9 ms·

As a free-speech absolutist, I got no problem with this. Unless the speech is threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or violating a law, it should be

As a free-speech absolutist, I got no problem with this. Unless the speech is threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or violating a law, it should be allowed. At the same time, everyone else should have the tools to filter, block, and mute speech they do not like. If a tweet or a social media post has a certain word or phrase in it that I don’t like, I should be able to mute that and never see it. Social media really has become something of a scourge on society.

crooked-v 4y ago
As a free-speech absolutist, the basic problem you should have with this is that as precedent, it would lead right into the legislature being able to force the press to publish certain things because not doing so would be 'censorship'.
- evandale 4y ago
  How could this set precedent for compelled speech of publishers? Facebook, Twitter, and Google aren't even publishers.
  - treerunner 4y ago
    If filtering is not publishing then what is it? Do we need a new term for this arrangement?
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      > Do we need a new term for this arrangement? The term 'filtering' already exists.
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  I think this is a case where "free speech absolutism" is not perfectly aligned with "first amendment absolutism", but either is a logically consistent framework.
- imperfect_blue 4y ago
  In the hypothetical world, where press is a natural monopoly, we would be far less likely to allow the press to refuse to publish viewpoints they don't like. Or we would outright nationalize the press and lead to a different sort of problem.
- xani_ 4y ago
  Press is publishing what their authors write, not what their readers write. It's not a social conversation. Public Television (in countries that have that) would be better example.
mmcconnell1618 4y ago
So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience.
- nonethewiser 4y ago
  Starbucks product is also coffee, not a speech platform.
  - tingletech 4y ago
    social media's product is eyeballs on ads, not a speech platform
    - treerunner 4y ago
      Yet Facebook and Twitter literally base their business model on sorting out what you get to read. These companies manipulate access to speech when their algorithms decide what you like — and yes, this includes ads.
- evandale 4y ago
  > So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see tweets and posts. They're public squares that are closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location. > The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. Up until other big tech companies like CloudFlare decide they don't want to be associated with you and stop offering you ddos protection. > They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience. Exactly! And that's why Twitter, Facebook, and Google should be treated as public squares. It's not fair that one group can access a public resource that others cannot.
freen 4y ago
[flagged]
- andrew_ 4y ago
  - RunSet 4y ago
    https://web.archive.org/web/20170814002835/https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320 https://web.archive.org/web/20170814002835/https://twitter.c...
  - sofixa 4y ago
    No, because the topic at hand literally includes Nazis. The speech being censored, which is being discussed, includes Nazis and the like being free to spout their shit on Twitter/Facebook or not. (And they should not, I don't know how that's even a debate)
- nomdep 4y ago
  I doubt your blog has 50 million visitors, so your argument is ridiculous
  - freen 4y ago
    What on earth does the number of visitors have to do with the legal requirement for private enterprises to host spam/nazi content?
    - nomdep 4y ago
      This isn’t a legal requirement to host spam, illegal, hateful or any other content. It says that if your site has more than 50 million visitors AND if you allow red team content, you must also allow blue team content
zeta0134 4y ago
I've been wondering about a technical solution to this problem for a while now. It seems like a properly distributed social media network would still need moderation... but who is to say everyone has to use the same moderators? What if we distributed the task of content moderation and allowed users to subscribe to a moderation team the same way they subscribe to a friend's updates? In this way, users could tune their own bubble rather than being strictly required to adhere to a centralized set of guidelines.
- colejohnson66 4y ago
  That’s Mastodon
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  I believe you are describing federated networks such as mastodon [1] and matrix [2] Individual servers/clusters can be moderated by their operators. I've not run either of those, but I have run IRC servers that can work in a similar model. [1] - https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [2] - https://matrix.org/faq/ https://matrix.org/faq/
- bombcar 4y ago
  It’s really easy to do if they wanted - allow posts to be classified and allow users to select scores or other methods of ranking classifications.
- treerunner 4y ago
  Publish all content to blockchain and let the users create their own interfaces as they choose. But first make all content equally and indisputably available? I’d be cool with this.
- int_19h 4y ago
  https://getaether.net/docs/faq/voting_and_elections/ https://getaether.net/docs/faq/voting_and_elections/ "When you vote in favour of a person, you are making that person a moderator for yourself, regardless of whether they win the vote or not. In other words, you cannot vote yes for that person in public, and have them disabled as a mod in private. Your vote for a person is you making that person a mod for you. The reverse also applies, if you disable a person from being a mod, that is an impeachment vote. Election makes it so that the people who come into a community, who have not chosen or disabled that particular mod by themselves, will use the mod list shaped by the elections. If a user has explicitly chosen a particular person to be a mod in that community, that takes precedence. Likewise, if a user has disabled a mod, that person will never be a mod for that user, regardless of the results. If a mod you voted against (a mod you disabled / impeached / voted against) takes a mod action, that is ignored by your client, and has no effect. If a mod that you have taken no action on takes a mod action, it is accepted, but only so long as there is no action in reverse from a mod that you have explicitly voted for. If you don’t like actions of a mod you haven’t voted for is bothering you, you can easily disable that mod, and render them ineffectual."
philipwhiuk 4y ago
I'm unclear that this isn't a self referential attempt to redefine the centre rather than a genuinely held view. > threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or violating a law The laws already prevent the first by the way, it's called true threat > At the same time, everyone else should have the tools to filter, block, and mute speech they do not like. If a tweet or a social media post has a certain word or phrase in it that I don’t like, I should be able to mute that and never see it. Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they don't like? Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? Why is Facebook's owner and employees different to a coffee shop owner?
- evandale 4y ago
  > Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they don't like? How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like? You're free to block him and not read anything he posts. > Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? No, NYT is a publisher and has always had full control over what they publish. > Why is Facebook's owner and employees different to a coffee shop owner? Because Facebook's owner decided to offer a platform that anyone can sign up to for free which allows them to share their content with friends and the world. Starbucks sells coffee.
  - themitigating 4y ago
    "How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like" Not other users but facebook itself is forced to do this
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    I think any newspaper with a classified section seems like a sort of primitive social network, with proactive moderation.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? Yes, if they or their majority shareholders dominate a noticeable part of the press. Otherwise you end up how things are - a minority of the rich consolidating the press, setting the public agenda as they want to.
adrr 4y ago
Controlling what content is rendered on a site is speech itself. Government making rules infringes on my right what my software can and can’t display. It would be like the government telling Wikipedia can’t edit their articles.
- treerunner 4y ago
  Yes! Absolutely.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- wrinklz 4y ago
  Doesn't Wikipedia fall under the definition of a social media site with over 50M monthly users?
  - adrr 4y ago
    It does. This decision means other people “can’t censor” by reverting changes or overwriting.
    - dane-pgp 4y ago
      No, it means that Wikipedia admins can't ban someone's account just because they disagree with that person's opinions. Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to contain (their user's) opinions anyway, so the admins should have no reason to base a moderation decision on such a criterion.

crooked-v 4y ago

As a free-speech absolutist, the basic problem you should have with this is that as precedent, it would lead right into the legislature being able to force the press to publish certain things because not doing so would be 'censorship'.

evandale 4y ago
How could this set precedent for compelled speech of publishers? Facebook, Twitter, and Google aren't even publishers.
- treerunner 4y ago
  If filtering is not publishing then what is it? Do we need a new term for this arrangement?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    > Do we need a new term for this arrangement? The term 'filtering' already exists.
bpodgursky 4y ago
I think this is a case where "free speech absolutism" is not perfectly aligned with "first amendment absolutism", but either is a logically consistent framework.
imperfect_blue 4y ago
In the hypothetical world, where press is a natural monopoly, we would be far less likely to allow the press to refuse to publish viewpoints they don't like. Or we would outright nationalize the press and lead to a different sort of problem.
xani_ 4y ago
Press is publishing what their authors write, not what their readers write. It's not a social conversation. Public Television (in countries that have that) would be better example.

mmcconnell1618 4y ago

So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience.

nonethewiser 4y ago
Starbucks product is also coffee, not a speech platform.
- tingletech 4y ago
  social media's product is eyeballs on ads, not a speech platform
  - treerunner 4y ago
    Yet Facebook and Twitter literally base their business model on sorting out what you get to read. These companies manipulate access to speech when their algorithms decide what you like — and yes, this includes ads.
evandale 4y ago
> So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see tweets and posts. They're public squares that are closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location. > The internet has plenty of space for people to post their opinions on their own servers. Up until other big tech companies like CloudFlare decide they don't want to be associated with you and stop offering you ddos protection. > They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an audience. Exactly! And that's why Twitter, Facebook, and Google should be treated as public squares. It's not fair that one group can access a public resource that others cannot.

freen 4y ago

[flagged]

andrew_ 4y ago
- RunSet 4y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/20170814002835/https://twitter.com/sfmnemonic/status/896884949634232320 https://web.archive.org/web/20170814002835/https://twitter.c...
- sofixa 4y ago
  No, because the topic at hand literally includes Nazis. The speech being censored, which is being discussed, includes Nazis and the like being free to spout their shit on Twitter/Facebook or not. (And they should not, I don't know how that's even a debate)
nomdep 4y ago
I doubt your blog has 50 million visitors, so your argument is ridiculous
- freen 4y ago
  What on earth does the number of visitors have to do with the legal requirement for private enterprises to host spam/nazi content?
  - nomdep 4y ago
    This isn’t a legal requirement to host spam, illegal, hateful or any other content. It says that if your site has more than 50 million visitors AND if you allow red team content, you must also allow blue team content

zeta0134 4y ago

I've been wondering about a technical solution to this problem for a while now. It seems like a properly distributed social media network would still need moderation... but who is to say everyone has to use the same moderators? What if we distributed the task of content moderation and allowed users to subscribe to a moderation team the same way they subscribe to a friend's updates? In this way, users could tune their own bubble rather than being strictly required to adhere to a centralized set of guidelines.

colejohnson66 4y ago
That’s Mastodon
LinuxBender 4y ago
I believe you are describing federated networks such as mastodon [1] and matrix [2] Individual servers/clusters can be moderated by their operators. I've not run either of those, but I have run IRC servers that can work in a similar model. [1] - https://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ [2] - https://matrix.org/faq/ https://matrix.org/faq/
bombcar 4y ago
It’s really easy to do if they wanted - allow posts to be classified and allow users to select scores or other methods of ranking classifications.
treerunner 4y ago
Publish all content to blockchain and let the users create their own interfaces as they choose. But first make all content equally and indisputably available? I’d be cool with this.
int_19h 4y ago
https://getaether.net/docs/faq/voting_and_elections/ https://getaether.net/docs/faq/voting_and_elections/ "When you vote in favour of a person, you are making that person a moderator for yourself, regardless of whether they win the vote or not. In other words, you cannot vote yes for that person in public, and have them disabled as a mod in private. Your vote for a person is you making that person a mod for you. The reverse also applies, if you disable a person from being a mod, that is an impeachment vote. Election makes it so that the people who come into a community, who have not chosen or disabled that particular mod by themselves, will use the mod list shaped by the elections. If a user has explicitly chosen a particular person to be a mod in that community, that takes precedence. Likewise, if a user has disabled a mod, that person will never be a mod for that user, regardless of the results. If a mod you voted against (a mod you disabled / impeached / voted against) takes a mod action, that is ignored by your client, and has no effect. If a mod that you have taken no action on takes a mod action, it is accepted, but only so long as there is no action in reverse from a mod that you have explicitly voted for. If you don’t like actions of a mod you haven’t voted for is bothering you, you can easily disable that mod, and render them ineffectual."

philipwhiuk 4y ago

I'm unclear that this isn't a self referential attempt to redefine the centre rather than a genuinely held view. > threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or violating a law The laws already prevent the first by the way, it's called true threat > At the same time, everyone else should have the tools to filter, block, and mute speech they do not like. If a tweet or a social media post has a certain word or phrase in it that I don’t like, I should be able to mute that and never see it. Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they don't like? Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? Why is Facebook's owner and employees different to a coffee shop owner?

evandale 4y ago
> Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they don't like? How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like? You're free to block him and not read anything he posts. > Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? No, NYT is a publisher and has always had full control over what they publish. > Why is Facebook's owner and employees different to a coffee shop owner? Because Facebook's owner decided to offer a platform that anyone can sign up to for free which allows them to share their content with friends and the world. Starbucks sells coffee.
- themitigating 4y ago
  "How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like" Not other users but facebook itself is forced to do this
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  I think any newspaper with a classified section seems like a sort of primitive social network, with proactive moderation.
unity1001 4y ago
> Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish opinions they don't like? Yes, if they or their majority shareholders dominate a noticeable part of the press. Otherwise you end up how things are - a minority of the rich consolidating the press, setting the public agenda as they want to.

adrr 4y ago

Controlling what content is rendered on a site is speech itself. Government making rules infringes on my right what my software can and can’t display. It would be like the government telling Wikipedia can’t edit their articles.

treerunner 4y ago
Yes! Absolutely.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wrinklz 4y ago
Doesn't Wikipedia fall under the definition of a social media site with over 50M monthly users?
- adrr 4y ago
  It does. This decision means other people “can’t censor” by reverting changes or overwriting.
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    No, it means that Wikipedia admins can't ban someone's account just because they disagree with that person's opinions. Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to contain (their user's) opinions anyway, so the admins should have no reason to base a moderation decision on such a criterion.