6 ms·

It’s quite ironic that people think this is a first amendment or censorship issue when the real first amendment issue would be if Twitter were not allowed to do

It’s quite ironic that people think this is a first amendment or censorship issue when the real first amendment issue would be if Twitter were not allowed to do this.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago
I find the most interesting thing to be the conflation of censorship and government censorship by people who are not aware of the non-government kind.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  The term "censorship" has always meant governmental restriction on speech, dating back to Roman times. "Censorship" by a private party is a modern extension of the meaning of the term and it is not universally accepted.
  - paganel 6y ago
    Correct, but the spirit of the law says that it should be universally accepted. Otherwise we'll all end up like in Orban's Hungary, with almost all the media technically in private hands but practically speaking in Orban's pockets (if I'm not mistaken a similar thing is now happening in Poland).
    - emilsedgh 6y ago
      The media is oddly, oddly quit regarding Julian Assange's case. I cannot help but think it's orchestrated.
      - gamblor956 6y ago
        Nearly every media institution has reported on every development of the Assange case as it happened, including this past week, when they all covered the latest outcome in the case. And there has been no further news, so the news media moved on to other news, like the siege of the U.S. Capitol building.
    - garaetjjte 6y ago
      There are still independent media in Poland. (like third most watched TV station, Discovery-owned TVN) (though ruling party likely looks how to buy them; eg. recently national oil company bought publisher of several local newspapers)
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      The spirit of the law says that it should be universally accepted No it doesn't. In the U.S., the law is explicitly clear that censorship by the government is subject to strict limitations, but censorship by private parties is part of those parties' exercise of their own rights to free speech. Compelling one person to spread the speech of another person is a form of censorship that censors the former's opposition to the latter's speech. There are only a handful of cases that compel private parties to tolerate speech they disagree with on their own property (basically, malls), and the scope has been narrowed over time. (See Pruneyard and subsequent cases.)
      - paganel 6y ago
        I've just mentioned a concrete case of how one can subvert the letter of the law in order to suppress said free speech, with no free speech you have a very high risk of returning to tyranny (to use one of the terms most feared by the guys who wrote the Federalist Papers), and it is my understanding that that fear (among a very few others) permeates the whole basic law of the United States (i.e. its Constitution). Things like "private parties", property rights, I'd say that even the idea of "government", come after that fear has been dealt with.
        gamblor956 6y ago
        Trump was America's Orban, if I understand what you were saying. Forcing Facebook, Twitter, et al, to carry his speech, as putative head of the U.S. government, is the tyranny and censorship that you should be railing against, because it violates FB's and Twitter's constitutional rights not to transmit violent speech that they disagree with. Private property, private rights, and government, have all existed before the "fear" (whatever it is you mean by that) was dealt with.
        paganel 6y ago
        > have all existed before the "fear" (whatever it is you mean by that) was dealt with. I'm talking about the basis of the US Constitution, its "spirit", so to speak. My reading of the Federalist Papers is that one of the main reasons-to-be of the Constitution was to avoid tyranny, the men that wrote that thing down put things like respecting private property or even what form of government to use after that. I admit, maybe I'm wrong on that interpretation (I've read them about three years ago), but I've recently started reading a selection of Anti-federalist Papers and I stand by my opinion. > FB's and Twitter's constitutional rights Again, there was nothing in the Federalist Papers (nor in the Constitution) about respecting the rights of private, abstract, soulless entities. Yes, I know about the relatively recent decision that gave those corporations a "political soul" (so to speak), but that decision had nothing to do with the original spirit of the basic law on which the USA was founded.
  - adrianN 6y ago
    Private parties having the means to shape public discourse is a fairly modern phenomenon too.
- josephg 6y ago
  The tricky question is whether twitter is in essence a public square. Arguably they've made a new space - governed by nothing but their own corporate policies. I mean, if conversations on twitter are akin to conversations in a public park in the USA, then you would expect the same social / legal conventions to hold on twitter as in public spaces. If I incited violence in the local park, there are norms and laws that come into play. Arguably the same laws should hold on twitter. From that perspective, its weird that a tech company acts as the judge and jury - rather than the police and the courts. And complaints about censorship make total sense. But if you think of twitter, google, facebook etc as corporate serfdoms, then there's no problem with twitter's enforcement. Twitter is a space owned and ruled by a tech company. You rent your twitter account, but own nothing. Twitter can set any rules they like, or set no rules and act entirely capriciously. The interesting question is whether or not we want the internet to work like a weird echo of the middle ages. And what (if anything) we should do about it.
  - MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
    Exactly - The Voice is a crucial building block of The Cathedral. It must be free. Best summary so far on whats happening: https://twitter.com/RokoMijicUK/status/1347132644056854539 https://twitter.com/RokoMijicUK/status/1347132644056854539 EDIT another good take, reversion to feudalism: „Twitter & Facebook act as a) De facto spaces of prominent public debate b) De facto news content (press) De jure, they pretend they're in private tech business (to escape legal responsibility of a +b)“ https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1347155317516365826?s=21 https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1347155317516365826?s=21
  - bergstromm466 6y ago
    "What I want is to see Uber’s technology become a protocol. Same with Airbnb, same with Postmates, same with other companies in the gig and sharing economies. Same with lots of other important technology companies, while we’re at it. Obviously this can’t happen overnight, but if the technology is useful enough to provide real value, then it’s too useful to be subjugated to the whims of profit forever. I would love to see these technology platforms either fully decentralised, or centralised in such a way that the entity running it is not-for-profit and, ideally, accountable to all stakeholders. The actual mechanisms for making this work are beyond the scope of this post, but I want to throw this idea out there and get people thinking about it, because it’s the only way of making the future work for all of us. I suspect — and feel free to call me naive, but I don’t think I’m wrong— that the majority of people working on Uber’s technology would prefer to build a system whose social impact they could be proud of. Based on my admittedly limited sample size of people I know in the tech industry, I feel like lots of people working at companies like Uber are there because they want to solve interesting technical challenges and deploy useful innovations in the world. I believe that if given the choice, most would prefer to build a system that makes the world a fairer and more equitable place. The problem is that this choice is, for the most part, withheld from them, and whatever individual intentions they may have are inevitably co-opted by the capitalist structure in which they make their living. By working together to counteract these prevailing systematic forces, though, they may be able to open up a space in which to envision alternatives." [1] -- Wendy Liu [1] https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-727b864756a4 https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-7...
throwaway829 6y ago
It's obviously not a first amendment is since that restricts what the fed gov can do, but it is a free speech issue which is a philosophy thought to be better than censoring opposing ideas. It's a legal issue in regards to section 230 which only protects open platforms from liability from user content. If Twitter whats to be a publisher with editorial authority then they should be held to the same standard as NYT and CNN.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Barrin92 6y ago
  again this awful misreading of 230. No, the law explicitly does not demand a platform be 'open', or neutral or censor free. That is completely nuts, because it would imply hackernews and your personal blog would be legally liable publishers as soon as you start to moderate content. Which is obviously silly because any content-specific platform that controls what it serves would be legally liable and effectively unable to operate on the internet. 230 grants platforms both freedom from liability and gives them the ability to moderate. They do not need to pick.
  - pclmulqdq 6y ago
    I think most people who say they This are advocating for 230 to be rewritten, not misreading it. Personally, I think that individual curation of content should be considered an editorial decision, and not simply moderation. Tightly moderated forums where everyone sees the same posts are fine, but twitter/Facebook with their individualized front pages is not.
- throw0101a 6y ago
  > It's a legal issue in regards to section 230 which only protects open platforms from liability from user content. If Twitter whats to be a publisher with editorial authority then they should be held to the same standard as NYT and CNN. Nope. User-generated content can be moderated and Section 230 protections still apply: > With that done, we can discuss the various ways you might have been wrong about Section 230. If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" […] * https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
alentist 6y ago
> censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. Why do you conflate any discussion of censorship and freedom of speech with the First Amendment of the US’s constitution?
- casefields 6y ago
  The folks that are pro-private company censorship always do that. It's the only way their argument works so they have to avoid the nuance that free speech has a law and a principle. It's constant to read opinions like that in threads like this. We used to have this argument in the 60s where private businesses argued they didn't have to serve blacks since they were a private business. Political speech/activity is protected when it comes to labor law. It's not hard to see the law updated at some figure point. Discrimination is discrimination in my book, and free speech is paramount even the most repugnant opinions.
  - jpsalm 6y ago
    Twitter suspending/banning for violations of policy is discrimination in the same way barkeeps throwing unruly patrons out of the bar is discrimination.
    - yanderekko 6y ago
      Depends on the policy. Obviously harassing or obscene speech is one thing and even the government is free to restrict it in certain ways (eg. you're not allowed to scream obscenities in public.) Viewpoint-based discrimination is given much more scrutiny, however, and there's a good argument that that's what Twitter et. al are engaging in. Which is less like "throwing unruly patrons out" and more like "calling people whose ideas you dislike unruly and then throwing them out", which is obviously discriminatory.
      - triceratops 6y ago
        > there's a good argument that that's what Twitter et. al are engaging in. Is there? Who's making it? Can you give examples?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

It’s quite ironic that people think this is a first amendment or censorship issue when the real first amendment issue would be if Twitter were not allowed to do this.

chordalkeyboard 6y ago

I find the most interesting thing to be the conflation of censorship and government censorship by people who are not aware of the non-government kind.

gamblor956 6y ago
The term "censorship" has always meant governmental restriction on speech, dating back to Roman times. "Censorship" by a private party is a modern extension of the meaning of the term and it is not universally accepted.
- paganel 6y ago
  Correct, but the spirit of the law says that it should be universally accepted. Otherwise we'll all end up like in Orban's Hungary, with almost all the media technically in private hands but practically speaking in Orban's pockets (if I'm not mistaken a similar thing is now happening in Poland).
  - emilsedgh 6y ago
    The media is oddly, oddly quit regarding Julian Assange's case. I cannot help but think it's orchestrated.
    - gamblor956 6y ago
      Nearly every media institution has reported on every development of the Assange case as it happened, including this past week, when they all covered the latest outcome in the case. And there has been no further news, so the news media moved on to other news, like the siege of the U.S. Capitol building.
  - garaetjjte 6y ago
    There are still independent media in Poland. (like third most watched TV station, Discovery-owned TVN) (though ruling party likely looks how to buy them; eg. recently national oil company bought publisher of several local newspapers)
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    The spirit of the law says that it should be universally accepted No it doesn't. In the U.S., the law is explicitly clear that censorship by the government is subject to strict limitations, but censorship by private parties is part of those parties' exercise of their own rights to free speech. Compelling one person to spread the speech of another person is a form of censorship that censors the former's opposition to the latter's speech. There are only a handful of cases that compel private parties to tolerate speech they disagree with on their own property (basically, malls), and the scope has been narrowed over time. (See Pruneyard and subsequent cases.)
    - paganel 6y ago
      I've just mentioned a concrete case of how one can subvert the letter of the law in order to suppress said free speech, with no free speech you have a very high risk of returning to tyranny (to use one of the terms most feared by the guys who wrote the Federalist Papers), and it is my understanding that that fear (among a very few others) permeates the whole basic law of the United States (i.e. its Constitution). Things like "private parties", property rights, I'd say that even the idea of "government", come after that fear has been dealt with.
      - gamblor956 6y ago
        Trump was America's Orban, if I understand what you were saying. Forcing Facebook, Twitter, et al, to carry his speech, as putative head of the U.S. government, is the tyranny and censorship that you should be railing against, because it violates FB's and Twitter's constitutional rights not to transmit violent speech that they disagree with. Private property, private rights, and government, have all existed before the "fear" (whatever it is you mean by that) was dealt with.
        paganel 6y ago
        > have all existed before the "fear" (whatever it is you mean by that) was dealt with. I'm talking about the basis of the US Constitution, its "spirit", so to speak. My reading of the Federalist Papers is that one of the main reasons-to-be of the Constitution was to avoid tyranny, the men that wrote that thing down put things like respecting private property or even what form of government to use after that. I admit, maybe I'm wrong on that interpretation (I've read them about three years ago), but I've recently started reading a selection of Anti-federalist Papers and I stand by my opinion. > FB's and Twitter's constitutional rights Again, there was nothing in the Federalist Papers (nor in the Constitution) about respecting the rights of private, abstract, soulless entities. Yes, I know about the relatively recent decision that gave those corporations a "political soul" (so to speak), but that decision had nothing to do with the original spirit of the basic law on which the USA was founded.
- adrianN 6y ago
  Private parties having the means to shape public discourse is a fairly modern phenomenon too.
josephg 6y ago
The tricky question is whether twitter is in essence a public square. Arguably they've made a new space - governed by nothing but their own corporate policies. I mean, if conversations on twitter are akin to conversations in a public park in the USA, then you would expect the same social / legal conventions to hold on twitter as in public spaces. If I incited violence in the local park, there are norms and laws that come into play. Arguably the same laws should hold on twitter. From that perspective, its weird that a tech company acts as the judge and jury - rather than the police and the courts. And complaints about censorship make total sense. But if you think of twitter, google, facebook etc as corporate serfdoms, then there's no problem with twitter's enforcement. Twitter is a space owned and ruled by a tech company. You rent your twitter account, but own nothing. Twitter can set any rules they like, or set no rules and act entirely capriciously. The interesting question is whether or not we want the internet to work like a weird echo of the middle ages. And what (if anything) we should do about it.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y ago
  Exactly - The Voice is a crucial building block of The Cathedral. It must be free. Best summary so far on whats happening: https://twitter.com/RokoMijicUK/status/1347132644056854539 https://twitter.com/RokoMijicUK/status/1347132644056854539 EDIT another good take, reversion to feudalism: „Twitter & Facebook act as a) De facto spaces of prominent public debate b) De facto news content (press) De jure, they pretend they're in private tech business (to escape legal responsibility of a +b)“ https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1347155317516365826?s=21 https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1347155317516365826?s=21
- bergstromm466 6y ago
  "What I want is to see Uber’s technology become a protocol. Same with Airbnb, same with Postmates, same with other companies in the gig and sharing economies. Same with lots of other important technology companies, while we’re at it. Obviously this can’t happen overnight, but if the technology is useful enough to provide real value, then it’s too useful to be subjugated to the whims of profit forever. I would love to see these technology platforms either fully decentralised, or centralised in such a way that the entity running it is not-for-profit and, ideally, accountable to all stakeholders. The actual mechanisms for making this work are beyond the scope of this post, but I want to throw this idea out there and get people thinking about it, because it’s the only way of making the future work for all of us. I suspect — and feel free to call me naive, but I don’t think I’m wrong— that the majority of people working on Uber’s technology would prefer to build a system whose social impact they could be proud of. Based on my admittedly limited sample size of people I know in the tech industry, I feel like lots of people working at companies like Uber are there because they want to solve interesting technical challenges and deploy useful innovations in the world. I believe that if given the choice, most would prefer to build a system that makes the world a fairer and more equitable place. The problem is that this choice is, for the most part, withheld from them, and whatever individual intentions they may have are inevitably co-opted by the capitalist structure in which they make their living. By working together to counteract these prevailing systematic forces, though, they may be able to open up a space in which to envision alternatives." [1] -- Wendy Liu [1] https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-727b864756a4 https://medium.com/@dellsystem/dont-put-your-faith-in-uber-7...

throwaway829 6y ago

It's obviously not a first amendment is since that restricts what the fed gov can do, but it is a free speech issue which is a philosophy thought to be better than censoring opposing ideas. It's a legal issue in regards to section 230 which only protects open platforms from liability from user content. If Twitter whats to be a publisher with editorial authority then they should be held to the same standard as NYT and CNN.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Barrin92 6y ago
again this awful misreading of 230. No, the law explicitly does not demand a platform be 'open', or neutral or censor free. That is completely nuts, because it would imply hackernews and your personal blog would be legally liable publishers as soon as you start to moderate content. Which is obviously silly because any content-specific platform that controls what it serves would be legally liable and effectively unable to operate on the internet. 230 grants platforms both freedom from liability and gives them the ability to moderate. They do not need to pick.
- pclmulqdq 6y ago
  I think most people who say they This are advocating for 230 to be rewritten, not misreading it. Personally, I think that individual curation of content should be considered an editorial decision, and not simply moderation. Tightly moderated forums where everyone sees the same posts are fine, but twitter/Facebook with their individualized front pages is not.
throw0101a 6y ago
> It's a legal issue in regards to section 230 which only protects open platforms from liability from user content. If Twitter whats to be a publisher with editorial authority then they should be held to the same standard as NYT and CNN. Nope. User-generated content can be moderated and Section 230 protections still apply: > With that done, we can discuss the various ways you might have been wrong about Section 230. If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" […] * https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

alentist 6y ago

> censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security. Why do you conflate any discussion of censorship and freedom of speech with the First Amendment of the US’s constitution?

casefields 6y ago
The folks that are pro-private company censorship always do that. It's the only way their argument works so they have to avoid the nuance that free speech has a law and a principle. It's constant to read opinions like that in threads like this. We used to have this argument in the 60s where private businesses argued they didn't have to serve blacks since they were a private business. Political speech/activity is protected when it comes to labor law. It's not hard to see the law updated at some figure point. Discrimination is discrimination in my book, and free speech is paramount even the most repugnant opinions.
- jpsalm 6y ago
  Twitter suspending/banning for violations of policy is discrimination in the same way barkeeps throwing unruly patrons out of the bar is discrimination.
  - yanderekko 6y ago
    Depends on the policy. Obviously harassing or obscene speech is one thing and even the government is free to restrict it in certain ways (eg. you're not allowed to scream obscenities in public.) Viewpoint-based discrimination is given much more scrutiny, however, and there's a good argument that that's what Twitter et. al are engaging in. Which is less like "throwing unruly patrons out" and more like "calling people whose ideas you dislike unruly and then throwing them out", which is obviously discriminatory.
    - triceratops 6y ago
      > there's a good argument that that's what Twitter et. al are engaging in. Is there? Who's making it? Can you give examples?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]