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Not surprising. Social networks have been known to block smaller competitors. After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? E

Not surprising. Social networks have been known to block smaller competitors. After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? Everyone always says that, and this is a case of that.

nkozyra 4y ago
> After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? Everyone always says that, and this is a case of that. Unless I missed it, until you wrote this nobody had argued it wasn't their right to do this.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
  It's their right but it's still crummy. I want Section 230 to be repealed.
  - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
    I don’t know what section 230 repeal has to do with it. Companies would still be able to block random links like this if section 230 is repealed; they’d probably do it more often.
    - mikeyouse 4y ago
      Repealing 230 would literally kill large swaths of the internet. If platforms like Twitter or Reddit were legally responsible for what their users post, they would need to institute white lists to avoid being bankrupted. Can you imagine the amount of low-level casual defamation across the entirety of Facebook? Or Reddit? The amount of copyrighted material stolen and posted? There would be an overnight industry of people shadow-posting defamatory statements and then turning around and suing the platforms for hosting it. It's literally the dumbest idea possible.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
        Heck, under the precedent that Section 230 was meant to overturn, Twitter could sue HN for a lot of what people are saying right here. I struggle to even engage with the idea sometimes because you're 100% right that it doesn't make sense.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - dane-pgp 4y ago
        > It's literally the dumbest idea possible. Unless the aim was literally to destroy these large left-leaning, people-empowering, highly profitable, internationally reaching businesses. Now imagine which political party and which geopolitical adversary would like to make the internet less liberal, silence the powerless, make American tax revenue lower, and make more space for authoritarian voices on the world stage.
        aiilns 4y ago
        Facebook, twitter, etc left-leaning in the US sense where left is right and right is near the edge of the right spectrum I get. But people-empowering? These large platforms are very much anti-democratic and anti-empowering people. Even more, subverting peoples wills about what they buy by managing what they see and algorithmically trying to guide what they should think is very much anti people. Any people empowering is merely a side effect and not at all the purpose
        dane-pgp 4y ago
        I see what you're saying, and there's definitely reason to question which entities have gained the most influence from social media (out of corporations, governments, or activists). As for "the purpose" of social media, I suppose a simple reductive answer would be "to make money", but there were (and I think still are) people who are idealistic about social media giving a voice to the voiceless, even if you think that, in practice, commercial messages and misinformation end up having a bigger and more negative effect. A thought experiment I think is useful is to imagine how Western political discourse could have been shaped (by politicians and the traditional media) if grassroots movements couldn't form and raise awareness through things like "hashtag activism".[0] The fact that authoritarian countries invest resources in censoring or banning social media also seems to confirm that they see it as a threat rather than a harmless distraction. [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism
  - input_sh 4y ago
    In other words, you want every website to be held liable for all user generated content on their platform, which would benefit every large social media (because smaller ones wouldn't be able to afford to moderate every single post), leading to them becoming even more of a monopoly? Or do you have something concrete in mind on what to replace it with? Because just repealing it would lead to a much different Internet than it is today — and not in a good way.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - baisq 4y ago
      >In other words, you want every website to be held liable for all user generated content on their platform, which would benefit every large social media (because smaller ones wouldn't be able to afford to moderate every single post), leading to them becoming even more of a monopoly? In the EU it works well: the only social networks that exist are American :P
      - input_sh 4y ago
        > Or do you have something concrete in mind on what to replace it with? In the EU that would be Digital Services Act, chapter two of which offers websites similar protection to the Section 230. It's gonna be voted on soon™. At the moment the EU has precedence in the opposite direction, with an Estonian news site Delfi having been held liable for anonymous user comments made on their platform: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delfi_AS_v._Estonia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delfi_AS_v._Estonia
legalcorrection 4y ago
No, this is arguably "monopolization", which is illegal under the Sherman Act. Even the 9th Circuit, which has adopted an implausibly broad reading of 230, does not think that 230 is a defense against antitrust claims.
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Hmm. How interesting. Monopolization, you say. I’ll have to remember that. Well, I’m just glad https://www.laarc.io https://www.laarc.io is unblocked here now after many years.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > this is arguably "monopolization", which is illegal under the Sherman Act What does Twitter have a monopoly on? Twitter users? By that definition by local dry cleaner has a monopoly on me.
  - rob74 4y ago
    Do you have lots of followers at your local dry cleaner? Posted a lot of notes on their walls that people like to read?
  - sillysaurusx 4y ago
    Suppose you wanted to launch a new social network. Where would you get your users? Not being able to talk about it on existing social networks is basically a death sentence for growth. I saw it first hand.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > Where would you get your users? The 80+ percent of Americans who don't use Twitter might be a start [1][2]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers-young-mobile-and-educated/ https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/11/04/twitter-ne... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/970911/monetizable-daily-active-twitter-users-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/970911/monetizable-daily...
lapcat 4y ago
> After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Why do people always use the term "private company"? Twitter is a publicly owned corporation. If the Musk deal goes through, it'll be private. But I'm not sure what work the word "private" is supposed to be doing.
- basisword 4y ago
  There are different types of private company. You have mentioned two of them. Twitter is is a publicly traded private company.
- cmeacham98 4y ago
  "Private company", in this context, means "not the government". The opposite would be "public sector", referring to the government or companies it owns/runs.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    Except, how many government owned companies are there in the US? What's the point in saying "private company" if 99.99+% of companies are private?
    - mypalmike 4y ago
      Twitter is a company. Is that statement sufficient to stop further nitpicking?
      - lapcat 4y ago
        I think there's a kind of ideology behind the phrase that personifies companies, giving them "rights" that become even more important than individual human rights. And there's the weird idea that companies can do whatever they want, despite the mountains of government regulation of corporate behavior. Almost every use of "private company" is in contrast to a publicly traded company. Except when people start talking about "rights", and then they're apparently using it in a different way, which I find very odd and ideological.

nkozyra 4y ago

> After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Isn’t that how that works? Everyone always says that, and this is a case of that. Unless I missed it, until you wrote this nobody had argued it wasn't their right to do this.

2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
It's their right but it's still crummy. I want Section 230 to be repealed.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
  I don’t know what section 230 repeal has to do with it. Companies would still be able to block random links like this if section 230 is repealed; they’d probably do it more often.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    Repealing 230 would literally kill large swaths of the internet. If platforms like Twitter or Reddit were legally responsible for what their users post, they would need to institute white lists to avoid being bankrupted. Can you imagine the amount of low-level casual defamation across the entirety of Facebook? Or Reddit? The amount of copyrighted material stolen and posted? There would be an overnight industry of people shadow-posting defamatory statements and then turning around and suing the platforms for hosting it. It's literally the dumbest idea possible.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
      Heck, under the precedent that Section 230 was meant to overturn, Twitter could sue HN for a lot of what people are saying right here. I struggle to even engage with the idea sometimes because you're 100% right that it doesn't make sense.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      > It's literally the dumbest idea possible. Unless the aim was literally to destroy these large left-leaning, people-empowering, highly profitable, internationally reaching businesses. Now imagine which political party and which geopolitical adversary would like to make the internet less liberal, silence the powerless, make American tax revenue lower, and make more space for authoritarian voices on the world stage.
      - aiilns 4y ago
        Facebook, twitter, etc left-leaning in the US sense where left is right and right is near the edge of the right spectrum I get. But people-empowering? These large platforms are very much anti-democratic and anti-empowering people. Even more, subverting peoples wills about what they buy by managing what they see and algorithmically trying to guide what they should think is very much anti people. Any people empowering is merely a side effect and not at all the purpose
        dane-pgp 4y ago
        I see what you're saying, and there's definitely reason to question which entities have gained the most influence from social media (out of corporations, governments, or activists). As for "the purpose" of social media, I suppose a simple reductive answer would be "to make money", but there were (and I think still are) people who are idealistic about social media giving a voice to the voiceless, even if you think that, in practice, commercial messages and misinformation end up having a bigger and more negative effect. A thought experiment I think is useful is to imagine how Western political discourse could have been shaped (by politicians and the traditional media) if grassroots movements couldn't form and raise awareness through things like "hashtag activism".[0] The fact that authoritarian countries invest resources in censoring or banning social media also seems to confirm that they see it as a threat rather than a harmless distraction. [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism
- input_sh 4y ago
  In other words, you want every website to be held liable for all user generated content on their platform, which would benefit every large social media (because smaller ones wouldn't be able to afford to moderate every single post), leading to them becoming even more of a monopoly? Or do you have something concrete in mind on what to replace it with? Because just repealing it would lead to a much different Internet than it is today — and not in a good way.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - baisq 4y ago
    >In other words, you want every website to be held liable for all user generated content on their platform, which would benefit every large social media (because smaller ones wouldn't be able to afford to moderate every single post), leading to them becoming even more of a monopoly? In the EU it works well: the only social networks that exist are American :P
    - input_sh 4y ago
      > Or do you have something concrete in mind on what to replace it with? In the EU that would be Digital Services Act, chapter two of which offers websites similar protection to the Section 230. It's gonna be voted on soon™. At the moment the EU has precedence in the opposite direction, with an Estonian news site Delfi having been held liable for anonymous user comments made on their platform: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delfi_AS_v._Estonia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delfi_AS_v._Estonia

legalcorrection 4y ago

No, this is arguably "monopolization", which is illegal under the Sherman Act. Even the 9th Circuit, which has adopted an implausibly broad reading of 230, does not think that 230 is a defense against antitrust claims.

sillysaurusx 4y ago
Hmm. How interesting. Monopolization, you say. I’ll have to remember that. Well, I’m just glad https://www.laarc.io https://www.laarc.io is unblocked here now after many years.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> this is arguably "monopolization", which is illegal under the Sherman Act What does Twitter have a monopoly on? Twitter users? By that definition by local dry cleaner has a monopoly on me.
- rob74 4y ago
  Do you have lots of followers at your local dry cleaner? Posted a lot of notes on their walls that people like to read?
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Suppose you wanted to launch a new social network. Where would you get your users? Not being able to talk about it on existing social networks is basically a death sentence for growth. I saw it first hand.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > Where would you get your users? The 80+ percent of Americans who don't use Twitter might be a start [1][2]. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/11/04/twitter-news-consumers-young-mobile-and-educated/ https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/2013/11/04/twitter-ne... [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/970911/monetizable-daily-active-twitter-users-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/970911/monetizable-daily...

lapcat 4y ago

> After all, it’s their right to as a private company. Why do people always use the term "private company"? Twitter is a publicly owned corporation. If the Musk deal goes through, it'll be private. But I'm not sure what work the word "private" is supposed to be doing.

basisword 4y ago
There are different types of private company. You have mentioned two of them. Twitter is is a publicly traded private company.
cmeacham98 4y ago
"Private company", in this context, means "not the government". The opposite would be "public sector", referring to the government or companies it owns/runs.
- lapcat 4y ago
  Except, how many government owned companies are there in the US? What's the point in saying "private company" if 99.99+% of companies are private?
  - mypalmike 4y ago
    Twitter is a company. Is that statement sufficient to stop further nitpicking?
    - lapcat 4y ago
      I think there's a kind of ideology behind the phrase that personifies companies, giving them "rights" that become even more important than individual human rights. And there's the weird idea that companies can do whatever they want, despite the mountains of government regulation of corporate behavior. Almost every use of "private company" is in contrast to a publicly traded company. Except when people start talking about "rights", and then they're apparently using it in a different way, which I find very odd and ideological.