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Banning anonymous social media accounts and trying to strike down Section 230 are both obvious attempts at returning the power of disseminating information to t

Banning anonymous social media accounts and trying to strike down Section 230 are both obvious attempts at returning the power of disseminating information to the powerful. Rush Limbaugh spent most of his adult life being a racist misogynist and getting paid handsomely for it. He found his niche and his audience. Bob Limbaugh, just a dude at Acme, would find it hard to retain a job making similar statements, even if they were less incendiary. Yet Bob would almost certainly be silenced if his online presence were tied to his actual identity, out of fear for his livelihood. And because Bob doesn't have a team of people to filter out confrontations, you're more likely to get an honest debate on the merits of ideas from Bob than you would have ever gotten from Rush even if it won't reach as many people. Most people just want to live their lives, even if some of the things they believe are stupid or ridiculous.

saurik 5y ago
> ...trying to strike down Section 230 are both obvious attempts at returning the power of disseminating information to the powerful. (We agree on anonymity, so I've elided that part; but as for Section 230...) I think this depends on whether you believe that removing Section 230 will cause social networks to filter more stuff or less stuff. It is worth remembering that the people who drafted Section 230 absolutely believed it would cause more content to be filtered by smaller numbers of more controllable companies: the reason it exists in the first place was not to defend the right to publish content, but to allow companies to filter content--as part of the Communications Decency Act, where the government wasn't sure it would have the power to regulate speech and so was examining the problem of how to draft the large media organizations into their cause--without becoming responsible for the other content... to create a carve-out safe haven for anyone who helps filter the world from "indecent" communication. As it stands, disseminating information is only at the grace of the powerful: Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.; as they change their policies of what is "acceptable content", people gain and lose their ability to disseminate information. If you disagree with the authors of Section 230 and instead believe that removing it will cause social media companies to filter even more content and take back even more control over communication, then sure: that's bad; but, if you agree with the people who drafted it... that, without protection from prosecution over their editorial decisions, they will fall back to "I'm just a dumb platform" (like a telephone company, which does not need Section 230 to operate without content filters, and which is absolutely enough to build a social network such as the original Instagram on top of), then this would be a big boon to deconstructing currently-centralized control over information.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  Section 230 clarified what networks were allowed to do without needing to overtly moderate the content. Without it, networks are going to figure out different business models because it's not possible to fully moderate a billion people. I keep seeing people compare social media networks to telephone operators, but they're nothing alike, even if you tie yourself into a logical pretzel in an attempt to do so. They're much closer to radio operators.
  - saurik 5y ago
    But... the "business model" you are defending is something we all know is bullshit: maximizing engagement to collect data on users and sell advertisements :(. Why should we go out of our way to help this exist? I am not "tying myself into a logical pretzel" to do the comparison: I'm carefully considering the tradeoffs with the goal of penalizing things I don't like to get the things I do. The original model of Instagram--and Facebook! and (mostly, but not entirely) Twitter--is that you have an account, and people who follow you can see what you post, in time order. There is absolutely no reason why they need centralized moderation for this: the moderation comes from people deciding to unfollow you if they don't like your content for absolutely any personal reason. If the result of this is that you can't have a massive behemoth social network that only scales because it is using biased AIs to filter content while attempting to maximize "engagement" by pushing people to extreme positions while washing their hands of the whole mess by claiming "wasn't us: this is on the users!" even though the editorial decisions are their own... THAT'S GREAT!
    - a_t48 5y ago
      > The original model of Instagram--and Facebook! and (mostly, but not entirely) Twitter--is that you have an account, and people who follow you can see what you post, in time order. There is absolutely no reason why they need centralized moderation for this: the moderation comes from people deciding to unfollow you if they don't like your content for absolutely any personal reason. Not quite - what about _actual_ calls to violence and such? (Very hyperbolically) should a platform allow the local KKK chapter to use it plan lynches?

saurik 5y ago

> ...trying to strike down Section 230 are both obvious attempts at returning the power of disseminating information to the powerful. (We agree on anonymity, so I've elided that part; but as for Section 230...) I think this depends on whether you believe that removing Section 230 will cause social networks to filter more stuff or less stuff. It is worth remembering that the people who drafted Section 230 absolutely believed it would cause more content to be filtered by smaller numbers of more controllable companies: the reason it exists in the first place was not to defend the right to publish content, but to allow companies to filter content--as part of the Communications Decency Act, where the government wasn't sure it would have the power to regulate speech and so was examining the problem of how to draft the large media organizations into their cause--without becoming responsible for the other content... to create a carve-out safe haven for anyone who helps filter the world from "indecent" communication. As it stands, disseminating information is only at the grace of the powerful: Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.; as they change their policies of what is "acceptable content", people gain and lose their ability to disseminate information. If you disagree with the authors of Section 230 and instead believe that removing it will cause social media companies to filter even more content and take back even more control over communication, then sure: that's bad; but, if you agree with the people who drafted it... that, without protection from prosecution over their editorial decisions, they will fall back to "I'm just a dumb platform" (like a telephone company, which does not need Section 230 to operate without content filters, and which is absolutely enough to build a social network such as the original Instagram on top of), then this would be a big boon to deconstructing currently-centralized control over information.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Section 230 clarified what networks were allowed to do without needing to overtly moderate the content. Without it, networks are going to figure out different business models because it's not possible to fully moderate a billion people. I keep seeing people compare social media networks to telephone operators, but they're nothing alike, even if you tie yourself into a logical pretzel in an attempt to do so. They're much closer to radio operators.
- saurik 5y ago
  But... the "business model" you are defending is something we all know is bullshit: maximizing engagement to collect data on users and sell advertisements :(. Why should we go out of our way to help this exist? I am not "tying myself into a logical pretzel" to do the comparison: I'm carefully considering the tradeoffs with the goal of penalizing things I don't like to get the things I do. The original model of Instagram--and Facebook! and (mostly, but not entirely) Twitter--is that you have an account, and people who follow you can see what you post, in time order. There is absolutely no reason why they need centralized moderation for this: the moderation comes from people deciding to unfollow you if they don't like your content for absolutely any personal reason. If the result of this is that you can't have a massive behemoth social network that only scales because it is using biased AIs to filter content while attempting to maximize "engagement" by pushing people to extreme positions while washing their hands of the whole mess by claiming "wasn't us: this is on the users!" even though the editorial decisions are their own... THAT'S GREAT!
  - a_t48 5y ago
    > The original model of Instagram--and Facebook! and (mostly, but not entirely) Twitter--is that you have an account, and people who follow you can see what you post, in time order. There is absolutely no reason why they need centralized moderation for this: the moderation comes from people deciding to unfollow you if they don't like your content for absolutely any personal reason. Not quite - what about _actual_ calls to violence and such? (Very hyperbolically) should a platform allow the local KKK chapter to use it plan lynches?