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I've always felt that "large" providers should not be able to ban someone except for something that is illegal in the real world. Every time I post it people h

by ars 4y ago

I've always felt that "large" providers should not be able to ban someone except for something that is illegal in the real world. Every time I post it people hate the idea "it's a private service you can't tell them what to do". And the alternative is what exactly? (And yes, I know there are some details to work out, what is "large", what about Spam, what about offtopic messages. But those are details, my post is about the main idea of banning someone. Hate speech and harassment are already illegal.)

kube-system 4y ago
The alternative is designation as a public utility.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
anotherman554 4y ago
Hate speech isn't necessarily illegal nor do I know what you have in mind when you say "harassment" is illegal, there are 50 states in the U.S. with 50 sets of laws.
mrtranscendence 4y ago
Let's say I've got a website called Jay's Cool Community for Elementary School Kids and their Parents. Steve comes in and starts posting nazi symbology, and as soon as I delete his content he just posts more. Nazi symbols aren't illegal in the country where Steve and I reside, so under your regime I can't boot him from my website. Do I, as Jay, have no recourse now?
- michaelgrafl 4y ago
  You should be able to ban him from your website. But not all other websites on the Internet.
  - pc86 4y ago
    Can't they also say "Steve is a Nazi" and let other site owners ban him as well? That's the same thing happening here (albeit with extra steps).
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Agree but the fact is "all other websites on the Internet" turned into just Google, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram and so on. The web is quite centralized nowadays, getting banned from one of these sites can significantly harm a person.
- skissane 4y ago
  It is like the difference between a private club and the telephone company. Should your private club be able to expel neo-Nazis? Absolutely. Should the telephone company be allowed to disconnect neo-Nazis? That's more iffy. What if they are a monopoly? What if there is an oligopoly, and all the oligopoly firms make the same decision? Neo-Nazis are terrible people, but if we set the precedent that one is allowed to deny them telephone services, will less obviously terrible groups be next? Maybe we should also let the telephone company disconnect the Islamist violent jihad sympathisers, they are obviously terrible people too. But what happens when some Islamophobe starts stretching the definition of "Islamist violent jihad sympathiser" so that Muslims who have zero sympathy for that get labelled with it anyway? (Yes, the classic "slippery slope argument" – but some slopes really are slippery.) Some websites, such as "Jay's Cool Community for Elementary School Kids and their Parents", are like a private club. But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are like the telephone company, not like a private club. Different rules should apply to different kinds of websites.
  - FireBeyond 4y ago
    > But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are like the telephone company, not like a private club. At what point did they become utilities? How do we define such?
    - skissane 4y ago
      It is a matter of scale, of market share, of user counts. Obviously, a website with a few hundred or few thousand regular users is more like a private club. A website with tens or hundreds of millions of users is more like the telephone company. There is no clearcut boundary, but there doesn't need to be. Competition regulators frequently impose limits on market-dominant firms which they don't impose on small players – yet there is no clearcut boundary between a market-dominant firm and a small player. In practice, many individual cases will be obvious, and in the non-obvious cases, all we need is someone with the authority to make a decision–and if someone else thinks they've made the wrong call, there are the usual judicial and political processes to address that.
ineptech 4y ago
Imagine a restaurant that followed your rules (customers are never kicked out unless they do something illegal). Would you eat there? How long do you think it would stay in business?

by ars 4y ago

kube-system 4y ago

The alternative is designation as a public utility.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

anotherman554 4y ago

Hate speech isn't necessarily illegal nor do I know what you have in mind when you say "harassment" is illegal, there are 50 states in the U.S. with 50 sets of laws.

mrtranscendence 4y ago

Let's say I've got a website called Jay's Cool Community for Elementary School Kids and their Parents. Steve comes in and starts posting nazi symbology, and as soon as I delete his content he just posts more. Nazi symbols aren't illegal in the country where Steve and I reside, so under your regime I can't boot him from my website. Do I, as Jay, have no recourse now?

michaelgrafl 4y ago
You should be able to ban him from your website. But not all other websites on the Internet.
- pc86 4y ago
  Can't they also say "Steve is a Nazi" and let other site owners ban him as well? That's the same thing happening here (albeit with extra steps).
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Agree but the fact is "all other websites on the Internet" turned into just Google, Facebook, Amazon, Instagram and so on. The web is quite centralized nowadays, getting banned from one of these sites can significantly harm a person.
skissane 4y ago
It is like the difference between a private club and the telephone company. Should your private club be able to expel neo-Nazis? Absolutely. Should the telephone company be allowed to disconnect neo-Nazis? That's more iffy. What if they are a monopoly? What if there is an oligopoly, and all the oligopoly firms make the same decision? Neo-Nazis are terrible people, but if we set the precedent that one is allowed to deny them telephone services, will less obviously terrible groups be next? Maybe we should also let the telephone company disconnect the Islamist violent jihad sympathisers, they are obviously terrible people too. But what happens when some Islamophobe starts stretching the definition of "Islamist violent jihad sympathiser" so that Muslims who have zero sympathy for that get labelled with it anyway? (Yes, the classic "slippery slope argument" – but some slopes really are slippery.) Some websites, such as "Jay's Cool Community for Elementary School Kids and their Parents", are like a private club. But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are like the telephone company, not like a private club. Different rules should apply to different kinds of websites.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  > But facebook.com, google.com, etc, they are like the telephone company, not like a private club. At what point did they become utilities? How do we define such?
  - skissane 4y ago
    It is a matter of scale, of market share, of user counts. Obviously, a website with a few hundred or few thousand regular users is more like a private club. A website with tens or hundreds of millions of users is more like the telephone company. There is no clearcut boundary, but there doesn't need to be. Competition regulators frequently impose limits on market-dominant firms which they don't impose on small players – yet there is no clearcut boundary between a market-dominant firm and a small player. In practice, many individual cases will be obvious, and in the non-obvious cases, all we need is someone with the authority to make a decision–and if someone else thinks they've made the wrong call, there are the usual judicial and political processes to address that.

ineptech 4y ago

Imagine a restaurant that followed your rules (customers are never kicked out unless they do something illegal). Would you eat there? How long do you think it would stay in business?