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> while proclaiming that they will continue to protect them. Well, are rights aren't particularly protected, from the censorship that happens right now. There

by 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.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    This doesn't make sense. If you repeal 230, Facebook doesn't gain anything from being a common carrier. Repealing 230 solves the problem you seem to be solving, which is that the companies can no longer do any form of moderation. The problem there, of course, is that both the average citizen and the average lawmaker want the companies to be able to do some forms of moderation. Which brings us back to the original question: Do you trust Pelosi and Cruz to define a reasonable framework for internet content moderation?
    - stale2002 5y ago
      > If you repeal 230, Facebook doesn't gain anything from being a common carrier Yes they do. They would not be able to be sued, if they were a common carrier, and in return, they would be unable to engage in many forms of censorship. If they did not have section 230 protections, then them existing in their current form, would be almost impossible, and therefore, they would have to make the choice to receive the alternative protections, which are common carrier protections. Common carrier protections are different from section 230 protections. If they are put in a position, where their only real option is to go under common carrier laws, then that would be the point. > the average lawmaker want the companies to be able to do some forms of moderation Common carriers are already allowed to do some forms of moderation/censorship. It is simply much much more limited. And additional forms of moderation, could simply be handled over to the user, to choose what they want. For example, it would be completely allowed for a customer, to have some automated calling blocklist, where they choose to block all adult content phonelines, that call them. > Which brings us back to the original question No it does not bring us back to that. Because common carriers are already allowed to do very limited forms of moderation, and that is what it would be a good thing to incentive facebook into having to follow. We don't have to have lawmakers do anything except for get us into a position where facebook is strongly incentivized to choose to be under common carrier protections, where they will then be extremely limited in the types of censorship that common carriers are allowed limited to.

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.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  This doesn't make sense. If you repeal 230, Facebook doesn't gain anything from being a common carrier. Repealing 230 solves the problem you seem to be solving, which is that the companies can no longer do any form of moderation. The problem there, of course, is that both the average citizen and the average lawmaker want the companies to be able to do some forms of moderation. Which brings us back to the original question: Do you trust Pelosi and Cruz to define a reasonable framework for internet content moderation?
  - stale2002 5y ago
    > If you repeal 230, Facebook doesn't gain anything from being a common carrier Yes they do. They would not be able to be sued, if they were a common carrier, and in return, they would be unable to engage in many forms of censorship. If they did not have section 230 protections, then them existing in their current form, would be almost impossible, and therefore, they would have to make the choice to receive the alternative protections, which are common carrier protections. Common carrier protections are different from section 230 protections. If they are put in a position, where their only real option is to go under common carrier laws, then that would be the point. > the average lawmaker want the companies to be able to do some forms of moderation Common carriers are already allowed to do some forms of moderation/censorship. It is simply much much more limited. And additional forms of moderation, could simply be handled over to the user, to choose what they want. For example, it would be completely allowed for a customer, to have some automated calling blocklist, where they choose to block all adult content phonelines, that call them. > Which brings us back to the original question No it does not bring us back to that. Because common carriers are already allowed to do very limited forms of moderation, and that is what it would be a good thing to incentive facebook into having to follow. We don't have to have lawmakers do anything except for get us into a position where facebook is strongly incentivized to choose to be under common carrier protections, where they will then be extremely limited in the types of censorship that common carriers are allowed limited to.