4 ms·

Websites are not common carriers. >What is their justifcation for suspension. I don't see why they should need a justification. Just because something is popu

Websites are not common carriers. >What is their justifcation for suspension. I don't see why they should need a justification. Just because something is popular doesn't mean people should be entitled to it. It makes no sense that an arbitrary MAU count suddenly rescinds the property rights of the people who pay money to keep the servers running, as well as to develop and maintain the software. Further, I don't see any benefit to society in policies that might encourage social media use, and speaking economically when these large platforms boot people off it actually increases competition and decreases their dominance because it creates a market opportunity for competitors, exactly like what happened with Parler. Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing? Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values?

apple_innocent 6y ago
100%. By the same token, however, despite how Section 230 has come to be interpreted, I think these companies should be held responsible for the user-generated content they publish. They should be publishing their own content not acting as middlemen, providing a so-called "platform". All in the interests of surveillance and selling advertising services. Telcos and cable providers provide access to the medium, i.e. the internet, whereas the web is just one protocol that allows internet users to publish. Having websites with 100s of millions of people posting to them is no substitute for peer-to-peer protocols (private communication) or websites owned by news organisations that employ journalists (publication).
- root_axis 6y ago
  In my view we should leave Section 230 alone, instead we should target the true incentive of bad behavior: the ad model. If it were illegal for companies that collect PII and track users across 3rd party sites to sell ad space on their platforms, all these companies would have to switch to a subscription model like Netflix, shifting the economic incentives to favor user retention rather than advertiser appetites. This means companies lose money when they ban people rather than make money by cutting their losses on viral bandwidth that's too toxic to monetize through ads.
  - apple_innocent 6y ago
    Sounds good to me. And what is the gratuitously complex instrumentation by which all of these companies collect personal data and track users: the so-called "modern" web browser. Authored by, you guessed it, companies who rely on advertisers. They purport to do many other things, wonderfully idealistic and technically impressive things, besides supporting web advertising. Those alleged pursuits seem to keep everyone distracted from their raison d'etre: Make money from advertising.
FillardMillmore 6y ago
> Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing? Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values? Just spitballing here, but doesn't it seem that with the way things are going, Twitter/Facebook will become a silo for those who hold more left-leaning views and Parler/Gab will become a silo for those with more right-leaning views? I understand that there are some who only want to see their preconceived notions reinforced, but for those who are actually interested in an open dialogue and open discussion, aren't we losing something important if this is the result? It would certainly cause an already polarized populace to become more polarized, would it not?
- root_axis 6y ago
  Politics is just a small part of twitter, the overwhelming majority of twitter content is music, sports, entertainment etc, so a potential silo effect isn't much to be concerned about. Most people just don't engage in politics on social media because it's a soul draining exercise and generally not time well spent unless you're a political junkie that enjoys exchanging barbs with friends and strangers online. So is it possible some of the conservative political content on twitter might wane? Sure, but that's just a fact of life, some communities online just lean a certain direction. Finally, conservatives are not in exile from social media, just about every prominent conservative has an active twitter account with millions of followers and there are millions of conservatives posting all over twitter right now and this is something that can be trivially verified. The bottom line is that none of this is a big deal, it's politics flavored tabloid gossip.
- dagw 6y ago
  Twitter/Facebook will become a silo for those who hold more left-leaning views and Parler/Gab will become a silo for those with more right-leaning views Most right leaning politicians have no problem at all being active on Twitter and Facebook and the vast majority of people who describe themselves as "more right-leaning" want absolutely nothing to do with the sort of people or ideologies that where prevalent on Parler.
curryst 6y ago
> Just because something is popular doesn't mean people should be entitled to it. We have generally acknowledged that things that are important to everyone and are monopolized need to be regulated. Social media is practically the only effective way to participate in the global community. The same is true, although with decreasing necessity, in more localized communities. Facebook and Twitter have massively altered the way that people engage with other people, businesses, even the government. They took public discourse and monetized it. That's fine, but they now have to deal with the implications of being the keepers of public discourse, and I think a reasonable stipulation for allowing them to monetize that is that they cannot bar someone from participating without a very good justification that isn't "lol our ToS allows us to cut you off whenever we want, and take your first born child". > speaking economically when these large platforms boot people off it actually increases competition and decreases their dominance because it creates a market opportunity for competitors, exactly like what happened with Parler. Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing? Sure, and what happened to them? It's a little ironic to argue that booting people off of their platform increases competition and then mention their new competitor that was immediately wiped off the face of the internet. I think Parler attracted a lot of extremists. That's partially their own fault with their poor moderation, but it's also a reflection that Twitter has so dominated the marketplace that your only customers as a new social media site are going to be nutjobs. It has strong anti-competitive effects. The community is a huge part of a social media site. Crazy users poison the community, ensuring that the brand is tainted and not a threat to Twitter. > Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values? Because you'd be better off writing it on bathroom stalls. Because there is no meaningful competitor. Even Parler was tiny by social media standards, and it's probably dead now. Because your friends and family want to use Twitter, and probably won't switch, so you have to use Twitter and Facebook. Because Facebook and Twitter have spent so long maximizing engagement that people barely bother looking for other sources of news and information. I'm not a huge fan of Parler or the way it was run. It does seem damning that the only app that threatened to take some of Twitter's market share was immediately scrubbed off the internet. I don't think ISIS material gets completely wiped off the face of the internet that fast.

apple_innocent 6y ago

100%. By the same token, however, despite how Section 230 has come to be interpreted, I think these companies should be held responsible for the user-generated content they publish. They should be publishing their own content not acting as middlemen, providing a so-called "platform". All in the interests of surveillance and selling advertising services. Telcos and cable providers provide access to the medium, i.e. the internet, whereas the web is just one protocol that allows internet users to publish. Having websites with 100s of millions of people posting to them is no substitute for peer-to-peer protocols (private communication) or websites owned by news organisations that employ journalists (publication).

root_axis 6y ago
In my view we should leave Section 230 alone, instead we should target the true incentive of bad behavior: the ad model. If it were illegal for companies that collect PII and track users across 3rd party sites to sell ad space on their platforms, all these companies would have to switch to a subscription model like Netflix, shifting the economic incentives to favor user retention rather than advertiser appetites. This means companies lose money when they ban people rather than make money by cutting their losses on viral bandwidth that's too toxic to monetize through ads.
- apple_innocent 6y ago
  Sounds good to me. And what is the gratuitously complex instrumentation by which all of these companies collect personal data and track users: the so-called "modern" web browser. Authored by, you guessed it, companies who rely on advertisers. They purport to do many other things, wonderfully idealistic and technically impressive things, besides supporting web advertising. Those alleged pursuits seem to keep everyone distracted from their raison d'etre: Make money from advertising.

FillardMillmore 6y ago

> Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing? Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values? Just spitballing here, but doesn't it seem that with the way things are going, Twitter/Facebook will become a silo for those who hold more left-leaning views and Parler/Gab will become a silo for those with more right-leaning views? I understand that there are some who only want to see their preconceived notions reinforced, but for those who are actually interested in an open dialogue and open discussion, aren't we losing something important if this is the result? It would certainly cause an already polarized populace to become more polarized, would it not?

root_axis 6y ago
Politics is just a small part of twitter, the overwhelming majority of twitter content is music, sports, entertainment etc, so a potential silo effect isn't much to be concerned about. Most people just don't engage in politics on social media because it's a soul draining exercise and generally not time well spent unless you're a political junkie that enjoys exchanging barbs with friends and strangers online. So is it possible some of the conservative political content on twitter might wane? Sure, but that's just a fact of life, some communities online just lean a certain direction. Finally, conservatives are not in exile from social media, just about every prominent conservative has an active twitter account with millions of followers and there are millions of conservatives posting all over twitter right now and this is something that can be trivially verified. The bottom line is that none of this is a big deal, it's politics flavored tabloid gossip.
dagw 6y ago
Twitter/Facebook will become a silo for those who hold more left-leaning views and Parler/Gab will become a silo for those with more right-leaning views Most right leaning politicians have no problem at all being active on Twitter and Facebook and the vast majority of people who describe themselves as "more right-leaning" want absolutely nothing to do with the sort of people or ideologies that where prevalent on Parler.

curryst 6y ago

> Just because something is popular doesn't mean people should be entitled to it. We have generally acknowledged that things that are important to everyone and are monopolized need to be regulated. Social media is practically the only effective way to participate in the global community. The same is true, although with decreasing necessity, in more localized communities. Facebook and Twitter have massively altered the way that people engage with other people, businesses, even the government. They took public discourse and monetized it. That's fine, but they now have to deal with the implications of being the keepers of public discourse, and I think a reasonable stipulation for allowing them to monetize that is that they cannot bar someone from participating without a very good justification that isn't "lol our ToS allows us to cut you off whenever we want, and take your first born child". > speaking economically when these large platforms boot people off it actually increases competition and decreases their dominance because it creates a market opportunity for competitors, exactly like what happened with Parler. Suddenly, nobody seems to care that a conservative competitor to AWS is getting a huge account, shouldn't that be pereceived as a good thing? Sure, and what happened to them? It's a little ironic to argue that booting people off of their platform increases competition and then mention their new competitor that was immediately wiped off the face of the internet. I think Parler attracted a lot of extremists. That's partially their own fault with their poor moderation, but it's also a reflection that Twitter has so dominated the marketplace that your only customers as a new social media site are going to be nutjobs. It has strong anti-competitive effects. The community is a huge part of a social media site. Crazy users poison the community, ensuring that the brand is tainted and not a threat to Twitter. > Why are the people who get banned so insistent on using services they claim are inherently unfair to them? Why not support companies that share your values? Because you'd be better off writing it on bathroom stalls. Because there is no meaningful competitor. Even Parler was tiny by social media standards, and it's probably dead now. Because your friends and family want to use Twitter, and probably won't switch, so you have to use Twitter and Facebook. Because Facebook and Twitter have spent so long maximizing engagement that people barely bother looking for other sources of news and information. I'm not a huge fan of Parler or the way it was run. It does seem damning that the only app that threatened to take some of Twitter's market share was immediately scrubbed off the internet. I don't think ISIS material gets completely wiped off the face of the internet that fast.