8 ms·

As a society we need to redefine what a public space is.

by zouhair 5y ago

pixelgeek 5y ago
Twitter isn't a public space. It is a privately owned platform.
- bondarchuk 5y ago
  Wow, I haven't seen this exact argument play out this exact way 100s of times before! Great addition to the conversation guys. Really insightful.
  - kordlessagain 5y ago
    This is why we need tags for conversations. Yours would get a <sarcasm> tag, maybe.
    - LanceH 5y ago
      </sarcasm> Dude, be careful with that.
- guerrilla 5y ago
  The comment you're responding to is saying that exactly that definition doesn't work anymore, so your response amounts to "No."
- pmyteh 5y ago
  It's quite an interesting question. There are lots of privately owned 'public' spaces in meatspace, and the function of a space (a place where people get together in public) and its ownership (municipal, commons, private) don't always overlap. Which doesn't necessarily mean that Twitter should be treated as a town square, because it's clearly something different to that. Similar sorts of concerns about the centrality of private spaces to public use led to PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, a California case allowing political activity at shopping centres against the wishes of the operator. That case hasn't been widely followed in other states and countries, though, probably for good reasons.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- criddell 5y ago
  The person you are responding to is suggesting that a virtual space designed for public congregation should perhaps be designated as a public space. It isn't that different from asking if a shopping mall is a public space and the courts have sometimes said "yes". See: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2016/05/aa-shopping-centers-california/ https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2016/05/aa-shopping-cent...
  - linkjuice4all 5y ago
    This is getting into the more nuanced argument of “taking private property” for the public good - or at least allowing access to it for first amendment activities. One issue with “forcing” first amendment protections on a private party is compelling speech from that party (in this case Twitter). If Twitter is entitled to first amendment “protection” from the government then it can’t be compelled to “speak” on behalf of a user. Prohibiting shopping centers from blocking first amendment activities recognized that there are only so many “publicly available” squares in “real life” where people can exercise their first amendment rights. This doesn’t exactly hold true on the internet. There are an “infinite” number of public squares. Another way to look at this is how IP “theft” is thought of. If I steal your CD you can’t listen to the music on it - but if I copy the MP3 then no one has been “deprived” of the original. Similarly “anyone” can stand in the “public square” of the internet without depriving someone else of that same space and access - an argument that doesn’t work in real life. If there are infinite public squares do you need to be given access to all of them? Do you want to be compelled to speak for someone else simply because you’ve become large enough? As a US citizen I’d prefer that these issues with corporations be addressed via other means that deal with monopoly power, open standards, data privacy/portability and similar. The first amendment is a powerful sword but it’s not a solution to a “bad actor” at the scale of Twitter - break up the company if you don’t like what they’re doing but don’t force them to speak for other people.
    - criddell 5y ago
      > If there are infinite public squares do you need to be given access to all of them? But there aren't and infinite number online or off. The key part is the space has to be a place people congregate. Online, are there any public squares?
- moralestapia 5y ago
  [flagged]
- adam_arthur 5y ago
  I'm pretty confident that if a suitable case made it to the supreme court, social media like Twitter would be deemed a de facto public square under the US Constitution. Hopefully then people would apply a little more critical thought, rather than just parroting private vs public. It's clear that at a certain scale, a private space becomes de facto public one, similar to anti-trust legislation breaking up perfectly valid private business that also happen to be monopolies.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Apart from that you are also free to apply freedom of speech as a principle outside the bounds of the law, like many platforms have done most of the time until advertising got out of hand with privacy violations and content restrictions. Don't know how anyone could support more content restrictions... doesn't seem too bright at all, didn't hear any compelling case and you always have the option to not engage.
    - adam_arthur 5y ago
      Yeah, there are also many workarounds aside from censoring. Such as allowing people to select filters/their own curation algorithm and so on. But it seems to be the European model to censor societally undesirable viewpoints, from my understanding. So free speech from the American perspective does not seem to be a universally held belief. Personally I think it's worth striving for, but providing tools for those who want to live in a bubble. There will never be a "correct" single algorithm or filter that can be applied globally. These companies are doing a lot of unnecessary damage to themselves by trying to force it to be that way. I believe all algorithms for curating what you see on the largest social media platforms should be required to be open source/explained, and that third parties should be able to write their own to be used on those platforms. Idea needs to be fleshed out more, but something along those lines. And all speech that's constitutional should be left untouched (in USA). If you don't like it, filter it out.
      - raxxorrax 5y ago
        Agreed, especially if they would think 10 minutes about the values they allegedly espouse. There will always be something offensive in a culture that is benign or even welcomed in another. Their model is some artifical neutral culture mirroring diplomatic or corporate cultures. Europes legislators are prominently very old and their fears are projected on the net. We had hate speech laws for more than 1.5 centuries and still 2 dictatorships in one century and people still believe the state should regulate content and this power won't be abused. I don't know anymore, hereditary brain damage probably. It fits the definition of insanity too. I believe we need some form of fisher-price browser that keeps some groups demanding moderation in their own land and completely separate them from those that do not like it. Android- and iPhone-countries, slowly running out of ideas...
- chasd00 5y ago
  If twitter is going to selectively censor their user base then they are liable for the content the users who remain create.
  - pixelgeek 5y ago
    I made this comment a while ago in relation to Facebook and had some folks reference the specific US law that makes that not the case.
  - colejohnson66 5y ago
    Section 230 is specifically designed to allow them to do that without being liable. Without section 230, a site "curating" by deleting some comments, banning some accounts, etc. would then be liable for any illegal content on the site. The EFF has a very good article on why removing/repealing it would be a horrible idea: https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
- nabakin 5y ago
  You're responding to something he they aren't claiming
- evandale 5y ago
  That's why we need to redefine what a public space is.
- zouhair 5y ago
  Sure, but would it exist if all users stop posting? By itself it's useless. Only the users posting on it gives it its worth.
can16358p 5y ago
That's one of the reasons that we need a blockchain-based microblog platform to take off and become popular.
- hanniabu 5y ago
  Mentioning blockchain on HN? That's quite daring!
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  That actually sounds like a cool idea.
- riffic 5y ago
  why? decentralization doesn't require a blockchain. you don't need permission to stand up a WordPress and to throw the ActivityPub plugin on it.
evancoop 5y ago
Let's consider that the question can be altered slightly to "how much private space can one single entity acquire?" Perhaps the current understanding of public/private is sufficient, e.g. "a private company can bar who it chooses, given that they do not violate some paradigm of protected classes, etc." The problem is that ONE entity owns a majority of a certain type of "space." The redefinition would be to say, "once you own more than X% of something, it cannot be governed by existing rules about 'private' spaces?"
- philwelch 5y ago
  cf. Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins.
Lamad123 5y ago
First, it shouldn't be owned by a greedy prick or a a group of few greedy pricks!!
rosmax_1337 5y ago
This is exactly the key in all conversations about banned accounts on private companies. In my opinion, either our habits regarding information intake using the internet needs to change, so that we use "the old commons" more often. (like real town squares) Or there NEEDS to be a jurisdiction where if you are big enough, you can't just arbitrarily ban users from your space. The propagation of free thought and sound ideas depends on one of the points completely. There are huge problems, like how a company can be regulated when it is a global company. I don't want US law to facilitate Swedish spaces. Honestly, the first idea where habits are formed back onto the "old commons" is probably the only real solution. But it's not exactly simple to change the habits of an entire planet.

As a society we need to redefine what a public space is.

pixelgeek 5y ago

Twitter isn't a public space. It is a privately owned platform.

bondarchuk 5y ago
Wow, I haven't seen this exact argument play out this exact way 100s of times before! Great addition to the conversation guys. Really insightful.
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  This is why we need tags for conversations. Yours would get a <sarcasm> tag, maybe.
  - LanceH 5y ago
    </sarcasm> Dude, be careful with that.
guerrilla 5y ago
The comment you're responding to is saying that exactly that definition doesn't work anymore, so your response amounts to "No."
pmyteh 5y ago
It's quite an interesting question. There are lots of privately owned 'public' spaces in meatspace, and the function of a space (a place where people get together in public) and its ownership (municipal, commons, private) don't always overlap. Which doesn't necessarily mean that Twitter should be treated as a town square, because it's clearly something different to that. Similar sorts of concerns about the centrality of private spaces to public use led to PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, a California case allowing political activity at shopping centres against the wishes of the operator. That case hasn't been widely followed in other states and countries, though, probably for good reasons.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
criddell 5y ago
The person you are responding to is suggesting that a virtual space designed for public congregation should perhaps be designated as a public space. It isn't that different from asking if a shopping mall is a public space and the courts have sometimes said "yes". See: https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2016/05/aa-shopping-centers-california/ https://firstamendmentcoalition.org/2016/05/aa-shopping-cent...
- linkjuice4all 5y ago
  This is getting into the more nuanced argument of “taking private property” for the public good - or at least allowing access to it for first amendment activities. One issue with “forcing” first amendment protections on a private party is compelling speech from that party (in this case Twitter). If Twitter is entitled to first amendment “protection” from the government then it can’t be compelled to “speak” on behalf of a user. Prohibiting shopping centers from blocking first amendment activities recognized that there are only so many “publicly available” squares in “real life” where people can exercise their first amendment rights. This doesn’t exactly hold true on the internet. There are an “infinite” number of public squares. Another way to look at this is how IP “theft” is thought of. If I steal your CD you can’t listen to the music on it - but if I copy the MP3 then no one has been “deprived” of the original. Similarly “anyone” can stand in the “public square” of the internet without depriving someone else of that same space and access - an argument that doesn’t work in real life. If there are infinite public squares do you need to be given access to all of them? Do you want to be compelled to speak for someone else simply because you’ve become large enough? As a US citizen I’d prefer that these issues with corporations be addressed via other means that deal with monopoly power, open standards, data privacy/portability and similar. The first amendment is a powerful sword but it’s not a solution to a “bad actor” at the scale of Twitter - break up the company if you don’t like what they’re doing but don’t force them to speak for other people.
  - criddell 5y ago
    > If there are infinite public squares do you need to be given access to all of them? But there aren't and infinite number online or off. The key part is the space has to be a place people congregate. Online, are there any public squares?
moralestapia 5y ago
[flagged]
adam_arthur 5y ago
I'm pretty confident that if a suitable case made it to the supreme court, social media like Twitter would be deemed a de facto public square under the US Constitution. Hopefully then people would apply a little more critical thought, rather than just parroting private vs public. It's clear that at a certain scale, a private space becomes de facto public one, similar to anti-trust legislation breaking up perfectly valid private business that also happen to be monopolies.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Apart from that you are also free to apply freedom of speech as a principle outside the bounds of the law, like many platforms have done most of the time until advertising got out of hand with privacy violations and content restrictions. Don't know how anyone could support more content restrictions... doesn't seem too bright at all, didn't hear any compelling case and you always have the option to not engage.
  - adam_arthur 5y ago
    Yeah, there are also many workarounds aside from censoring. Such as allowing people to select filters/their own curation algorithm and so on. But it seems to be the European model to censor societally undesirable viewpoints, from my understanding. So free speech from the American perspective does not seem to be a universally held belief. Personally I think it's worth striving for, but providing tools for those who want to live in a bubble. There will never be a "correct" single algorithm or filter that can be applied globally. These companies are doing a lot of unnecessary damage to themselves by trying to force it to be that way. I believe all algorithms for curating what you see on the largest social media platforms should be required to be open source/explained, and that third parties should be able to write their own to be used on those platforms. Idea needs to be fleshed out more, but something along those lines. And all speech that's constitutional should be left untouched (in USA). If you don't like it, filter it out.
    - raxxorrax 5y ago
      Agreed, especially if they would think 10 minutes about the values they allegedly espouse. There will always be something offensive in a culture that is benign or even welcomed in another. Their model is some artifical neutral culture mirroring diplomatic or corporate cultures. Europes legislators are prominently very old and their fears are projected on the net. We had hate speech laws for more than 1.5 centuries and still 2 dictatorships in one century and people still believe the state should regulate content and this power won't be abused. I don't know anymore, hereditary brain damage probably. It fits the definition of insanity too. I believe we need some form of fisher-price browser that keeps some groups demanding moderation in their own land and completely separate them from those that do not like it. Android- and iPhone-countries, slowly running out of ideas...
chasd00 5y ago
If twitter is going to selectively censor their user base then they are liable for the content the users who remain create.
- pixelgeek 5y ago
  I made this comment a while ago in relation to Facebook and had some folks reference the specific US law that makes that not the case.
- colejohnson66 5y ago
  Section 230 is specifically designed to allow them to do that without being liable. Without section 230, a site "curating" by deleting some comments, banning some accounts, etc. would then be liable for any illegal content on the site. The EFF has a very good article on why removing/repealing it would be a horrible idea: https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230
nabakin 5y ago
You're responding to something he they aren't claiming
evandale 5y ago
That's why we need to redefine what a public space is.
zouhair 5y ago
Sure, but would it exist if all users stop posting? By itself it's useless. Only the users posting on it gives it its worth.

can16358p 5y ago

That's one of the reasons that we need a blockchain-based microblog platform to take off and become popular.

hanniabu 5y ago
Mentioning blockchain on HN? That's quite daring!
matheusmoreira 5y ago
That actually sounds like a cool idea.
riffic 5y ago
why? decentralization doesn't require a blockchain. you don't need permission to stand up a WordPress and to throw the ActivityPub plugin on it.

evancoop 5y ago

Let's consider that the question can be altered slightly to "how much private space can one single entity acquire?" Perhaps the current understanding of public/private is sufficient, e.g. "a private company can bar who it chooses, given that they do not violate some paradigm of protected classes, etc." The problem is that ONE entity owns a majority of a certain type of "space." The redefinition would be to say, "once you own more than X% of something, it cannot be governed by existing rules about 'private' spaces?"

philwelch 5y ago
cf. Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins.

Lamad123 5y ago

First, it shouldn't be owned by a greedy prick or a a group of few greedy pricks!!

rosmax_1337 5y ago

This is exactly the key in all conversations about banned accounts on private companies. In my opinion, either our habits regarding information intake using the internet needs to change, so that we use "the old commons" more often. (like real town squares) Or there NEEDS to be a jurisdiction where if you are big enough, you can't just arbitrarily ban users from your space. The propagation of free thought and sound ideas depends on one of the points completely. There are huge problems, like how a company can be regulated when it is a global company. I don't want US law to facilitate Swedish spaces. Honestly, the first idea where habits are formed back onto the "old commons" is probably the only real solution. But it's not exactly simple to change the habits of an entire planet.