4 ms·

Hate speech (racism, bullying, threatening, harassment) might as well be thought of as illegal. It may not be illegal by the literal word of the law, but in the

Hate speech (racism, bullying, threatening, harassment) might as well be thought of as illegal. It may not be illegal by the literal word of the law, but in the interpretation most people in practice treat these as illegal.

themitigating 4y ago
This is what the parent said ." Run the service as if it was bound by the First Amendment (i.e. only illegal content should be removed, basically how every social network ran prior to a few years ago.)" Hate speech is legal
- AvocadoPanic 4y ago
  This is very jurisdiction dependent.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    Can you provide an example? I'm assuming we are talking about the US
    - AvocadoPanic 4y ago
      No, in Europe there are laws against various sorts of speech. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43864133 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43864133 https://www.thelocal.de/20180803/freedom-of-speech-doesnt-cover-holocaust-denial-germanys-top-court-rules/ https://www.thelocal.de/20180803/freedom-of-speech-doesnt-co...
philipkglass 4y ago
The grandparent said Run the service as if it was bound by the First Amendment (i.e. only illegal content should be removed, basically how every social network ran prior to a few years ago.) No large social network ever ran that way and I'm skeptical that any social network could be run that way and make a profit. Here are some of the things that are not actually illegal to publish under US law: - Most forms of doxxing - Adult nudity and pornography - Most gore images and videos (industrial accidents, car crashes, corpses from war zones (including children), animal abuse...) - Praise and promotional material for pedophilia - Praise and encouragement for anorexia and other eating disorders - Promotional material and instructions for suicide - Praise and promotional material for terrorist groups like ISIS, as long as it doesn't call for "imminent lawless action." Much historically banned-by-bigtech ISIS propaganda was not actually illegal, which is why government officials urged companies to do something about it instead of just dispatching law enforcement. - Spam that isn't delivered via email - Coordinated foreign propaganda, e.g. "50 Cent Party" commenters piling on to criticize anyone who criticizes mainland China's government - Jailbait images (in the sense of the banned-in-2011 subreddit r/jailbait) A lot of things that 95% of Americans never want to see online are actually legal, just so widely reviled and moderated against that you rarely encounter them accidentally.
- staunch 4y ago
  I think 99% of people would agree it's reasonable to have a very few, very clear exceptions. And it's possible to do so without falling down a slippery slope. We know this for a fact because sites like Reddit did it for over a decade, as did many other sites. It used to be that they didn't moderate content themselves for fear of losing their "common carrier" liability protection. And many of these exceptions might not even necessarily even be exceptions to US law or the First Amendment. Abuse of computer systems (spam), Federal obscenity laws, etc. And there are many potential approaches to hiding (with transparency) from view legal content that no one (or almost no one) actually wants to see, without necessarily even deleting it. One obvious approach would be to allow users to dictate what kinds of content they want to see. An example is subreddits, where users who want to see gore could be free to do so. Twitter could implement similar kinds of self-moderation features. There are probably even more creative approaches that could solve some of the echo chamber effects, misinformation, etc without heavy-handed global moderation. It's a hard problem but it'd be really great to see someone try at least.
  - philipkglass 4y ago
    It used to be that they didn't moderate content themselves for fear of losing their "common carrier" protection. Reddit allowed porn from the beginning. Facebook never allowed nudity. Neither one of them had any common carrier protections to protect or to lose by these policies. Reddit proves that even subreddits, personal filters, and other self-moderation tools are not enough to prevent politician, media, and advertiser pressure around controversial content. The jailbait subreddit, like every subreddit that has been banned, was full of willing subscribers. I can't name any prominent American politicians who really want social media to publish everything that's allowed under the First Amendment. Do you know of any? Some politicians say that they do but I don't believe they have considered the full scope of what is actually allowed under the First Amendment. For example, Senator Tom Cotton published an apparently fierce defense of free speech on his own web site in June 2020: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/twitter-tried-to-censor-medthey-lost https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/twitter-tried-to-c... It ends with These social-media companies have improved the lives of Americans in many ways. But they should not be surprised public opinion is turning against them when they act as censors and moral scolds to millions of Americans. Nor should they expect to find many people rushing to their defense. In fact, to coin a phrase, those of us in their crosshairs might say: No quarter for Big Tech censorship. However, in September 2020 he accused Netflix of distributing child pornography (the movie Cuties) and wrote: Netflix has a basic legal responsibility to not stream child pornography or otherwise promote the sexual exploitation of children. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/netflix-cuties-child-pornography-hollywood-exploitation-sen-tom-cotton https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/netflix-cuties-child-pornogr... I don't think that he understands how broad the First Amendment actually is, and how narrow the exceptions for obscenity and child pornography are. He just wants to make tech companies stop censoring his tweets and start censoring movies. Likewise, many activists who are upset about (e.g.) LGBTQ content getting suppressed by YouTube algorithms don't much care about YouTube suppressing videos about guns and explosives. There are few people except perhaps Constitutional scholars willing to defend the full breadth of what the First Amendment guards, much less require social networks to host content of similar breadth. I'm willing to defend the First Amendment as it currently exists, even the publications I find vilest, but I don't want social media forced to publish all of it.

themitigating 4y ago

This is what the parent said ." Run the service as if it was bound by the First Amendment (i.e. only illegal content should be removed, basically how every social network ran prior to a few years ago.)" Hate speech is legal

AvocadoPanic 4y ago
This is very jurisdiction dependent.
- themitigating 4y ago
  Can you provide an example? I'm assuming we are talking about the US
  - AvocadoPanic 4y ago
    No, in Europe there are laws against various sorts of speech. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43864133 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-43864133 https://www.thelocal.de/20180803/freedom-of-speech-doesnt-cover-holocaust-denial-germanys-top-court-rules/ https://www.thelocal.de/20180803/freedom-of-speech-doesnt-co...

philipkglass 4y ago

The grandparent said Run the service as if it was bound by the First Amendment (i.e. only illegal content should be removed, basically how every social network ran prior to a few years ago.) No large social network ever ran that way and I'm skeptical that any social network could be run that way and make a profit. Here are some of the things that are not actually illegal to publish under US law: - Most forms of doxxing - Adult nudity and pornography - Most gore images and videos (industrial accidents, car crashes, corpses from war zones (including children), animal abuse...) - Praise and promotional material for pedophilia - Praise and encouragement for anorexia and other eating disorders - Promotional material and instructions for suicide - Praise and promotional material for terrorist groups like ISIS, as long as it doesn't call for "imminent lawless action." Much historically banned-by-bigtech ISIS propaganda was not actually illegal, which is why government officials urged companies to do something about it instead of just dispatching law enforcement. - Spam that isn't delivered via email - Coordinated foreign propaganda, e.g. "50 Cent Party" commenters piling on to criticize anyone who criticizes mainland China's government - Jailbait images (in the sense of the banned-in-2011 subreddit r/jailbait) A lot of things that 95% of Americans never want to see online are actually legal, just so widely reviled and moderated against that you rarely encounter them accidentally.

staunch 4y ago
I think 99% of people would agree it's reasonable to have a very few, very clear exceptions. And it's possible to do so without falling down a slippery slope. We know this for a fact because sites like Reddit did it for over a decade, as did many other sites. It used to be that they didn't moderate content themselves for fear of losing their "common carrier" liability protection. And many of these exceptions might not even necessarily even be exceptions to US law or the First Amendment. Abuse of computer systems (spam), Federal obscenity laws, etc. And there are many potential approaches to hiding (with transparency) from view legal content that no one (or almost no one) actually wants to see, without necessarily even deleting it. One obvious approach would be to allow users to dictate what kinds of content they want to see. An example is subreddits, where users who want to see gore could be free to do so. Twitter could implement similar kinds of self-moderation features. There are probably even more creative approaches that could solve some of the echo chamber effects, misinformation, etc without heavy-handed global moderation. It's a hard problem but it'd be really great to see someone try at least.
- philipkglass 4y ago
  It used to be that they didn't moderate content themselves for fear of losing their "common carrier" protection. Reddit allowed porn from the beginning. Facebook never allowed nudity. Neither one of them had any common carrier protections to protect or to lose by these policies. Reddit proves that even subreddits, personal filters, and other self-moderation tools are not enough to prevent politician, media, and advertiser pressure around controversial content. The jailbait subreddit, like every subreddit that has been banned, was full of willing subscribers. I can't name any prominent American politicians who really want social media to publish everything that's allowed under the First Amendment. Do you know of any? Some politicians say that they do but I don't believe they have considered the full scope of what is actually allowed under the First Amendment. For example, Senator Tom Cotton published an apparently fierce defense of free speech on his own web site in June 2020: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/twitter-tried-to-censor-medthey-lost https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/op-eds/twitter-tried-to-c... It ends with These social-media companies have improved the lives of Americans in many ways. But they should not be surprised public opinion is turning against them when they act as censors and moral scolds to millions of Americans. Nor should they expect to find many people rushing to their defense. In fact, to coin a phrase, those of us in their crosshairs might say: No quarter for Big Tech censorship. However, in September 2020 he accused Netflix of distributing child pornography (the movie Cuties) and wrote: Netflix has a basic legal responsibility to not stream child pornography or otherwise promote the sexual exploitation of children. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/netflix-cuties-child-pornography-hollywood-exploitation-sen-tom-cotton https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/netflix-cuties-child-pornogr... I don't think that he understands how broad the First Amendment actually is, and how narrow the exceptions for obscenity and child pornography are. He just wants to make tech companies stop censoring his tweets and start censoring movies. Likewise, many activists who are upset about (e.g.) LGBTQ content getting suppressed by YouTube algorithms don't much care about YouTube suppressing videos about guns and explosives. There are few people except perhaps Constitutional scholars willing to defend the full breadth of what the First Amendment guards, much less require social networks to host content of similar breadth. I'm willing to defend the First Amendment as it currently exists, even the publications I find vilest, but I don't want social media forced to publish all of it.