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Would you also agree that a coffee shop that pulls down objectionable flyers from their wall/window is circumventing free speech? Maybe you can say more about

Would you also agree that a coffee shop that pulls down objectionable flyers from their wall/window is circumventing free speech? Maybe you can say more about why a business can't be both a publisher and a distributor? A newspaper publishes original content and classifieds, and they certainly have discretion over which classifieds to distribute in their paper, what makes social media any different?

alexanderchr 5y ago
The scale?
- davidw 5y ago
  Where do you draw the line? Honest question. I think this is an interesting topic, as so much is online these days. These are companies, not the government, so they should have some more leeway... but given their size, it's also kind of scary. What if someone with a lot of money buys, say, Twitter and clamps down on all right of center, or left of center or whatever content? It's also incredibly easy to spread pure garbage with social media. Debunking it takes real work. I am going to a funeral in a few hours for an unvaccinated friend who died of COVID.
  - meltedcapacitor 5y ago
    Someone buying Twitter and banning a whole (normalish) category would be wonderful: it would make space for alternative platforms. As it is everybody is too lazy to fight the network effect. Maybe regulators should force dominant platforms to kick out a section of their user base every so often to keep the ecosystem diversified.
kansface 5y ago
> Would you also agree that a coffee shop that pulls down objectionable flyers from their wall/window is circumventing free speech? No coffee shop has 1/4 of the human population visit each day.
l33tbro 5y ago
Coffee shops aren't nations. Coffee shops don't have the power to control the perception of billions of people. Like it or not, major tech platforms wield the power of small countries now. It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation.
- krapp 5y ago
  >Like it or not, major tech platforms wield the power of small countries now. It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation. No, they absolutely do not. Nor do they "control the perception of billions of people." That's just fear-mongering hyperbole. You might have an argument that social media influences the opinions of billions of people, but then you have to take into account the deluge of inputs most people receive from multiple sources online and off, and realize that the total influence any one social media platform has is not that significant. This isn't the world of a few decades ago where many people's worldview was informed by only three tv stations and one newspaper - and not even in that world did the media control people's perception. When Twitter can levy taxes, field an army and a police force, declare Facebook illegal and bomb their campus into smoldering rubble, and coerce people outside of their platform to obey the laws they pass and enforce through their monopoly on violence then they might have something approaching the power of even a small nation. Being able to ban people from your website (and your website alone) is not equivalent to nation-state status. >It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation. No, it's not helpful, it's propaganda. It's the rhetoric of the modern form of the Red Scare, except now the "communist conspiracy" is running social media instead of Hollywood.
  - jazzyjackson 5y ago
    I agree with you fwiw, twitter may be king of their own little hill but it’s wholly opt-in hill that’s easy to avoid
  - l33tbro 5y ago
    You've just interpreted everything I said in the most absolutist and uncharitable way - then steamrolled over it with your own hyperbolic ideas.
poszlem 5y ago
I would not mind a coffee shop that pulls down flyers, but I would mind a coffee shop that doesn't serve coffee to people it doesn't like. I feel very frustrated by this because to me this is essentially the case of that religious baker refusing to make a gay wedding cake, except here we have a big company refusing to serve some people because it doesn't like what they have to say. I would not require twitter to server anybody coffee though.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  It sounds like you would like to add "political belief or opinion" to the list of classes protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Have you considered the full ramifications of this position?
  - poszlem 5y ago
    Yes, I very much would like to live in a world where people are not treated unfairly because of perfectly LEGAL speech they made on a random topic, while doing it on what's essentially a public square of the 2021.
    - _zn02 5y ago
      See, that statement makes me think you haven't fully considered the ramifications of this decision. If a dude wearing full Hugo Boss Nazi regalia walks into my private establishment, I should not have to serve him, and I refuse to respect the idea of serving him. You can argue that Twitter is different because it's bigger, but if there's only one bar in town I don't see a substantial different between these two acts; I just don't see the size of Twitter as especially important to this. What I'm saying here mostly is- I really don't think you want to add "political belief or opinion" as a protected class. That means not being able to fire someone for expressing racist opinions, that means not being able to ban gang colors from a club, it really has a very far reaching effect. What you probably want to do is socialize Twitter. Same effect (they are treated as a public entity, and can only punish you for illegal content) but without a bunch of insane restrictions on my own personal Freedom of Association (you remember that part of the Bill of Right, not just the Freedom of Speech parts, right?)
teeray 5y ago
Because the concept doesn’t translate well to the Internet. This would be more akin to a private company owning all the interstates and deciding that they don’t want certain people driving on their roads. Before people jump in: yes we have laws governing our roads, but we have input on those laws from a representative democracy. These are arbitrary laws on de-facto public infrastructure owned and operated by a private company.
lp0_on_fire 5y ago
newspapers can be sued for libel and social media companies cannot. That's the biggest difference. Twitter is _clearly_ acting as a publisher akin to a newspaper by editorializing and controlling what posts are distributed on its platform which would be OK if they were subject to the same libel laws as a newspaper, but they're not. It doesn't take a genius or even two eyeballs to see that twitters moderation tilts heavily in one direction and gives a pass to people of a certain political persuasion.
- anoonmoose 5y ago
  Worth noting that newspapers cannot be sued for the comments people post in the comment sections of their websites, even though they moderate those comment sections, for the same reason that social media companies cannot. Guess what I'm saying is- you don't understand 230.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  libel laws and section 230 are very separate things, I don’t see why I couldn’t sue twitter for editorializing while twitter is still protected from being sued for third party content

alexanderchr 5y ago

The scale?

davidw 5y ago
Where do you draw the line? Honest question. I think this is an interesting topic, as so much is online these days. These are companies, not the government, so they should have some more leeway... but given their size, it's also kind of scary. What if someone with a lot of money buys, say, Twitter and clamps down on all right of center, or left of center or whatever content? It's also incredibly easy to spread pure garbage with social media. Debunking it takes real work. I am going to a funeral in a few hours for an unvaccinated friend who died of COVID.
- meltedcapacitor 5y ago
  Someone buying Twitter and banning a whole (normalish) category would be wonderful: it would make space for alternative platforms. As it is everybody is too lazy to fight the network effect. Maybe regulators should force dominant platforms to kick out a section of their user base every so often to keep the ecosystem diversified.

kansface 5y ago

> Would you also agree that a coffee shop that pulls down objectionable flyers from their wall/window is circumventing free speech? No coffee shop has 1/4 of the human population visit each day.

l33tbro 5y ago

Coffee shops aren't nations. Coffee shops don't have the power to control the perception of billions of people. Like it or not, major tech platforms wield the power of small countries now. It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation.

krapp 5y ago
>Like it or not, major tech platforms wield the power of small countries now. It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation. No, they absolutely do not. Nor do they "control the perception of billions of people." That's just fear-mongering hyperbole. You might have an argument that social media influences the opinions of billions of people, but then you have to take into account the deluge of inputs most people receive from multiple sources online and off, and realize that the total influence any one social media platform has is not that significant. This isn't the world of a few decades ago where many people's worldview was informed by only three tv stations and one newspaper - and not even in that world did the media control people's perception. When Twitter can levy taxes, field an army and a police force, declare Facebook illegal and bomb their campus into smoldering rubble, and coerce people outside of their platform to obey the laws they pass and enforce through their monopoly on violence then they might have something approaching the power of even a small nation. Being able to ban people from your website (and your website alone) is not equivalent to nation-state status. >It's probably helpful that we start thinking of them this way and move toward some kind of equitable regulation. No, it's not helpful, it's propaganda. It's the rhetoric of the modern form of the Red Scare, except now the "communist conspiracy" is running social media instead of Hollywood.
- jazzyjackson 5y ago
  I agree with you fwiw, twitter may be king of their own little hill but it’s wholly opt-in hill that’s easy to avoid
- l33tbro 5y ago
  You've just interpreted everything I said in the most absolutist and uncharitable way - then steamrolled over it with your own hyperbolic ideas.

poszlem 5y ago

I would not mind a coffee shop that pulls down flyers, but I would mind a coffee shop that doesn't serve coffee to people it doesn't like. I feel very frustrated by this because to me this is essentially the case of that religious baker refusing to make a gay wedding cake, except here we have a big company refusing to serve some people because it doesn't like what they have to say. I would not require twitter to server anybody coffee though.

anoonmoose 5y ago
It sounds like you would like to add "political belief or opinion" to the list of classes protected under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Have you considered the full ramifications of this position?
- poszlem 5y ago
  Yes, I very much would like to live in a world where people are not treated unfairly because of perfectly LEGAL speech they made on a random topic, while doing it on what's essentially a public square of the 2021.
  - _zn02 5y ago
    See, that statement makes me think you haven't fully considered the ramifications of this decision. If a dude wearing full Hugo Boss Nazi regalia walks into my private establishment, I should not have to serve him, and I refuse to respect the idea of serving him. You can argue that Twitter is different because it's bigger, but if there's only one bar in town I don't see a substantial different between these two acts; I just don't see the size of Twitter as especially important to this. What I'm saying here mostly is- I really don't think you want to add "political belief or opinion" as a protected class. That means not being able to fire someone for expressing racist opinions, that means not being able to ban gang colors from a club, it really has a very far reaching effect. What you probably want to do is socialize Twitter. Same effect (they are treated as a public entity, and can only punish you for illegal content) but without a bunch of insane restrictions on my own personal Freedom of Association (you remember that part of the Bill of Right, not just the Freedom of Speech parts, right?)

teeray 5y ago

Because the concept doesn’t translate well to the Internet. This would be more akin to a private company owning all the interstates and deciding that they don’t want certain people driving on their roads. Before people jump in: yes we have laws governing our roads, but we have input on those laws from a representative democracy. These are arbitrary laws on de-facto public infrastructure owned and operated by a private company.

lp0_on_fire 5y ago

newspapers can be sued for libel and social media companies cannot. That's the biggest difference. Twitter is _clearly_ acting as a publisher akin to a newspaper by editorializing and controlling what posts are distributed on its platform which would be OK if they were subject to the same libel laws as a newspaper, but they're not. It doesn't take a genius or even two eyeballs to see that twitters moderation tilts heavily in one direction and gives a pass to people of a certain political persuasion.

anoonmoose 5y ago
Worth noting that newspapers cannot be sued for the comments people post in the comment sections of their websites, even though they moderate those comment sections, for the same reason that social media companies cannot. Guess what I'm saying is- you don't understand 230.
jazzyjackson 5y ago
libel laws and section 230 are very separate things, I don’t see why I couldn’t sue twitter for editorializing while twitter is still protected from being sued for third party content