6 ms·

We're getting onto our own slippery territory here. If I let someone into my living room, and that person makes political statements I don't like, I'm free to

by csense 6y ago

We're getting onto our own slippery territory here. If I let someone into my living room, and that person makes political statements I don't like, I'm free to ask them to leave and not come back, or tell other people in my living room that I think the statements are factually incorrect. If Facebook lets someone onto their website, and that person makes political statements Facebook doesn't like, why can't Facebook ask them to leave and not come back, or tell other people on Facebook that Facebook thinks the statements are factually incorrect? Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook?

ramblerman 6y ago
> Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook? Unless you have 22% of the worlds population passing through your living room this is a pretty poor analogy. Maybe the town square is more apt.
- TallGuyShort 6y ago
  Everyone has more of a right to a public space (like a town square) than a private living room or a private website (hadn't occurred to me that being publicly traded may have implications actually). As I've written in another recent comment, the problem is when Facebook or other networks become quasi-official sources for public communication. If the primary means that the government thinks I will find out about public health orders, mandatory business shutdowns, etc. becomes social media, I'm very concerned about the messy mix that "public space" and "private space" that Facebook will become.
  - DougN7 6y ago
    I fear social media IS the primary place that a lot of people get their news. That is a huge problem because of all the propaganda, fake news, knee jerk reactions and everything else that is spread there.
    - TallGuyShort 6y ago
      Agreed - I think it's a distinct problem, though. Crowdsourcing news where the crowd is ignorant and uneducated is harder to fix than what I'm getting at, because the only ethical way to do it is to convince people en masse to be better about identifying credible sources and thinking critically. But I'm actually more concerned about a state where overnight the government can ban normal day-to-day activities, and if you're on a 30 day ban from Facebook you don't know about it until they're arresting people for surfing. Or, in my town's case, where they've stopped notifying residents of construction-related closures with written notice to each house days ahead of time, and have just started putting it on NextDoor.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- whoopdedo 6y ago
  The correct analogy would be if someone is standing in the Walmart parking lot. And last I checked U.S. law permits Walmart to tell them to leave.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - banads 6y ago
    Are there any other non-corporate "parking lots" with anywhere close to the same network effects?
    - quicklime 6y ago
      Not a parking lot, but a lot of suburban communities are built around large shopping malls, operated by companies like Westfield. It’s not exactly conducive to protests, as the malls are private property and there’s no significant pedestrian traffic anywhere else.
      - HarryHirsch 6y ago
        Such arrangements are not conducive to the political process, and that should worry everyone. If something can be used against someone it can also be used against you.
      - banads 6y ago
        by putting "parking lots" in quotations, I was meaning to ask for the alternative digital equivalent to major platforms like FB and Twitter.
        closetohome 6y ago
        If we're continuing the parking lot analogy, it's like there's an almost unending grid of parking lot after parking lot, and you can travel to any of them instantaneously and for free. Some parking lots have a lot of people, so you'd rather go there if you want to be heard, but nothing is stopping you from setting up shop in an empty lot, and nothing is stopping people from visiting your lot. Now, given that major social network advertise pretty much everywhere, this might not be an entirely fair analogy. Some parking lots have ads for them posted in every other parking lot. But it's a point worth making that access is relatively egalitarian on the internet.
- Verdex 6y ago
  I feel your point here is important. Facebook has a lot of power. To the point where I feel they owe the public more than they would if they were a small entity with a narrow reach. There are two principles here: 1) it's a problem if you have enough power to force the weak to cover the expenses of your failures and 2) if you have a lot of power you also have the ability to defend yourself from assholes and malicious actors. So, for point 1, if facebook decides that they want to dump trash into residential areas, they could silence everyone on facebook who complains. They could also call up their friends at twitter et al and convince them to do the same in exchange for whatever massive corporations like these days. Because of this possibility, I want facebook's freedom to curtail freedom of speech on their private platform to be extremely limited. For point 2, if facebook becomes inundated with assholes or (heaven forbid) malicious trolls who make relentless fun of the font that facebook uses for posts and every post that everyone sees is just complaints about fonts, then facebook has the capability to create a special asshole facebook website and marketing campaign to convince the assholes to go somewhere else. They have the ability to switch out the font. They can fund research into powerful AI techniques that can group all the font complaints together so that only people who want to see that crap will see that and everyone else can have a good experience. Because of facebook's ability to deal with malicious (or social incompetence that is indistinguishable from) behavior, I want facebook's freedom to curtail freedom of speech on their private platform to be extremely limited. On the other hand, if we're talking about an individual (or otherwise small and powerless organization) running a personal blog (or your living room), they have extremely limited ability to force other people to deal with their platform. And they also have extremely limited ability to deal with malicious behavior if they didn't otherwise have the right to curtail freedom of speech. In these cases, I want them to have greater rights because the likelihood of them being able to use these rights to oppress others is minimal AND their necessity of them needing them to defend themselves is greater.
air7 6y ago
It would be more like if another guest demand that you ask that person to leave because they didn't agree with the comment.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> I'm free to ask them to leave and not come back And you're free to not ask them to leave, also... which is what we're arguing Facebook should be.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  If you’re arguing that they shouldn’t do something, that’s different from arguing that they can’t do something. I’m a free speech advocate, but the First Amendment does not apply to private corporations except in very rare circumstances.
jariel 6y ago
First, the rules are different in commerce than they are for private property. Second, some entities are so big they constitute a public good, even if they are not recognized as such. If Google Search started to openly promote one side of politics and not the other, the regulations would hit hare and fast. Third, this idea of 'populism' is a little warped. People agree or disagree with the nature of the protests to varying extent. Don't assume that the press and those writing letters to FB, or definitely FB employees themselves, are in any way representative of anything. Fourth, it's in the company's interest to try to remain 'neutral in whatever terms that might mean. Finally - it's in everyone's interest for said platforms to have consistent, objectively applied, and hopefully independently monitored criteria and operations for managing what they take down and not. Zuck should not be involved in any of the day to day operations, and should not be commenting on any specific situation or post.
anoncake 6y ago
> Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook? Far from both your living room and Facebook so its exact location is merely of theoretical interest here.

by csense 6y ago

ramblerman 6y ago

> Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook? Unless you have 22% of the worlds population passing through your living room this is a pretty poor analogy. Maybe the town square is more apt.

TallGuyShort 6y ago
Everyone has more of a right to a public space (like a town square) than a private living room or a private website (hadn't occurred to me that being publicly traded may have implications actually). As I've written in another recent comment, the problem is when Facebook or other networks become quasi-official sources for public communication. If the primary means that the government thinks I will find out about public health orders, mandatory business shutdowns, etc. becomes social media, I'm very concerned about the messy mix that "public space" and "private space" that Facebook will become.
- DougN7 6y ago
  I fear social media IS the primary place that a lot of people get their news. That is a huge problem because of all the propaganda, fake news, knee jerk reactions and everything else that is spread there.
  - TallGuyShort 6y ago
    Agreed - I think it's a distinct problem, though. Crowdsourcing news where the crowd is ignorant and uneducated is harder to fix than what I'm getting at, because the only ethical way to do it is to convince people en masse to be better about identifying credible sources and thinking critically. But I'm actually more concerned about a state where overnight the government can ban normal day-to-day activities, and if you're on a 30 day ban from Facebook you don't know about it until they're arresting people for surfing. Or, in my town's case, where they've stopped notifying residents of construction-related closures with written notice to each house days ahead of time, and have just started putting it on NextDoor.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
whoopdedo 6y ago
The correct analogy would be if someone is standing in the Walmart parking lot. And last I checked U.S. law permits Walmart to tell them to leave.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- banads 6y ago
  Are there any other non-corporate "parking lots" with anywhere close to the same network effects?
  - quicklime 6y ago
    Not a parking lot, but a lot of suburban communities are built around large shopping malls, operated by companies like Westfield. It’s not exactly conducive to protests, as the malls are private property and there’s no significant pedestrian traffic anywhere else.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      Such arrangements are not conducive to the political process, and that should worry everyone. If something can be used against someone it can also be used against you.
    - banads 6y ago
      by putting "parking lots" in quotations, I was meaning to ask for the alternative digital equivalent to major platforms like FB and Twitter.
      - closetohome 6y ago
        If we're continuing the parking lot analogy, it's like there's an almost unending grid of parking lot after parking lot, and you can travel to any of them instantaneously and for free. Some parking lots have a lot of people, so you'd rather go there if you want to be heard, but nothing is stopping you from setting up shop in an empty lot, and nothing is stopping people from visiting your lot. Now, given that major social network advertise pretty much everywhere, this might not be an entirely fair analogy. Some parking lots have ads for them posted in every other parking lot. But it's a point worth making that access is relatively egalitarian on the internet.
Verdex 6y ago
I feel your point here is important. Facebook has a lot of power. To the point where I feel they owe the public more than they would if they were a small entity with a narrow reach. There are two principles here: 1) it's a problem if you have enough power to force the weak to cover the expenses of your failures and 2) if you have a lot of power you also have the ability to defend yourself from assholes and malicious actors. So, for point 1, if facebook decides that they want to dump trash into residential areas, they could silence everyone on facebook who complains. They could also call up their friends at twitter et al and convince them to do the same in exchange for whatever massive corporations like these days. Because of this possibility, I want facebook's freedom to curtail freedom of speech on their private platform to be extremely limited. For point 2, if facebook becomes inundated with assholes or (heaven forbid) malicious trolls who make relentless fun of the font that facebook uses for posts and every post that everyone sees is just complaints about fonts, then facebook has the capability to create a special asshole facebook website and marketing campaign to convince the assholes to go somewhere else. They have the ability to switch out the font. They can fund research into powerful AI techniques that can group all the font complaints together so that only people who want to see that crap will see that and everyone else can have a good experience. Because of facebook's ability to deal with malicious (or social incompetence that is indistinguishable from) behavior, I want facebook's freedom to curtail freedom of speech on their private platform to be extremely limited. On the other hand, if we're talking about an individual (or otherwise small and powerless organization) running a personal blog (or your living room), they have extremely limited ability to force other people to deal with their platform. And they also have extremely limited ability to deal with malicious behavior if they didn't otherwise have the right to curtail freedom of speech. In these cases, I want them to have greater rights because the likelihood of them being able to use these rights to oppress others is minimal AND their necessity of them needing them to defend themselves is greater.

air7 6y ago

It would be more like if another guest demand that you ask that person to leave because they didn't agree with the comment.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> I'm free to ask them to leave and not come back And you're free to not ask them to leave, also... which is what we're arguing Facebook should be.

colejohnson66 6y ago
If you’re arguing that they shouldn’t do something, that’s different from arguing that they can’t do something. I’m a free speech advocate, but the First Amendment does not apply to private corporations except in very rare circumstances.

jariel 6y ago

First, the rules are different in commerce than they are for private property. Second, some entities are so big they constitute a public good, even if they are not recognized as such. If Google Search started to openly promote one side of politics and not the other, the regulations would hit hare and fast. Third, this idea of 'populism' is a little warped. People agree or disagree with the nature of the protests to varying extent. Don't assume that the press and those writing letters to FB, or definitely FB employees themselves, are in any way representative of anything. Fourth, it's in the company's interest to try to remain 'neutral in whatever terms that might mean. Finally - it's in everyone's interest for said platforms to have consistent, objectively applied, and hopefully independently monitored criteria and operations for managing what they take down and not. Zuck should not be involved in any of the day to day operations, and should not be commenting on any specific situation or post.

anoncake 6y ago

> Where do you draw the line between my living room, where I'm free to regulate who my visitors are and what those visitors can say, and Facebook? Far from both your living room and Facebook so its exact location is merely of theoretical interest here.