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There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone conversations would you?" And the re

There's a recurring argument on social media censorship that goes: "you wouldn't want the telephone company censoring phone conversations would you?" And the response is along the lines: "these are hardly private conversations, any tweet can go viral and be seen by millions". This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. If you think that's OK for Twitter on its platform, is it also OK for AT&T on its phone network? For Google on Gmail?

kube-system 6y ago
I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls. I've had 5 today.
- ianai 6y ago
  They can’t. Because that actually is a technology not built to be moderated.
  - kube-system 6y ago
    Not yet, at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    If they had to give me five dollars for every spam call that got through, I bet they'd find a way to stop it. T-mobile already classifies these calls as 'Scam likely' and they've never seemed to misclassify any, so obviously it can be done.
    - ars 6y ago
      > and they've never seemed to misclassify any They do, my local politician robo-calls all his constituents with info, and T-Mobile always flags his calls as spam. I guess in a way it's spam since it's unsolicited? But it's real info, and relevant to the local people he's calling, and keeping people informed is part of his job.
      - Shared404 6y ago
        > politician > robo-calls Yeah that sounds like spam. If info needs to get sent out, try email. Robo-calls are intrusive, and generally the wrong medium for transmitting information. Edit: Obtrusive -> intrusive. Although I guess both are technically correct.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - austhrow743 6y ago
        Keeping people informed about their product is a way to describe the job of every spammer.
      - plorkyeran 6y ago
        Unless it's something they specifically signed up for, robo-calling all your constituents absolutely is spam.
        0_____0 6y ago
        I have been getting unsolicited e-mail from my local state rep, and I actually appreciate it. It's not campaign-type stuff, it's actual info about what's happening in this district and resources that are being provided. Granted that feels different than a phone call, but the intent may be the same.
        FalconSensei 6y ago
        Although with email, you have the spam filter. It's just that those emails are not being picked up by it. Also, usually, you can unsubscribe to email lists/sender. While you can't do that for phone calls. You might block a specific number, but those robo-calls might use many different numbers
      - bigiain 6y ago
        > But it's real info, and relevant to the local people he's calling That's the way pretty much every spammer justifies their existence and somehow manages to sleep at night. The only reason robocalling by politicians is not illegal is because it's them who get to make the laws. They should all get in the sea, alongside all the other spammers.
    - ondrae 6y ago
      Some government call centers got mistakenly labeled ‘Spam Likely’. People were denied food stamps and other benefits for missing phone interviews from these numbers. Took a long time to clear up in California.
    - smabie 6y ago
      Yeah they would just block all of your calls. Probablem solved
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    Nope, it's because they added caller ID spoofing capabilities that nobody asked for, and regulators didn't stop them because Republicans installed telecom lobbyists to be the regulators.
  - bduerst 6y ago
    Only because the FCC recently loosened caller ID spoofing restrictions. It used to be possible.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls. I've had 5 today. I got one (Verizon) just as I started reading the comments for this post. :( There are solutions[1], but you'll need to wait until next July[0],at least in the US. It's not a complete solution, but it should take care of the vast majority of scam calls. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication [1] https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-overview/ https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-overview/
- ignoramous 6y ago
  Truecaller works even though the app is hard to stomach privacy-wise. Google recently unveiled plans for its "verified calls" feature, so that might help if you're on an Android 11 device. I personally do not answer any calls from numbers not on my contact list. If a call was urgent, I'd normally recieve a text message (if informal) or an email (if formal, like the bank, for example) from the caller eventually.
  - radley 6y ago
    Truecaller sucks hard. I'd get a call and they'd place a promotion in the way so I couldn't answer until I clicked it. Not good when driving. That was 5 years ago. Maybe they've changed?
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    > personally do not answer any calls from numbers not on my contact list. I do. Then take the time to get an actual human on the phone. Then I verbally abuse them until they hang up. It's not effective in stopping them, but while I'm spewing vulgar stuff at them, they're not trying to rip anyone else off.
- kristopolous 6y ago
  I just turned on Google Assistant screening about a week ago. The spam calls have gone to zero
im3w1l 6y ago
It's gone so far now that nothing can surprise me anymore. If Facebook and Twitter made a joint announcement that Zuckerberg won the 2020 election and that Jack Dorsey will be his vp, and that anyone disputing this, whether in public or private or off platform will be banned - even that would not surprise me. If people went along with it so as not to be cut off from their likes and "influence", even that would not surprise me.
riffic 6y ago
The difference between the telephone company and Twitter is that the phone company was (historically) a monopoly - the only game in town. Use their wires or get lost. It required common carrier neutrality by regulation. Twitter (and every single commercial social media space) is not the above, and can do what it wants on its service. It's not a public utility.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  This seems like an incomplete summary. Shipping companies are subject to similar common carrier regulations, even though they're not monopolies, because "just hire some random guy to drive your packages around" isn't a feasible replacement. In a country where almost everyone with any serious media presence is on Twitter, it's unreasonable to tell certain arbitrary subsets of the media that their thoughts are off limits.
- _qulr 6y ago
  It's not just Twitter, it's also Facebook. (I believe Facebook was actually the first to take action.) What if Google does it too? In the past few years, we've seen these big tech companies operate in a manner that seems collusive. They follow each other's cues. One company is the first to censor, and then the other companies follow very quickly with the exact same censorship. (The quick collective action tends to dilute the criticism against any single one of those companies.) It's not just one company doing what it wants, it's all the major players doing the same form of censorship.
  - riffic 6y ago
    I don't really care about Twitter or Facebook to be honest. It's not the only game in town. I'd be more concerned if I bought server hosting from AWS, stood up a WordPress blog about my thoughts on capitalism, socialism, sports, and dogs, and Amazon decides to suspend my account due to my writings.
    - free_rms 6y ago
      You should have done that instead of posting this comment on hacker news, then. Entry 1, "a reply to lapcatsoftware". Why use social media?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hotpockets 6y ago
If it was a Nigerian 419 scam I wouldn't mind it.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
I have never heard the recurring argument, thanks.
option 6y ago
exactly - most miss the point that biggest news here is Twitter censoring direct messages.
- tedunangst 6y ago
  I know I definitely missed that part of the article.
- bosswipe 6y ago
  I think it is bigger news that Trump operatives are trying to inject misinformation into the last few weeks of the election. They have no respect for democracy.
  - ntsplnkv2 6y ago
    Politically, I agree. I am very anti-Trump. But these problems will still be here post-Trump, or even if he wins re-election. We need to have reasoned debate on how to deal with our new world with social media.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jariel 6y ago
Twitter is a social media platform that engages in content management - they have always been moderating content, since day 1, managing identities etc.. AT&T is not in the business of content. That's a very material distinction. That says nothing about how/who/what Twitter should or should not be doing in this case, other than to say the moment you dip your toe into content management, it's going to get very complicated, as we now see on a daily basis in the news.
donohoe 6y ago
>> is it also OK for AT&T on its phone network? For Google on Gmail Twitter is a closed-system and not a utility, and I guess that makes all the difference.
- pacamara619 6y ago
  As far as I can tell Internet is not a utility either in the U.S. so what's your point?
  - geofft 6y ago
    Correct. US progressives and the major tech services recently argued that it should be treated as a utility, because of precisely this sort of problem, and they were opposed by US conservatives and ISPs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States I'd say it's ironic, but it isn't really if you look at what the progressive and conservative movements and "big tech" have really been advocating for (which is off-topic for this site).
- Wohlf 6y ago
  Phones were not always considered a utility, it's a definition that can be changed by Congress and in some ways the FCC at any time.
- jimmydorry 6y ago
  That is also a matter for interpretation, I believe. This cuts to the heart of the raging platform vs publisher debate (section 230). From my understanding, the current status quo is: 1. A platform can not moderate its content beyond removing illegal content that is brought to their attention; 2. A publisher can moderate and selectively cull what ever user content they like, but is held liable for any infringing content that breaks its ToS or the law. This is a matter I strongly believe requires an update to relevant legislation and a clear / strong precedent that can be pointed to. It feels like social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is trying to be both a platform and publisher when it suits them. EDIT: Made the language a bit more neutral and closer alined to the current than the "should be". A child reply linked an article that is worth reading [1], however take it with a grain of salt, seeing as it's more opinion and interpretation of intent than a reading on application of the law as it is written. This issue has been simmering away long before 2016. It's only started to come to the foreground as the social media giants started moving closer to "publisher" than "platform". It would have been unthinkable to see Twitter, Facebook and Youtube "fact checking" and adding content below posts ten years ago. I see this less as a partisan issue and more of a civil rights issue. I don't want to imagine a future where we have untouchable arbitrers of truth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-internet-law-twenty-six-words-that-created-the-internet-jeff-kosseff-interview https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte...
glenstein 6y ago
Yeah, I think it's necessary and honestly overdue. The problem with these attempted defenses of the race to the bottom we are witnessing in online communication is they step back from the direct examination of specific harms to the abstraction of "speech." Once the subject is switched, we can comfortably speak in generalities about the abstract value of speech. It reminds me of what Keats said about a certain way of thinking about economics: "Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." We're dealing with something that most reasonable people agree is a genuine crisis of democracy, and it's sheltered by a naiive conception of speech that doesn't have anything specific to say directly about Qanon, Covid, the 2020 election. It's a view from 10,000 feet generality that works when the ocean is flat again.
geofft 6y ago
I think it's absolutely okay for AT&T to censor what it wants on its phone network, provided I have the freedom to use a competitor. Back in the day, we broke up AT&T for precisely the reason that people didn't have that freedom. And then we let them merge back together, for some reason. I also think that not only is it legally permissible for Gmail to censor links, they do so already. Try reliably delivering a newsletter from a brand-new domain name (I have). Censorship isn't any better when it's the emergent effects of unknowable spam filtering and abuse algorithms than a decision by a human. (I'd say it's worse, because at least you can ask the human what they were thinking.) But the solution there is for consumers to stop using products that don't do what they want, not for big government to tell companies how to implement technical systems.
didibus 6y ago
Actually, that's a great idea, there should be a spam folder or something similar on facebook and twitter as well, and instead of blocking, it should just all go there. Then it be similar to Gmail and Phone Carrier. Users who would like to go check the spam themselves in case something that isn't spam made it there by accident could, and normal people who just don't want to see garbage posts at the cost of a few false positives would have a much better experience.
- nsonha 6y ago
  there is a spam folder on Messenger, currently for people you don't know
nullc 6y ago
> This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. This isn't a new behaviour. I've experienced it personally: Back in 2011, when I published the big archive of paywalled but copyright expired Jstor documents with attached manifesto facebook silently vanished any message containing a link to it or the title of it, even in private messages. One reason you haven't heard more about this behaviour is because the fact of the matter is that its extremely effective.
esoterica 6y ago
You realize that Google already "censors" spam emails by redirecting them to a different inbox right? No one seems to complain about that.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  That's because it's not obvious if there's any political bias behind the Gmail spam detection algorithm.
sneak 6y ago
Google already censors tons of inbound messages, rendering them invisible in your spam folder simply because you didn't pay the deliverability cartel (Mailgun et al) to ensure that you don't get spam-flagged, even if your message isn't spam.

kube-system 6y ago

I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls. I've had 5 today.

ianai 6y ago
They can’t. Because that actually is a technology not built to be moderated.
- kube-system 6y ago
  Not yet, at least. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STIR/SHAKEN
- bigbubba 6y ago
  If they had to give me five dollars for every spam call that got through, I bet they'd find a way to stop it. T-mobile already classifies these calls as 'Scam likely' and they've never seemed to misclassify any, so obviously it can be done.
  - ars 6y ago
    > and they've never seemed to misclassify any They do, my local politician robo-calls all his constituents with info, and T-Mobile always flags his calls as spam. I guess in a way it's spam since it's unsolicited? But it's real info, and relevant to the local people he's calling, and keeping people informed is part of his job.
    - Shared404 6y ago
      > politician > robo-calls Yeah that sounds like spam. If info needs to get sent out, try email. Robo-calls are intrusive, and generally the wrong medium for transmitting information. Edit: Obtrusive -> intrusive. Although I guess both are technically correct.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - austhrow743 6y ago
      Keeping people informed about their product is a way to describe the job of every spammer.
    - plorkyeran 6y ago
      Unless it's something they specifically signed up for, robo-calling all your constituents absolutely is spam.
      - 0_____0 6y ago
        I have been getting unsolicited e-mail from my local state rep, and I actually appreciate it. It's not campaign-type stuff, it's actual info about what's happening in this district and resources that are being provided. Granted that feels different than a phone call, but the intent may be the same.
        FalconSensei 6y ago
        Although with email, you have the spam filter. It's just that those emails are not being picked up by it. Also, usually, you can unsubscribe to email lists/sender. While you can't do that for phone calls. You might block a specific number, but those robo-calls might use many different numbers
    - bigiain 6y ago
      > But it's real info, and relevant to the local people he's calling That's the way pretty much every spammer justifies their existence and somehow manages to sleep at night. The only reason robocalling by politicians is not illegal is because it's them who get to make the laws. They should all get in the sea, alongside all the other spammers.
  - ondrae 6y ago
    Some government call centers got mistakenly labeled ‘Spam Likely’. People were denied food stamps and other benefits for missing phone interviews from these numbers. Took a long time to clear up in California.
  - smabie 6y ago
    Yeah they would just block all of your calls. Probablem solved
- bosswipe 6y ago
  Nope, it's because they added caller ID spoofing capabilities that nobody asked for, and regulators didn't stop them because Republicans installed telecom lobbyists to be the regulators.
- bduerst 6y ago
  Only because the FCC recently loosened caller ID spoofing restrictions. It used to be possible.
nobody9999 6y ago
>I really hope AT&T starts censoring these damn spam calls. I've had 5 today. I got one (Verizon) just as I started reading the comments for this post. :( There are solutions[1], but you'll need to wait until next July[0],at least in the US. It's not a complete solution, but it should take care of the vast majority of scam calls. [0] https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication https://www.fcc.gov/call-authentication [1] https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-overview/ https://transnexus.com/whitepapers/stir-and-shaken-overview/
ignoramous 6y ago
Truecaller works even though the app is hard to stomach privacy-wise. Google recently unveiled plans for its "verified calls" feature, so that might help if you're on an Android 11 device. I personally do not answer any calls from numbers not on my contact list. If a call was urgent, I'd normally recieve a text message (if informal) or an email (if formal, like the bank, for example) from the caller eventually.
- radley 6y ago
  Truecaller sucks hard. I'd get a call and they'd place a promotion in the way so I couldn't answer until I clicked it. Not good when driving. That was 5 years ago. Maybe they've changed?
- nobody9999 6y ago
  > personally do not answer any calls from numbers not on my contact list. I do. Then take the time to get an actual human on the phone. Then I verbally abuse them until they hang up. It's not effective in stopping them, but while I'm spewing vulgar stuff at them, they're not trying to rip anyone else off.
kristopolous 6y ago
I just turned on Google Assistant screening about a week ago. The spam calls have gone to zero

im3w1l 6y ago

It's gone so far now that nothing can surprise me anymore. If Facebook and Twitter made a joint announcement that Zuckerberg won the 2020 election and that Jack Dorsey will be his vp, and that anyone disputing this, whether in public or private or off platform will be banned - even that would not surprise me. If people went along with it so as not to be cut off from their likes and "influence", even that would not surprise me.

riffic 6y ago

The difference between the telephone company and Twitter is that the phone company was (historically) a monopoly - the only game in town. Use their wires or get lost. It required common carrier neutrality by regulation. Twitter (and every single commercial social media space) is not the above, and can do what it wants on its service. It's not a public utility.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
This seems like an incomplete summary. Shipping companies are subject to similar common carrier regulations, even though they're not monopolies, because "just hire some random guy to drive your packages around" isn't a feasible replacement. In a country where almost everyone with any serious media presence is on Twitter, it's unreasonable to tell certain arbitrary subsets of the media that their thoughts are off limits.
_qulr 6y ago
It's not just Twitter, it's also Facebook. (I believe Facebook was actually the first to take action.) What if Google does it too? In the past few years, we've seen these big tech companies operate in a manner that seems collusive. They follow each other's cues. One company is the first to censor, and then the other companies follow very quickly with the exact same censorship. (The quick collective action tends to dilute the criticism against any single one of those companies.) It's not just one company doing what it wants, it's all the major players doing the same form of censorship.
- riffic 6y ago
  I don't really care about Twitter or Facebook to be honest. It's not the only game in town. I'd be more concerned if I bought server hosting from AWS, stood up a WordPress blog about my thoughts on capitalism, socialism, sports, and dogs, and Amazon decides to suspend my account due to my writings.
  - free_rms 6y ago
    You should have done that instead of posting this comment on hacker news, then. Entry 1, "a reply to lapcatsoftware". Why use social media?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

hotpockets 6y ago

If it was a Nigerian 419 scam I wouldn't mind it.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

I have never heard the recurring argument, thanks.

option 6y ago

exactly - most miss the point that biggest news here is Twitter censoring direct messages.

tedunangst 6y ago
I know I definitely missed that part of the article.
bosswipe 6y ago
I think it is bigger news that Trump operatives are trying to inject misinformation into the last few weeks of the election. They have no respect for democracy.
- ntsplnkv2 6y ago
  Politically, I agree. I am very anti-Trump. But these problems will still be here post-Trump, or even if he wins re-election. We need to have reasoned debate on how to deal with our new world with social media.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jariel 6y ago

Twitter is a social media platform that engages in content management - they have always been moderating content, since day 1, managing identities etc.. AT&T is not in the business of content. That's a very material distinction. That says nothing about how/who/what Twitter should or should not be doing in this case, other than to say the moment you dip your toe into content management, it's going to get very complicated, as we now see on a daily basis in the news.

donohoe 6y ago

>> is it also OK for AT&T on its phone network? For Google on Gmail Twitter is a closed-system and not a utility, and I guess that makes all the difference.

pacamara619 6y ago
As far as I can tell Internet is not a utility either in the U.S. so what's your point?
- geofft 6y ago
  Correct. US progressives and the major tech services recently argued that it should be treated as a utility, because of precisely this sort of problem, and they were opposed by US conservatives and ISPs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_neutrality#United_States I'd say it's ironic, but it isn't really if you look at what the progressive and conservative movements and "big tech" have really been advocating for (which is off-topic for this site).
Wohlf 6y ago
Phones were not always considered a utility, it's a definition that can be changed by Congress and in some ways the FCC at any time.
jimmydorry 6y ago
That is also a matter for interpretation, I believe. This cuts to the heart of the raging platform vs publisher debate (section 230). From my understanding, the current status quo is: 1. A platform can not moderate its content beyond removing illegal content that is brought to their attention; 2. A publisher can moderate and selectively cull what ever user content they like, but is held liable for any infringing content that breaks its ToS or the law. This is a matter I strongly believe requires an update to relevant legislation and a clear / strong precedent that can be pointed to. It feels like social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) is trying to be both a platform and publisher when it suits them. EDIT: Made the language a bit more neutral and closer alined to the current than the "should be". A child reply linked an article that is worth reading [1], however take it with a grain of salt, seeing as it's more opinion and interpretation of intent than a reading on application of the law as it is written. This issue has been simmering away long before 2016. It's only started to come to the foreground as the social media giants started moving closer to "publisher" than "platform". It would have been unthinkable to see Twitter, Facebook and Youtube "fact checking" and adding content below posts ten years ago. I see this less as a partisan issue and more of a civil rights issue. I don't want to imagine a future where we have untouchable arbitrers of truth. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-internet-law-twenty-six-words-that-created-the-internet-jeff-kosseff-interview https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte...

glenstein 6y ago

Yeah, I think it's necessary and honestly overdue. The problem with these attempted defenses of the race to the bottom we are witnessing in online communication is they step back from the direct examination of specific harms to the abstraction of "speech." Once the subject is switched, we can comfortably speak in generalities about the abstract value of speech. It reminds me of what Keats said about a certain way of thinking about economics: "Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." We're dealing with something that most reasonable people agree is a genuine crisis of democracy, and it's sheltered by a naiive conception of speech that doesn't have anything specific to say directly about Qanon, Covid, the 2020 election. It's a view from 10,000 feet generality that works when the ocean is flat again.

geofft 6y ago

I think it's absolutely okay for AT&T to censor what it wants on its phone network, provided I have the freedom to use a competitor. Back in the day, we broke up AT&T for precisely the reason that people didn't have that freedom. And then we let them merge back together, for some reason. I also think that not only is it legally permissible for Gmail to censor links, they do so already. Try reliably delivering a newsletter from a brand-new domain name (I have). Censorship isn't any better when it's the emergent effects of unknowable spam filtering and abuse algorithms than a decision by a human. (I'd say it's worse, because at least you can ask the human what they were thinking.) But the solution there is for consumers to stop using products that don't do what they want, not for big government to tell companies how to implement technical systems.

didibus 6y ago

Actually, that's a great idea, there should be a spam folder or something similar on facebook and twitter as well, and instead of blocking, it should just all go there. Then it be similar to Gmail and Phone Carrier. Users who would like to go check the spam themselves in case something that isn't spam made it there by accident could, and normal people who just don't want to see garbage posts at the cost of a few false positives would have a much better experience.

nsonha 6y ago
there is a spam folder on Messenger, currently for people you don't know

nullc 6y ago

> This story breaks that mold in that it involves social media censoring private conversations via DM. This isn't a new behaviour. I've experienced it personally: Back in 2011, when I published the big archive of paywalled but copyright expired Jstor documents with attached manifesto facebook silently vanished any message containing a link to it or the title of it, even in private messages. One reason you haven't heard more about this behaviour is because the fact of the matter is that its extremely effective.

esoterica 6y ago

You realize that Google already "censors" spam emails by redirecting them to a different inbox right? No one seems to complain about that.

ravenstine 6y ago
That's because it's not obvious if there's any political bias behind the Gmail spam detection algorithm.

sneak 6y ago

Google already censors tons of inbound messages, rendering them invisible in your spam folder simply because you didn't pay the deliverability cartel (Mailgun et al) to ensure that you don't get spam-flagged, even if your message isn't spam.