Nice PR move, tacking onto a lawsuit from a year ago in support of free speech. That aside I personally think Reddit has far more serious speech challenges to overcome than Twitter. It's too easy to manipulate certain viewpoint to always appear on the front page. Especially blatant during election years. Too weird for me to visit.

nilkn 6y ago
I enjoy Reddit when logged in and unsubscribed from all the large default subreddits. I’m always shocked at how different it is when I accidentally view it logged out. The home page feels almost like a piece of carefully curated political performance art in order to somehow get a result allegedly from folks across the nation that is so perfectly aligned with a very specific agenda and advertising platform.
- martiuk 6y ago
  It's so different you immediately think it's orchestrated from behind the scenes, other subreddits with politics banned are so much more bearable.
  - foota 6y ago
    I assume you believe it to be left orchestrated. My guess? The overwhelming majority of young people (and people overall, though not by nearly the same margin) are left leaning or very left. It's probably just a demographics thing.
    - tasogare 6y ago
      Sure, bans such as the board dedicated to support the current US president is "due to demographic".
      - sgift 6y ago
        It is due to systematic rule breaking even after multiple warnings. If you break the rules of HN you get banned after a while. And if there were sub-HNs here and one would take almost all the moderation time it wouldn't exist for long. Also, if it is about a board usually called "TD" that one is quarantined, not banned.
    - nilkn 6y ago
      I would argue this is precisely the impression they’re trying to manufacture. There’s a vast and stark difference between the Reddit of today and the Reddit of 2016. The viewpoints of tens or hundreds of millions of people have been systematically removed from the site in the last 4 or so years in one of the most aggressive and vast campaigns of censorship and manipulation I’ve ever personally seen on the internet.
ashtonkem 6y ago
That’s certainly a good argument for not using Reddit, but there is absolutely no requirement that Reddit be neutral in the law or in the first amendment.
- syshum 6y ago
  That is the debate over Sec 230 though, with many people saying that if a platform wants to enjoy the immunity granted under sec 230 they need to be neutral, failure to do so means they lose that Sec 230 Immunity. This would mean any moderation makes them liable as a publisher as under current law if you do not have Sec 230 immunity then the only other way to avoid liability to not do any moderation at all of user generated content (or to prohibit user generated content)
  - pjc50 6y ago
    > any moderation makes them liable as a publisher Quite a lot of moderation is required either by law or other forms of liability. And then you have the international jurisdiction question: if a social media platform removes posts to comply with French or German anti-Nazi law, or UK defamation law, does that make them liable under s230?
    - syshum 6y ago
      >> international jurisdiction question: Those should only apply to users accessing from those nations It is a complex issue for a global company for sure, but I do not want the internet to be censored down to the lowest common denominator of Government regulations. A Person in nation X should not have to be censored under the laws of nation Y
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    > with many people saying that if a platform wants to enjoy the immunity granted under sec 230 they need to be neutral, failure to do so means they lose that Sec 230 Immunity. Who's saying that? That's very much not what section 230 says. And as a change to the law to do this would eliminate all social networks (along with newspaper comment sections and similar) it is highly unlikely to ever go anywhere.
Darmody 6y ago
Reddit is the biggest echo champer I've ever seen. You can literally see hundreds of posts and thousand of comments about a certain topic and when you get out, you see that they take the bits of information that pushes their agenda. The last big example I've seen is during the democratic primaries. I didn't really care at all about it but everyday I could see how Bernie was killing it. Then I saw somewhere else that Biden was the candidate getting the most delegates and was probably going to be the nominee. Not a single word about this in none of the main big subreddits.
devilmoon 6y ago
Also consider the fact that 5 mods control 92 of the top 500 subreddits. https://www.reddit.com/r/awfuleverything/comments/gjafqw/5_people_control_92_of_the_top_500_subs_and/ https://www.reddit.com/r/awfuleverything/comments/gjafqw/5_p... Now imagine if a handful of people controlled 1/5th of the top 500 twitter accounts, instagram accounts, facebook pages

trashburger 6y ago

It's not like these companies particularly care about the First Amendment, seeing their actions when it comes to things protected by 1A but too icky for their platforms. I expect a blog post(s) to come out of this containing the words "As $COMPANY, we believe the right to freedom of expressing yourself." Bonus points if they include the term "responsible speech".

JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> not like these companies particularly care about the First Amendment Free speech versus the First Amendment. One can believe private platforms have the right to regulate their content while holding the government doesn’t.
- coldcode 6y ago
  People always forget that the Bill Of Rights is about the relationship between the Federal government and the people within the US. Applicability to the relationship between businesses and the people can be extended by Congress and the Courts but is not the reason the Bill Of Rights exists.
- Hermel 6y ago
  Of course, Reddit has the right to fight for free speech while at the same time suppressing it on its own platform, or at least tolerating the suppression of a free discourse in the most popular subreddit. But doing so makes it seem reddit cares first and foremost about its own freedom, and less about freedom of speech in general. It also means reddit is a poor choice if you want to run a forum that leans conservative.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > doing so makes it seem reddit cares first and foremost about its own freedom, and less about freedom of speech in general It’s a company. Of course that’s its motive. I’d argue this is true for most people, too. Which is fine. It is incumbent upon those users whose free speech Reddit impinges upon to rectify the situation, but bringing other users to support their cause or setting up a competitor. Either way, this is all orthogonal to the First Amendment concern of this case.

badrabbit 6y ago

How would a decentralized platform be registered? Things are about to get insane when they start banning foreign social media!

nkozyra 6y ago
Which is decentralized? Certainly not Reddit. And it isn't about the "platform" being registered, it's about users: > that require nearly all visa applicants to register their social media handles with the U.S. government and connected policies permitting the retention and dissemination of that information.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Mastodon,activitypub
badrabbit 6y ago
Weird, +2 points and collapsed.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

klmadfejno 6y ago

I've seen many people discuss how this ruling could kill small internet communities. Curious how people would react to simply making a separate class for excessively large websites that are effectively public spaces due to scale and likelihood of frequent encounter.

trashburger 6y ago
Basically this. I run a small moderated community and the repealing of Section 230 would mean I would become responsible for everything my site's users say if I dare to moderate anything beyond illegal content. There needs to be a separation under law of social media giants which permeate every corner of social life and small communities.
- dTal 6y ago
  Serious question - if what your users are saying isn't illegal (because you moderate that away), what's the problem in being "responsible" for it?
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    The problem is that it's not enough anymore to try to moderate away illegal content on a best-effort basis and you're required to be perfect. In the earlier situation, if the moderation misses some violating content and leaves it there, it's still the sole liability of the poster. With the recent changes, if you don't want to be liable for less-than-perfect moderation, the prudent choice seems to be to avoid any moderation at all; you'll leave all the illegal content alone but at least that won't be your liability.
  - belltaco 6y ago
    Illegal is nebulous, there are two aspects to it, criminal and civil. Civil liability is the one that's most in play here, since criminal content like CP or threats of violence are more easily recognizable. Defamation and libel lawsuits can be problematic, and you can be sued by celebrities and politicians for defamation. Even if you win it, the lawyer fees, and the inconvenience of dealing with the courts etc. isn't worth it at all.

usr1106 6y ago

Media registration is clearly an argument for me not to travel to the US. What an orwellian, totalitarian country. Or should I say xenophobic, because it affects only foreigners? I visited the US dozens of times for work and conferences. But it has heen decreasing steadily with only 3 visits since 9/11. There might be no future one at all, particularly not under the current administration.

moduspol 6y ago
This might be a little hyperbolic.
- phyrex 6y ago
  Care to explain why? There's riots in the streets because of police brutality, browser history can now be requested by law enforcement without a warrant, .. i mean OP has a point?
  - moduspol 6y ago
    > There might be no future one at all, particularly not under the current administration. If "browser history" is even on your radar when responding to a claim like this, things may not be as bad as you think they are.
    - scrollaway 6y ago
      If "browser history" is already off your radar when responding to a claim like this, you're beyond saving. What is it with this absurd need to defend how poorly your country is doing by essentially saying "hey at least we're not North Korea!"? Get your head out of the clouds here: Your country elected an atrocious president, who, with both some poor timing and some atrociously bad decision-making got handed a platter of crises that are completely beyond the capabilities of his administration. Now, as a direct result, your country is more divided than it has ever been in recent history. People are rioting while a pandemic is happening. Civilians are being shot, journalists are being arrested, and you're here, pretending everything is fine because you're not literally starving in a prison right now. Like, what? You want to wait&see even longer until this fully develops or you want to start fixing? Let that sink in: The people who say "it could be worse" are part of the problem.

nojito 6y ago

Ah yes...two websites that do not and will never become profitable. I hope everyone realizes that this was never about free speech and everything about cost avoidance.

marcinzm 6y ago
Twitter has been profitable or neutral for over a year now. It's a public company, you can Google their finances.

fareesh 6y ago

The newspaper and news channel can be held liable for what they publish. If social media companies want to editorialize the content that users are seeing then they are no longer a platform, and they should play by the same rules as the newspapers and news channels. They could always choose not to do that and allow users to post whatever they like, within the bounds of the law. Again, this only came up because Twitter is taking an active role in the election process. The election process is adversarial. There is already someone on Twitter who can hold a candidate accountable - their opponent. Twitter can just pin Joe Biden's reply and fact check below any Trump tweet and vice versa. Instead they have chosen to insert a platform specific feature to qualify what someone else is publishing. Their insertion is not accountable to anyone, and as such can be constituted as a canonical truth. If they apply their insertions selectively, then they are basically manipulating the audience. If this is allowed then you no longer have a democracy. The social media platform will just pick your winner.

mikro2nd 6y ago
False argument. News organisations exercise editorial, budgetary and managerial control over the reporters they hire to investigate and write the news they report. There is a tradition/expectation (sadly in very poor condition in these times, better/worse for some media organisations) of fact-checking before publication, with editor oversight of that investigative process. This is not, and can not be the case for social-media platforms. Drawing any equivalency between the two is simply bogus.

paulgb 6y ago

It seems like 90% of the comments here didn't read the article and think it has to do with section 230, which Twitter is also in the news for right now. Regardless of how you feel about their moderation policies, if you care about free speech you should at least be on their side with this one. Requesting social media handles from visa applicants does chill speech. As a visa holder, I've thought long and hard over whether I should post political comments or photos from protests on social media. If you truly care about free speech, be consistent and care about that too.

ur-whale 6y ago
> As a visa holder, I've thought long and hard over whether I should post political comments or photos from protests on social media. You should consider using Tor. It was first and foremost designed for this very purpose.
- paranoidrobot 6y ago
  Using Tor doesn't really change much. You are still left with a choice: a - give up your details when required to do so by the government. b - lie on a government form and/or to a government official If you choose b, then at any point in the future it's discovered that you did lie, then this can make life very very difficult. Not only can your Visa be cancelled, it can mean you're never again able to visit the US. It means uprooting your entire life to return to the country you were born in. There's been plenty of stories, some posted here, where this has happened to someone who either through a mistake, or even no fault of their own - has ended up in hot water and their Visa withdrawn. Using Tor and successfully remaining truly anonymous are non-trivial things, and endangering your livelihood and ability to remain in the US is a large risk. This ignores the genuine possibility of prosecution for making false statements and/or lying to a government official.
- billme 6y ago
  At the point your threat model includes nation states of note — in my opinion, any recommendation of Tor should acknowledge why Tor would not increase threats instead of reducing them.

alexmingoia 6y ago

Good. The entire visa system is unconstitutional and a violation of human rights. Anything that curtails it is a victory for freedom.

nine_k 6y ago
What articles of the Constitution does the visa system contradict?
- 7leafer 6y ago
  Human rights are not the constitution.
  - alexmingoia 6y ago
    I know. What’s also not in the constitution: Power to restrict the movement and work of foreigners.
- alexmingoia 6y ago
  The 10th amendment. Nowhere in the constitution is the Federal government granted power to restrict non-citizens from movement or employment. The constitution only delegates to the Federal government the power to determine rules for naturalization. You might find useful this overview of the unconstitutionality of Federal immigration restrictions: https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/12/13/the-constitutional-solution-to-immigration/ https://tenthamendmentcenter.com/2017/12/13/the-constitution...
  - gpm 6y ago
    Wouldn't visas be interstate commerce?
    - alexmingoia 6y ago
      No. A non-citizen moving from one place to another isn’t commerce among the states. A non-citizen working at a restaurant is also not commerce among the states. The purpose of the interstate commerce clause was to prevent states from enacting tariffs or banning goods from other states or nations. There’s plenty of analysis of the origin and intent of the commerce clause online if you’re interested.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

egberts1 6y ago

This is E.O., and not about FCC Section 230. Court case filing is here: https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/CRF_amicus_Knight_v_Trump.pdf https://globalfreedomofexpression.columbia.edu/wp-content/up... It boils down to who has the right to block users. And how to regulate such blocking of online users and by who. That’s the gist of it. What we are seeing by Coolidge-Reagan Foundation is long-tail legal fight to keep the First Amendment from eroding on the Internet.

1cvmask 6y ago

This already exists with rubber stamp FISA courts (a rejection rate of 0.03 percent) for citizens and non-citizens. It is just a difference of degree and scale (the APIization of everything). There are also other workarounds to FISA courts including the “willful“ volunteering of information and tools (or else), using the NSA and their tools, and other foreign “friendly” collaborators like the Five Eyes, or German intelligence etc... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intelligence_Surveillance_Court https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Foreign_Intellig... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Eyes https://www.dw.com/en/report-us-germany-spied-on-countries-for-decades-via-swiss-encryption-firm/a-52344255 https://www.dw.com/en/report-us-germany-spied-on-countries-f... https://www.rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/ https://www.rt.com/usa/qwest-ceo-nsa-jail-604/ Here is some details on historical spying (a much smaller scale because of the smaller digital footprint)for the curious: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee

ciarannolan 6y ago
>a rejection rate of 0.03 percent I agree that this is too low and is a sign of rubber stamp-iness, but what would be the right rejection rate to make you feel more comfortable about the FISA process? Agencies come to the court with what they think is a rock solid case, so it's not entirely outrageous that the court would have a very high approval rate. See other similar stats like the conviction rate by federal prosecutors (93%+), where they only drag a defendant into court with very good reason.
- DataWorker 6y ago
  The conviction rate is a great example. “Very good reason” like Aaron Swartz trying to share scientific literature with the public?
  - albntomat0 6y ago
    The word choice "very good reason" in the parent comment isn't in regards to anyone's view of the ethics of a particular case. A different way of phrasing the parent comment would be prosecutors only pursue cases that they think are winnable, given the evidence available.

mfer 6y ago

This shows a double sided approach to the services like Twitter and Reddit. The social media companies argue they are not common spaces where free speech is required. This way they can moderate as they choose. It serves them. But, they also argue that visa applicants sharing their social media details chills first amendment free speech. The social media companies are inconsistent here and it appears they are looking out for their best financial interests.

anewdirection 6y ago
Bingo. This exemplifies why the current situation, however you feel about it, is untennable from both sides of the issue.
- amerine 6y ago
  Exemplifies what exactly?
nightcracker 6y ago
No it's not inconsistent. You simply do not understand. The first amendment protects you from censorship by the government: > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. The social media companies argue they are not common spaces so they can maintain 'jurisdiction' over their own sites. This isn't related to the first amendment at all, as they are not a government entity. Being asked to share social media does chill first amendment free speech, because it's the government that gets to see everything you do and say online and thus there is an incentive to self-censor in fear of later retaliation. The whole point of the first amendment isn't that you can say anything you want at any time anywhere, it's that you don't have to fear retaliation from the government. But let's assume that your issue is with 'free speech' online in general, not just in the context of the first amendment. Then there is still a huge difference between the two. If, say, Reddit censors the speech you wish to spread, you don't suffer any consequences beyond being unable to use Reddit as your platform. You're free to use any other social media to spread your message. If the government requests all social media accounts your speech is chilled everywhere, effectively censoring you, the person.

7leafer 6y ago

So if I don't have any accounts in sociopathological networks, will the morons deny my visa? What a br.., I mean, a cowardly new world!

kube-system 6y ago
> Visa applicants who have never used social media will not be refused on the basis of failing to provide a social media identifier, and the form does allow the applicant to respond with "None." https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vetting/CA%20-%20FAQs%20on%20Social%20Media%20Collection%20-%206-4-2019%20(v.2).pdf https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Enhanced%20Vettin...
- grishka 6y ago
  So if you do respond with "none", how would they know you do actually have social media accounts?
  - gpm 6y ago
    Chances are they wouldn't (if you were reasonably cautious with, e.g., your phone). But if they find out you don't later they can throw you in jail and deport you. Lying to federal officers while getting a visa over something as innocuous as a social media account really doesn't seem to be worth it under basically any circumstances.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    I have no idea what they actually do, but I'm guessing they could simply search for the accounts, or ask other people you know.
- BeetleB 6y ago
  They also say the same thing when they ask if you are part of a terrorist group.
  - kube-system 6y ago

Marsymars 6y ago

If I'm ever required to provide social media handles when entering the USA, I'll be deleting any relevant social media accounts.

dntbnmpls 6y ago
Just because you "delete" the accounts doesn't necessarily mean they are deleted. The social media companies most likely just set the flag in the "deleted" column. Not only that, it's almost a certainty that some government entity is vacuuming all the social media data anyways. So even if you delete it, the government would still have your social media data. If people you know visit the US and they hand over their social media info, then your interaction with these people will be visible to the government. Social media is a very insidious beast. Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags.
- Marsymars 6y ago
  My goal isn't to make it impossible for the US government to get the information I've already given to social media companies - it's to do my part to remove the incentive for the US government to ask for social media details in the first place. If everyone outside of the USA had the same policy, it would devastate American social media companies, and cause the government policy to be entirely counterproductive. By not closing my social media accounts, I'd be complicit in incentivizing the government to ask for their details. > Also, suddenly deleting a bunch of social media accounts before traveling to the US would probably raise some red flags. I'd delete my social media accounts as soon as the policy is changed, which is likely to be months or years prior to my next visit to the US.
cbhl 6y ago
The current rules for immigrants require "any account names ... over the previous five years" so an immigrant could be denied entry for failing to provide the account name for a deleted account.
- verganileonardo 6y ago

null0pointer 6y ago

I hadn't heard about this law. Seems it came into effect after I last filed a DS-160 in June 2019. Can anyone provide a reasonable justification for any non-nefarious reason for requiring the social media handles of all visa applicants? It seems pointless at best. Downright evil at worst.

CobrastanJorji 6y ago
You might be Facebook friends with someone linked to terrorism, or you might have Liked posts from terrorism-linked groups. Or maybe there's a specific person who the government suspects has recently joined on with some terrorist cell, and if you're their Facebook friend, that is likely fairly interesting to some investigators. I don't expect that this sort of question catches a lot of serious terrorists, but if they don't ask, you come blow something up, and you did have such immediately discoverable information on social media, it'd be really bad press for the folks who are supposed to stop that sort of thing. I don't think it's a particularly controversial statement that lots of extra information about who you know and what your interests are would be at least a mildly useful signal for determining if you're a threat, but I doubt it's worth the intrusion and the risk of more nefarious uses.