6 ms·

A public square doesn't stop being a public square merely because it's privately owned. The reasoning in Marsh v. Alabama still seems valid to me, even if the c

A public square doesn't stop being a public square merely because it's privately owned. The reasoning in Marsh v. Alabama still seems valid to me, even if the court has softened on it in the past few decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama When public communication is dominated by a few forums that happen to be privately owned and being banned from these forums ensures that nobody hears you, then actual practical exercise of free speech requires that these forums be viewpoint-neutral. I'm convinced that all these people who show up on every HN and cheerlead for private censorship would be ecstatic about repealing the first amendment itself. Either you support the ability of ordinary people to express unpopular ideas as a practical matter or you don't. I've met nobody with a principled commitment to free speech who nevertheless argues that the likes of Google and Facebook should be able to control the public conversation.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_Corp._v._Halleck https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_C... A more recent and more relevant precedent that cuts against your argument. Btw I would be sad to see the first repealed, but I'm happy enough with Google and Facebook's moderation powers. So now you've met one person who has a principled commitment to free speech who thinks that Google and facebook should be allowed to moderate content.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  I know the SCOTUS has walked back that precedent --- I said that I liked the reasoning in Marsh, not that I think it's still in force and not watered down. As for your support for Google and Facebook moderation: don't you think support for the purpose of free speech requires that people be capable of exercising that freedom at a practical level? What's the point of the first amendment protections free speech protections when it's a dead letter from the perspective of message dissemination?
  - RuggedPineapple 6y ago
    > As for your support for Google and Facebook moderation: don't you think support for the purpose of free speech requires that people be capable of exercising that freedom at a practical level? The purpose of the first amendment is that the government can't throw you in jail for speech (freedom of speech, freedom of the press) and you can decide who you collaborate with (freedom of association). That's it. End of story. There's no thought or word put towards other people having to play nice with you about what you say.
    - quotemstr 6y ago
      > The purpose of the first amendment is that the government can't throw you in jail for speech Why shouldn't the government be able to do that? What is the principle that motivated the restriction you described? The concept of free speech is a lot bigger than the government.
      - RuggedPineapple 6y ago
        The motivation was that the government of the day did arrest critics and made certain speech illegal, depending on its mood. And no, it's not deeper then that. The constitution is a dry document pertaining solely to organizing a government. It's the entire purpose of the document.
        quotemstr 6y ago
        And what was wrong with arresting critics and making speech illegal? Thinking these things is bad is just some random whim the founders had with no additional thinking backing it up? One day, people are going to see private censorship from social media companies as the same kind of antiquated barbarism. "Of course," they will say, "a few unelected managers in tech companies shouldn't get to control the public conversation". The ability to speak without getting arrested in important because it's only by examining ideas that we separate the good ones from the bad ones. When social media companies make it impossible to have real conversations about certain ideas, they damage the ability of society to make good decisions.
_dibly 6y ago
The case you linked is about an entire town that was owned by one company, and that the ability to remove someone from your sidewalk for distributing materials doesn't apply in a traditional sense when one single private owner can essentially 'kick you out of town'. Twitter is used by about 1 in 10 Americans and doesn't make decisions about who or what to restrict from it's platform based on Facebook's content moderation standards. IMO the idea that a handful of private companies with completely different business models and content moderation policies have a 'collective monopoly' on public communication is ridiculous.
- quotemstr 6y ago
  > IMO the idea that a handful of private companies with completely different business models and content moderation policies have a 'collective monopoly' on public communication is ridiculous I have the opposite opinion: these companies do collectively cartelize public speech. People who get banned from one platform are frequently banned from others soon after, especially if notorious. These companies also all have content policies prohibiting the same constitutionally-protected speech, e.g. on some subjects relating to the recent election. Censorship doesn't have to be binary to be censorship: an environment in which your reach is reduced to practically nothing if you have one viewpoint and amplified into the stratosphere where you have the opposite viewpoint is an environment antithetical to the purpose of the first amendment, which is about creating an open and honest marketplace for ideas. Being able to talk about some idea in your kitchen but not on the internet is an inadequate level of free speech protection for today's world. There's nothing wrong with requiring neutrality from social media companies. Common carrier regulations wouldn't violate their free speech rights: these corporations aren't speaking in their own voices, but are instead carrying the speech of others. And besides: corporations are not natural persons and we should abridge their rights in order to preserve the rights of real people.
  - _dibly 6y ago
    >People who get banned from one platform are frequently banned from others soon after, especially if notorious. Can you give us a few examples? >These companies also all have content policies prohibiting the same constitutionally-protected speech As someone has already pointed out to you, the constitution protects you from the government, not from the moderation of a private company who you choose to publish your opinions on. >Censorship doesn't have to be binary to be censorship: an environment in which your reach is reduced to practically nothing if you have one viewpoint and amplified into the stratosphere where you have the opposite viewpoint is an environment antithetical to the purpose of the first amendment, which is about creating an open and honest marketplace for ideas You just described every cable news outlet in the United States. The idea that freedom of speech means 'requiring neutrality' is just painfully misinformed. You can talk about literally anything you want on the internet. But you're conflating a few social media platforms with vastly different moderation policies, user bases, and business models into one mass of 'public communication'. >There's nothing wrong with requiring neutrality from social media companies. I couldn't disagree more. Who will be the decider in what 'neutrality' means? Because that's about as loaded of a political term as you can get in this day and age. I don't understand what an even remotely reasonable interpretation of this policy would be where individual private companies were forced to publish or barred from removing content that goes against their content moderation policy.
ewillbefull 6y ago
There's no absolute requirement for using Facebook to communicate with others over the Internet, so there's no sensible reason why they (or anyone else) should be compelled to host content they don't like. Just because certain platforms are popular doesn't really change things from a legal or a moral perspective, and it might be because of their editorial discretion that they are popular in the first place.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_Corp._v._Halleck https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Community_Access_C... A more recent and more relevant precedent that cuts against your argument. Btw I would be sad to see the first repealed, but I'm happy enough with Google and Facebook's moderation powers. So now you've met one person who has a principled commitment to free speech who thinks that Google and facebook should be allowed to moderate content.

quotemstr 6y ago
I know the SCOTUS has walked back that precedent --- I said that I liked the reasoning in Marsh, not that I think it's still in force and not watered down. As for your support for Google and Facebook moderation: don't you think support for the purpose of free speech requires that people be capable of exercising that freedom at a practical level? What's the point of the first amendment protections free speech protections when it's a dead letter from the perspective of message dissemination?
- RuggedPineapple 6y ago
  > As for your support for Google and Facebook moderation: don't you think support for the purpose of free speech requires that people be capable of exercising that freedom at a practical level? The purpose of the first amendment is that the government can't throw you in jail for speech (freedom of speech, freedom of the press) and you can decide who you collaborate with (freedom of association). That's it. End of story. There's no thought or word put towards other people having to play nice with you about what you say.
  - quotemstr 6y ago
    > The purpose of the first amendment is that the government can't throw you in jail for speech Why shouldn't the government be able to do that? What is the principle that motivated the restriction you described? The concept of free speech is a lot bigger than the government.
    - RuggedPineapple 6y ago
      The motivation was that the government of the day did arrest critics and made certain speech illegal, depending on its mood. And no, it's not deeper then that. The constitution is a dry document pertaining solely to organizing a government. It's the entire purpose of the document.
      - quotemstr 6y ago
        And what was wrong with arresting critics and making speech illegal? Thinking these things is bad is just some random whim the founders had with no additional thinking backing it up? One day, people are going to see private censorship from social media companies as the same kind of antiquated barbarism. "Of course," they will say, "a few unelected managers in tech companies shouldn't get to control the public conversation". The ability to speak without getting arrested in important because it's only by examining ideas that we separate the good ones from the bad ones. When social media companies make it impossible to have real conversations about certain ideas, they damage the ability of society to make good decisions.

_dibly 6y ago

The case you linked is about an entire town that was owned by one company, and that the ability to remove someone from your sidewalk for distributing materials doesn't apply in a traditional sense when one single private owner can essentially 'kick you out of town'. Twitter is used by about 1 in 10 Americans and doesn't make decisions about who or what to restrict from it's platform based on Facebook's content moderation standards. IMO the idea that a handful of private companies with completely different business models and content moderation policies have a 'collective monopoly' on public communication is ridiculous.

quotemstr 6y ago
> IMO the idea that a handful of private companies with completely different business models and content moderation policies have a 'collective monopoly' on public communication is ridiculous I have the opposite opinion: these companies do collectively cartelize public speech. People who get banned from one platform are frequently banned from others soon after, especially if notorious. These companies also all have content policies prohibiting the same constitutionally-protected speech, e.g. on some subjects relating to the recent election. Censorship doesn't have to be binary to be censorship: an environment in which your reach is reduced to practically nothing if you have one viewpoint and amplified into the stratosphere where you have the opposite viewpoint is an environment antithetical to the purpose of the first amendment, which is about creating an open and honest marketplace for ideas. Being able to talk about some idea in your kitchen but not on the internet is an inadequate level of free speech protection for today's world. There's nothing wrong with requiring neutrality from social media companies. Common carrier regulations wouldn't violate their free speech rights: these corporations aren't speaking in their own voices, but are instead carrying the speech of others. And besides: corporations are not natural persons and we should abridge their rights in order to preserve the rights of real people.
- _dibly 6y ago
  >People who get banned from one platform are frequently banned from others soon after, especially if notorious. Can you give us a few examples? >These companies also all have content policies prohibiting the same constitutionally-protected speech As someone has already pointed out to you, the constitution protects you from the government, not from the moderation of a private company who you choose to publish your opinions on. >Censorship doesn't have to be binary to be censorship: an environment in which your reach is reduced to practically nothing if you have one viewpoint and amplified into the stratosphere where you have the opposite viewpoint is an environment antithetical to the purpose of the first amendment, which is about creating an open and honest marketplace for ideas You just described every cable news outlet in the United States. The idea that freedom of speech means 'requiring neutrality' is just painfully misinformed. You can talk about literally anything you want on the internet. But you're conflating a few social media platforms with vastly different moderation policies, user bases, and business models into one mass of 'public communication'. >There's nothing wrong with requiring neutrality from social media companies. I couldn't disagree more. Who will be the decider in what 'neutrality' means? Because that's about as loaded of a political term as you can get in this day and age. I don't understand what an even remotely reasonable interpretation of this policy would be where individual private companies were forced to publish or barred from removing content that goes against their content moderation policy.

ewillbefull 6y ago

There's no absolute requirement for using Facebook to communicate with others over the Internet, so there's no sensible reason why they (or anyone else) should be compelled to host content they don't like. Just because certain platforms are popular doesn't really change things from a legal or a moral perspective, and it might be because of their editorial discretion that they are popular in the first place.