6 ms·

The American government should provide citizens with a basic public web hosting service where constitutional freedoms are respected.

by iqanq 5y ago

adolph 5y ago
Why limit it to citizens?
- philipkglass 5y ago
  Consider speech that is legal but likely to offend most Americans. For example, a picture gallery of American soldiers killed in Iraq, where each picture is captioned "Death to Crusaders, death to America!" If the 1a.gov platform is limited to citizens, it limits the number of accounts that can use that platform for agitating against Americans. If the platform is open to anyone in the world, it's going to end up as the #1 host of terrorist-sympathetic media in the world. Most of the pro-ISIS videos that the big platforms scrubbed back in 2015 or thereabouts were not illegal under the "imminent lawless action" test [1]; platforms mostly cleaned up under color of Terms of Service, not color of law. It would be hard enough to adamantly protect the First Amendment while removing actually-illegal material [2] if limited to Americans. Opening it to the whole world would make the moderation problem truly Sisyphean. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action [2] It would publicly host worst content, for longer, because (I presume) it couldn't just use automated classifiers and outsourced workers to determine when a published item or a whole account crosses the line to illegality. If it did use these tools, it would end up recreating the "banned without clearly stated reasons or possibility of appeal" problem that makes people unhappy with the platforms that already exist.
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    "Only citizens can post here" is among the most censoring systems out there today. How many legal non-citizen residents are in the US? "Oh these millions of people cannot speak" is a hilarious statement coming from a "free speech platform."
  - adolph 5y ago
    > If the platform is open to anyone in the world, it's going to end up as the #1 host of terrorist-sympathetic media in the world. Is it not more advantageous to collect the metadata regarding disagreeable content and shadowban it to decrease engagement? How would citizenship be established to the platform? Would it not allow pseudonymous content? Do parents get to control the platform use of minor children?
    - philipkglass 5y ago
      Is it not more advantageous to collect the metadata regarding disagreeable content and shadowban it to decrease engagement? Shadow-banning legal but disagreeable content seems counter to the mission of a "publish anything that is legal under American law" platform. I rather like the idea of having a public hosting platform that would allow Americans to publish anything that is legal under American law, but there are many questions about how that would work in practice (including those questions in your final paragraph). I also am not sure how much public support there would be for such a platform once people realize how much near-universally-loathed material is not actually illegal to publish under American law.
ThunderSizzle 5y ago
I dont want the FBI providing my internet. I dont mind local publicly owned utilities providing internet while still allowing private competition, but anything on the state or federal level has too much power over the individual.
- throwawaygh 5y ago
  Yes, important problem. Probably you'd want something like a public benefit corp or class of public benefit corps with damn strong protections from political intferefernce, rather than a literal .gov setup.
- yabbutz88 5y ago
Bud 5y ago
It seems to me like this sort of suggestion betrays a fundamental lack of comprehension about what "Constitutional freedoms" actually are. All of the kinds of "censorship" being griped about on here are not remotely protected against by the First Amendment. In any way.

The American government should provide citizens with a basic public web hosting service where constitutional freedoms are respected.

by iqanq 5y ago

The American government should provide citizens with a basic public web hosting service where constitutional freedoms are respected.

adolph 5y ago

Why limit it to citizens?

philipkglass 5y ago
Consider speech that is legal but likely to offend most Americans. For example, a picture gallery of American soldiers killed in Iraq, where each picture is captioned "Death to Crusaders, death to America!" If the 1a.gov platform is limited to citizens, it limits the number of accounts that can use that platform for agitating against Americans. If the platform is open to anyone in the world, it's going to end up as the #1 host of terrorist-sympathetic media in the world. Most of the pro-ISIS videos that the big platforms scrubbed back in 2015 or thereabouts were not illegal under the "imminent lawless action" test [1]; platforms mostly cleaned up under color of Terms of Service, not color of law. It would be hard enough to adamantly protect the First Amendment while removing actually-illegal material [2] if limited to Americans. Opening it to the whole world would make the moderation problem truly Sisyphean. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action [2] It would publicly host worst content, for longer, because (I presume) it couldn't just use automated classifiers and outsourced workers to determine when a published item or a whole account crosses the line to illegality. If it did use these tools, it would end up recreating the "banned without clearly stated reasons or possibility of appeal" problem that makes people unhappy with the platforms that already exist.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  "Only citizens can post here" is among the most censoring systems out there today. How many legal non-citizen residents are in the US? "Oh these millions of people cannot speak" is a hilarious statement coming from a "free speech platform."
- adolph 5y ago
  > If the platform is open to anyone in the world, it's going to end up as the #1 host of terrorist-sympathetic media in the world. Is it not more advantageous to collect the metadata regarding disagreeable content and shadowban it to decrease engagement? How would citizenship be established to the platform? Would it not allow pseudonymous content? Do parents get to control the platform use of minor children?
  - philipkglass 5y ago
    Is it not more advantageous to collect the metadata regarding disagreeable content and shadowban it to decrease engagement? Shadow-banning legal but disagreeable content seems counter to the mission of a "publish anything that is legal under American law" platform. I rather like the idea of having a public hosting platform that would allow Americans to publish anything that is legal under American law, but there are many questions about how that would work in practice (including those questions in your final paragraph). I also am not sure how much public support there would be for such a platform once people realize how much near-universally-loathed material is not actually illegal to publish under American law.

ThunderSizzle 5y ago

I dont want the FBI providing my internet. I dont mind local publicly owned utilities providing internet while still allowing private competition, but anything on the state or federal level has too much power over the individual.

throwawaygh 5y ago
Yes, important problem. Probably you'd want something like a public benefit corp or class of public benefit corps with damn strong protections from political intferefernce, rather than a literal .gov setup.
yabbutz88 5y ago

Bud 5y ago

It seems to me like this sort of suggestion betrays a fundamental lack of comprehension about what "Constitutional freedoms" actually are. All of the kinds of "censorship" being griped about on here are not remotely protected against by the First Amendment. In any way.