4 ms·

The overbreadth doctrine? Show me the harm.

akerl_ 4y ago
The harm is that a corporation would be compelled to host and display speech that they disagree with. For a fun comparison, you may want to check https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/228/wooley-v-maynard https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/228/wooley-v-ma... , where the Supreme Court held that the government couldn’t force someone to drive around with the state slogan on their car, because it represented compelling speech.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  > The harm is that a corporation would be compelled to host and display speech that they disagree with. That's not a significant harm. Corporations are given certain privileges (limited-liability, very much what section 230 is an extension of), we can outline certain responsibilities in exchange. I don't want the phone company deciding what can be talked about over the phone. The technology is absolutely there for the phone company to start disconnecting conversations that it finds suspicious (for its own unaccountable, unauditable reasons) by algorithm, just like youtube taking down videos or twitter pulling down accounts.
  - akerl_ 4y ago
    Free speech isn’t a privilege we give companies, it’s a right they have as collections of persons. Nor is section 230. Section 230 clarifies their behavior to the benefit of society: without confirmation in section 230 about the governments handling of responsibility for user generated content, the internet wouldn’t be able to exist (because companies would be at risk of liability for the speech of their users). The test for first amendment restrictions also isn’t “will the harm caused be significant”. Phone companies handle point to point conversations; they don’t have or need this kind of conversation because I can’t pick up my phone and publish a message under my phone companies’s banner.
    - anon291 4y ago
      Okay got it. So WhatsApp can censor my phone calls but not the telephone company because Whatsapp has a WhatsApp icon on the screen. And apple of course can censor my calls on my iphone because it reflects poorly on apple for my iphone to be associated. Got it. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the clarity.
      - akerl_ 4y ago
        WhatsApp can block or delete your WhatsApp messages. And Apple could decide to not let you call numbers that start with even digits. Neither is a violation of the 1st amendment. You can disagree about whether or not that should be the case, or whether other laws (like antitrust or discrimination) should apply, but the first amendment views the government compelling speech the same way it views the government censoring speech, and the Supreme Court has consistently found that forcing an entity to display a message is compelling speech.
- anon291 4y ago
  In California malls and other privately owned public spaces are required to allow public speech they disagree with. There was a case of a mall using the private property claims to stop union picketing and organizing, but the courts found this to be illegal. If the space is generally open to the public, you have free speech rights in California. This has stood for decades and has been law for longer in California, yet California is doing fine, and I would hardly consider California to be stifling free speech. Far from it. We make bakers write things they disagree with on cakes with their own hands. In contrast facebooks cooperation when hosting content it disagrees with is much more remote and requires no manual intervention.

The harm is that a corporation would be compelled to host and display speech that they disagree with. For a fun comparison, you may want to check https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/228/wooley-v-maynard https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/228/wooley-v-ma... , where the Supreme Court held that the government couldn’t force someone to drive around with the state slogan on their car, because it represented compelling speech.

pessimizer 4y ago
> The harm is that a corporation would be compelled to host and display speech that they disagree with. That's not a significant harm. Corporations are given certain privileges (limited-liability, very much what section 230 is an extension of), we can outline certain responsibilities in exchange. I don't want the phone company deciding what can be talked about over the phone. The technology is absolutely there for the phone company to start disconnecting conversations that it finds suspicious (for its own unaccountable, unauditable reasons) by algorithm, just like youtube taking down videos or twitter pulling down accounts.
- akerl_ 4y ago
  Free speech isn’t a privilege we give companies, it’s a right they have as collections of persons. Nor is section 230. Section 230 clarifies their behavior to the benefit of society: without confirmation in section 230 about the governments handling of responsibility for user generated content, the internet wouldn’t be able to exist (because companies would be at risk of liability for the speech of their users). The test for first amendment restrictions also isn’t “will the harm caused be significant”. Phone companies handle point to point conversations; they don’t have or need this kind of conversation because I can’t pick up my phone and publish a message under my phone companies’s banner.
  - anon291 4y ago
    Okay got it. So WhatsApp can censor my phone calls but not the telephone company because Whatsapp has a WhatsApp icon on the screen. And apple of course can censor my calls on my iphone because it reflects poorly on apple for my iphone to be associated. Got it. Makes perfect sense. Thanks for the clarity.
    - akerl_ 4y ago
      WhatsApp can block or delete your WhatsApp messages. And Apple could decide to not let you call numbers that start with even digits. Neither is a violation of the 1st amendment. You can disagree about whether or not that should be the case, or whether other laws (like antitrust or discrimination) should apply, but the first amendment views the government compelling speech the same way it views the government censoring speech, and the Supreme Court has consistently found that forcing an entity to display a message is compelling speech.
anon291 4y ago
In California malls and other privately owned public spaces are required to allow public speech they disagree with. There was a case of a mall using the private property claims to stop union picketing and organizing, but the courts found this to be illegal. If the space is generally open to the public, you have free speech rights in California. This has stood for decades and has been law for longer in California, yet California is doing fine, and I would hardly consider California to be stifling free speech. Far from it. We make bakers write things they disagree with on cakes with their own hands. In contrast facebooks cooperation when hosting content it disagrees with is much more remote and requires no manual intervention.