4 ms·
I've seen enough of these HN threads to at least accept that a lot of people in this community will think this is morally wrong on the part of Google. So in the
by tonystubblebine 6y ago
I've seen enough of these HN threads to at least accept that a lot of people in this community will think this is morally wrong on the part of Google. So in the spirit of understanding, I'm curious, how they see the rights of the product developer?
Is it just at a certain size the product developer no longer has a right to make a product that they are proud of?
That "pride in craft" is how I see it. For many products the content is the product, more so than the actual software features. For Twitter, the product experience is changed more by the presence of Trump than it would be by an Edit button (probably). For Google Play, the experience is defined by which apps are in the store.
These platforms put their thumb on the scales in all sorts of ways. For example they will recruit and cut special deals to bring people on board. For example, Twitter had that NFL deal at one point where you could watch games live.
As a product owner, the motivation to build something I'm proud of is at least as motivating as the desire to make money. And if some person or organization insisted on using my product in a way that was abhorrent to me, to the point that it cut into my pride in the craftsmanship of my product experience, then absolutely I'd toss them out.
The principle is "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." No matter what my TOS says, there's always a 30 day update clause which means that's how long it would take me to change terms and refuse service. So this really is an underlying principle for services regardless of their TOS or community guidelines.
Then the idea that I could throw someone off of my own product and then get yelled at about it--well it confuses me. Prior to seeing the discussions on HN, my expectation would be that throwing someone off of the platform is the equivalent of removing a feature and thus it might come at the cost of some customers. And that's just the constant calculus of any product changes.
Is it that "private platforms have to protect free speech people" have never considered this? Or that there's a reason that the pride of the product owner doesn't factor in?
- FeepingCreature 6y agoThat's a fully general argument against any anti-discrimination law. Compare: "Do I not have the right to live in a country I am proud of, a country without n****s, k***s or g***s?" No, you don't have the right to make yourself proud in an arbitrary way. You can just put the label "proud" on anything you want that you can't get, so this is already an accepted limitation. There's nothing special about "a product."
- tonystubblebine 6y agoI'm not sure I follow. What twitter/google did is legal in the US. Free speech is covered by the First Amendment only as a protection against Government censorship. Private companies can do what they want. It's basically a property issue. Here's how someone on Twitter explained it (this made sense to me): "Trump can say what he wishes, and so can Jack Dorsey, each with their own property. Trump has no right to shout from Dorsey's platform any more than Dorsey has the right to shout from the balcony of Trump tower."
- tonystubblebine 6y agoAlso, you completely changed your comment while I was responding. Hard to discuss with you that way.
- smitty1e 6y agoTwitter has the letter of the law on its side. Twitter has also urinated all over the spirit of the law. Down with Twitter and its monstrous intolerance.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y agoWhich law? I looked around but couldn't find the one that said "the press must print anything pushed at them by their readers". I tried to look for the one that said "broadcast media shall carry any and all spoken word essays from their viewers". So which law's spirit has been urinated over here?
- FeepingCreature 6y agoWell, for example, here you go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- smitty1e 6y agoIt is #FunnyNotFunny to watch a society embrace tyranny in the name of some Jacobin wokeness. Let us do victory laps in the name of tolerance and diversity in all but thought. This message may mean nothing until some innocuous pursuit of yours has a fatwah pronounced against it, and suddenly Niemöller[1] becomes personal. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...
- tonystubblebine 6y agoWe already have tyranny. Are you this active against mass incarceration?
- smitty1e 6y agoWhat mass incarceration? The 'Rona had been a pretext to empty the jails, I thought.
- jlokier 6y agoFrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St... > The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate > the US held 21.0% of the world's prisoners in 2015, even though the US represented only around 4.4 percent of the world's population in 2015 > The U.S. incarceration rate peaked in 2008 when about 1 in 100 US adults was behind bars. This incarceration rate exceeded the average incarceration levels in the Soviet Union during the existence of the Gulag system > one out of every 27 children in the United States having an incarcerated parent > Critics have lambasted the United States for incarcerating a large number of non-violent and victimless offenders; half of all persons incarcerated under state jurisdiction are for non-violent offenses
- 6510 6y agoAlso interesting is that the question arises from that you can. Imagine all the products that involve printed text. Should monitoring the text depend on capacity or ability to? Whatever the agreed or logical answer to the riddle (if any), at what point should it become a law makers job?