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You know, it's strange, but as much as I want to reject the idea that companies are able to "censor" people, the reality is that large social media platforms ha

You know, it's strange, but as much as I want to reject the idea that companies are able to "censor" people, the reality is that large social media platforms have become de facto public squares in 2021. In that regard, he was actually silenced on a very large scale. I live in Canada and not the US so I know little about how US laws work, but it does seem that both countries need to work on addressing the power that giant tech corporations have over speech. Ideally I would like some sort of government sponsored, decentralized platform similar to matrix, but I imagine that both governments are incapable of producing or unwilling to produce anything of the sort... I'm also very wary of government intervention given how little representation both the US and Canada peoples have, compared to who actually lobbies politicians. As much as I do not care at all for Donald Trump, I do still want people, whose ideas I do not agree with for the most part, able to speak their mind.

Barrin92 5y ago
People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is wannabe tinpot dictators like him trying to coerce private business into doing his bidding. That's the actual free speech issue if there is one. Nobody should be compelled to host anyone else's speech. Social media sites are not 'de facto public squares' in any way. It's trivial technically to create an alternative site to the incumbents, that's why there's already like half a dozen alternatives spawning around Trump's political ecosystem. It's just that the content on those sites is so godawful within days of them going online that everyone runs for the hills who has a few brain-cells left. It is so ridiculous to paint people like Trump, literal oligarchs, as victims of private business lol.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.
  - tadfisher 5y ago
    So in essence: Don't get too popular, because if you do, the government will restrict your ability to moderate the content you host.
  - thrill 5y ago
    It's not at all like ATT kicking everyone off the telephone system. If the ISPs providing the bandwidth kicked people off simply because they don't like what they say, then it would be similar, but these are software as a service organizations, and you are free to use that still available bandwidth to use a different service, or even make your own. The gold is in the size of the audience, and that's what these companies have built, and done so by setting guidelines and providing incentives to bring the users. There's absolutely no right for you or anyone else to have a guaranteed audience, though plenty of politicians try to make it so by using taxpayer money to let you know they stole some money from one taxpayer and gave it to a larger voting bloc friendly to them. So, yeah, it's a few days of work to build a twitter replacement, but if you want that audience, you have to put in the sweat to build it, not just jump up and down and demand that you have a right to one that someone else built.
  - gregmac 5y ago
    Yep, that's why Instragram will never work, no one will ever steal user share from ICQ, and Myspace will be around forever.
- ds206 5y ago
  If a quarter of the people on planet Earth using Facebook isn't enough, is there a threshold in which you WOULD call it a public square? Just curious.
  - nklop 5y ago
    I think that facebook etc are now public spaces. Weren't they granted some liability exemption? So they wouldn't get sued or something for a comment they only host on their platform? Edit: I appreciate the downvotes. This means that asking for clarification or even a basic opinion is seen as wrong. I won't repeat this mistake. Thanks for the feedback HN.
    - thrill 5y ago
      All such companies, large and small, were granted freedom to not be responsible for their users comments per US law. That doesn't mean they have to leave them there if they don't want to.
      - nklop 5y ago
        I've been downvoted to punish my comment. Stating an opinion is deemed offensive on HN. I'm out.b
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      I didn't downvote you. You were probably downvoted because I've seen this question posed a thousand times by people who weren't asking in good faith attempts to learn new things.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    No there is no threshold because Facebook is in no conceivable sense comparable to public land. The reason the public square is public is because it's not fungible, there's only one center of the town. You can be on a dozen social networks, or on none, and hitting enter and going somewhere on the internet takes (almost) the same time regardless of where you go,in other words Facebook is trivially replaceable the same way it replaced MySpace, regardless of how large it is. The question is whether Facebook exercises market power, not whether it is large, which is the exact same flawed argument that people use in regards to Google. What actually has public character is the physical infrastructure of the net, maybe the ISP level, but not digital products, at least none I have seen yet.
- nklop 5y ago
  Can you provide some examples of his dictatorship mode of operation?
  - nklop 5y ago
    Apparently asking for information means downvotes. Which are the weaker versions of cancel culture. So I'll just assume there are no examples of dictatorship. Thanks for the feedback.
  - orwin 5y ago
    Xi Xinping's treatment of Jack Ma? Modhi's treatment of twitter? Honestly, i don't care if big government want to influence their tech sector, issue fines and revoke license, it's the government prerogative. But it is a power you don't want to abuse (I'll personnally give a break to Modhi because i think it is the first time he does something like that, but i'm more into big gov than 99% of HN users i think)
oneplane 5y ago
If we really wanted this to be a 'public square', how would that combine with a commercial for-profit entity? Unless the government (the people) buys it and funds it through taxes, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the concept of a public square, just like a newspaper isn't a public square, and the commercial TV and Radio isn't a public square either. Neither are phones. Or billboards. If something becomes ubiquitous enough to be regarded a public square, we either have to make it one, or fix the reason why a commercial for-profit company is regarded as public square in the first place.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- klodolph 5y ago
  There’s precedent for exactly that kind of relationship—commercial, for-profit, but legally restrained to do business with anyone without discrimination. It’s called a “common carrier”. Although it was the FCC under Trump that, in 2017, removed common carrier status as a requirement for ISPs. Hard to make the case that ISPs are not common carriers but Twitter is.
- Karsteski 5y ago
  > fix the reason why a commercial for-profit company is regarded as public square in the first place. This would be ideal. The network effect is strong. As Barrin92's response to my comment stated, anyone can make an alternative site. But all of the value comes from the large networks of people on these sites. I would prefer if such a "public square" site weren't for profit, if I'm going to be honest. Not sure how well that would work, but profit motives introduce too many flaws for such a necessary part of society. OTOH, so do influences from other means...
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    > I would prefer if such a "public square" site weren't for profit, if I'm going to be honest. Not sure how well that would work Works perfectly fine. There are plenty of alt-platforms that are based on self-hosted principles like that (Mastodon, Pleroma, Matrix), and all of them are about the most "free" platforms (rather, protocols) you can find.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
It is a scary proposition that an elite few media companies can control the voices that reach the public. Definitely room for abuse there. Not sure how best to address it for all parties concerned. Censorship at this point is just easier. Perhaps it always will be.

Barrin92 5y ago

People can speak their mind, it's just that nobody else is obligated to host you speaking your mind. The issue isn't Donald Trump being silenced, the issue is wannabe tinpot dictators like him trying to coerce private business into doing his bidding. That's the actual free speech issue if there is one. Nobody should be compelled to host anyone else's speech. Social media sites are not 'de facto public squares' in any way. It's trivial technically to create an alternative site to the incumbents, that's why there's already like half a dozen alternatives spawning around Trump's political ecosystem. It's just that the content on those sites is so godawful within days of them going online that everyone runs for the hills who has a few brain-cells left. It is so ridiculous to paint people like Trump, literal oligarchs, as victims of private business lol.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
It’s in no way trivial to create an alternative site. What makes those social media platforms what they are is the network of people. That’s like saying if Ma Bell decided to kick someone off the telephone system in the 70s that they could just create an alternative network. That’s without even talking about stuff like being kicked off app stores, AWS, other hosting, or even their domain name.
- tadfisher 5y ago
  So in essence: Don't get too popular, because if you do, the government will restrict your ability to moderate the content you host.
- thrill 5y ago
  It's not at all like ATT kicking everyone off the telephone system. If the ISPs providing the bandwidth kicked people off simply because they don't like what they say, then it would be similar, but these are software as a service organizations, and you are free to use that still available bandwidth to use a different service, or even make your own. The gold is in the size of the audience, and that's what these companies have built, and done so by setting guidelines and providing incentives to bring the users. There's absolutely no right for you or anyone else to have a guaranteed audience, though plenty of politicians try to make it so by using taxpayer money to let you know they stole some money from one taxpayer and gave it to a larger voting bloc friendly to them. So, yeah, it's a few days of work to build a twitter replacement, but if you want that audience, you have to put in the sweat to build it, not just jump up and down and demand that you have a right to one that someone else built.
- gregmac 5y ago
  Yep, that's why Instragram will never work, no one will ever steal user share from ICQ, and Myspace will be around forever.
ds206 5y ago
If a quarter of the people on planet Earth using Facebook isn't enough, is there a threshold in which you WOULD call it a public square? Just curious.
- nklop 5y ago
  I think that facebook etc are now public spaces. Weren't they granted some liability exemption? So they wouldn't get sued or something for a comment they only host on their platform? Edit: I appreciate the downvotes. This means that asking for clarification or even a basic opinion is seen as wrong. I won't repeat this mistake. Thanks for the feedback HN.
  - thrill 5y ago
    All such companies, large and small, were granted freedom to not be responsible for their users comments per US law. That doesn't mean they have to leave them there if they don't want to.
    - nklop 5y ago
      I've been downvoted to punish my comment. Stating an opinion is deemed offensive on HN. I'm out.b
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I didn't downvote you. You were probably downvoted because I've seen this question posed a thousand times by people who weren't asking in good faith attempts to learn new things.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  No there is no threshold because Facebook is in no conceivable sense comparable to public land. The reason the public square is public is because it's not fungible, there's only one center of the town. You can be on a dozen social networks, or on none, and hitting enter and going somewhere on the internet takes (almost) the same time regardless of where you go,in other words Facebook is trivially replaceable the same way it replaced MySpace, regardless of how large it is. The question is whether Facebook exercises market power, not whether it is large, which is the exact same flawed argument that people use in regards to Google. What actually has public character is the physical infrastructure of the net, maybe the ISP level, but not digital products, at least none I have seen yet.
nklop 5y ago
Can you provide some examples of his dictatorship mode of operation?
- nklop 5y ago
  Apparently asking for information means downvotes. Which are the weaker versions of cancel culture. So I'll just assume there are no examples of dictatorship. Thanks for the feedback.
- orwin 5y ago
  Xi Xinping's treatment of Jack Ma? Modhi's treatment of twitter? Honestly, i don't care if big government want to influence their tech sector, issue fines and revoke license, it's the government prerogative. But it is a power you don't want to abuse (I'll personnally give a break to Modhi because i think it is the first time he does something like that, but i'm more into big gov than 99% of HN users i think)

oneplane 5y ago

If we really wanted this to be a 'public square', how would that combine with a commercial for-profit entity? Unless the government (the people) buys it and funds it through taxes, it doesn't seem to be anywhere near the concept of a public square, just like a newspaper isn't a public square, and the commercial TV and Radio isn't a public square either. Neither are phones. Or billboards. If something becomes ubiquitous enough to be regarded a public square, we either have to make it one, or fix the reason why a commercial for-profit company is regarded as public square in the first place.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
klodolph 5y ago
There’s precedent for exactly that kind of relationship—commercial, for-profit, but legally restrained to do business with anyone without discrimination. It’s called a “common carrier”. Although it was the FCC under Trump that, in 2017, removed common carrier status as a requirement for ISPs. Hard to make the case that ISPs are not common carriers but Twitter is.
Karsteski 5y ago
> fix the reason why a commercial for-profit company is regarded as public square in the first place. This would be ideal. The network effect is strong. As Barrin92's response to my comment stated, anyone can make an alternative site. But all of the value comes from the large networks of people on these sites. I would prefer if such a "public square" site weren't for profit, if I'm going to be honest. Not sure how well that would work, but profit motives introduce too many flaws for such a necessary part of society. OTOH, so do influences from other means...
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > I would prefer if such a "public square" site weren't for profit, if I'm going to be honest. Not sure how well that would work Works perfectly fine. There are plenty of alt-platforms that are based on self-hosted principles like that (Mastodon, Pleroma, Matrix), and all of them are about the most "free" platforms (rather, protocols) you can find.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

It is a scary proposition that an elite few media companies can control the voices that reach the public. Definitely room for abuse there. Not sure how best to address it for all parties concerned. Censorship at this point is just easier. Perhaps it always will be.