4 ms·

I hate falling into "slippery slope" arguments, but I'm gonna be "that guy". If we treat the tech platforms like utilities, then would that force companies lik

I hate falling into "slippery slope" arguments, but I'm gonna be "that guy". If we treat the tech platforms like utilities, then would that force companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to allow full-on porn on their platform? How about literal neo-Nazi stuff advocating death to millions of people? Short of deleting and reporting something outright illegal (e.g. child porn), would we be forcing these companies to take a fully "hands off" approach to all their content? I just worry that if there's no content moderation, basically every platform devolves into awfulness like Gab, Parler, 8kun, or Bitchute. I'm not wholly opposed to treating big tech companies like a utility but I feel I gotta ask the annoying questions. I would honestly love to be wrong about this but it does seem like the worst parts of humanity are the most vocal when there's no moderation at all.

cj 6y ago
> If we treat the tech platforms like utilities, then would that force companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to allow full-on porn on their platform? Does USPS allow you to ship anything, legal or not, without question? (No) Do cable companies require that all content be accessed equally, including adult only content? (No) Will your electric company kick you off your service if you’re running a datacenter in a giant warehouse next to your residence? (Probably, unless you have a non-residential contract with them)
- tombert 6y ago
  > Does USPS allow you to ship anything, legal or not, without question? (No) Sure, let's pull this thread. Your use of the term "legal or not" is silly, because I specifically put the caveat for the platforms to delete illegal content, so I'll only look at the scope of legal stuff. You are correct that the USPS won't let you ship anything, things like guns and large quantities of cash aren't inherently illegal but aren't allowed to be shipped. The implication of what you're saying though, is that you want the government to determine what constitutes "free speech" on the internet. If someone uploads a full-length (legally licensed) Brazzers video to YouTube, that might be classified as "porn" and be deleted. Fine. How about if, in the middle of the "action" of the porn, they go on a long detailed breakdown of wealth inequality in America. Is this still "just porn" or is that considered protected political speech that now cannot be deleted?
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    > Is this still "just porn" or is that considered protected political speech that now cannot be deleted? I'm pretty sure if you yell "Fire!" followed by a treatise on your political views, your speech is still not considered 'protected'. Similarly, I would imagine that if something has pornographic content in it at all, it would be regulated as porn.
    - tombert 6y ago
      But who gets to decide what "porn" is? If I upload a video talking about my opinions and I'm not wearing a shirt, is that porn? By which community's standard do we say something is "pornographic"? There are certain groups in America that say women showing their ankles is arousing, do we go with their standards? EDIT, Cont'd: For that matter, what if the act of sex is the actual message? As in, two people are having sex and they are doing that as a direct message towards some political entity?
      - throwaway894345 6y ago
        Right, that's a bigger problem that we have to deal with in society anyway, so I don't think this introduces anything new. We just take the existing legal definition of pornography and apply it to social media.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
breckenedge 6y ago
Not a slippery slope, it’s right there in the article: > Depending on the specific contours of such regulation, social media sites could be forced to alter or do away with many of the moderation standards they use to keep harassment, hate speech and nudity off their platforms. If Thomas had his way, he’d probably find a way to declare porn illegal, or subject to much stricter regulations.
throwaway894345 6y ago
I'm arguing from an assumption that social media giants are too powerful--they can steer public opinion and even influence national elections (think "Social Dilemma"). I also think they're just bad for our social fabric--they seem to drive up anxiety and antisocial behavior. This is the context for the rest of my comment. That said, I think you're right that without moderation, the quality of these platforms will suffer. I don't think it will look like Parler et al but rather like Mastodon which is more noisy than vile. But even still, I think it will drive people from these platforms, weakening them, and I think that's a net improvement over the status quo. I also think there's another interesting possibility which may or may not be practical for other reasons: require social media companies to implement a common protocol (e.g., the mastodon protocol; forgetting what it's called off the top of my head) such that these companies can continue to offer a moderated window into the underlying social network, but they don't own the social network. If you want, you can pack up and leave for another social media provider without leaving your friends and conversations. This weakens social media giants by breaking their monopoly and allowing competition from upstarts (including other revenue models besides ads) and it also allows these giants to moderate how they like.
- tombert 6y ago
  Yeah, I don't know that I made it clear in my original post; I do not like having to depend on our benevolent overlords like Google and Twitter and Facebook to determine what I can handle. I think they have way too much power, I'm not opposed to breaking them up into smaller entities, and I don't think it's a dumb idea to push or require companies to use open protocols. I like Mastodon, but part of me worries that the reason that Nazis haven't ruined it is largely because a lot of them don't know about it yet. That said, if we used a decentralized protocol like Mastodon, then theoretically individual servers could moderate their posts however they'd like, and if you don't like it you could hop over to another server.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I think we mostly agree. Specifically, we both seem to think it would be interesting and possibly ideal to require social media giants to implement an open protocol, but failing that I'm not sure whether we agree that regulating them like utilities (with the associated quality implications) is better than the status quo?
pessimizer 6y ago
I support the worst parts of humanity having the ability to speak online as much as we allow them to speak in real life. If we would regulate their public speech outdoors, I'm fine with regulating their public speech online. Would we propose that racists be banned from speaking to each other in person?
- tombert 6y ago
  No, of course not, and I'm not opposed to Nazis having their own websites like the Daily Stormer, or running their own Mastodon instance or something, or flocking to a "free speech" clone of Twitter like Parler, or uploading videos on Bitchute. I absolutely think that ISPs should be regulated like utilities.

cj 6y ago

> If we treat the tech platforms like utilities, then would that force companies like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to allow full-on porn on their platform? Does USPS allow you to ship anything, legal or not, without question? (No) Do cable companies require that all content be accessed equally, including adult only content? (No) Will your electric company kick you off your service if you’re running a datacenter in a giant warehouse next to your residence? (Probably, unless you have a non-residential contract with them)

tombert 6y ago
> Does USPS allow you to ship anything, legal or not, without question? (No) Sure, let's pull this thread. Your use of the term "legal or not" is silly, because I specifically put the caveat for the platforms to delete illegal content, so I'll only look at the scope of legal stuff. You are correct that the USPS won't let you ship anything, things like guns and large quantities of cash aren't inherently illegal but aren't allowed to be shipped. The implication of what you're saying though, is that you want the government to determine what constitutes "free speech" on the internet. If someone uploads a full-length (legally licensed) Brazzers video to YouTube, that might be classified as "porn" and be deleted. Fine. How about if, in the middle of the "action" of the porn, they go on a long detailed breakdown of wealth inequality in America. Is this still "just porn" or is that considered protected political speech that now cannot be deleted?
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > Is this still "just porn" or is that considered protected political speech that now cannot be deleted? I'm pretty sure if you yell "Fire!" followed by a treatise on your political views, your speech is still not considered 'protected'. Similarly, I would imagine that if something has pornographic content in it at all, it would be regulated as porn.
  - tombert 6y ago
    But who gets to decide what "porn" is? If I upload a video talking about my opinions and I'm not wearing a shirt, is that porn? By which community's standard do we say something is "pornographic"? There are certain groups in America that say women showing their ankles is arousing, do we go with their standards? EDIT, Cont'd: For that matter, what if the act of sex is the actual message? As in, two people are having sex and they are doing that as a direct message towards some political entity?
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Right, that's a bigger problem that we have to deal with in society anyway, so I don't think this introduces anything new. We just take the existing legal definition of pornography and apply it to social media.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

breckenedge 6y ago

Not a slippery slope, it’s right there in the article: > Depending on the specific contours of such regulation, social media sites could be forced to alter or do away with many of the moderation standards they use to keep harassment, hate speech and nudity off their platforms. If Thomas had his way, he’d probably find a way to declare porn illegal, or subject to much stricter regulations.

throwaway894345 6y ago

I'm arguing from an assumption that social media giants are too powerful--they can steer public opinion and even influence national elections (think "Social Dilemma"). I also think they're just bad for our social fabric--they seem to drive up anxiety and antisocial behavior. This is the context for the rest of my comment. That said, I think you're right that without moderation, the quality of these platforms will suffer. I don't think it will look like Parler et al but rather like Mastodon which is more noisy than vile. But even still, I think it will drive people from these platforms, weakening them, and I think that's a net improvement over the status quo. I also think there's another interesting possibility which may or may not be practical for other reasons: require social media companies to implement a common protocol (e.g., the mastodon protocol; forgetting what it's called off the top of my head) such that these companies can continue to offer a moderated window into the underlying social network, but they don't own the social network. If you want, you can pack up and leave for another social media provider without leaving your friends and conversations. This weakens social media giants by breaking their monopoly and allowing competition from upstarts (including other revenue models besides ads) and it also allows these giants to moderate how they like.

tombert 6y ago
Yeah, I don't know that I made it clear in my original post; I do not like having to depend on our benevolent overlords like Google and Twitter and Facebook to determine what I can handle. I think they have way too much power, I'm not opposed to breaking them up into smaller entities, and I don't think it's a dumb idea to push or require companies to use open protocols. I like Mastodon, but part of me worries that the reason that Nazis haven't ruined it is largely because a lot of them don't know about it yet. That said, if we used a decentralized protocol like Mastodon, then theoretically individual servers could moderate their posts however they'd like, and if you don't like it you could hop over to another server.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I think we mostly agree. Specifically, we both seem to think it would be interesting and possibly ideal to require social media giants to implement an open protocol, but failing that I'm not sure whether we agree that regulating them like utilities (with the associated quality implications) is better than the status quo?

pessimizer 6y ago

I support the worst parts of humanity having the ability to speak online as much as we allow them to speak in real life. If we would regulate their public speech outdoors, I'm fine with regulating their public speech online. Would we propose that racists be banned from speaking to each other in person?

tombert 6y ago
No, of course not, and I'm not opposed to Nazis having their own websites like the Daily Stormer, or running their own Mastodon instance or something, or flocking to a "free speech" clone of Twitter like Parler, or uploading videos on Bitchute. I absolutely think that ISPs should be regulated like utilities.