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Twitter is a private platform. You have no free speech rights on Twitter. You have no rights at all, other than the Terms of Service. The Bill of Rights protec

by cwhiz 6y ago

Twitter is a private platform. You have no free speech rights on Twitter. You have no rights at all, other than the Terms of Service. The Bill of Rights protects you from the government. Twitter is not the government.

olefoo 6y ago
Twitter is a private platform, it's true. But the GOVERNMENT is prohibited from using the services of a private contractor to chill the exercise of one's first amendment rights. Not that that will limit the creation of ethically dubious firms like ClearviewAI or Palantir.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  The government can’t chill your right to tweet because you don’t have a right to tweet. Your tweets are public and you don’t own them, not even your own. There is no law restricting the governments right to collect public data.
paulmd 6y ago
The problem with this argument is that it's the setup for en-masse dragnet surveillance. After all you have no rights on what you give to third parties, and you also have no expectation of privacy, so surely there's nothing wrong with the government scooping it up without even needing a warrant. In the 21st century, our "papers and effects" are digital, online, and stored by third parties, and the law hasn't kept up with that.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  If you want to argue that the law should be changed then that is fine. But it doesn’t change the current reality.
  - paulmd 6y ago
    Yes, when a government has found a clever end-run around the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure that definitely needs to be fixed. Not sure why exactly you think "aha, so you admit it is legal!" is a particularly insightful thing to say, obviously all authoritarian governments have decided that they have the legal right to intrude on their citizens' privacy and thus have self-determined their actions to be legal. That has nothing to do with whether it's the morally right thing, or is in keeping with the spirit of the constitution. To wit: China has determined that they have the legal right to disperse assemblies in Taiwan. That is legal there too. Do you think that is the right thing? Kohlberg addresses this with his stages of moral development - some people think "because it is law, therefore it is moral", and that's really as much thought as they need to put into it to justify it to themselves. They don't bother addressing whether it should be legal, and that seems to be the thrust of your argument.
toofy 6y ago
We can’t pretend this discussion isn’t directly rooted in government overreach, the government is using the data.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  The government can’t get this data unless you make it public. You don’t have a right to privacy on Twitter or in any public space. I could personally scrape this same data from Twitter. These arguments have already been decided. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true. If you want to further restrict the government you’ll need to petition for new laws.

by cwhiz 6y ago

olefoo 6y ago

Twitter is a private platform, it's true. But the GOVERNMENT is prohibited from using the services of a private contractor to chill the exercise of one's first amendment rights. Not that that will limit the creation of ethically dubious firms like ClearviewAI or Palantir.

cwhiz 6y ago
The government can’t chill your right to tweet because you don’t have a right to tweet. Your tweets are public and you don’t own them, not even your own. There is no law restricting the governments right to collect public data.

paulmd 6y ago

The problem with this argument is that it's the setup for en-masse dragnet surveillance. After all you have no rights on what you give to third parties, and you also have no expectation of privacy, so surely there's nothing wrong with the government scooping it up without even needing a warrant. In the 21st century, our "papers and effects" are digital, online, and stored by third parties, and the law hasn't kept up with that.

cwhiz 6y ago
If you want to argue that the law should be changed then that is fine. But it doesn’t change the current reality.
- paulmd 6y ago
  Yes, when a government has found a clever end-run around the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure that definitely needs to be fixed. Not sure why exactly you think "aha, so you admit it is legal!" is a particularly insightful thing to say, obviously all authoritarian governments have decided that they have the legal right to intrude on their citizens' privacy and thus have self-determined their actions to be legal. That has nothing to do with whether it's the morally right thing, or is in keeping with the spirit of the constitution. To wit: China has determined that they have the legal right to disperse assemblies in Taiwan. That is legal there too. Do you think that is the right thing? Kohlberg addresses this with his stages of moral development - some people think "because it is law, therefore it is moral", and that's really as much thought as they need to put into it to justify it to themselves. They don't bother addressing whether it should be legal, and that seems to be the thrust of your argument.

toofy 6y ago

We can’t pretend this discussion isn’t directly rooted in government overreach, the government is using the data.

cwhiz 6y ago
The government can’t get this data unless you make it public. You don’t have a right to privacy on Twitter or in any public space. I could personally scrape this same data from Twitter. These arguments have already been decided. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true. If you want to further restrict the government you’ll need to petition for new laws.