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"We’re supposed to have a First Amendment right to freedom of the press, but this phenomenon is ruining it." Writer of linked article claims to be a lawyer, bu

"We’re supposed to have a First Amendment right to freedom of the press, but this phenomenon is ruining it." Writer of linked article claims to be a lawyer, but strangely seems unaware that the First Amendment protects speech and the press from the government. No examples of government restricting free expression were given.

waheoo 6y ago
Id say the stance on platforms is stifiling free speech. Private companies should not be able to moderate speech and claim to be a platform. You're either a publisher or your not. If you're a public platform, your users should be protected by public laws. For rhe most part the current state of affairs has worked so far but i would suggest it hasnt for some and is starting to show its weaknesses in a more polarized environment. For the downvoters, this isnt some new opinion of mine because of the talking points from trump, ive had this view since the torrent debates of the early 2000s and other similar situations with people like snowden. If you disagree because with what i have to say, please explain.
- OminousWeapons 6y ago
  Are you implying that if I stand up a small public forum or message board for some niche interest using my own assets that I am unable to boot people off it or moderate in any way without being deemed a publisher and being liable for content?
  - Thorentis 6y ago
    I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and its moderation choices. It is time for us to use some common sense and not just dissolve everything down to that simplistic binary terms. Having a forum doesn't make you a publisher. Moderation isn't always bad. There are many other nuances like reach, scale, trust, etc. For instance, there is a huge difference between me posting disinformation of my private blog, and me publishing disinformation is a newspaper read by hundreds of thousands daily. My responsibility and influence over the public increases with the reach I have. We need to think the same way about social media.
    - darekkay 6y ago
      > I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and its moderation choices Where's the line (aka "Sorites paradox")? And who is making the decision?
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Yes. If you create an open space, you are not allowed to moderate free speech. You are allowed to moderare harmful illegal content, you are allowed to moderate spam, and other service breaking content. But kicking someone off because you dont like what they say is censorship. Are you saying it is not censorship somehow? Note, im perfectly fine with you moderating a private forum, e.g. behind a login wall. But if you use the term "public" for visibility there is probably something wrong with censoring speech. And yes, if you want to curate you are a publisher and are liable for the content. If the laws around what liable means are a problem for the tech world maybe they need cleaning up a bit but i think some form of liability should be placed there anyway. You dont get to shape modern discourse and then get to get off scotfree when everything goes pearshaped.
    - OminousWeapons 6y ago
      If your stance is that people should need to log in to see content in order to have moderation, that's fine. Moderation is absolutely censorship, and I should have every right to censor on a physical or digital platform that I own. If people behave in a manner I don't like in my physical business or on my private property, then I should have the right to remove them. If people behave in a way I don't like on my digital asset, I should have the right to remove them. Their use of my asset is predicated on my consent baring any other contractual details. If they don't like it, they are free to set up their own private enterprises with their own rules of conduct. Saying I am somehow liable for the content that remains is not reasonable. I shouldn't be liable for someone talking shit in my physical business, for a friend saying inflammatory things while in my private residence, for inflammatory conduct on a forum, or any other speech that is not my own unless I myself explicitly endorse that speech (with the exception of illegality that I know about). Me booting off person X while leaving person Y doesn't mean I inherently endorse person Y or agree with them.
      - waheoo 6y ago
        I agree with that stance. And this is where i think the laws might need changing to protect those who are merely providing a private space but do still have to deal with reality. I think potentially we need a third classification to indemnify private spaces of liability. I still believe that public spaces should remain open, nuetral and unmoderated. The world is a scary place, the laws dont line up between countries and weird scary shit will be posted online. Im ok with this. Im ok with the internet being a place to explore our human psychy in its entirety. I dont want it to be a nanny stated corporate friendly chopshop for ideas.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  The First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies, that's about my objection to your point.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. That amendment did not envision state level sized companies taking control of public discourse entirely. Im weary of claiming the constitution needs a fix but at the same time it does have some fixes so its not infallible.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      Who has taken over the entirety of public discourse? Where?!?!
      - waheoo 6y ago
        Facebook advertising essentially stole 2016. You csn try and pull apart the argument on a technicality or you can read it with honest intent and go from there.
- schoen 6y ago
  This issue has come up a lot but I think a lot of people don't quite know the history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#Background_and_passage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... In particular, this either-or positioning was potentially the law prior to 1996 (following court decisions at that time). But legislators were concerned about what I've just heard Berin Szoka call "the Moderator's Dilemma", so they wanted to remove that obligation in order to avoid creating an incentive to never moderate anything. At the time, it seems that they felt that we could have a wide range of platforms and forums with a wide range of moderation and editorial positions. Or even a wide range of forums within a platform with different moderation and editorial positions, like Reddit and the subreddits. It doesn't seem like that's held up super-duper well in various ways, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation or aspiration to me. I would particularly like to push back on the idea that it's somehow obvious that everyone should once again experience this Moderator's Dilemma and have to choose between absolute neutrality and content liability, or that recreating this dilemma in its pre-1996 form is a good way to deal with editorial bias or with the impact of activist pressures on popular platforms.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Thanks for the background, i think its invaluable. I dont think its obvious. Reverting back to the Moderators dilemma would put the onus of liability back on police and the law where these things csn be dealt with properly and fairly (so far as the legal system is our definition of fair.) Since we can both submit to the fact that neither the moderators dilemma nor what we have today is very ideal, what would you suggest? Fwiw my contention is likely that I simply think that falling back on the extreme that is the dilemma is the only option that actually has some consistency to it. I do not however ignore the fact that it comes at great cost. I guess im just willing to bear those costs more than the next guy. Further disclosure, i think information wants to be free and that anything that prevents me from sharing 1's and 0's (whatever they form) along the pipes i pay for is problematic.
    - schoen 6y ago
      > Since we can both submit to the fact that neither the moderators dilemma nor what we have today is very ideal, what would you suggest? That's a great question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer to it. > Fwiw my contention is likely that I simply think that falling back on the extreme that is the dilemma is the only option that actually has some consistency to it. I do not however ignore the fact that it comes at great cost. I guess im just willing to bear those costs more than the next guy. I can appreciate that too.
- jsjohnst 6y ago
  > Id say the stance on platforms is stifiling free speech. This was a point I tried to make when censoring extreme views / hate speech first started being a thing. While I’m vehemently opposed to said content, it’s a slippery slope once you start censoring. Everyone has their own opinions on what’s “bad content”, and while there is a lot of overlap in society, it doesn’t stay constant over time. I wish instead we’d form together as an industry and appropriately tag so you can then filter the web to your preferences. Sadly doubtful that approach would work in reality though.
  - loopz 6y ago
    An ML approach and autotagging might actually work: Let the user decide!
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- eertami 6y ago
  Much like you can stand in a public park and say whatever you want, you can host your own website and post whatever you want. You can't however, walk into say a Burger King and not expect to get thrown out if you start making extreme statements. The problem you've identified is social media platforms having power over public discourse. However I disagree that forcing website owners to host whatever their users want to say is a way to solve that. The real solution in my mind is for people to turn away from social media. In other words, social media itself is the problem. Not the fact that social media inhibits free speech.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    While this is about free speech, its more specifically about whether you can class social media as a platform or a publisher. Publishers are liable. Platforms are not. I simply want social media to get off the fence. Because right now they sre misleading the public, telling them they can post whatever they want, and then flipping on them when it suits. Nobody will turn away from social media until this is clear and understood. If you defined facebook as a publisher, you will see a replacement valuing openness rise up within days. Which would win is hard to say. Maybe people like being sheep. But at least this way they know what they are.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      This is legally speaking, nonsense. Us law doesn't differentiate between publishers and platforms with regard to content liability. Everyone is liable for first party content, but not for third party content.
      - esyir 6y ago
        The point of messing with section 230 is to undo that. Basically, it's the first party starts curating the third party, they're now "publishing" that
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  This entirely fictional platform/publisher distinction makes absolutely no sense. Why should someone's attempt to remedy a specific ill they happen to notice (say, delete illegal porn your users posted) create an obligation to assume all liability for all content? If I help an accident victim once, am I responsible for helping every accident victim? Why?
  - waheoo 6y ago
    No it doesnt create an obligation. The obligation is coming from acting as a platform, a nuetral ground where people can share information. The second you step in and curate or moderate you cross the line into being a publisher. There is more discussion about the moderators dillema above.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      That doesn't mean anything. Facebook doesn't claim to be neither "platform" or "neutral ground" or "publisher", anywhere. There is no law making that distinction. It's entirely in your head! It's a website. You may post. They may delete. You may leave. If just one of their billions of users writes something bad about billionaire <y>, who then sues in a UK court and gets a Gawker-like verdict, Facebook suddenly owes them a a few million of whatever the local currency is. Repeat for every single mistake of their team of moderators, and they are done for within 20 minutes. And so are Youtube, HN, and Google. No moderation would lead to 4chan. Or, really, worse. Because even the chans all moderate to some degree, as far as I can tell. This would also be the end of any platform as we know it, obviously. Therefore, you either don't even understand what you are arguing for. Or you somehow enjoy the idea of every single online community degrading to a constant stream of snuff videos and swastikas.
    - TheOperator 6y ago
      I've done some moderation in the past. Of the posts actually written by humans maybe 1% got removed for not following the stated rules. Does removing 1% of posts that somebody else makes, make me a "publisher"? Seems a bit rediculous to me.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  > Private companies should not be able to moderate speech and claim to be a platform. Basically any site with user generated content exists because the sites have been able to moderate their own content without having to assume liability for the content they do allow. Several places have tried the full unmoderated thing and it seems to always devolve into shit as 'trolls' and edgy humor degrades into plain bigotry as People who don't like the edgy/extreme content leave and the remaining group becomes more and more extreme. There's no way real to do forums, social media, or sites like medium or blogs without companies being able to host content without being liable for the content they're hosting that doesn't break the law.
  - waheoo 6y ago
    Right, and as we have seen there is no way for sites like medium or facebook to operate without falling down to censorship of expression. Maybe they shouldnt be allowed to operate? Maybe this is why we cant have nice things. Maybe, we need to come up with some other platform type where moderation is by the people for the people. Regarding what we have now, its a dictatorship.
    - JAlexoid 6y ago
      GAB, Parler and Diaspora - all still exist. You're not going to see me there, though. Because "by the people" is always a complete shitshow.
    - themacguffinman 6y ago
      Moderation by the people for the people is exactly what we have now. You think Medium or Facebook want to put so much effort into moderation? Their moderation is merely a reflection of what most people want, and when it strays, they are punished and shamed by the masses. Journalists, advertisers, and users start yelling at you for allowing [insert unpopular group here] to mingle with the rest of them. Ironically you'd likely need a more dictatorial platform to avoid censorship. You'd need a strong dictator to resist the censorship demands of the people. What we have now is a tyranny of the majority.
  - rj4deu3hhrhrh 6y ago
- aeternum 6y ago
  I don't think that forcing these platforms to choose to be publishers or not publishers will have the desired effect. Some will choose to be publishers, increase moderation, and also increase censorship and bias. If we introduce liability, they will be forced to remove even more content. Platforms would gain even more control over the content that users see. Some will choose not to be publishers. We all know how bad the internet can get without moderation. I don't see how this would even be feasible with spam and illegal files/content. Neither of these distinctions address the true source of power and influence for these platforms: the visibility algorithm. This is what has the power to decide elections. A platform might agree to never delete a Biden or Trump tweet/post, but what really matters is the number of users that actually see it, the relative placement in the almighty feed. And that is 100% up to the platform.
Thorentis 6y ago
Oh look, another response to "we want to express ourselves without losing our jobs" of "have you actually read the first amendment?". I see this response on HN almost daily now. For the millionth time: PC culture goes beyond the constitution's definition of freedom of speech. This is a cultural discussion. This is a discussion about how much power we have given to private companies (like social media giants and media production companies) over our lives. I don't care that the first amendment protects me from government censorship, if my livelihood, the reputation of me and my family, and my future job prospects, can all be destroyed in an instant because of some outrage mob on Twitter. Why are people apologising because a few people on Twitter told them to? Why are people being fired because they made a tweet that wasn't supportive enough (or supportive in the right way) of the "correct" social causes? Call it freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to have an opinion. Whatever. But don't try and avoid the problem by pointing to the constitution as if that suddenly makes this all okay because "at least it's not the government".
- nefitty 6y ago
  Wait, so you want to limit other people’s free speech so that you can avoid the consequences of your own speech?
- Miner49er 6y ago
  Sure, if you're complaining that cooperations have too much power, I agree. The problem is, most people that argue against PC culture are pro-capitalist conservatives. This women said she's a registered Libertarian. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want private property, but they don't want businesses to decide how they do business?
  - loopz 6y ago
    Problem is people don't eat their own dog food. Rules are good, for others, and for US to break!
  - aranelsurion 6y ago
    I don't see how these two things can be mutually exclusive. One can argue for protecting legal rights around private property, yet express their personal disdain about the way that property is currently being used. I might not like how, say, Reddit moderates their platform, and openly express it, and even call for action on building better|decentralized|whatever platforms, yet I might also be ultimately in favor of protecting Reddit's legal right to do with their platform as they please. It's a nuance, not a contradiction.
WillPostForFood 6y ago
That's like the worst Republican kind of excuse. Privatize speech to handful of giant corporations, and let them control it while avoiding any direct constitutional issues. It should be as offensive as private prisons. We aren't depriving you of your due process rights, just selling your prison sentence to the highest bidder.
stjohnswarts 6y ago
Yes but as a nation can't we understand that it's a general principal? All this cancel culture is ridiculous? Obviously there are limits but it's gotten absolutely ridiculous. At least two generations now equate yelling louder on social media as being the same as having a real reason that you're right and they consider debate a relic of the past.
arkades 6y ago
Free Speech - of the general variety - has long been considered an American value. Idiomatically it has been broader than protection from government censorship. If your rebuttal to someone is to ignore widely-known idiom to focus on a particular detail that does nothing to undermine their actual point, please reconsider whether that was really a contribution worth making.
chrischattin 6y ago
I've thought about this quite a bit recently and have come to the conclusion that free speech, broadly speaking, is way more than a constitutional amendment protecting us from government persecution. That's a last resort protection. Free speech is an ethic, an ideology, a deep part of our culture as Americans and essential to western enlightenment. It's a human right. You don't have to agree with someone to think it's wrong to censor them. Corollary, you don't take away someone's human rights because they have an opinion you think is reprehensible. History has a pretty damning record of what happens when societies allow silencing of undesirable voices.
dgudkov 6y ago
And who is the government of the internet?

waheoo 6y ago

Id say the stance on platforms is stifiling free speech. Private companies should not be able to moderate speech and claim to be a platform. You're either a publisher or your not. If you're a public platform, your users should be protected by public laws. For rhe most part the current state of affairs has worked so far but i would suggest it hasnt for some and is starting to show its weaknesses in a more polarized environment. For the downvoters, this isnt some new opinion of mine because of the talking points from trump, ive had this view since the torrent debates of the early 2000s and other similar situations with people like snowden. If you disagree because with what i have to say, please explain.

OminousWeapons 6y ago
Are you implying that if I stand up a small public forum or message board for some niche interest using my own assets that I am unable to boot people off it or moderate in any way without being deemed a publisher and being liable for content?
- Thorentis 6y ago
  I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and its moderation choices. It is time for us to use some common sense and not just dissolve everything down to that simplistic binary terms. Having a forum doesn't make you a publisher. Moderation isn't always bad. There are many other nuances like reach, scale, trust, etc. For instance, there is a huge difference between me posting disinformation of my private blog, and me publishing disinformation is a newspaper read by hundreds of thousands daily. My responsibility and influence over the public increases with the reach I have. We need to think the same way about social media.
  - darekkay 6y ago
    > I think it is about scale. If you stand up a public forum and you have 100 users, do your moderation choices actually sway a large percentage of public opinion? Consider instead a social media platform with a billion users and its moderation choices Where's the line (aka "Sorites paradox")? And who is making the decision?
- waheoo 6y ago
  Yes. If you create an open space, you are not allowed to moderate free speech. You are allowed to moderare harmful illegal content, you are allowed to moderate spam, and other service breaking content. But kicking someone off because you dont like what they say is censorship. Are you saying it is not censorship somehow? Note, im perfectly fine with you moderating a private forum, e.g. behind a login wall. But if you use the term "public" for visibility there is probably something wrong with censoring speech. And yes, if you want to curate you are a publisher and are liable for the content. If the laws around what liable means are a problem for the tech world maybe they need cleaning up a bit but i think some form of liability should be placed there anyway. You dont get to shape modern discourse and then get to get off scotfree when everything goes pearshaped.
  - OminousWeapons 6y ago
    If your stance is that people should need to log in to see content in order to have moderation, that's fine. Moderation is absolutely censorship, and I should have every right to censor on a physical or digital platform that I own. If people behave in a manner I don't like in my physical business or on my private property, then I should have the right to remove them. If people behave in a way I don't like on my digital asset, I should have the right to remove them. Their use of my asset is predicated on my consent baring any other contractual details. If they don't like it, they are free to set up their own private enterprises with their own rules of conduct. Saying I am somehow liable for the content that remains is not reasonable. I shouldn't be liable for someone talking shit in my physical business, for a friend saying inflammatory things while in my private residence, for inflammatory conduct on a forum, or any other speech that is not my own unless I myself explicitly endorse that speech (with the exception of illegality that I know about). Me booting off person X while leaving person Y doesn't mean I inherently endorse person Y or agree with them.
    - waheoo 6y ago
      I agree with that stance. And this is where i think the laws might need changing to protect those who are merely providing a private space but do still have to deal with reality. I think potentially we need a third classification to indemnify private spaces of liability. I still believe that public spaces should remain open, nuetral and unmoderated. The world is a scary place, the laws dont line up between countries and weird scary shit will be posted online. Im ok with this. Im ok with the internet being a place to explore our human psychy in its entirety. I dont want it to be a nanny stated corporate friendly chopshop for ideas.
EdwardDiego 6y ago
The First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies, that's about my objection to your point.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right. That amendment did not envision state level sized companies taking control of public discourse entirely. Im weary of claiming the constitution needs a fix but at the same time it does have some fixes so its not infallible.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    Who has taken over the entirety of public discourse? Where?!?!
    - waheoo 6y ago
      Facebook advertising essentially stole 2016. You csn try and pull apart the argument on a technicality or you can read it with honest intent and go from there.
schoen 6y ago
This issue has come up a lot but I think a lot of people don't quite know the history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#Background_and_passage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... In particular, this either-or positioning was potentially the law prior to 1996 (following court decisions at that time). But legislators were concerned about what I've just heard Berin Szoka call "the Moderator's Dilemma", so they wanted to remove that obligation in order to avoid creating an incentive to never moderate anything. At the time, it seems that they felt that we could have a wide range of platforms and forums with a wide range of moderation and editorial positions. Or even a wide range of forums within a platform with different moderation and editorial positions, like Reddit and the subreddits. It doesn't seem like that's held up super-duper well in various ways, but it doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation or aspiration to me. I would particularly like to push back on the idea that it's somehow obvious that everyone should once again experience this Moderator's Dilemma and have to choose between absolute neutrality and content liability, or that recreating this dilemma in its pre-1996 form is a good way to deal with editorial bias or with the impact of activist pressures on popular platforms.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Thanks for the background, i think its invaluable. I dont think its obvious. Reverting back to the Moderators dilemma would put the onus of liability back on police and the law where these things csn be dealt with properly and fairly (so far as the legal system is our definition of fair.) Since we can both submit to the fact that neither the moderators dilemma nor what we have today is very ideal, what would you suggest? Fwiw my contention is likely that I simply think that falling back on the extreme that is the dilemma is the only option that actually has some consistency to it. I do not however ignore the fact that it comes at great cost. I guess im just willing to bear those costs more than the next guy. Further disclosure, i think information wants to be free and that anything that prevents me from sharing 1's and 0's (whatever they form) along the pipes i pay for is problematic.
  - schoen 6y ago
    > Since we can both submit to the fact that neither the moderators dilemma nor what we have today is very ideal, what would you suggest? That's a great question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer to it. > Fwiw my contention is likely that I simply think that falling back on the extreme that is the dilemma is the only option that actually has some consistency to it. I do not however ignore the fact that it comes at great cost. I guess im just willing to bear those costs more than the next guy. I can appreciate that too.
jsjohnst 6y ago
> Id say the stance on platforms is stifiling free speech. This was a point I tried to make when censoring extreme views / hate speech first started being a thing. While I’m vehemently opposed to said content, it’s a slippery slope once you start censoring. Everyone has their own opinions on what’s “bad content”, and while there is a lot of overlap in society, it doesn’t stay constant over time. I wish instead we’d form together as an industry and appropriately tag so you can then filter the web to your preferences. Sadly doubtful that approach would work in reality though.
- loopz 6y ago
  An ML approach and autotagging might actually work: Let the user decide!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
eertami 6y ago
Much like you can stand in a public park and say whatever you want, you can host your own website and post whatever you want. You can't however, walk into say a Burger King and not expect to get thrown out if you start making extreme statements. The problem you've identified is social media platforms having power over public discourse. However I disagree that forcing website owners to host whatever their users want to say is a way to solve that. The real solution in my mind is for people to turn away from social media. In other words, social media itself is the problem. Not the fact that social media inhibits free speech.
- waheoo 6y ago
  While this is about free speech, its more specifically about whether you can class social media as a platform or a publisher. Publishers are liable. Platforms are not. I simply want social media to get off the fence. Because right now they sre misleading the public, telling them they can post whatever they want, and then flipping on them when it suits. Nobody will turn away from social media until this is clear and understood. If you defined facebook as a publisher, you will see a replacement valuing openness rise up within days. Which would win is hard to say. Maybe people like being sheep. But at least this way they know what they are.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    This is legally speaking, nonsense. Us law doesn't differentiate between publishers and platforms with regard to content liability. Everyone is liable for first party content, but not for third party content.
    - esyir 6y ago
      The point of messing with section 230 is to undo that. Basically, it's the first party starts curating the third party, they're now "publishing" that
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
This entirely fictional platform/publisher distinction makes absolutely no sense. Why should someone's attempt to remedy a specific ill they happen to notice (say, delete illegal porn your users posted) create an obligation to assume all liability for all content? If I help an accident victim once, am I responsible for helping every accident victim? Why?
- waheoo 6y ago
  No it doesnt create an obligation. The obligation is coming from acting as a platform, a nuetral ground where people can share information. The second you step in and curate or moderate you cross the line into being a publisher. There is more discussion about the moderators dillema above.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    That doesn't mean anything. Facebook doesn't claim to be neither "platform" or "neutral ground" or "publisher", anywhere. There is no law making that distinction. It's entirely in your head! It's a website. You may post. They may delete. You may leave. If just one of their billions of users writes something bad about billionaire <y>, who then sues in a UK court and gets a Gawker-like verdict, Facebook suddenly owes them a a few million of whatever the local currency is. Repeat for every single mistake of their team of moderators, and they are done for within 20 minutes. And so are Youtube, HN, and Google. No moderation would lead to 4chan. Or, really, worse. Because even the chans all moderate to some degree, as far as I can tell. This would also be the end of any platform as we know it, obviously. Therefore, you either don't even understand what you are arguing for. Or you somehow enjoy the idea of every single online community degrading to a constant stream of snuff videos and swastikas.
  - TheOperator 6y ago
    I've done some moderation in the past. Of the posts actually written by humans maybe 1% got removed for not following the stated rules. Does removing 1% of posts that somebody else makes, make me a "publisher"? Seems a bit rediculous to me.
rtkwe 6y ago
> Private companies should not be able to moderate speech and claim to be a platform. Basically any site with user generated content exists because the sites have been able to moderate their own content without having to assume liability for the content they do allow. Several places have tried the full unmoderated thing and it seems to always devolve into shit as 'trolls' and edgy humor degrades into plain bigotry as People who don't like the edgy/extreme content leave and the remaining group becomes more and more extreme. There's no way real to do forums, social media, or sites like medium or blogs without companies being able to host content without being liable for the content they're hosting that doesn't break the law.
- waheoo 6y ago
  Right, and as we have seen there is no way for sites like medium or facebook to operate without falling down to censorship of expression. Maybe they shouldnt be allowed to operate? Maybe this is why we cant have nice things. Maybe, we need to come up with some other platform type where moderation is by the people for the people. Regarding what we have now, its a dictatorship.
  - JAlexoid 6y ago
    GAB, Parler and Diaspora - all still exist. You're not going to see me there, though. Because "by the people" is always a complete shitshow.
  - themacguffinman 6y ago
    Moderation by the people for the people is exactly what we have now. You think Medium or Facebook want to put so much effort into moderation? Their moderation is merely a reflection of what most people want, and when it strays, they are punished and shamed by the masses. Journalists, advertisers, and users start yelling at you for allowing [insert unpopular group here] to mingle with the rest of them. Ironically you'd likely need a more dictatorial platform to avoid censorship. You'd need a strong dictator to resist the censorship demands of the people. What we have now is a tyranny of the majority.
- rj4deu3hhrhrh 6y ago
aeternum 6y ago
I don't think that forcing these platforms to choose to be publishers or not publishers will have the desired effect. Some will choose to be publishers, increase moderation, and also increase censorship and bias. If we introduce liability, they will be forced to remove even more content. Platforms would gain even more control over the content that users see. Some will choose not to be publishers. We all know how bad the internet can get without moderation. I don't see how this would even be feasible with spam and illegal files/content. Neither of these distinctions address the true source of power and influence for these platforms: the visibility algorithm. This is what has the power to decide elections. A platform might agree to never delete a Biden or Trump tweet/post, but what really matters is the number of users that actually see it, the relative placement in the almighty feed. And that is 100% up to the platform.

Thorentis 6y ago

Oh look, another response to "we want to express ourselves without losing our jobs" of "have you actually read the first amendment?". I see this response on HN almost daily now. For the millionth time: PC culture goes beyond the constitution's definition of freedom of speech. This is a cultural discussion. This is a discussion about how much power we have given to private companies (like social media giants and media production companies) over our lives. I don't care that the first amendment protects me from government censorship, if my livelihood, the reputation of me and my family, and my future job prospects, can all be destroyed in an instant because of some outrage mob on Twitter. Why are people apologising because a few people on Twitter told them to? Why are people being fired because they made a tweet that wasn't supportive enough (or supportive in the right way) of the "correct" social causes? Call it freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to have an opinion. Whatever. But don't try and avoid the problem by pointing to the constitution as if that suddenly makes this all okay because "at least it's not the government".

nefitty 6y ago
Wait, so you want to limit other people’s free speech so that you can avoid the consequences of your own speech?
Miner49er 6y ago
Sure, if you're complaining that cooperations have too much power, I agree. The problem is, most people that argue against PC culture are pro-capitalist conservatives. This women said she's a registered Libertarian. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want private property, but they don't want businesses to decide how they do business?
- loopz 6y ago
  Problem is people don't eat their own dog food. Rules are good, for others, and for US to break!
- aranelsurion 6y ago
  I don't see how these two things can be mutually exclusive. One can argue for protecting legal rights around private property, yet express their personal disdain about the way that property is currently being used. I might not like how, say, Reddit moderates their platform, and openly express it, and even call for action on building better|decentralized|whatever platforms, yet I might also be ultimately in favor of protecting Reddit's legal right to do with their platform as they please. It's a nuance, not a contradiction.

WillPostForFood 6y ago

That's like the worst Republican kind of excuse. Privatize speech to handful of giant corporations, and let them control it while avoiding any direct constitutional issues. It should be as offensive as private prisons. We aren't depriving you of your due process rights, just selling your prison sentence to the highest bidder.

stjohnswarts 6y ago

Yes but as a nation can't we understand that it's a general principal? All this cancel culture is ridiculous? Obviously there are limits but it's gotten absolutely ridiculous. At least two generations now equate yelling louder on social media as being the same as having a real reason that you're right and they consider debate a relic of the past.

arkades 6y ago

Free Speech - of the general variety - has long been considered an American value. Idiomatically it has been broader than protection from government censorship. If your rebuttal to someone is to ignore widely-known idiom to focus on a particular detail that does nothing to undermine their actual point, please reconsider whether that was really a contribution worth making.

chrischattin 6y ago

I've thought about this quite a bit recently and have come to the conclusion that free speech, broadly speaking, is way more than a constitutional amendment protecting us from government persecution. That's a last resort protection. Free speech is an ethic, an ideology, a deep part of our culture as Americans and essential to western enlightenment. It's a human right. You don't have to agree with someone to think it's wrong to censor them. Corollary, you don't take away someone's human rights because they have an opinion you think is reprehensible. History has a pretty damning record of what happens when societies allow silencing of undesirable voices.

dgudkov 6y ago

And who is the government of the internet?