6 ms·

Could anyone point me to some cogent, well-formed arguments for why censorship of social media platforms is a good idea? i.e. books, articles, etc? I have some

by deet 6y ago

Could anyone point me to some cogent, well-formed arguments for why censorship of social media platforms is a good idea? i.e. books, articles, etc? I have some thoughts but would like more perspective before fully forming an opinion. (not arguing one way or the other below) For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. And what about those characteristics would make one think that physically removing questionable speech would be effective in preventing the underlying event, crime, movement, or social change the speech was attempting to facilitate. Comparing Twitter, say, to a literal town square — we don’t ask the air in the town square to stop transmitting the vibrations of someone who is speaking in a dangerous manner or trying to incite some action that might harm others or damage social structures. Instead we use normal human social interactions to mediate the speaker’s effect on listeners — countering their arguments, questioning their credibility or motives, telling others an opposing viewpoint, letting a person’s past speech affect their reputation, etc. We leverage our social nature and counter speech with more speech. (The prominent exception being threats of violence which are treated differently legally) In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated. My naive assessment is that social media is different than a physical town square in: - Its anonymity / dehumanized nature - Its built-in amplification of controversial ideas (ie the algorithms of town square air does not carry further just because a statement raises eyebrows) - Its speed - … but there must be more? Basically, why is making the “digital air” in the "digital town square" not vibrate better than utilizing (and perhaps reinforcing) the social structures that moderated public forums in the analog world?

danhak 6y ago
> For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. They are privately held.
xpe 6y ago
Just to clarify: are you asking for arguments supporting... 1. government censorship of a social media platform? 2. self-censorship on social media platform?
RobLach 6y ago
Is anyone claiming that censorship of social media platforms is a good idea? It is mostly people under a false/misunderstood "freedom of speech" pretense saying that Twitter/Facebook/etc should not be able to ban whomever they want.
- deet 6y ago
  Perhaps I'm using the word "censor" in a way that points to the government being the censor. But I mean it to be more encompassing of any entity that has the right to remove content from communications channels. Currently the platforms are private (as a peer comment points out). So right now there isn't technically a "freedom of speech" issue as it's a private matter and private entities in the USA don't need to respect the 1st amendment. As a thought experiment -- suppose the social media platforms were turned into "utilities" and completely absolved of the responsibility (or even the authority) to "censor" speech. In the same way someone's phone doesn't turn off if they make a threatening phone call. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Would losing the ability for anyone to remove content be fundamentally bad? Given that we have social mechanisms that existed prior to digital communication for countering bad speech? As to your question, the fact that some people do support the suspension by the platform controllers (currently private) of accounts that post inflammatory speech would suggest that yes, some folks do think that censorship is a good idea.
  - dgreensp 6y ago
    There’s no “right to tweet.” I feel like this line of thinking takes social media way too seriously. There’s nothing legally or ethically wrong with having something like Twitter that is more of a neutral communication channel. I’m sure it exists. It’s just that Twitter is popular. Regulations that make something like the-Twitter-we-actually-have illegal are a step in the wrong direction. Twitter was started by human beings with certain values and goals, like making it easier to tell your friends what you are up to, and making money. If they don’t want blood on their hands, that’s their choice.
  - TheOperator 6y ago
    The fact this isn't a 1st amendment issue doesn't mean by extension this isn't a freedom of speech issue. Freedom of speech as a concept is much broader than the 1st amendment as well as the United States. Anonymous feedback boxes are an example of an tool meant to ensure freedom of speech.
xpe 6y ago
> I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. I'll put out some ideas quickly. You can build on them. Please share back what you find. Social media platforms, more or less: * Tend to blur any one sense of place * Offer geographically dispersed communication * May deemphasize the overall humanity of participants * Tend to accentuate particular aspects of people, such as photos or messages or resumes * Offer asynchronous communication * Allow for nearly zero-cost message sending and replication (i.e. retweeting) * Unlimited person-to-person communication channels Traditional town squares, more or less: * Offer a tangible sense of place * Offer a tangible connection to other people * Are subject to public assembly laws. * Only a limited number of people can fit. * Public many-to-one communication is constrained by acoustics. * So audio amplification is often needed. * Private communications tend to be limited to short-range communication. In other words, you can't have N^2 two-person conversations.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- okoslaatoo 6y ago
  invites correspondence amongst culturally more diverse people.
xpe 6y ago
> In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated. Not to the same extent. (Your argument offers a false dichotomy.) With terrorism, insurrections, and so on (coordinated crimes in general), being able to slow down, monitor, and respond to communication flows can make the difference between a tragedy and an intervention. The idea of 'slowing things down' can also apply to any information source, such as business news or the political rumor-mill. Do you want recent, vetted, and contextualized information? In practice, pick two.
dgreensp 6y ago
There are limits to what kinds of meetings will be allowed to be held in a town square, or a McDonald’s franchise, say, to pick some random giant company that provides a space to socialize. Facebook and Twitter are like giant newspaper companies that, unlike paper newspapers, which can get in trouble for reprinting someone’s illegal words, are free to distribute others’ words, moderated or unmoderated. No website that you post content to has to distribute that content for you if it doesn’t want to. Twitter is not air. That said, I don’t know what Facebook and Twitter should do, if there is such a thing as that. I think Twitter could easily justify not blocking Trump, by making the argument that they are a communication service, and they don’t want to start editorializing, but clearly that is not their stance! Facebook curates and bumps content up and down by its very nature, so Lord knows what it “should” do with itself. We probably just shouldn’t have these giant monoliths.
oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
Paradox of tolerance -> paradox of freedom -> restriction of the freedom to undermine freedom.
TheOperator 6y ago
I'll bite. Censorship of social platforms is absolutely necessary and this is obvious if you think about the problem for long enough, and even more obvious if you try to run one. Spam is a form of speech. You will get DDOSed by bad faith actors selling viagra without censorship. Now of course that's not what people are discussing, but almost all moderation is censorship. Censorship is table stakes to even be able to have a public community beyond a certain size, an uncensored public community would just be static, noise. If you look at the pure numbers only a small minority of (human) users actually get banned, and most of the censorship happens further down the moderation chain. What people are arguing over, in practice, is if maybe a fraction of a percent of users should be banned or not or should have their posts removed or not. Censorship is so pervasive it's not even recognized as such. The actual disagreement is over a very small fraction of users and rules that would in practice affect a fraction of a percent of users and perhaps spark a trend of self-censorship. Censorship of social media platforms is good, what's in question is if we're perhaps going too far, but the actual difference between peoples views when you look at things from far enough back is actually fairly narrow. Additionally trying to enable the average person to have "Freedom of expression" online while NOT engaging in censorship paradoxically isn't even possible. The key then as I see it is to keep censorship as minimalistic as practicable, have the rules be well defined, and to empower user self-regulation. It's also a concern to avoid, as much as is practicable, creating community schisms where a group splits off and creates it's own filter bubble which I consider to be outright dangerous (A threat to safety, if you will). For this reason, but also for its own sake, I argue for making efforts to avoid tyrannies of the majority. Because of these priorities, I usually present myself as a free speech proponent since I always seem to be saying people shouldn't be banned or suppressed, but in reality I support broad and sweeping and even automated censorship.

by deet 6y ago

danhak 6y ago

> For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. They are privately held.

xpe 6y ago

Just to clarify: are you asking for arguments supporting... 1. government censorship of a social media platform? 2. self-censorship on social media platform?

RobLach 6y ago

Is anyone claiming that censorship of social media platforms is a good idea? It is mostly people under a false/misunderstood "freedom of speech" pretense saying that Twitter/Facebook/etc should not be able to ban whomever they want.

deet 6y ago
Perhaps I'm using the word "censor" in a way that points to the government being the censor. But I mean it to be more encompassing of any entity that has the right to remove content from communications channels. Currently the platforms are private (as a peer comment points out). So right now there isn't technically a "freedom of speech" issue as it's a private matter and private entities in the USA don't need to respect the 1st amendment. As a thought experiment -- suppose the social media platforms were turned into "utilities" and completely absolved of the responsibility (or even the authority) to "censor" speech. In the same way someone's phone doesn't turn off if they make a threatening phone call. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Would losing the ability for anyone to remove content be fundamentally bad? Given that we have social mechanisms that existed prior to digital communication for countering bad speech? As to your question, the fact that some people do support the suspension by the platform controllers (currently private) of accounts that post inflammatory speech would suggest that yes, some folks do think that censorship is a good idea.
- dgreensp 6y ago
  There’s no “right to tweet.” I feel like this line of thinking takes social media way too seriously. There’s nothing legally or ethically wrong with having something like Twitter that is more of a neutral communication channel. I’m sure it exists. It’s just that Twitter is popular. Regulations that make something like the-Twitter-we-actually-have illegal are a step in the wrong direction. Twitter was started by human beings with certain values and goals, like making it easier to tell your friends what you are up to, and making money. If they don’t want blood on their hands, that’s their choice.
- TheOperator 6y ago
  The fact this isn't a 1st amendment issue doesn't mean by extension this isn't a freedom of speech issue. Freedom of speech as a concept is much broader than the 1st amendment as well as the United States. Anonymous feedback boxes are an example of an tool meant to ensure freedom of speech.

xpe 6y ago

> I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. I'll put out some ideas quickly. You can build on them. Please share back what you find. Social media platforms, more or less: * Tend to blur any one sense of place * Offer geographically dispersed communication * May deemphasize the overall humanity of participants * Tend to accentuate particular aspects of people, such as photos or messages or resumes * Offer asynchronous communication * Allow for nearly zero-cost message sending and replication (i.e. retweeting) * Unlimited person-to-person communication channels Traditional town squares, more or less: * Offer a tangible sense of place * Offer a tangible connection to other people * Are subject to public assembly laws. * Only a limited number of people can fit. * Public many-to-one communication is constrained by acoustics. * So audio amplification is often needed. * Private communications tend to be limited to short-range communication. In other words, you can't have N^2 two-person conversations.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
okoslaatoo 6y ago
invites correspondence amongst culturally more diverse people.

xpe 6y ago

> In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated. Not to the same extent. (Your argument offers a false dichotomy.) With terrorism, insurrections, and so on (coordinated crimes in general), being able to slow down, monitor, and respond to communication flows can make the difference between a tragedy and an intervention. The idea of 'slowing things down' can also apply to any information source, such as business news or the political rumor-mill. Do you want recent, vetted, and contextualized information? In practice, pick two.

dgreensp 6y ago

There are limits to what kinds of meetings will be allowed to be held in a town square, or a McDonald’s franchise, say, to pick some random giant company that provides a space to socialize. Facebook and Twitter are like giant newspaper companies that, unlike paper newspapers, which can get in trouble for reprinting someone’s illegal words, are free to distribute others’ words, moderated or unmoderated. No website that you post content to has to distribute that content for you if it doesn’t want to. Twitter is not air. That said, I don’t know what Facebook and Twitter should do, if there is such a thing as that. I think Twitter could easily justify not blocking Trump, by making the argument that they are a communication service, and they don’t want to start editorializing, but clearly that is not their stance! Facebook curates and bumps content up and down by its very nature, so Lord knows what it “should” do with itself. We probably just shouldn’t have these giant monoliths.

oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago

Paradox of tolerance -> paradox of freedom -> restriction of the freedom to undermine freedom.

TheOperator 6y ago

I'll bite. Censorship of social platforms is absolutely necessary and this is obvious if you think about the problem for long enough, and even more obvious if you try to run one. Spam is a form of speech. You will get DDOSed by bad faith actors selling viagra without censorship. Now of course that's not what people are discussing, but almost all moderation is censorship. Censorship is table stakes to even be able to have a public community beyond a certain size, an uncensored public community would just be static, noise. If you look at the pure numbers only a small minority of (human) users actually get banned, and most of the censorship happens further down the moderation chain. What people are arguing over, in practice, is if maybe a fraction of a percent of users should be banned or not or should have their posts removed or not. Censorship is so pervasive it's not even recognized as such. The actual disagreement is over a very small fraction of users and rules that would in practice affect a fraction of a percent of users and perhaps spark a trend of self-censorship. Censorship of social media platforms is good, what's in question is if we're perhaps going too far, but the actual difference between peoples views when you look at things from far enough back is actually fairly narrow. Additionally trying to enable the average person to have "Freedom of expression" online while NOT engaging in censorship paradoxically isn't even possible. The key then as I see it is to keep censorship as minimalistic as practicable, have the rules be well defined, and to empower user self-regulation. It's also a concern to avoid, as much as is practicable, creating community schisms where a group splits off and creates it's own filter bubble which I consider to be outright dangerous (A threat to safety, if you will). For this reason, but also for its own sake, I argue for making efforts to avoid tyrannies of the majority. Because of these priorities, I usually present myself as a free speech proponent since I always seem to be saying people shouldn't be banned or suppressed, but in reality I support broad and sweeping and even automated censorship.