5 ms·

Free speech is a far larger concern than what the First Amendment covers. Platforms that have grown into de facto public squares are large enough that there is

Free speech is a far larger concern than what the First Amendment covers. Platforms that have grown into de facto public squares are large enough that there is a public interest in how they regulate speech, given that the vast majority of people are on the big tech platforms while the alternatives are negligible and choked out by network effects. They are now a gray area between state and what is typically understood by private entity. There are massive and obvious dangers in letting Google, Facebook, Twitter decree for millions/billions of people what counts as "science" or "misinformation", and they've already demonstrated getting it spectacularly wrong. It's vital to a free society to have a culture of open debate, and these platforms are now our media for such debate. It's not clear yet what the best mechanism or remedy for this will be, but citing the First Amendment alone is not sufficient to resolve the concern. The First Amendment only applies to government, and the cultural and social issues around free speech have always been much broader than that. There are older precedents for regulating speech on private platforms in an earlier technological period: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine. Perhaps we need an updated version of that. I wouldn't be surprised if the platforms themselves were ok with it, since I don't believe they wanted to get into the truth-regulation business in the first place. They're doing it because they're subject to intense, inner and outer, political pressure. Without getting into rightness or wrongness of views, I think it's factually the case that those pressures are coming from a fairly narrow band of political opinion which is far from being the entire spectrum and excludes many mainstream views, so in that sense what we're seeing is something analogous to "regulatory capture" of the big platforms. This gives enormous leverage to one cluster of political opinions over all the others. It's a distorting factor which I think is against the public interest (even though I personally agree with some of their views). We need debate and persuasion, not hard use of power. This understanding was commonplace, in fact bedrock, for so long that many of us are shocked at how quickly it could be abandoned, and not just abandoned or even forgotten but replaced with a narrative in which it was never that way to begin with!

caseysoftware 5y ago
> Platforms that have grown into de facto public squares are large enough that there is a public interest in how they regulate speech, given that the vast majority of people are on the big tech platforms while the others are negligible and are choked out by network effects. They are now a gray area between state and what is typically understood by private entity. In the lawsuit against Trump for blocking people on Twitter, the court ruled that Twitter was a public square for the express reason that government policy was discussed and promoted there. Therefore, Trump (as a government figure) could not block people. Further, the current Press Secretary Psaki has described how they're directing Facebook to monitor and remove both people and content which was otherwise legal but simply unacceptable to the Administration. The first situation demonstrates the gray area but the second makes a case that Facebook was acting as an arm of the government.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  > In the lawsuit against Trump for blocking people on Twitter, the court ruled that Twitter was a public square for the express reason that government policy was discussed and promoted there. Therefore, Trump (as a government figure) could not block people. No it didn't. It ruled that trumps account was acting as an official government account, and so trumps account fell under stricter regulations that govern how the government can communicate. Twitter was still able to ban his account though, because Twitter isn't the government! > Further, the current Press Secretary Psaki has described how they're directing Facebook to monitor and remove both people and content which was otherwise legal but simply unacceptable to the Administration. No, Facebook used the government as a source of official information. They then chose to remove other information. The government wasn't telling Facebook to remove stuff. The choice to make the CDC authoritative was Facebooks choice. They aren't acting as an arm of the government.
  - caseysoftware 5y ago
    The White House claims to be an active participant and directing their attention to things to be removed. In case you missed that press conference, here's a transcript and video: > QUESTION: Thanks, Jen. Can you talk a little bit more about this request for tech companies to be more aggressive in policing misinformation? Has the administration been in touch with any of these companies? And are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation? Because we've seen from the start, there's not a lot of action on some of these platforms. > PSAKI: Sure. Well, first, we are in regular touch with the social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 Team. > Quote continuing: Given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation specifically on the pandemic. In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken or we're working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we've increased disinformation research and tracking. Within the Surgeon General's Office, we're flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. Unless you believe Psaki is lying which I hadn't considered. Ref: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_were_flagging_problematic_posts_for_facebook_that_spread_disinformation.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_wer...
Jtsummers 5y ago
It's worth noting that the Fairness Doctrine was applied to things like radio where you had to have a license, and which were more limited. It was not (at least after a couple court decisions) applied to other media like newspapers, which could operate without a license. Google, Facebook, and others do not require a license to operate. Anyone can establish their own website to counter points made on those platforms. The Fairness Doctrine would seem (even if it still existed) to be non-applicable to the various web platforms. A more updated version of it might be more expansive, but would probably run into issues with compelled speech. Since the internet is pretty wide open, again anyone can make a website if they want, it's hard to justify compelling a platform to host content.
- horseradish 5y ago
  I agree that's worth noting, and I'm not suggesting a literal revival of the fairness doctrine, just noting that there are past precedents for regulating speech in the public interest. You're no doubt right that it would run into legal difficulty, and actually the corporatist supreme court would be expected, amusingly enough, to side with the illiberal left on this issue. This is a canard though: > Since the internet is pretty wide open, again anyone can make a website if they want, it's hard to justify compelling a platform to host content. Anyone can make a website that no one reads, but not anyone can make a public square. As I said above, the alternatives are choked out by network effects, so the internet is not "pretty wide open" in any way that counts for public debate. It used to be, but that was before it consolidated into an oligopoly. That is why the public interest and free speech questions necessarily shift to these platforms. In the world we now live in, it's distracting to offer the prospect of "anyone can make a website" as if it were a realistic alternative.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    It's not a canard, it's well-founded by examining precedent. The courts already decided that compelled speech (the Fairness Doctrine) didn't make sense without scarcity of a medium or difficulty to publish through the medium. The precedent is that newspapers (which is a harder field to enter into than starting a website) couldn't be compelled under the Fairness Doctrine because it wasn't licensed and was wide open. That's absolutely not a canard here (do you know what that word means?). Starting up a website is even easier than publishing a newspaper so it would be very bizarre for that precedent to somehow not be applied in this instance.
OrvalWintermute 5y ago
> There are massive and obvious dangers in letting Google, Facebook, Twitter decree for millions/billions of people what counts as "science" or "misinformation", and they've already demonstrated getting it spectacularly wrong. It's vital to a free society to have a culture of open debate, and these platforms are now our media for such debate. I'm highly concerned about BigTech regulating the speech of others particularly when the others are experts in their respective fields, and BigTech has none, but is merely parroting an authoritarian government perspective. When we normally debate a view, people present data from opposing viewpoints and we sort it out over time. Sides present data. Sides explain relevancy and over time, we determine greater accuracy. That cannot happen in an environment where gatekeepers control the speech and dictate the tone and content of it. > Without getting into rightness or wrongness of views, I think it's factually the case that those pressures are coming from a fairly narrow band of political opinion which is far from being the entire spectrum and excludes many mainstream views, so in that sense what we're seeing is something analogous to "regulatory capture" of the big platforms. This gives enormous leverage to one cluster of political opinions over all the others. It's a distorting factor which I think is against the public interest (even though I personally agree with some of their views). > We need debate and persuasion, not hard use of power. This understanding was commonplace, in fact bedrock, for so long that many of us are shocked at how quickly it could be abandoned, and not just abandoned or even forgotten but replaced with a narrative in which it was never that way to begin with! I think this is very well written, and can be related to much of the modern authoritarian use of power, of compulsion, by BigTech in cahoots with government.

caseysoftware 5y ago

> Platforms that have grown into de facto public squares are large enough that there is a public interest in how they regulate speech, given that the vast majority of people are on the big tech platforms while the others are negligible and are choked out by network effects. They are now a gray area between state and what is typically understood by private entity. In the lawsuit against Trump for blocking people on Twitter, the court ruled that Twitter was a public square for the express reason that government policy was discussed and promoted there. Therefore, Trump (as a government figure) could not block people. Further, the current Press Secretary Psaki has described how they're directing Facebook to monitor and remove both people and content which was otherwise legal but simply unacceptable to the Administration. The first situation demonstrates the gray area but the second makes a case that Facebook was acting as an arm of the government.

joshuamorton 5y ago
> In the lawsuit against Trump for blocking people on Twitter, the court ruled that Twitter was a public square for the express reason that government policy was discussed and promoted there. Therefore, Trump (as a government figure) could not block people. No it didn't. It ruled that trumps account was acting as an official government account, and so trumps account fell under stricter regulations that govern how the government can communicate. Twitter was still able to ban his account though, because Twitter isn't the government! > Further, the current Press Secretary Psaki has described how they're directing Facebook to monitor and remove both people and content which was otherwise legal but simply unacceptable to the Administration. No, Facebook used the government as a source of official information. They then chose to remove other information. The government wasn't telling Facebook to remove stuff. The choice to make the CDC authoritative was Facebooks choice. They aren't acting as an arm of the government.
- caseysoftware 5y ago
  The White House claims to be an active participant and directing their attention to things to be removed. In case you missed that press conference, here's a transcript and video: > QUESTION: Thanks, Jen. Can you talk a little bit more about this request for tech companies to be more aggressive in policing misinformation? Has the administration been in touch with any of these companies? And are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation? Because we've seen from the start, there's not a lot of action on some of these platforms. > PSAKI: Sure. Well, first, we are in regular touch with the social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 Team. > Quote continuing: Given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation specifically on the pandemic. In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken or we're working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we've increased disinformation research and tracking. Within the Surgeon General's Office, we're flagging posts for Facebook that spread disinformation. Unless you believe Psaki is lying which I hadn't considered. Ref: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_were_flagging_problematic_posts_for_facebook_that_spread_disinformation.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_wer...

Jtsummers 5y ago

It's worth noting that the Fairness Doctrine was applied to things like radio where you had to have a license, and which were more limited. It was not (at least after a couple court decisions) applied to other media like newspapers, which could operate without a license. Google, Facebook, and others do not require a license to operate. Anyone can establish their own website to counter points made on those platforms. The Fairness Doctrine would seem (even if it still existed) to be non-applicable to the various web platforms. A more updated version of it might be more expansive, but would probably run into issues with compelled speech. Since the internet is pretty wide open, again anyone can make a website if they want, it's hard to justify compelling a platform to host content.

horseradish 5y ago
I agree that's worth noting, and I'm not suggesting a literal revival of the fairness doctrine, just noting that there are past precedents for regulating speech in the public interest. You're no doubt right that it would run into legal difficulty, and actually the corporatist supreme court would be expected, amusingly enough, to side with the illiberal left on this issue. This is a canard though: > Since the internet is pretty wide open, again anyone can make a website if they want, it's hard to justify compelling a platform to host content. Anyone can make a website that no one reads, but not anyone can make a public square. As I said above, the alternatives are choked out by network effects, so the internet is not "pretty wide open" in any way that counts for public debate. It used to be, but that was before it consolidated into an oligopoly. That is why the public interest and free speech questions necessarily shift to these platforms. In the world we now live in, it's distracting to offer the prospect of "anyone can make a website" as if it were a realistic alternative.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  It's not a canard, it's well-founded by examining precedent. The courts already decided that compelled speech (the Fairness Doctrine) didn't make sense without scarcity of a medium or difficulty to publish through the medium. The precedent is that newspapers (which is a harder field to enter into than starting a website) couldn't be compelled under the Fairness Doctrine because it wasn't licensed and was wide open. That's absolutely not a canard here (do you know what that word means?). Starting up a website is even easier than publishing a newspaper so it would be very bizarre for that precedent to somehow not be applied in this instance.

OrvalWintermute 5y ago

> There are massive and obvious dangers in letting Google, Facebook, Twitter decree for millions/billions of people what counts as "science" or "misinformation", and they've already demonstrated getting it spectacularly wrong. It's vital to a free society to have a culture of open debate, and these platforms are now our media for such debate. I'm highly concerned about BigTech regulating the speech of others particularly when the others are experts in their respective fields, and BigTech has none, but is merely parroting an authoritarian government perspective. When we normally debate a view, people present data from opposing viewpoints and we sort it out over time. Sides present data. Sides explain relevancy and over time, we determine greater accuracy. That cannot happen in an environment where gatekeepers control the speech and dictate the tone and content of it. > Without getting into rightness or wrongness of views, I think it's factually the case that those pressures are coming from a fairly narrow band of political opinion which is far from being the entire spectrum and excludes many mainstream views, so in that sense what we're seeing is something analogous to "regulatory capture" of the big platforms. This gives enormous leverage to one cluster of political opinions over all the others. It's a distorting factor which I think is against the public interest (even though I personally agree with some of their views). > We need debate and persuasion, not hard use of power. This understanding was commonplace, in fact bedrock, for so long that many of us are shocked at how quickly it could be abandoned, and not just abandoned or even forgotten but replaced with a narrative in which it was never that way to begin with! I think this is very well written, and can be related to much of the modern authoritarian use of power, of compulsion, by BigTech in cahoots with government.