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> A platform should not apply one set of rules to most of its users, and then apply a more permissive set of rules to politicians and world leaders who are alre

> A platform should not apply one set of rules to most of its users, and then apply a more permissive set of rules to politicians and world leaders who are already immensely powerful. Ok... why not? A government is an unavoidably violent institution, and what's more, one which assumes the right and responsibility to use violence. In a free nation, it derives that right through various rituals from the consent of the governed, but it remains a fact: if a governmental leader says, for example, "There's a curfew, stay home or be arrested", that's what's going to happen. If I message someone else "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you", it's different, isn't it. So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both?

Miner49er 6y ago
Maybe the EFF has an anarchist political philosophy and doesn't think the state should have a monopoly on violence and that these types of positions of power shouldn't exist?
- threatofrain 6y ago
  There's a difference between prescription and description, and just because you have the prescriptive belief that nobody should murder doesn't mean your worldview works that way. All governments since forever have used violence as a core technique for order, and I doubt the EFF thinks otherwise.
zozbot234 6y ago
Freedom-respecting governments are bound by the rule of law. A government official tweeting "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you" in the absence of a lawful policy directing as such is not really acting pursuant to the government's "right and responsibility to use violence", so there's hardly any reason to treat them differently from a random person doing the same.
ineedasername 6y ago
Any rule by any group ultimately comes down to enforcement through some variety of force. I have never seen it as a particularly useful talking point to highlight that governments are also subject to this foundational principal of the enFORCEment of a rule/law etc.
kodah 6y ago
I think you're probably looking at this from the opposite side of the coin that the EFF is. The EFF is looking at people on social media who are government officials and have gotten away with condoning violence because of some high ideals that say having a cancer in the sunlight is better than hiding it away in the dark while normal citizens are held to a different set of arbitrary rules that are often not enforced equally.
mumblemumble 6y ago
In a nutshell, one of the bedrock ideas of liberal society is that government officials and governments are not the same thing. We permit the government to do some things that individuals are not permitted to do, out of necessity, because we have yet to construct a society that eliminates the need for certain ostensibly necessary evils. We find that delegating those responsibilities to a corporate body that is largely (if imperfectly) answerable to the population as a whole for its actions tends to result in better outcomes than any other alternative that's been tried. The actual execution of those responsibilities then gets sub-delegated out to individuals, but they are supposed to only be permitted to do so when lawfully acting on behalf of the government. Again, out of necessity. While it's not awesome, anything else anyone has tried so far has ended up working out even worse. As individuals acting on their own behalf, though, nobody should be considered above the norms of civil society. By definition - if it didn't work that way, society would not be civil. (I'd highly recommend reading both A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick for two different but equally thoughtful treatments of this sort of thing.)
- mercer 6y ago
  Where does it leave the people who lack trust in that kind of delegation? What do we do about that? I'm inclined to agree with what you describe, but it worries me how many of them (us?) have come to feel that it doesn't work. We have a growing left convinced that 'the government' is just a bunch of elites caring about maintaining their wealth, and a growing right that believes the same. I feel both perspectives are at least not unreasonable. So as someone trying to be reasonable and in favor of maintaining some kind of order, where does that leave me? How do we maintain order without accepting a very small elite to maintain it's (corrupt) power? How do we talk to our 'constituents' about this? I'm truly in favor of solutions that don't end up causing societal chaos and killing people, but I'm lost as to the how.
  - mumblemumble 6y ago
    That gets outside of political theory and into practicalities, which isn't somewhere I'm personally prepared to go in any serious way. But, here's one thought: Texas state legislators are paid a salary of $7,200 per year. Not exactly a lot to live on. So they've clearly got to either be independently wealthy, or figure out some other source of income. "A well nourished Legislature, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to seek and receive graft shall not be infringed." Or something like that.
scaramanga 6y ago
Two planes fly in to the world trade centres. Is Osama bin Laden allowed to tweet "Today we conducted a successful planes operation against the US imperialist international terrorists and sent them scurrying. Today is a good day, we good guys have struck a firm and lasting blow to the bad guys." ? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). If north korea fires artillery shells at south korea because of its maritime border dispute should it be allowed to make a similar tweet? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). Can the US president make a tweet like that when he launches a criminal attack on another country? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). Some people hold the view (which you can disagree with, but regardless is a perfectly reasonable view for someone to hold even if you disagree with it) that crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity even when they are carried out by lawfully appointed officials.
- scaramanga 6y ago
  If this is two oblique of an answer. Consider this. The same principles can be applied in two near identical circumstances and come up with quite different conclusions. For example, vigilante justice or mafia-led street enforcement activities can be considered criminal acts, even if it would come to the same results and verdicts as a law enforcement operation and/or judicial process. I don't think anybody is proposing banning police officials because they lawfully "kidnapped and trafficked" someone by arresting them.
Barrin92 6y ago
>So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both? because in a well functioning Republic communication channels for the government are public, and private companies serve private customers. The only reason we're having this discussion is because Donald Trump has intentionally conflated the private and public sphere by using his personal twitter account to conduct governmental affairs. This is terrible because it is 1. insecure and intransparent, 2. there's no established procedures for anything, 3. it conflates his private interest with his public interest (i.e. his decisions in office can be influenced by his commercial interests on the platform). There should be different rules for Trump when he acts as the president, and indeed he has established communication channels for that very purpose, but when he speaks as a private citizen on a private platform he ought to be treated like everyone else. That's the basis of any non-corrupt system. When Angela Merkel goes to the supermarket (which she in fact does herself) she stands in the queue like everyone else because the fact that she inhabits the office of the Chancellor does not give her superpowers when she enters an ALDI.

Miner49er 6y ago

Maybe the EFF has an anarchist political philosophy and doesn't think the state should have a monopoly on violence and that these types of positions of power shouldn't exist?

threatofrain 6y ago
There's a difference between prescription and description, and just because you have the prescriptive belief that nobody should murder doesn't mean your worldview works that way. All governments since forever have used violence as a core technique for order, and I doubt the EFF thinks otherwise.

zozbot234 6y ago

Freedom-respecting governments are bound by the rule of law. A government official tweeting "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you" in the absence of a lawful policy directing as such is not really acting pursuant to the government's "right and responsibility to use violence", so there's hardly any reason to treat them differently from a random person doing the same.

ineedasername 6y ago

Any rule by any group ultimately comes down to enforcement through some variety of force. I have never seen it as a particularly useful talking point to highlight that governments are also subject to this foundational principal of the enFORCEment of a rule/law etc.

kodah 6y ago

I think you're probably looking at this from the opposite side of the coin that the EFF is. The EFF is looking at people on social media who are government officials and have gotten away with condoning violence because of some high ideals that say having a cancer in the sunlight is better than hiding it away in the dark while normal citizens are held to a different set of arbitrary rules that are often not enforced equally.

mumblemumble 6y ago

In a nutshell, one of the bedrock ideas of liberal society is that government officials and governments are not the same thing. We permit the government to do some things that individuals are not permitted to do, out of necessity, because we have yet to construct a society that eliminates the need for certain ostensibly necessary evils. We find that delegating those responsibilities to a corporate body that is largely (if imperfectly) answerable to the population as a whole for its actions tends to result in better outcomes than any other alternative that's been tried. The actual execution of those responsibilities then gets sub-delegated out to individuals, but they are supposed to only be permitted to do so when lawfully acting on behalf of the government. Again, out of necessity. While it's not awesome, anything else anyone has tried so far has ended up working out even worse. As individuals acting on their own behalf, though, nobody should be considered above the norms of civil society. By definition - if it didn't work that way, society would not be civil. (I'd highly recommend reading both A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick for two different but equally thoughtful treatments of this sort of thing.)

mercer 6y ago
Where does it leave the people who lack trust in that kind of delegation? What do we do about that? I'm inclined to agree with what you describe, but it worries me how many of them (us?) have come to feel that it doesn't work. We have a growing left convinced that 'the government' is just a bunch of elites caring about maintaining their wealth, and a growing right that believes the same. I feel both perspectives are at least not unreasonable. So as someone trying to be reasonable and in favor of maintaining some kind of order, where does that leave me? How do we maintain order without accepting a very small elite to maintain it's (corrupt) power? How do we talk to our 'constituents' about this? I'm truly in favor of solutions that don't end up causing societal chaos and killing people, but I'm lost as to the how.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  That gets outside of political theory and into practicalities, which isn't somewhere I'm personally prepared to go in any serious way. But, here's one thought: Texas state legislators are paid a salary of $7,200 per year. Not exactly a lot to live on. So they've clearly got to either be independently wealthy, or figure out some other source of income. "A well nourished Legislature, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to seek and receive graft shall not be infringed." Or something like that.

scaramanga 6y ago

Two planes fly in to the world trade centres. Is Osama bin Laden allowed to tweet "Today we conducted a successful planes operation against the US imperialist international terrorists and sent them scurrying. Today is a good day, we good guys have struck a firm and lasting blow to the bad guys." ? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). If north korea fires artillery shells at south korea because of its maritime border dispute should it be allowed to make a similar tweet? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). Can the US president make a tweet like that when he launches a criminal attack on another country? Of course not (imo, but your values may differ). Some people hold the view (which you can disagree with, but regardless is a perfectly reasonable view for someone to hold even if you disagree with it) that crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity even when they are carried out by lawfully appointed officials.

scaramanga 6y ago
If this is two oblique of an answer. Consider this. The same principles can be applied in two near identical circumstances and come up with quite different conclusions. For example, vigilante justice or mafia-led street enforcement activities can be considered criminal acts, even if it would come to the same results and verdicts as a law enforcement operation and/or judicial process. I don't think anybody is proposing banning police officials because they lawfully "kidnapped and trafficked" someone by arresting them.

Barrin92 6y ago

>So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both? because in a well functioning Republic communication channels for the government are public, and private companies serve private customers. The only reason we're having this discussion is because Donald Trump has intentionally conflated the private and public sphere by using his personal twitter account to conduct governmental affairs. This is terrible because it is 1. insecure and intransparent, 2. there's no established procedures for anything, 3. it conflates his private interest with his public interest (i.e. his decisions in office can be influenced by his commercial interests on the platform). There should be different rules for Trump when he acts as the president, and indeed he has established communication channels for that very purpose, but when he speaks as a private citizen on a private platform he ought to be treated like everyone else. That's the basis of any non-corrupt system. When Angela Merkel goes to the supermarket (which she in fact does herself) she stands in the queue like everyone else because the fact that she inhabits the office of the Chancellor does not give her superpowers when she enters an ALDI.