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Moderation is highly subjective and Parler seemed to have limited moderation mostly to illegal speech. We have built an entire country on the premise of legal

Moderation is highly subjective and Parler seemed to have limited moderation mostly to illegal speech. We have built an entire country on the premise of legal vs illegal speech and have very clear laws and systems in place for reporting and handling violations. If a company chooses to adhere to the law but not also impose their own biases when it comes to moderation, that is their right. As long as they are undoubtedly doing their best to actually adhere to the law and remove and report illegal content promptly. The technology exists to do this effectively. The real issue lies on the subjective preferences people have over what. otherwise legal, speech should be allowed to remain on the platforms. Clearly it’s a slippery slope which is the basis for the spirit of the 1st amendment in the first place. Whether the 1st amendment ought to apply to the subset of private companies which have collectively become our virtual public forum is a separate debate. But the concept of restrictions on speech still applies to social platforms.

judge2020 6y ago
The issue with Parler is that they weren't purely banning on illegal vs legal speech, they were banning left-wing "trolling" which isn't illegal (even if it was actually trolling). https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr... And didn't exactly perform adequate moderation based on the rules they did have: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022229
- jfengel 6y ago
  That's a thing I never figured out: why would they ban left-wing trolls? The right-wing trolls enjoy fighting with left-wing trolls, and in my experience, they usually win. Especially when they have numbers on their side. I had thought that what would kill them would be that those echo chambers rely on an enemy to be opposed to. Without it, they would just get bored and wander off. That's what they like about public forums such as Facebook and Twitter. They're not perfect echo chambers. They're opportunities to have their echoes amplified, then go off to fight the good fight against their dastardly foes. Beating up on the left-wing trolls should be fun. Sure, some of the left-wing troll masquerade as right-wing trolls to throw people off, but really, it's hard to tell the difference. Poe's Law is more and more prescient.

judge2020 6y ago

The issue with Parler is that they weren't purely banning on illegal vs legal speech, they were banning left-wing "trolling" which isn't illegal (even if it was actually trolling). https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-predicted-parler-is-banning-users-it-doesnt-like.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200627/23551144803/as-pr... And didn't exactly perform adequate moderation based on the rules they did have: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26022229

jfengel 6y ago
That's a thing I never figured out: why would they ban left-wing trolls? The right-wing trolls enjoy fighting with left-wing trolls, and in my experience, they usually win. Especially when they have numbers on their side. I had thought that what would kill them would be that those echo chambers rely on an enemy to be opposed to. Without it, they would just get bored and wander off. That's what they like about public forums such as Facebook and Twitter. They're not perfect echo chambers. They're opportunities to have their echoes amplified, then go off to fight the good fight against their dastardly foes. Beating up on the left-wing trolls should be fun. Sure, some of the left-wing troll masquerade as right-wing trolls to throw people off, but really, it's hard to tell the difference. Poe's Law is more and more prescient.