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Parent comment states: > It is privately owned, but it acts as a public square. For the same reasons that we defend the right to Free Speech at the public leve

by conz 4y ago

Parent comment states: > It is privately owned, but it acts as a public square. For the same reasons that we defend the right to Free Speech at the public level, we should push the platforms that act as public squares to guarantee Free Speech. I disagree. Free speech means that no government has the right to tell content publishers - in this instance Twitter - what to and what not to publish, modulo the standard legal exclusions of child abuse material and incitement. (This viewpoint changes if we're discussing a common-carrier or a natural monopoly, where universal service obligations are necessary). On the Internet, it's the Internet itself which is the public square. The content publishers like Twitter are merely commercial operators of 'printing presses' which make their material available to information consumers/citizens within that public square. Content publishers should have every right to censor/reject/moderate any content submitted to them. If the content submitter doesn't like this, then they too can spin up their own content publishing platform on the Internet and publish what they desire.

CryptoPunk 4y ago
Twitter is not a public square, in the sense of being public property, and therefore I agree that the government has no right to decide how it moderates its platform. But it acts as a public square, in the sense that you need to publish there to meaningfully interact with a significant fraction of the population. And for that reason, as private citizens, we should use market means, like the one Musk is resorting to, to push for it to respect Free Speech, so that diverse viewpoints have the space to be expressed. If major platforms, that act as public squares, play the role of picking and choosing what content can be published, and if they all coalesce around the same values in deciding what content to permit, then inevitably, the public discourse will be severely constrained, and biased in favor of the dominant narrative. This is dangerous to society because it eliminates the rigorous and unbounded discourse needed to solve the complex problems society faces.
- conz 4y ago
  > But it acts as a public square, in the sense that you need to publish there to meaningfully interact with a significant fraction of the population. I guess this must be a Your-Mileage-May-Vary situation. I've never used Twitter as anything more than just (rarely) reading it as a micro-blogging web-page, never published anything on it, never interacted with anyone on it and have always encouraged everyone I know to also avoid using it. Perhaps if you and others did the same, then we wouldn't need to be having this discussion. We have to work hard to make sure that the Internet and only the Internet remains the public space, and to never give such power to any entities like Twitter - commercial or otherwise.

by conz 4y ago

CryptoPunk 4y ago

Twitter is not a public square, in the sense of being public property, and therefore I agree that the government has no right to decide how it moderates its platform. But it acts as a public square, in the sense that you need to publish there to meaningfully interact with a significant fraction of the population. And for that reason, as private citizens, we should use market means, like the one Musk is resorting to, to push for it to respect Free Speech, so that diverse viewpoints have the space to be expressed. If major platforms, that act as public squares, play the role of picking and choosing what content can be published, and if they all coalesce around the same values in deciding what content to permit, then inevitably, the public discourse will be severely constrained, and biased in favor of the dominant narrative. This is dangerous to society because it eliminates the rigorous and unbounded discourse needed to solve the complex problems society faces.

conz 4y ago
> But it acts as a public square, in the sense that you need to publish there to meaningfully interact with a significant fraction of the population. I guess this must be a Your-Mileage-May-Vary situation. I've never used Twitter as anything more than just (rarely) reading it as a micro-blogging web-page, never published anything on it, never interacted with anyone on it and have always encouraged everyone I know to also avoid using it. Perhaps if you and others did the same, then we wouldn't need to be having this discussion. We have to work hard to make sure that the Internet and only the Internet remains the public space, and to never give such power to any entities like Twitter - commercial or otherwise.