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Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub accou

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

spoonjim 6y ago
What’s your opinion on their takedown of @realDonaldTrump?
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  The same. If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly, and if he isn't a private entity has no issue determining what a politician can say. As a German one thinks different about free speech than do most Americans. We know all too well where too much free speech leads and when in doubt let the courts decide because we love public peace. Putting a muzzle on someone is interfering with political expression, which is a constitutional right. A monopolist like Twitter has no business interpreting the constitution, the issue would have to see its day in court.
  - michaelmior 6y ago
    Why would Twitter request a court to issue an injunction to remove him from the platform that they own and control? They're fully able to do some without an injunction so I'm not sure any court would even deal with the case. IANAL
    - wutbrodo 6y ago
      It's not about Twitter's ability to ban users it's about enabling them avoid a substantial expansion of their moderation responsibilities. Twitter considers it a positive thing to have transparent and relatively equitably-applied rules, and this is an obvious positive for its users, and society in general (given how central Twitter has become to national discourse). Capricious one-off expansions that are difficult to justify generally (or that would require massive increases in moderation that pretty much everyone would hate) are the last thing Twitter wants.
  - Solocomplex 6y ago
    His speech has not been restricted in any real way. He can call a press conference and communicate with every American within minutes.
    - speeder 6y ago
      I am not from US, but would like to point you are wrong about that. He can call a conference, but the press is not obliged to show up. https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cnn-white-house-press-conference-sean-spicer-donald-trump-1201966230/ https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cnn-white-house-press-confe... And since that in 2017, when they figured they could skip his press conferences, it has becoming more and more normal, if I remember correctly he announced a press conference only some days ago and it was ignored by almost all major media corporations with a few exceptions (Fox for example aired him).
      - beart 6y ago
        The lack of press coverage of the Trump Administration may also be attributed to the administration reducing the frequency and value of press briefings. This is an article from 2018 and I would put money on it having only gotten worse since. https://qz.com/1503024/2018-was-the-year-the-white-house-press-briefing-died/ https://qz.com/1503024/2018-was-the-year-the-white-house-pre...
      - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
        He can publish video or any content he wants on whitehouse.gov; I'm sure he would get millions of views overnight.
      - franklampard 6y ago
        The White House needs to build a healthy relationship with the press. Why would you expect them to come the moment you want them after blasting them as fake news, and kicking them out when you dislike their questions?
      - AniseAbyss 6y ago
        Good for them, no point going to a press conference where a rude orange man just insults you screaming Lügenpresse. I don't think I'm the only one who switches channels whenever that man is on.
  - vladTheInhaler 6y ago
    > If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly Maybe courts work differently in Germany, but one word I would absolutely never use to describe them is "quick". Furthermore, courts in the US tend to be extremely skeptical of what is called "prior restrain". And describing what ought to be proscribed is especially complicated by Trumps use of innuendo and circumspection. He almost never says anything directly, even when it's pretty much apolitical - see for instance him explaining what Uranium is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnKtzQpCSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnKtzQpCSs
  - SllX 6y ago
    Well our laws and legal traditions are a bit different than Germany’s Basic Law and Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch. In our case Twitter’s private property rights trump the President’s rights. The President is the President and the President can always get a message out if he wants; Twitter on the other hand is not obligated to serve as a medium of Government communications and if they had IP banned the White House and Capitol at any point in their history, and maybe IP banned the equivalents in other countries, who would be able to say they couldn’t?
    - fastball 6y ago
      Yes, but I think the problem is more that we have a massively connected society but are relying on the good will of corporations to provide that connectivity.
      - AniseAbyss 6y ago
        Repubs always hated public broadcasting, championing the free market to take care of journalism. Companies think Trump is toxic for their brand- surprised pikachu.
        fastball 6y ago
        I'm not really championing public broadcasting here either. But in an internet-enabled world, in a country that values the right to free speech, there should be wholly unbiased platform that allows anyone to promote their speech to anyone else who wants to listen, as long as it is not speech that is already considered illegal (as decided by the courts, not unnamed corporate arbiters of truth). People keep making the argument that "free speech isn't the same as right to have a platform / be signal boosted" or whatever, and I think that was true in the past. When the most you could do to broadcast was stand on the street corner and yell out your speech, that idea applied. But in this day and age, information flow is so strong that someone who has their broadcasting ability cut off effectively has their speech cut off. Imagine trying to exercise your free speech in a world where, whenever you tried to say something, there was someone there to just yell 1000x louder than you so that you were totally drowned out. In a world where so much of our communication is happening over internet channels, this is essentially what we're talking about when we "deplatform" someone.
  - russell_h 6y ago
    To be clear, there is no serious interpretation of the US Constitution required here: Twitter absolutely has the right to determine what shows up on their website. For the government to require Twitter to publish the opinions of the president would be a very clear violation of Twitter’s own first amendment rights. There could be more nuance involved if, for example, there were a credible claim of racial discrimination involved, but that’s obviously not the case here.
    - this_user 6y ago
      The problem with this argument is that it completely sidesteps the issue of how much platforms like Twitter and FB possess quasi-monopolies in their respective niches. In fact, perhaps Twitter's biggest competitor just got shut down by Amazon. This effectively means that we are back to the old days of newspapers first, then radio, and finally TV, where a small number of media companies control what people read, hear, and see. Except, this time the power is concentrated in even fewer hands. This raises the question of whether something should be done to turn a service like Twitter into content-agnostic platforms that can no longer decide at their own discretion what even the world's highest elected officials can and cannot say.
      - jfrankamp 6y ago
        If twitter was hoarding ip addresses so that parlor couldn't be hosted, or somehow preventing competitors from entering the space... ? I just don't see it. DT could put together one of the most popular websites on the internet in a day or two if he put a single user microblog up. All the media would eat it up. Better pick a swiss host though!
    - gojomo 6y ago
      Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has repeatedly been summoned before Congress to be dressed-down by legislators, who regularly threaten to "do something" that increases Twitter's liabilities or otherwise encumbers their business, if Twitter doesn't change their internal policies. In some cases, it's been suggested that discretionary government powers under existing laws could be used to reward or punish Twitter. Twitter's been the topic of executive orders & criticism from the FCC chair. If Twitter'd been left to do anything it thought legal and wise, and only challenged via formal lawsuits or prosecutions that courts could rule on, then sure, Twitter can do whatever they want. But now that politicians, elected officeholders, & appointed regulators have all piled-on with their opinions of what Twitter should do, "or else", might there be some government-restricting-expression issues to consider? Is it a coincidence that they only took strong action against Trump once he became a "lame duck", and the action they took will specifically please the incoming administrations' coalition? Has the government found the perfect 1st Amendment loophole, by laundering their speech-restricting preferences through threats – "because of the implication" – while maintaining a facade of non-involvement in this "private" decision?
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    Any company can ban anyone from their platform if they violate their ToS. If you don't agree, then you can go to court. Eg. Otherwise Twitter would have to go to court to remove potential bots. Which would result in millions of lawsuits across countries. That's not realistic
  - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
    Twitter is not a monopoly by any stretch. Regulating how sites handle speech just adds an additional hurdle for new, better platforms to enter. I should not have to have an expensive lawyer on retainer to read injunction requests just for running a <$2/month IRC server because some random important/popular people decided to use publish their manifesto on it. This has already been tested in court in the Prager University vs Google, LLC [1] trial and was resolved very quickly. Freedom of speech does not mean another individual has to assist you in publishing or advertising your speech. You are free to shout from a soap box but no one has to provide you that soap box. I really think people over emphasize the power that social media sites have. They own a lot of eyeball market share but they do not have the power to prevent you from publishing your opinions. Anyone can make their own website, their own Mastadon instance (see Gab if you want proof), their own Peertube instance, a lot of work is done by the open source community to make it easy to publish content not reliant on large corporations.
    - salawat 6y ago
      >I really think people over emphasize the power that social media sites have. You say, in the midst of a discussion amongst an international userbase on the political ramifications of a policy decision. Let's be real about this. Social media, when you really look at it, propagates signal that makes remote events local in terms of sphere of influence. Any content can touch anyone, the globe over assuming an internet connection. Frankly, and I apologize if this is out of turn, but I think you underestimate the power behind choosing what conversations won't take place. Just look at the big difference that a U.S. Senate Majority leader can have in terms of the realistic chance of something being discussed. Never, ever, underestimate the power of negation or deprioritization. In fact, it's a little funny, because being in the position to make those decisions at all is really the common definition of power/authority.
    - totalZero 6y ago
      > Twitter is not a monopoly by any stretch. Considering that Parler was curbstomped by Google/Apple/AWS last week, it's safe to say that Twitter doesn't operate in a naturally competitive market.
  - sitkack 6y ago
    As an American, I respect the German perspective on what these liberties mean to civilization. We cannot bend the protections based on our personal beliefs. The structure and what it protects is more important than the specific case. When we subvert it, even from righteous causes, we break the system for everyone.
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    Well the one lie we like to tell ourselves (I am an American) is that if Twitter/Facebook/Amazon/Google takes action against someone we don't like we don't run afoul of pesky First Amendment and other issues. However we are fooling ourselves because these companies very much are bending to political pressure and acting on the behalf of that. You can pretty much try to throw up all the exceptions to that claim you want but in the end you a few issues which show it, first being they don't want to invite further regulatory control over their industry, second they don't want legal liability for actions of those who use their platforms, third they respond to the whims of their management and to a certain point their employees on who they let use their systems. People must recognize that politicians exert undo influence over all businesses simply because they can change the law and regulatory structure they operate under. It easily explains why so many politicians move into cushy business jobs in not slot their friends and family into the same. Its the cost of doing business. Established political players simply have too much power.
  - fjabre 6y ago
    I absolutely agree with this line of reasoning. Thank you.
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    Twitter isn't deciding what Donald Trump says, it's deciding what he says on their website. I wouldn't allow Donald Trump to give a speech from my backyard -- that's not an impingement on his rights.
- kwhitefoot 6y ago
  (Not the OP) I would prefer that Twitter did it in response to a court order. But courts don't seem to be able to act fast enough.
  - cpursley 6y ago
    Which is why we should also get rid of the courts in addition to free speech.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      Credit card companies managed to do just that. There is the argument that class actions are preferable to Parliament setting laws because courts are more agile, setting precedent. So Big Money got in front of that through mandatory arbitration. Why that is constitutional I couldn't tell. Perhaps it is because Congress is corrupt.
    - secondcoming 6y ago
      Trial by upvotes on /r/publicopinion!
  - oneplane 6y ago
    I'm not sure why a court would have to 'allow' a company to enforce their own terms of service. The other way around would work: if a court finds that the terms of service are in violation of the law then an action can be reversed and terms can be revised. It seems that courts are now being used as some sort of universal arbiter in every disagreement instead of using them for what they are for: decide on legal disputes. Not ever disagreement is a legal dispute but treating it like that makes society brittle and dystopian.
memer 6y ago
It's Twitter's own servers and they can choose who can use them or not. Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses. Sure it matters. It matters because a bunch of people want businesses to allow all legal speech on their platform. And this group of people is growing in support, and they might eventually get enough support to force these business to do so, using legislative changes such as required these major companies to follow common carrier laws.
  - splistud 6y ago
    It also matters in the sense that one can't avoid certain regulation by claiming to be a public forum rather than a publisher while not being a public forum at all
- markus_zhang 6y ago
  I'd argue once X amount of users use your service you are sort of public service company already. You can't use "oh we are a business so we can do anything we want" to defend yourself about that.
  - a1369209993 6y ago
    It's a little more subtle than that - more strength of network effects than mere number of users - but pretty much.
- baggy_trough 6y ago
  Yes they can, but they shouldn't.
- john_moscow 6y ago
  >It's Twitter's own servers That are offered to the customers below cost of running them in order to stifle competition, which is only possible as long as the government antitrust body is looking the other way.
john_moscow 6y ago
Twitter is a company. And banning decisions are made by specific people in it. And it's not like after banning Trump they will happily consider their job done and go stock shelves at Walmart for minimum wage. Oh no, they have tasted power and they will continue finding new targets because their cushy job literally depends on it.
bioinformatics 6y ago
You missed the worldwide vote for the company that should hold the only truths in all matters? Twitter won. Google second and FB third.
- dylan604 6y ago
  * Some or all of the content shared in this message is disputed and might be misleading
- takeda 6y ago
  This whole argument is such bullshit. People are trying to frame it as POTUS suddenly has no way to speak as if presidents before him had no platform to talk to the nation. POTUS and other officials should be banned for using private platform for official messages.
tomjen3 6y ago
I disagree, they should have purged Elsevier.
- mc32 6y ago
  I know you’re being cheeky. But honestly no. People and entities should be allowed opinions no matter how we disagree, so long as it’s not outright violent or otherwise violating local laws.
mc32 6y ago
Agree. They’re not violating copyright via Twitter. They should have a voice via Twitter, no matter the accusation. Do accused murderers [as opposed to convicted] get their Twitter suspended? This is ridiculous.
- kennywinker 6y ago
  For that matter, should convicted murderers get their accounts suspended? I think not solely on the grounds that they’ve committed murder - but maybe if they are using their platform to cause further harm.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Yeah I don’t know the ins and outs of that. I only made a difference because felons lose rights in the penitentiary, but then again most who can are able to commercialize their stories, though sometimes the state steps in and diverts proceeds to victims, etc.
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > For that matter, should convicted murderers get their accounts suspended? I think not solely on the grounds that they’ve committed murder - but maybe if they are using their platform to cause further harm. On a related note, Facebook policy bans sex offenders from having accounts at all, regardless of what they do with them: https://www.facebook.com/help/210081519032737 https://www.facebook.com/help/210081519032737: > Convicted sex offenders aren't allowed to use Facebook. If you've seen an account that may belong to a convicted sex offender, please report it to us. Not sure about the other social media networks.
    - kristofferR 6y ago
      That's pretty messed up. You as a 14 year old send a nude picture to your 15 year old boyfriend and suddenly you're banned from Facebook from life? Frankly the whole situation in the US is messed up, punishment should be limited to whatever the court decides.
29athrowaway 6y ago
Twitter is enforcing DMCA.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
  No, they aren’t. They’re not violating copyright via Twitter
bananabreakfast 6y ago
In what world is Twitter a monopoly? Its market cap is $36B. That's 2X less than Snap and 20X less than Facebook.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
  It's crazy isn't it? This community thinks Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors, ditto Twitter and Facebook. Microsoft isn't though. Not because they don't completely own the Desktop PC market just as they ever did, but because that market is less relevant than it used to be for web devs. I live in a strange time.
  - missosoup 6y ago
    They are monopolies within a set of respective markets/niches when it comes to speech platforms. GP's point was that private individuals have the power to arbitrarily deplatform speech they don't like, no court order required. The counter argument is 'go find another speech platform', but it doesn't work, because speech platforms have been monopolised by a single-digit handful of individuals.
    - maximente 6y ago
      i think there may be some conflating of "very powerful" (?) with monopoly here. it does not take much effort to realize that twitter is not a monopoly in the space of speech platforms. it's not clear to me that twitter is particularly unique as a speech platform: blogs minimally could serve this role, as could mastodon. more controversially perhaps: facebook/instagram. contrast that with a situation where you literally /cannot/ get utilities delivered to your house because the utility company doesn't like you: seems like a fairly stark difference to me.
      - missosoup 6y ago
        This is a logical fallacy and the equivalent of saying 'you are welcome to practice free speech, in this here sound-proofed room'. Twitter is one of a small handful of platforms where an individual can share an idea and have that idea spread - as long as the owners of Twitter don't disagree with that idea. It's not because twitter is special, it's because it was one of the first to achieve a sufficiently large userbase. Defending arbitrary censorship on these platforms as 'oh well it's a private entity so they can do what they like' misses the forest for the trees. Technology has shifted the power balance for free expression, and applying pre-technology laws and mindsets to it just empowers that small handful of individuals to manipulate public discourse even more. Twitter doesn't quite have a monopoly on speech, but it's damn close in terms of practical outcomes. The fact that the legal definition of `monopoly` hasn't caught up with that, doesn't change the matter.
burtonator 6y ago
Twitter did NOTHING as Trump basically spend the last 4 year inciting a mob on their platform, threatening people, and committing HUNDREDS of violations that would get you and I kicked off. THEN ... when there is a literal armed insurrection against the capital where TWO police officers died and 5 people total, and they had pipe bombs and hand cuffs to kidnap people, they waited until FRIDAY after the markets closed to ban Trump from the platform. Twitter's behavior in this entire thing is beyond unacceptable and borders on treasonous. I really think everyone needs to be calling for @jack to resign.
devwastaken 6y ago
You don't want to get to the point of a court order. Expecting twitter to defend you when you're committing copyright infringement is ridiculous. They don't have to do it only when the platform is used for direct infringement, they remove the account before they can do that and before the legal problems. This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement.
- djrogers 6y ago
  > This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement. Are they committing copyright infringement on Twitter?
  - devwastaken 6y ago
    They're an organization who's purpose is to commit copyright infringement. They don't have to be doing the infringement on twitter itself for twitter to reasonably suspend them. Again, they suspend them to prevent the platform being inevitably used for direct infringement or to be used as a guide on where/how to participate in the infringement. Twitter may not be responsible for user content as per section 230 but it's also not a good idea as a company to step on the toes of intellectual property holders without good reason.
    - TeMPOraL 6y ago
      Does Twitter automatically ban everyone using the hashtag #CanHasPDF? That's how scientific papers were spread before SciHub; what Elbakyan did was to move the copyright infringement off Twitter and to a dedicated service.
  - wittyreference 6y ago
    Yes. The featured article notes that they were providing links on their Twitter account. Their quoted defense includes, to paraphrase, the account was /mostly/ discussing open access issues, it wasn’t /primarily/ for sharing pirated materials.
davrosthedalek 6y ago
It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this apply? Must every company work with every potential customer? Who decides which companies must? Going through the options, I only see viable: twitter can ban whomever they like, for whatever reason, except for the usual exceptions (religion, race etc). I wish they wouldn't though.
- roenxi 6y ago
  > a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? Although some people agree that is the question, it is not the fundamental one here. Most of the respectable arguments are that Twitter's bans are senselessly harming Twitter. They're building a gaping hole in their offering that a competitor can cover.
  - lliamander 6y ago
    The thing is, few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. Parler was nuked. Gab was almost nuked, but they've managed to survive. There's a huge demand for alternatives to Twitter, but other major tech companies, the corporate press, and many politicians are doing everything in their power to crush those alternatives and prevent them from springing up.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      >few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. That's because companies don't want associated with the users on those platforms, many of whom left Twitter because twitter didn't want them either. So businesses aren't simply in some evil cahoots with Twitter. They're associated with Twitter because that the users they do want to associate with.
    - 6y ago
heimatau 6y ago
> Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between @dick said recently in an interview that these are geo-political decisions. That they might've did the calculus of losing advertising money but it's not the predominate reason [1]. [1] - I can't find this source. I find it weird that I can't search my history to find it. It was in an interview with either Bloomberg or WSJ. P.S. The interview was in relation to Trump being banned but I think his response applies to Sci_Hub because these are intentional decisions, not from an AI/automated system.
beebmam 6y ago
Why should we FORCE twitter to publish the speech of someone they don't want to publish? Doesn't that itself infringe on free speech?
- kypro 6y ago
  We probably shouldn't (perhaps with the exception of politicians or key public figures), but we should still recognise this is a move that has net-negative effect for humanity – and a move that Twitter didn't have to make. We can recognise things as being wrong even if they're not illegal.
- adolph 6y ago
  Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked certain Twitter users https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-rules-trump-violated-first-amendment-by-blocking-twitter-follo https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...
- Karunamon 6y ago
  As I've heard so often in the last few months, "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences". If they intend to hide behind legal minimums, that is their right, but society is free to retaliate in other ways. For instance, their (and all other social network) S230 liability protection could be tied to specific conduct, such as no arbitrary bans.
- Ikatza 6y ago
  It's not about forcing Twitter, it's about how Twitter wants to be framed. As a platform, it bears no responsibility over what's published on it as long as it complies with any court orders to remove illegal content. But it cannot censor or editorialize content. If it does, it becomes a media outlet and has responsibility over all content published on Twitter, (which doesn't scale very well). Jack wants to have the best of both worlds. The power to censor whatever he doesn't like, with 0 responsibility over the content he doesn't care about.
apple_innocent 6y ago
These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. They have to pick one or the other. The arguments I am seeing online are folks who have chosen one or the other and are arguing from their chosen perspective. For example, I am content to see them as just another handful of private websites, no matter how large they have become. Meanwhile, the companies themselves, like Twitter, are content to bask in this ambiguity instead of clarifying what they are or intend to be. EDIT: Once the number of users has grown past a manageable threshhold where violations of rules can be detected by administrators (instead of relying on others to report them), it may cause some to wonder what are the reasons absent any legal or other compusion when a user's account is suspended. Looking at the Twitter rules, the possible reasons this account may have been suspended, e.g., copyright violations, are not obvious. What is their justifcation for suspension. Some sources, e.g., The Verge, are reporting that this Twitter account was being used to solicit statements of support from academics to be used in some litigation in India that seeks to block access Sci-Hub in that country. Apparently the Indian court denied the initial request from publishers for an immediate decision in order to allow time for the scientific community to weigh in on the issue. I hope someone is setting up another means for the scientific community to weigh in on the non-monetary value of Sci-Hub.
- unityByFreedom 6y ago
  > These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. It's never been proposed that platforms like Twitter become common carriers. That designation was intended for the layer beneath them, ISPs. I agree that allowing that layer, ISPs, to effectively monopolize content via regional monopolies and ever-growing media conglomerates is problematic. Now they're implementing zero rating in broadband and that means there's a high bar for starting the next Netflix, Twitter etc. If you're not already part of that club you'll have to be super wealthy or take on huge debt from existing tech/wealth dominance just to get your foot in the door. We really need to encourage competition at the ISP level in order to allow for competition among services like Twitter.
jb775 6y ago
Twitter doesn't care about any business dispute, we're simply watching them chip away at the foundations of capitalism to facilitate a move towards communism. In this latest example, they're doing their part to suppress research visibility. History doesn't repeat, but often rhymes: Per historic Soviet communism playbook: all research, including natural sciences, was to be founded on the philosophy of dialectical materialism. Humanities and social sciences [research] were additionally tested for strict accordance with historical materialism.[1] In other recent examples, I don't think anyone would argue they aren't actively doing their part to suppress free-speech (a requirement for communism). The most blatant and concerning to me is their amplification of discussion around topics that would facilitate the piece-by-piece dismantlement of America's democratic republic. Most recently, getting rid of the electoral college. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_th...
trianglem 6y ago
They’re a private company they can do what they want. Are you against private enterprise?
perryizgr8 6y ago
Twitter is a private business and thus is free to decline to do business with any particular entity for any reason or without any reason. If sci-hub doesn't like it they can build their own twitter. There, I said it :)
AntiImperialist 6y ago
Why not? Twitter is a private company and should be allowed to decide whoever they want to do business with or don't... and should be able to decide what content they want to keep or remove on the computers they pay for and show (or hide) to/from anyone they wish, as long as the content is legal. Similarly, Amazon should be allowed to terminate any of their relationships with any of the clients and remove their data and applications from their servers. As can HN can make my comments inaccessible to the masses with whatever pretend "rules" they claim to apply to me... or ban me completely. Users who pay for their computers should be able to run any application and keep any data they want on the hardware they purchase and own or share it with others, as long as they're not sharing licenced content or private information or such. So, instead of trying to after Twitter or Facebook or Google, we should go after companies like Apple. Why is Apple allowed to deny users the right to run any application that want on the hardware they purchase? THAT should be illegal. While Twitter can push out people, someone else like Gab can take them in. While Parler shuts down, Gab keeps going. If ICANN went after these companies and terminated their domains or ISPs went after them and took away their internet, we could move to distributed internet today, which will make companies like Twitter irrelevant. The biggest threat to that is being presented by hardware and OS vendors making it practically impossible to run the software infrastructure required for running or consuming such an internet.

spoonjim 6y ago

What’s your opinion on their takedown of @realDonaldTrump?

HarryHirsch 6y ago
The same. If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly, and if he isn't a private entity has no issue determining what a politician can say. As a German one thinks different about free speech than do most Americans. We know all too well where too much free speech leads and when in doubt let the courts decide because we love public peace. Putting a muzzle on someone is interfering with political expression, which is a constitutional right. A monopolist like Twitter has no business interpreting the constitution, the issue would have to see its day in court.
- michaelmior 6y ago
  Why would Twitter request a court to issue an injunction to remove him from the platform that they own and control? They're fully able to do some without an injunction so I'm not sure any court would even deal with the case. IANAL
  - wutbrodo 6y ago
    It's not about Twitter's ability to ban users it's about enabling them avoid a substantial expansion of their moderation responsibilities. Twitter considers it a positive thing to have transparent and relatively equitably-applied rules, and this is an obvious positive for its users, and society in general (given how central Twitter has become to national discourse). Capricious one-off expansions that are difficult to justify generally (or that would require massive increases in moderation that pretty much everyone would hate) are the last thing Twitter wants.
- Solocomplex 6y ago
  His speech has not been restricted in any real way. He can call a press conference and communicate with every American within minutes.
  - speeder 6y ago
    I am not from US, but would like to point you are wrong about that. He can call a conference, but the press is not obliged to show up. https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cnn-white-house-press-conference-sean-spicer-donald-trump-1201966230/ https://variety.com/2017/tv/news/cnn-white-house-press-confe... And since that in 2017, when they figured they could skip his press conferences, it has becoming more and more normal, if I remember correctly he announced a press conference only some days ago and it was ignored by almost all major media corporations with a few exceptions (Fox for example aired him).
    - beart 6y ago
      The lack of press coverage of the Trump Administration may also be attributed to the administration reducing the frequency and value of press briefings. This is an article from 2018 and I would put money on it having only gotten worse since. https://qz.com/1503024/2018-was-the-year-the-white-house-press-briefing-died/ https://qz.com/1503024/2018-was-the-year-the-white-house-pre...
    - KingMachiavelli 6y ago
      He can publish video or any content he wants on whitehouse.gov; I'm sure he would get millions of views overnight.
    - franklampard 6y ago
      The White House needs to build a healthy relationship with the press. Why would you expect them to come the moment you want them after blasting them as fake news, and kicking them out when you dislike their questions?
    - AniseAbyss 6y ago
      Good for them, no point going to a press conference where a rude orange man just insults you screaming Lügenpresse. I don't think I'm the only one who switches channels whenever that man is on.
- vladTheInhaler 6y ago
  > If he is seditious you can get a court to issue an injunction very quickly Maybe courts work differently in Germany, but one word I would absolutely never use to describe them is "quick". Furthermore, courts in the US tend to be extremely skeptical of what is called "prior restrain". And describing what ought to be proscribed is especially complicated by Trumps use of innuendo and circumspection. He almost never says anything directly, even when it's pretty much apolitical - see for instance him explaining what Uranium is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnKtzQpCSs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCnKtzQpCSs
- SllX 6y ago
  Well our laws and legal traditions are a bit different than Germany’s Basic Law and Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch. In our case Twitter’s private property rights trump the President’s rights. The President is the President and the President can always get a message out if he wants; Twitter on the other hand is not obligated to serve as a medium of Government communications and if they had IP banned the White House and Capitol at any point in their history, and maybe IP banned the equivalents in other countries, who would be able to say they couldn’t?
  - fastball 6y ago
    Yes, but I think the problem is more that we have a massively connected society but are relying on the good will of corporations to provide that connectivity.
    - AniseAbyss 6y ago
      Repubs always hated public broadcasting, championing the free market to take care of journalism. Companies think Trump is toxic for their brand- surprised pikachu.
      - fastball 6y ago
        I'm not really championing public broadcasting here either. But in an internet-enabled world, in a country that values the right to free speech, there should be wholly unbiased platform that allows anyone to promote their speech to anyone else who wants to listen, as long as it is not speech that is already considered illegal (as decided by the courts, not unnamed corporate arbiters of truth). People keep making the argument that "free speech isn't the same as right to have a platform / be signal boosted" or whatever, and I think that was true in the past. When the most you could do to broadcast was stand on the street corner and yell out your speech, that idea applied. But in this day and age, information flow is so strong that someone who has their broadcasting ability cut off effectively has their speech cut off. Imagine trying to exercise your free speech in a world where, whenever you tried to say something, there was someone there to just yell 1000x louder than you so that you were totally drowned out. In a world where so much of our communication is happening over internet channels, this is essentially what we're talking about when we "deplatform" someone.
- russell_h 6y ago
  To be clear, there is no serious interpretation of the US Constitution required here: Twitter absolutely has the right to determine what shows up on their website. For the government to require Twitter to publish the opinions of the president would be a very clear violation of Twitter’s own first amendment rights. There could be more nuance involved if, for example, there were a credible claim of racial discrimination involved, but that’s obviously not the case here.
  - this_user 6y ago
    The problem with this argument is that it completely sidesteps the issue of how much platforms like Twitter and FB possess quasi-monopolies in their respective niches. In fact, perhaps Twitter's biggest competitor just got shut down by Amazon. This effectively means that we are back to the old days of newspapers first, then radio, and finally TV, where a small number of media companies control what people read, hear, and see. Except, this time the power is concentrated in even fewer hands. This raises the question of whether something should be done to turn a service like Twitter into content-agnostic platforms that can no longer decide at their own discretion what even the world's highest elected officials can and cannot say.
    - jfrankamp 6y ago
      If twitter was hoarding ip addresses so that parlor couldn't be hosted, or somehow preventing competitors from entering the space... ? I just don't see it. DT could put together one of the most popular websites on the internet in a day or two if he put a single user microblog up. All the media would eat it up. Better pick a swiss host though!
  - gojomo 6y ago
    Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey has repeatedly been summoned before Congress to be dressed-down by legislators, who regularly threaten to "do something" that increases Twitter's liabilities or otherwise encumbers their business, if Twitter doesn't change their internal policies. In some cases, it's been suggested that discretionary government powers under existing laws could be used to reward or punish Twitter. Twitter's been the topic of executive orders & criticism from the FCC chair. If Twitter'd been left to do anything it thought legal and wise, and only challenged via formal lawsuits or prosecutions that courts could rule on, then sure, Twitter can do whatever they want. But now that politicians, elected officeholders, & appointed regulators have all piled-on with their opinions of what Twitter should do, "or else", might there be some government-restricting-expression issues to consider? Is it a coincidence that they only took strong action against Trump once he became a "lame duck", and the action they took will specifically please the incoming administrations' coalition? Has the government found the perfect 1st Amendment loophole, by laundering their speech-restricting preferences through threats – "because of the implication" – while maintaining a facade of non-involvement in this "private" decision?
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  Any company can ban anyone from their platform if they violate their ToS. If you don't agree, then you can go to court. Eg. Otherwise Twitter would have to go to court to remove potential bots. Which would result in millions of lawsuits across countries. That's not realistic
- KingMachiavelli 6y ago
  Twitter is not a monopoly by any stretch. Regulating how sites handle speech just adds an additional hurdle for new, better platforms to enter. I should not have to have an expensive lawyer on retainer to read injunction requests just for running a <$2/month IRC server because some random important/popular people decided to use publish their manifesto on it. This has already been tested in court in the Prager University vs Google, LLC [1] trial and was resolved very quickly. Freedom of speech does not mean another individual has to assist you in publishing or advertising your speech. You are free to shout from a soap box but no one has to provide you that soap box. I really think people over emphasize the power that social media sites have. They own a lot of eyeball market share but they do not have the power to prevent you from publishing your opinions. Anyone can make their own website, their own Mastadon instance (see Gab if you want proof), their own Peertube instance, a lot of work is done by the open source community to make it easy to publish content not reliant on large corporations.
  - salawat 6y ago
    >I really think people over emphasize the power that social media sites have. You say, in the midst of a discussion amongst an international userbase on the political ramifications of a policy decision. Let's be real about this. Social media, when you really look at it, propagates signal that makes remote events local in terms of sphere of influence. Any content can touch anyone, the globe over assuming an internet connection. Frankly, and I apologize if this is out of turn, but I think you underestimate the power behind choosing what conversations won't take place. Just look at the big difference that a U.S. Senate Majority leader can have in terms of the realistic chance of something being discussed. Never, ever, underestimate the power of negation or deprioritization. In fact, it's a little funny, because being in the position to make those decisions at all is really the common definition of power/authority.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    > Twitter is not a monopoly by any stretch. Considering that Parler was curbstomped by Google/Apple/AWS last week, it's safe to say that Twitter doesn't operate in a naturally competitive market.
- sitkack 6y ago
  As an American, I respect the German perspective on what these liberties mean to civilization. We cannot bend the protections based on our personal beliefs. The structure and what it protects is more important than the specific case. When we subvert it, even from righteous causes, we break the system for everyone.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  Well the one lie we like to tell ourselves (I am an American) is that if Twitter/Facebook/Amazon/Google takes action against someone we don't like we don't run afoul of pesky First Amendment and other issues. However we are fooling ourselves because these companies very much are bending to political pressure and acting on the behalf of that. You can pretty much try to throw up all the exceptions to that claim you want but in the end you a few issues which show it, first being they don't want to invite further regulatory control over their industry, second they don't want legal liability for actions of those who use their platforms, third they respond to the whims of their management and to a certain point their employees on who they let use their systems. People must recognize that politicians exert undo influence over all businesses simply because they can change the law and regulatory structure they operate under. It easily explains why so many politicians move into cushy business jobs in not slot their friends and family into the same. Its the cost of doing business. Established political players simply have too much power.
- fjabre 6y ago
  I absolutely agree with this line of reasoning. Thank you.
- spoonjim 6y ago
  Twitter isn't deciding what Donald Trump says, it's deciding what he says on their website. I wouldn't allow Donald Trump to give a speech from my backyard -- that's not an impingement on his rights.
kwhitefoot 6y ago
(Not the OP) I would prefer that Twitter did it in response to a court order. But courts don't seem to be able to act fast enough.
- cpursley 6y ago
  Which is why we should also get rid of the courts in addition to free speech.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Credit card companies managed to do just that. There is the argument that class actions are preferable to Parliament setting laws because courts are more agile, setting precedent. So Big Money got in front of that through mandatory arbitration. Why that is constitutional I couldn't tell. Perhaps it is because Congress is corrupt.
  - secondcoming 6y ago
    Trial by upvotes on /r/publicopinion!
- oneplane 6y ago
  I'm not sure why a court would have to 'allow' a company to enforce their own terms of service. The other way around would work: if a court finds that the terms of service are in violation of the law then an action can be reversed and terms can be revised. It seems that courts are now being used as some sort of universal arbiter in every disagreement instead of using them for what they are for: decide on legal disputes. Not ever disagreement is a legal dispute but treating it like that makes society brittle and dystopian.

memer 6y ago

It's Twitter's own servers and they can choose who can use them or not. Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses.

stale2002 6y ago
> Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses. Sure it matters. It matters because a bunch of people want businesses to allow all legal speech on their platform. And this group of people is growing in support, and they might eventually get enough support to force these business to do so, using legislative changes such as required these major companies to follow common carrier laws.
- splistud 6y ago
  It also matters in the sense that one can't avoid certain regulation by claiming to be a public forum rather than a publisher while not being a public forum at all
markus_zhang 6y ago
I'd argue once X amount of users use your service you are sort of public service company already. You can't use "oh we are a business so we can do anything we want" to defend yourself about that.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  It's a little more subtle than that - more strength of network effects than mere number of users - but pretty much.
baggy_trough 6y ago
Yes they can, but they shouldn't.
john_moscow 6y ago
>It's Twitter's own servers That are offered to the customers below cost of running them in order to stifle competition, which is only possible as long as the government antitrust body is looking the other way.

john_moscow 6y ago

Twitter is a company. And banning decisions are made by specific people in it. And it's not like after banning Trump they will happily consider their job done and go stock shelves at Walmart for minimum wage. Oh no, they have tasted power and they will continue finding new targets because their cushy job literally depends on it.

bioinformatics 6y ago

You missed the worldwide vote for the company that should hold the only truths in all matters? Twitter won. Google second and FB third.

dylan604 6y ago
* Some or all of the content shared in this message is disputed and might be misleading
takeda 6y ago
This whole argument is such bullshit. People are trying to frame it as POTUS suddenly has no way to speak as if presidents before him had no platform to talk to the nation. POTUS and other officials should be banned for using private platform for official messages.

tomjen3 6y ago

I disagree, they should have purged Elsevier.

mc32 6y ago
I know you’re being cheeky. But honestly no. People and entities should be allowed opinions no matter how we disagree, so long as it’s not outright violent or otherwise violating local laws.

mc32 6y ago

Agree. They’re not violating copyright via Twitter. They should have a voice via Twitter, no matter the accusation. Do accused murderers [as opposed to convicted] get their Twitter suspended? This is ridiculous.

kennywinker 6y ago
For that matter, should convicted murderers get their accounts suspended? I think not solely on the grounds that they’ve committed murder - but maybe if they are using their platform to cause further harm.
- mc32 6y ago
  Yeah I don’t know the ins and outs of that. I only made a difference because felons lose rights in the penitentiary, but then again most who can are able to commercialize their stories, though sometimes the state steps in and diverts proceeds to victims, etc.
- ardy42 6y ago
  > For that matter, should convicted murderers get their accounts suspended? I think not solely on the grounds that they’ve committed murder - but maybe if they are using their platform to cause further harm. On a related note, Facebook policy bans sex offenders from having accounts at all, regardless of what they do with them: https://www.facebook.com/help/210081519032737 https://www.facebook.com/help/210081519032737: > Convicted sex offenders aren't allowed to use Facebook. If you've seen an account that may belong to a convicted sex offender, please report it to us. Not sure about the other social media networks.
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    That's pretty messed up. You as a 14 year old send a nude picture to your 15 year old boyfriend and suddenly you're banned from Facebook from life? Frankly the whole situation in the US is messed up, punishment should be limited to whatever the court decides.

29athrowaway 6y ago

Twitter is enforcing DMCA.

buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
No, they aren’t. They’re not violating copyright via Twitter

bananabreakfast 6y ago

In what world is Twitter a monopoly? Its market cap is $36B. That's 2X less than Snap and 20X less than Facebook.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
It's crazy isn't it? This community thinks Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors, ditto Twitter and Facebook. Microsoft isn't though. Not because they don't completely own the Desktop PC market just as they ever did, but because that market is less relevant than it used to be for web devs. I live in a strange time.
- missosoup 6y ago
  They are monopolies within a set of respective markets/niches when it comes to speech platforms. GP's point was that private individuals have the power to arbitrarily deplatform speech they don't like, no court order required. The counter argument is 'go find another speech platform', but it doesn't work, because speech platforms have been monopolised by a single-digit handful of individuals.
  - maximente 6y ago
    i think there may be some conflating of "very powerful" (?) with monopoly here. it does not take much effort to realize that twitter is not a monopoly in the space of speech platforms. it's not clear to me that twitter is particularly unique as a speech platform: blogs minimally could serve this role, as could mastodon. more controversially perhaps: facebook/instagram. contrast that with a situation where you literally /cannot/ get utilities delivered to your house because the utility company doesn't like you: seems like a fairly stark difference to me.
    - missosoup 6y ago
      This is a logical fallacy and the equivalent of saying 'you are welcome to practice free speech, in this here sound-proofed room'. Twitter is one of a small handful of platforms where an individual can share an idea and have that idea spread - as long as the owners of Twitter don't disagree with that idea. It's not because twitter is special, it's because it was one of the first to achieve a sufficiently large userbase. Defending arbitrary censorship on these platforms as 'oh well it's a private entity so they can do what they like' misses the forest for the trees. Technology has shifted the power balance for free expression, and applying pre-technology laws and mindsets to it just empowers that small handful of individuals to manipulate public discourse even more. Twitter doesn't quite have a monopoly on speech, but it's damn close in terms of practical outcomes. The fact that the legal definition of `monopoly` hasn't caught up with that, doesn't change the matter.

burtonator 6y ago

Twitter did NOTHING as Trump basically spend the last 4 year inciting a mob on their platform, threatening people, and committing HUNDREDS of violations that would get you and I kicked off. THEN ... when there is a literal armed insurrection against the capital where TWO police officers died and 5 people total, and they had pipe bombs and hand cuffs to kidnap people, they waited until FRIDAY after the markets closed to ban Trump from the platform. Twitter's behavior in this entire thing is beyond unacceptable and borders on treasonous. I really think everyone needs to be calling for @jack to resign.

devwastaken 6y ago

You don't want to get to the point of a court order. Expecting twitter to defend you when you're committing copyright infringement is ridiculous. They don't have to do it only when the platform is used for direct infringement, they remove the account before they can do that and before the legal problems. This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement.

djrogers 6y ago
> This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement. Are they committing copyright infringement on Twitter?
- devwastaken 6y ago
  They're an organization who's purpose is to commit copyright infringement. They don't have to be doing the infringement on twitter itself for twitter to reasonably suspend them. Again, they suspend them to prevent the platform being inevitably used for direct infringement or to be used as a guide on where/how to participate in the infringement. Twitter may not be responsible for user content as per section 230 but it's also not a good idea as a company to step on the toes of intellectual property holders without good reason.
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Does Twitter automatically ban everyone using the hashtag #CanHasPDF? That's how scientific papers were spread before SciHub; what Elbakyan did was to move the copyright infringement off Twitter and to a dedicated service.
- wittyreference 6y ago
  Yes. The featured article notes that they were providing links on their Twitter account. Their quoted defense includes, to paraphrase, the account was /mostly/ discussing open access issues, it wasn’t /primarily/ for sharing pirated materials.

davrosthedalek 6y ago

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this apply? Must every company work with every potential customer? Who decides which companies must? Going through the options, I only see viable: twitter can ban whomever they like, for whatever reason, except for the usual exceptions (religion, race etc). I wish they wouldn't though.

roenxi 6y ago
> a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? Although some people agree that is the question, it is not the fundamental one here. Most of the respectable arguments are that Twitter's bans are senselessly harming Twitter. They're building a gaping hole in their offering that a competitor can cover.
- lliamander 6y ago
  The thing is, few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. Parler was nuked. Gab was almost nuked, but they've managed to survive. There's a huge demand for alternatives to Twitter, but other major tech companies, the corporate press, and many politicians are doing everything in their power to crush those alternatives and prevent them from springing up.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    >few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. That's because companies don't want associated with the users on those platforms, many of whom left Twitter because twitter didn't want them either. So businesses aren't simply in some evil cahoots with Twitter. They're associated with Twitter because that the users they do want to associate with.
  - 6y ago

heimatau 6y ago

> Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between @dick said recently in an interview that these are geo-political decisions. That they might've did the calculus of losing advertising money but it's not the predominate reason [1]. [1] - I can't find this source. I find it weird that I can't search my history to find it. It was in an interview with either Bloomberg or WSJ. P.S. The interview was in relation to Trump being banned but I think his response applies to Sci_Hub because these are intentional decisions, not from an AI/automated system.

beebmam 6y ago

Why should we FORCE twitter to publish the speech of someone they don't want to publish? Doesn't that itself infringe on free speech?

kypro 6y ago
We probably shouldn't (perhaps with the exception of politicians or key public figures), but we should still recognise this is a move that has net-negative effect for humanity – and a move that Twitter didn't have to make. We can recognise things as being wrong even if they're not illegal.
adolph 6y ago
Trump violated the First Amendment when he blocked certain Twitter users https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-rules-trump-violated-first-amendment-by-blocking-twitter-follo https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...
Karunamon 6y ago
As I've heard so often in the last few months, "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences". If they intend to hide behind legal minimums, that is their right, but society is free to retaliate in other ways. For instance, their (and all other social network) S230 liability protection could be tied to specific conduct, such as no arbitrary bans.
Ikatza 6y ago
It's not about forcing Twitter, it's about how Twitter wants to be framed. As a platform, it bears no responsibility over what's published on it as long as it complies with any court orders to remove illegal content. But it cannot censor or editorialize content. If it does, it becomes a media outlet and has responsibility over all content published on Twitter, (which doesn't scale very well). Jack wants to have the best of both worlds. The power to censor whatever he doesn't like, with 0 responsibility over the content he doesn't care about.

apple_innocent 6y ago

These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. They have to pick one or the other. The arguments I am seeing online are folks who have chosen one or the other and are arguing from their chosen perspective. For example, I am content to see them as just another handful of private websites, no matter how large they have become. Meanwhile, the companies themselves, like Twitter, are content to bask in this ambiguity instead of clarifying what they are or intend to be. EDIT: Once the number of users has grown past a manageable threshhold where violations of rules can be detected by administrators (instead of relying on others to report them), it may cause some to wonder what are the reasons absent any legal or other compusion when a user's account is suspended. Looking at the Twitter rules, the possible reasons this account may have been suspended, e.g., copyright violations, are not obvious. What is their justifcation for suspension. Some sources, e.g., The Verge, are reporting that this Twitter account was being used to solicit statements of support from academics to be used in some litigation in India that seeks to block access Sci-Hub in that country. Apparently the Indian court denied the initial request from publishers for an immediate decision in order to allow time for the scientific community to weigh in on the issue. I hope someone is setting up another means for the scientific community to weigh in on the non-monetary value of Sci-Hub.

unityByFreedom 6y ago
> These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. It's never been proposed that platforms like Twitter become common carriers. That designation was intended for the layer beneath them, ISPs. I agree that allowing that layer, ISPs, to effectively monopolize content via regional monopolies and ever-growing media conglomerates is problematic. Now they're implementing zero rating in broadband and that means there's a high bar for starting the next Netflix, Twitter etc. If you're not already part of that club you'll have to be super wealthy or take on huge debt from existing tech/wealth dominance just to get your foot in the door. We really need to encourage competition at the ISP level in order to allow for competition among services like Twitter.

jb775 6y ago

Twitter doesn't care about any business dispute, we're simply watching them chip away at the foundations of capitalism to facilitate a move towards communism. In this latest example, they're doing their part to suppress research visibility. History doesn't repeat, but often rhymes: Per historic Soviet communism playbook: all research, including natural sciences, was to be founded on the philosophy of dialectical materialism. Humanities and social sciences [research] were additionally tested for strict accordance with historical materialism.[1] In other recent examples, I don't think anyone would argue they aren't actively doing their part to suppress free-speech (a requirement for communism). The most blatant and concerning to me is their amplification of discussion around topics that would facilitate the piece-by-piece dismantlement of America's democratic republic. Most recently, getting rid of the electoral college. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_th...

trianglem 6y ago

They’re a private company they can do what they want. Are you against private enterprise?

perryizgr8 6y ago

Twitter is a private business and thus is free to decline to do business with any particular entity for any reason or without any reason. If sci-hub doesn't like it they can build their own twitter. There, I said it :)

AntiImperialist 6y ago

Why not? Twitter is a private company and should be allowed to decide whoever they want to do business with or don't... and should be able to decide what content they want to keep or remove on the computers they pay for and show (or hide) to/from anyone they wish, as long as the content is legal. Similarly, Amazon should be allowed to terminate any of their relationships with any of the clients and remove their data and applications from their servers. As can HN can make my comments inaccessible to the masses with whatever pretend "rules" they claim to apply to me... or ban me completely. Users who pay for their computers should be able to run any application and keep any data they want on the hardware they purchase and own or share it with others, as long as they're not sharing licenced content or private information or such. So, instead of trying to after Twitter or Facebook or Google, we should go after companies like Apple. Why is Apple allowed to deny users the right to run any application that want on the hardware they purchase? THAT should be illegal. While Twitter can push out people, someone else like Gab can take them in. While Parler shuts down, Gab keeps going. If ICANN went after these companies and terminated their domains or ISPs went after them and took away their internet, we could move to distributed internet today, which will make companies like Twitter irrelevant. The biggest threat to that is being presented by hardware and OS vendors making it practically impossible to run the software infrastructure required for running or consuming such an internet.