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You're simultaneously advocating for a sweeping change in how the courts interpret our rights, while proclaiming that they will continue to protect them. Curre

You're simultaneously advocating for a sweeping change in how the courts interpret our rights, while proclaiming that they will continue to protect them. Currently, the courts have an opinion on censorship that is extreme enough that it protects what Facebook is doing. Today, the government cannot write censorship rules. They all, to use your words, "infringe on our rights". So if you want the government to be able to do that, and the courts to allow some censorship, you have to amend the constitution, and change the recognized legal framework of what our rights even are. That (broadly) falls to lawmakers, not the courts. Do you trust Pelosi and Cruz (and other lawmakers) to change the very framework of what our right to free speech is, while simultaneously allowing the courts to protect it?

stale2002 5y ago
> while proclaiming that they will continue to protect them. Well, are rights aren't particularly protected, from the censorship that happens right now. There are zero checks on balances on the censorship that already happens. At the very least it would be better if we had more courts involved, so as to make sure that those courts have some say over what censorship can happen or not. > Today, the government cannot write censorship rules Sure they can. They are already doing so. Go look at the laws that cover phone companies. The government already has laws, that prevents phone companies from engaging in certain acts of censorship, or whatever we want to call that, on the telephone network. Those laws don't apply to other things at the moment. But they could, if we changed them, and it would be no bigger of an issue than how those existing laws, already apply to phone companies. > you have to amend the constitution No we won't. All we have to do is take our existing common carrier laws, and expand them. Common carrier laws, as they apply to phone companies, are already constitutional. > to change the very framework There is no massive change to the framework of free speech, when we already have similar laws, that already apply to a similar thing, which is the phone network. Just whatever is happening there, already, and which already does not infringe upon our rights, could be expanded to apply to other things, and no massive constitutional change would be needed to apply these existing laws to new things.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > Well, are rights aren't particularly protected, from the censorship that happens right now. Given that I don't believe that it is fundamentally possible for any private entity to infringe on my right to free speech, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. > No we won't. All we have to do is take our existing common carrier laws, and expand them. The Cato institute appears to disagree with you that it's that simple[0]. It's not clear that applying common carrier status to Facebook or Google could be constitutional, because they do not and have never claimed to be neutral, so using the force of law to make that so would be an infringement on the companies' rights to speech and association. [0]: https://www.cato.org/blog/are-social-media-companies-common-carriers https://www.cato.org/blog/are-social-media-companies-common-...
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > they do not and have never claimed to be neutral, so using the force of law to make that so would be an infringement on the companies' rights to speech and association. You are not being creative enough, with how we could apply these laws. One big reason why phone companies are claiming to be neutral in the first place, is to get certain protections, that those laws give them. They claim to be neutral, to get certain benefits. Phone companies are claiming to be neutral, for a reason. Its not because they simply want to. It is because they are doing that, on purpose, because the law is strongly incentivizing them to do so. A similar strategy could be used against Facebook. What can be done, is we take away certain protections, that we currently give them, and only give them back, in exchange for them following something similar to common carrier laws. The most common thing that people bring up, of a right to take away from them, is section 230 protections. When the smart people talk about repealing section 230 protections, it is not to actually remove those protections. Instead, the strategy, is to make it so, if companies want to keep those protections, they then have to follow other requirements, by making those protections contingent on acting a certain way, such as by following common carrier laws. That is the way to get around being unable to force Facebook to follow common carrier laws. You don't actually force them to do it. Instead, you make the alternative, extremely difficult, by making previously necessary protections, contingent on following new neutrality laws.
rndgermandude 5y ago
>Today, the government cannot write censorship rules. That actually was my point: the governments do write the censorship rules already and define punishment that you get for violating them. Child porn is censored, for example. Here in Germany there is censorship laws against promoting national socialism or antisemitism. Our democracies are structured in a way that legally prevents the legislatures to write censorship rules as they please and without good reasoning, and that is usually achieved by constitutional law guaranteeing freedom of speech to the widest extent possible, of the press, of assembly and of religion, and a division of powers and the mandate for those divisions to check each other. The courts but also multi party democratic systems, the press, voters and activists and protestors play a significant role in this. While this system is not perfect, and there were and will be mistakes and abuses along the way that need to be corrected - which usually takes a lot more time than anybody likes - it is still the best we ever had and will ever get I think. The only real "alternative" we tried, that of a "strong" leader or oligarchic group of "strong" leaders was and is always a lot worse. But now we moved a very significant part, if not a major part, of public discussion forums onto the platforms of private companies, and are now surprised that the "strong" leaders on top of these companies do not necessarily share our values or even the minimal set of values our societies as a whole agreed on, and make up and change rules as they please, without any real repercussions so far. And not just that, they sometimes actively try to use their immense powers of content distribution and "moderation" to nudge discussion into one way or another. We already see these companies getting bolder in restricting certain topics all by themselves, be it around certain Corona related topics, be it to "fight white supremacy" ideology or other "extremism". And of course the companies started by censoring topics where reasonable people would most likely say "oh, those are dangerous or vile ideas by dangerous or vile people" [and then somebody brings up the Paradox of Tolerance to justify letting the companies reign free in those areas]. I am pretty much convinced that a lot of these are test balloons by the companies to see how far they can push the envelope right now before the momentary backslash becomes too much. And if we let them, then over time they will slowly push the envelope further and further for more and more control. We and our politicians even help those companies to gain more power and control, by writing laws delegating policing responsibilities to the companies and by demanding the companies start policing more against misinformation, extremism, racism or and other of those -isms more and more. Not only is that a transfer of power, it's at the same time regulatory capture making sure any future competitors to these companies have it almost impossible to enter the market at all. The first step on your route to doom is signing a petition requiring people to "provide id before making a social media account" (as is happening right now e.g. in the UK because some racists said some vile things about English football players), and then before you know it you end up with a "social score" system like in China, except it's the big companies maintaining it and regulating it and not even the (repressive) government. Good intentions and all that... [/rant over]

stale2002 5y ago

> while proclaiming that they will continue to protect them. Well, are rights aren't particularly protected, from the censorship that happens right now. There are zero checks on balances on the censorship that already happens. At the very least it would be better if we had more courts involved, so as to make sure that those courts have some say over what censorship can happen or not. > Today, the government cannot write censorship rules Sure they can. They are already doing so. Go look at the laws that cover phone companies. The government already has laws, that prevents phone companies from engaging in certain acts of censorship, or whatever we want to call that, on the telephone network. Those laws don't apply to other things at the moment. But they could, if we changed them, and it would be no bigger of an issue than how those existing laws, already apply to phone companies. > you have to amend the constitution No we won't. All we have to do is take our existing common carrier laws, and expand them. Common carrier laws, as they apply to phone companies, are already constitutional. > to change the very framework There is no massive change to the framework of free speech, when we already have similar laws, that already apply to a similar thing, which is the phone network. Just whatever is happening there, already, and which already does not infringe upon our rights, could be expanded to apply to other things, and no massive constitutional change would be needed to apply these existing laws to new things.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> Well, are rights aren't particularly protected, from the censorship that happens right now. Given that I don't believe that it is fundamentally possible for any private entity to infringe on my right to free speech, I'm going to have to disagree with you here. > No we won't. All we have to do is take our existing common carrier laws, and expand them. The Cato institute appears to disagree with you that it's that simple[0]. It's not clear that applying common carrier status to Facebook or Google could be constitutional, because they do not and have never claimed to be neutral, so using the force of law to make that so would be an infringement on the companies' rights to speech and association. [0]: https://www.cato.org/blog/are-social-media-companies-common-carriers https://www.cato.org/blog/are-social-media-companies-common-...
- stale2002 5y ago
  > they do not and have never claimed to be neutral, so using the force of law to make that so would be an infringement on the companies' rights to speech and association. You are not being creative enough, with how we could apply these laws. One big reason why phone companies are claiming to be neutral in the first place, is to get certain protections, that those laws give them. They claim to be neutral, to get certain benefits. Phone companies are claiming to be neutral, for a reason. Its not because they simply want to. It is because they are doing that, on purpose, because the law is strongly incentivizing them to do so. A similar strategy could be used against Facebook. What can be done, is we take away certain protections, that we currently give them, and only give them back, in exchange for them following something similar to common carrier laws. The most common thing that people bring up, of a right to take away from them, is section 230 protections. When the smart people talk about repealing section 230 protections, it is not to actually remove those protections. Instead, the strategy, is to make it so, if companies want to keep those protections, they then have to follow other requirements, by making those protections contingent on acting a certain way, such as by following common carrier laws. That is the way to get around being unable to force Facebook to follow common carrier laws. You don't actually force them to do it. Instead, you make the alternative, extremely difficult, by making previously necessary protections, contingent on following new neutrality laws.

rndgermandude 5y ago

>Today, the government cannot write censorship rules. That actually was my point: the governments do write the censorship rules already and define punishment that you get for violating them. Child porn is censored, for example. Here in Germany there is censorship laws against promoting national socialism or antisemitism. Our democracies are structured in a way that legally prevents the legislatures to write censorship rules as they please and without good reasoning, and that is usually achieved by constitutional law guaranteeing freedom of speech to the widest extent possible, of the press, of assembly and of religion, and a division of powers and the mandate for those divisions to check each other. The courts but also multi party democratic systems, the press, voters and activists and protestors play a significant role in this. While this system is not perfect, and there were and will be mistakes and abuses along the way that need to be corrected - which usually takes a lot more time than anybody likes - it is still the best we ever had and will ever get I think. The only real "alternative" we tried, that of a "strong" leader or oligarchic group of "strong" leaders was and is always a lot worse. But now we moved a very significant part, if not a major part, of public discussion forums onto the platforms of private companies, and are now surprised that the "strong" leaders on top of these companies do not necessarily share our values or even the minimal set of values our societies as a whole agreed on, and make up and change rules as they please, without any real repercussions so far. And not just that, they sometimes actively try to use their immense powers of content distribution and "moderation" to nudge discussion into one way or another. We already see these companies getting bolder in restricting certain topics all by themselves, be it around certain Corona related topics, be it to "fight white supremacy" ideology or other "extremism". And of course the companies started by censoring topics where reasonable people would most likely say "oh, those are dangerous or vile ideas by dangerous or vile people" [and then somebody brings up the Paradox of Tolerance to justify letting the companies reign free in those areas]. I am pretty much convinced that a lot of these are test balloons by the companies to see how far they can push the envelope right now before the momentary backslash becomes too much. And if we let them, then over time they will slowly push the envelope further and further for more and more control. We and our politicians even help those companies to gain more power and control, by writing laws delegating policing responsibilities to the companies and by demanding the companies start policing more against misinformation, extremism, racism or and other of those -isms more and more. Not only is that a transfer of power, it's at the same time regulatory capture making sure any future competitors to these companies have it almost impossible to enter the market at all. The first step on your route to doom is signing a petition requiring people to "provide id before making a social media account" (as is happening right now e.g. in the UK because some racists said some vile things about English football players), and then before you know it you end up with a "social score" system like in China, except it's the big companies maintaining it and regulating it and not even the (repressive) government. Good intentions and all that... [/rant over]