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I was listening to a discussion on Clubhouse about censorship and social media, and all I think Facebook and Twitter should not censor anyone, it’s still a priv

I was listening to a discussion on Clubhouse about censorship and social media, and all I think Facebook and Twitter should not censor anyone, it’s still a private company. They can make the rules. If you don’t like the rules, the answer is not “go make your own social media“ it’s that don’t use the product at all. If you want to use Facebook and Twitter, you’re going to have to submit to their version of what speech is. It’s not right, but that’s the way it is, and it seems disingenuous for someone to say the government should be the one to step in and force a private company to let them use a private service to say whatever they want. I guess I just don’t want the government telling a private company what it can and cannot do, and what speech it must allow or disallow. Ever. That pathway does not have a happy ending regardless of who is in power

ratsmack 6y ago
Twitter, Google and Facebook are all publicly held/traded companies. Should they be held to a slightly different set of rules regarding the 1st Amendment vs a privately held company?
- smaccona 6y ago
  The 1st Amendment only limits what Congress can do, it doesn’t say anything about what public or private companies have to do with respect to freedom of speech: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” IANAL, but I guess if Congress makes a law forcing Twitter or Facebook to abridge US citizens’ freedom of speech, then Congress would be violating the 1st amendment. Is that what you meant?
nitsky 6y ago
> I guess I just don’t want the government telling a private company what it can and cannot do, and what speech it must allow or disallow. Ever. I think you may have overstated your case, because I doubt you are opposed to anti-discrimination laws that require companies to employ people regardless of their religious views. For example, companies are forced to allow Muslims to wear head coverings at work. I doubt you are opposed to that. An interesting question in America now is whether political views should be protected as civil rights just like religious views. That would protect people from being fired from their jobs or banned from private places because of their political views. For those who oppose that idea: how is religion so different from politics?
- salawat 6y ago
  You don't want to make that equivalence. Otherwise, you'll cause a divide-by-zero situation where seperation of church and state and non-establishment of state religion clauses negate our political process as a whole, sucking all of D.C. into a spontaneously formed logical singularity. Seriously. Lets not go there. It is a silly place.
  - nitsky 6y ago
    I don’t understand how we aren’t already there. There is a lot of overlap between political and religious issues: abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc.
- armchairhacker 6y ago
  Religion is different than politics. Religious "rules" can't actually be enforced, you can leave a religion whenever you want and be exempt from doing anything Church-related (although of course your friends / family / neighborhood might still be into Church, those are their rights). Laws from politics are enforced. Also religion doesn't usually address important issues like how to rollout vaccines.
  - chrismcb 6y ago
    Political rules can't be enforced anymore than religious rules. Only laws can be enforced. It is much easier to switch political parties than for some people to switch their religions. Speech, nor thoughts, should be outlawed. Unless it is directly interfering with your work, you should not be fired for your speech, but your thoughts. Whether those thoughts are political or religious.
throwawaysea 6y ago
These companies aren’t facing competition though. They are too big financially to begin with but also they depend on network effects which grant them further barriers to competition (like the Visa-MasterCard duopoly). Consider as well that they have more users than almost any nation and exercise influence comparable to governments as a result. The right fix is to split them up with revised and enforced antitrust law. And where they can’t be split up they should be regulated or nationalized so that they uphold the first amendment. After all, they operate the new digital public town square and the fact that the government has outsourced our spaces for speech to private industry shouldn’t mean that we suddenly lose our fundamental rights.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
choko 6y ago
We tell private companies what they can and can't do literally every day. It's called regulation. We, as a society, have decided that some level of regulation on private activities is acceptable. Phone companies for example, are heavily regulated and have many similarities to social media companies.

ratsmack 6y ago

Twitter, Google and Facebook are all publicly held/traded companies. Should they be held to a slightly different set of rules regarding the 1st Amendment vs a privately held company?

smaccona 6y ago
The 1st Amendment only limits what Congress can do, it doesn’t say anything about what public or private companies have to do with respect to freedom of speech: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” IANAL, but I guess if Congress makes a law forcing Twitter or Facebook to abridge US citizens’ freedom of speech, then Congress would be violating the 1st amendment. Is that what you meant?

nitsky 6y ago

> I guess I just don’t want the government telling a private company what it can and cannot do, and what speech it must allow or disallow. Ever. I think you may have overstated your case, because I doubt you are opposed to anti-discrimination laws that require companies to employ people regardless of their religious views. For example, companies are forced to allow Muslims to wear head coverings at work. I doubt you are opposed to that. An interesting question in America now is whether political views should be protected as civil rights just like religious views. That would protect people from being fired from their jobs or banned from private places because of their political views. For those who oppose that idea: how is religion so different from politics?

salawat 6y ago
You don't want to make that equivalence. Otherwise, you'll cause a divide-by-zero situation where seperation of church and state and non-establishment of state religion clauses negate our political process as a whole, sucking all of D.C. into a spontaneously formed logical singularity. Seriously. Lets not go there. It is a silly place.
- nitsky 6y ago
  I don’t understand how we aren’t already there. There is a lot of overlap between political and religious issues: abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research, etc.
armchairhacker 6y ago
Religion is different than politics. Religious "rules" can't actually be enforced, you can leave a religion whenever you want and be exempt from doing anything Church-related (although of course your friends / family / neighborhood might still be into Church, those are their rights). Laws from politics are enforced. Also religion doesn't usually address important issues like how to rollout vaccines.
- chrismcb 6y ago
  Political rules can't be enforced anymore than religious rules. Only laws can be enforced. It is much easier to switch political parties than for some people to switch their religions. Speech, nor thoughts, should be outlawed. Unless it is directly interfering with your work, you should not be fired for your speech, but your thoughts. Whether those thoughts are political or religious.

throwawaysea 6y ago

These companies aren’t facing competition though. They are too big financially to begin with but also they depend on network effects which grant them further barriers to competition (like the Visa-MasterCard duopoly). Consider as well that they have more users than almost any nation and exercise influence comparable to governments as a result. The right fix is to split them up with revised and enforced antitrust law. And where they can’t be split up they should be regulated or nationalized so that they uphold the first amendment. After all, they operate the new digital public town square and the fact that the government has outsourced our spaces for speech to private industry shouldn’t mean that we suddenly lose our fundamental rights.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

choko 6y ago

We tell private companies what they can and can't do literally every day. It's called regulation. We, as a society, have decided that some level of regulation on private activities is acceptable. Phone companies for example, are heavily regulated and have many similarities to social media companies.