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That is not at all equivalent, because the NYT was and is about publishing their own content, and very carefully curated reader letters. That is not what twitt
by harshreality 5y ago
That is not at all equivalent, because the NYT was and is about publishing their own content, and very carefully curated reader letters.
That is not what twitter or facebook or youtube are about. They are platforms for people to share whatever they want with no preemptive filtering. Because of that open access, they have become the de-facto public square, at least except for adult material and violence/gore. Now the companies want to censor increasing amounts of material that are neither illegal nor fall into the clear adult/violence categories.
Why? They claim advertisers don't like certain content, but that's easily solved by having tags associated with various categories. They could even do it for adult and violent content. Allow advertisers to opt out of advertising on material with any particular tag(s).
Another reason is purely political: they want to shape public politics and discussion, or they are afraid the government will retaliate against their platform for hosting certain kinds of legal but dubious content. This is especially the case for covid-related stuff. They don't crack down on false information on other subjects nearly as hard.
They also probably believe that if they don't outright ban certain content, and create a tagging system instead, the mere presence of that content on their platform will change the audience in ways that are bad for their profitability. That may be true, but the net result is still that they're filtering and manipulating public, person-to-person communication and sentiment in the new public square. Corporations should not have that power.
Note:
I separated out adult and violence because they're obvious "but what about" categories. "You want Facebook, Twitter, Youtube to allow all legal content? What about porn and violence?" I don't know if I have a good answer to that question, but there's plenty of legal history about community standards, and porn and gore are usually outside what most communities consider "public square" speech. There is, however, an argument that they're no longer excludable. If SFO parades are an indication of what's tolerable in the modern public square, what rationale does youtube have for restricting anything equivalent? And terrorist killing videos, while they're obviously gory, have educational value. Personally I'd say unban all of it and have thorough tagging, but I think legally and from a corporate perspective there's a middle ground that has to be found, which is: restrict porn and gore, leave everything else alone (subject to tags). It's worth noting that Twitter takes a different tack on adult content: they allow most porn, it just has to be on an 18+ flagged account. I don't see why all social media companies couldn't do that.
- jakelazaroff 5y ago> Now the companies want to censor increasing amounts of material that are neither illegal nor fall into the clear adult/violence categories. Why are you okay with censorship of the adult and violence categories but not the COVID-19 misinformation category? Fundamentally, the same thing is happening: Twitter is taking a stance on what legal speech it permits on its platform.
- mcguire 5y agoWhy are you not complaining about their censoring "adult material and violence/gore"?
- jakelazaroff 5y agoCan’t edit my comment anymore so I’ll just reply here. I don’t see what’s obvious about the “but what about” categories for sex and violence. You could make the same argument about medical misinformation or hate speech — they’re obviously a separate category that social networks should censor. (You could also make the reverse argument about spam — who is Twitter to prevent Bob’s Viagra Store from promoting his business?) The point being that it’s all in the eye of the beholder. Everyone has their own line, and if you want to convince others to adopt yours you’re going to have to do more than offer as an axiom that sex and violence are uniquely deserving of censorship.
- harshreality 5y agoDidn't I make it clear it's not my line? Historical precedent. There's also plenty of precedent for restricting commercial speech and activity: zoning laws. Incorrect statements about the world (unless they're directed at people and companies, then there's slander and libel law), have never been the subject of legal restrictions that I'm aware of. Social, yes, legal, no. You can stand on a street corner with a sign protesting science and demanding recognition of flat earth theory. However, try that with a sign depicting gore or porn. Depending on your location, authorities would probably use some generic statute like disturbing the peace or some "harmful to minors" statute. I'd be shocked if any action were taken against anyone advocating Flat Earth Theory. Religious fanatics regularly do much worse protesting abortion clinics. The issue shows up when certain content is being broadcast in the public square. I think all of these things, from covid misinformation to sex and violence, are so prevalent on the internet that blocking it on the major social media sites is futile. I think it should be handled with a tag system, without blocking or deranking anything other than allowing people to choose which specially tagged content shows up in their feeds. But as long as they don't have those kinds of tagging systems (twitter allows users to flag their own accounts as 18+, but nothing else and nothing more granular except on their administrative backend), they can hide behind the excuse that their algorithms put arbitrary content into other people's feeds, and therefore the content that has historical precedent for community restrictions (obscene, disruptive, or harmful to minors) can plausibly be restricted on their platforms too.