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I don't get it. Restaurants can choose their customers based on how they behave or even how they are dressed. Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject

I don't get it. Restaurants can choose their customers based on how they behave or even how they are dressed. Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of their customers?

NayamAmarshe 4y ago
> Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of their customers? If they were advertising it as "a website for everyone except these opinions: ...", your point would have been valid. That's why.
- MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  It's right there in the T&C and content guidelines isn't it?
  - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
    That's the thing, it's not. If they specifically said that I'd be banned for having certain opinions different from Zuckerberg, I'd have never complained but they didn't. They are vague, they are disingenuous and I honestly cannot believe so many people are defending them for censoring others. Politics aside, Facebook bans people for smallest of things. I got banned for 30 days for quoting someone's comment. It's a censorship dystopia that only people with short-sighted vision of the future could support.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      I think the concern here is that the new ruling could make it mandatory for Facebook etc. to distribute hate-speech. Who wants such an outcome? The haters.
      - exodust 4y ago
        No. Hate-speech is illegal, not a "viewpoint we don't agree with". Your restaurant analogy falls short too. Dress-code is the equivalent of "civility" in discussion, and is a neutral bar that is set. It doesn't favor cotton shirts over linen shirts, which is what censoring a viewpoint would be.
        galaxyLogic 4y ago
        > No. Hate-speech is illegal Is hate-speech illegal in USA? What statutes are you thinking of? I thought hate-speech was mostly allowed to exist as "free speech". The question however is should social media companies not have the right to determine what THEY think is hate-speech, and thus not share it? If hate-speech is vaguely defined then somebody has to make the decision as to what is or is not it, and whether to spread it online or not. Who better to make that decision than the companies whose business it affects, whether they share hate-speech or don't?
        exodust 4y ago
        Yeh sorry, I forgot USA doesn't have hate-speech laws. I'm in Australia where hate-speech is technically illegal. To be hate speech, it needs to be a clear attack on someone using derogatory terms that target things like gender or religion. I don't think there's been many cases here involving hate speech. More likely people will pursue defamation and discrimination laws. Many disagree that to be merely "offended" is not enough to establish a crime. Our hate-speech laws are not universally accepted as good laws. The problem with social media companies deciding what is hate-speech, is they will get it wrong often. The moderator is human. They might be personally associated with a position or viewpoint in their own lives outside of work. They might decide to delete a post that presents a strong case against whatever position they align with, leading to an offended moderator. An offended moderator may not apply the same fairness in all situations. Too many grey areas.
        galaxyLogic 4y ago
        Moderators often make me angry as well. But I don't know if there is a better solution for preventing bad things from being spread on online forums. I've read that Trump's Truth Social doesn't much moderate their content but maybe they do block the truth, who knows? :-) .
      - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
        Why are we acting as if the 2000s never happened? There was no large-scale censorship (what is now disguised as 'moderation') and the communities flourished independently. Turns out, people like to choose what they want to see. These days, anything and everything that is slightly uncomfortable to groups is labeled as 'hate-speech'. If nobody can define what 'hate speech' really is and if the definition changes person to person, then you're arguing for the wrong reasons. What you're looking for is tightly-isolated communities with consent, bridging and moderation in their own spaces, not worldwide censorship. I don't like it when others are disrespectful to me, but I always have a choice of shutting down the discussion and moving on. Online communities that spread dangerous ideas are going to form in their own space, no matter what we do so banning any opinions that do not adhere to certain political views is not only dangerous but also creates a division of 'you vs me' and that thing gets ugly quick. If we know 2 communities clash, we keep them separated, as simple as that and it already happens so no big deal. It's like having a work and family chat group, different purposes, different people, different ideas, 0 clashes. The problem is you're looking at everything through the lens of offensive content. If you tell me that majority of the banned comments on the social media websites are illegal by constitution, you'd have a point but this isn't a reality. People are banned for the smallest of things, for disagreeing with someone else respectfully, for following certain political ideas. Here's another example: John Stossel was censored even though he posted factual statements - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmht6Tbtzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmht6Tbtzg
        galaxyLogic 4y ago
        > If nobody can define what 'hate speech' really is and if the definition changes person to person, then you're arguing for the wrong reasons ... Hate-speech is like pornography. You know it when you see it. Of course one man's "pornography" can be another man's "erotica". But social media companies have the right to decide what they think is pornography vs. what is "erotica", and what they then share or not with all their customers. Why are we not complaining that Facebook muzzles the free speech of people who want to spread pornography online? Hate-speech is similar in concept to pornography but far more dangerous. It directly increases the risk of violence. Should social-media companies be forbidden from blocking pornography on their site?
_hcuq 4y ago
That’s the irony of all this. It’s the “freedom” party interfering with a company’s right to run its own website.
- starik36 4y ago
  That company is a de-facto monopoly on political discourse in the world. It should be treated as such.
  - philjohn 4y ago
    It really isn't - far more political discourse occurs on Twitter.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      Or Truth Social. The truth is out there
    - starik36 4y ago
      I was referring to Twitter.
xani_ 4y ago
The difference is that you can go to other restaurant, but social medias are so big that if you're not on twitter/facebook you might as well not exist in public view. Of course that does not apply to smaller forums and I think that if we had laws that force social companies to not censor people they don't like (let's face it, that's exactly what they want to do), it should be limited to anything that's actually big, not random joe shmoe forum about mushrooms.
- 8note 4y ago
  That seem like the government's job to provide an alternative or to break up monopolies s
- ZoomerCretin 4y ago
  "Social media companies are censoring people they don't like" This is ridiculous. No one is banned for their opinions on tax policy. No one is banned for their opinions on abortion. People (including the former POTUS) were removed for inciting violence, for fomenting harassment campaigns, and for racism/transphobia/other forms of bigotry.
  - blisterpeanuts 4y ago
    People have been suspended or banned for "misinformation" ranging from Covid treatments to perceived irregularities in the 2020 elections. The New York Post was censored by Twitter for its initial report on the Hunter Biden laptop, which was subsequently verified as factual. There are countless other such examples. Heck, a friend was suspended from Facebook for a political posting months ago, and he still hasn't been able to find out why.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      I don't want to defend Facebook or any social media platform. I'm sure they are often wrong in who they ban. But it makes sense to me that spreading misinformation about vaccines is a good reason for getting you banned. Vaccines are a matter of life and death not just for people who get vaccinated or not, but to everybody to whom they can spread the disease. If you tell people not to get vaccinated and they believe you, you put their lives in danger. Similarly you can be prosecuted for shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater causing people to panic and die being trampled and crushed. You could then try to argue that "It is just my opinion that I have the freedom of speech to shout 'Fire' anywhere and whenever I want to". But courts are not going to agree with you.
josephcsible 4y ago
If two or three companies owned 99.9% of the restaurants in the world, then we wouldn't let them reject customers willy-nilly. If we mandated that Facebook and Twitter break up into several federated instances owned by different companies with no entity controlling more than one, like we did with Ma Bell into the Baby Bells, then your argument would apply to them.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  It's not about willy-nilly rejecting customers. It's about rejecting customers who are offending or causing harm to other customers or preventing them from enjoying their meal. You are not being banned because of your "opinions" but because of hate-speech. That means speech that can harm others. At least that should be the case, and the law I think.

I don't get it. Restaurants can choose their customers based on how they behave or even how they are dressed. Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of their customers?

NayamAmarshe 4y ago

> Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of their customers? If they were advertising it as "a website for everyone except these opinions: ...", your point would have been valid. That's why.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
It's right there in the T&C and content guidelines isn't it?
- NayamAmarshe 4y ago
  That's the thing, it's not. If they specifically said that I'd be banned for having certain opinions different from Zuckerberg, I'd have never complained but they didn't. They are vague, they are disingenuous and I honestly cannot believe so many people are defending them for censoring others. Politics aside, Facebook bans people for smallest of things. I got banned for 30 days for quoting someone's comment. It's a censorship dystopia that only people with short-sighted vision of the future could support.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    I think the concern here is that the new ruling could make it mandatory for Facebook etc. to distribute hate-speech. Who wants such an outcome? The haters.
    - exodust 4y ago
      No. Hate-speech is illegal, not a "viewpoint we don't agree with". Your restaurant analogy falls short too. Dress-code is the equivalent of "civility" in discussion, and is a neutral bar that is set. It doesn't favor cotton shirts over linen shirts, which is what censoring a viewpoint would be.
      - galaxyLogic 4y ago
        > No. Hate-speech is illegal Is hate-speech illegal in USA? What statutes are you thinking of? I thought hate-speech was mostly allowed to exist as "free speech". The question however is should social media companies not have the right to determine what THEY think is hate-speech, and thus not share it? If hate-speech is vaguely defined then somebody has to make the decision as to what is or is not it, and whether to spread it online or not. Who better to make that decision than the companies whose business it affects, whether they share hate-speech or don't?
        exodust 4y ago
        Yeh sorry, I forgot USA doesn't have hate-speech laws. I'm in Australia where hate-speech is technically illegal. To be hate speech, it needs to be a clear attack on someone using derogatory terms that target things like gender or religion. I don't think there's been many cases here involving hate speech. More likely people will pursue defamation and discrimination laws. Many disagree that to be merely "offended" is not enough to establish a crime. Our hate-speech laws are not universally accepted as good laws. The problem with social media companies deciding what is hate-speech, is they will get it wrong often. The moderator is human. They might be personally associated with a position or viewpoint in their own lives outside of work. They might decide to delete a post that presents a strong case against whatever position they align with, leading to an offended moderator. An offended moderator may not apply the same fairness in all situations. Too many grey areas.
        galaxyLogic 4y ago
        Moderators often make me angry as well. But I don't know if there is a better solution for preventing bad things from being spread on online forums. I've read that Trump's Truth Social doesn't much moderate their content but maybe they do block the truth, who knows? :-) .
    - NayamAmarshe 4y ago
      Why are we acting as if the 2000s never happened? There was no large-scale censorship (what is now disguised as 'moderation') and the communities flourished independently. Turns out, people like to choose what they want to see. These days, anything and everything that is slightly uncomfortable to groups is labeled as 'hate-speech'. If nobody can define what 'hate speech' really is and if the definition changes person to person, then you're arguing for the wrong reasons. What you're looking for is tightly-isolated communities with consent, bridging and moderation in their own spaces, not worldwide censorship. I don't like it when others are disrespectful to me, but I always have a choice of shutting down the discussion and moving on. Online communities that spread dangerous ideas are going to form in their own space, no matter what we do so banning any opinions that do not adhere to certain political views is not only dangerous but also creates a division of 'you vs me' and that thing gets ugly quick. If we know 2 communities clash, we keep them separated, as simple as that and it already happens so no big deal. It's like having a work and family chat group, different purposes, different people, different ideas, 0 clashes. The problem is you're looking at everything through the lens of offensive content. If you tell me that majority of the banned comments on the social media websites are illegal by constitution, you'd have a point but this isn't a reality. People are banned for the smallest of things, for disagreeing with someone else respectfully, for following certain political ideas. Here's another example: John Stossel was censored even though he posted factual statements - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmht6Tbtzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qmht6Tbtzg
      - galaxyLogic 4y ago
        > If nobody can define what 'hate speech' really is and if the definition changes person to person, then you're arguing for the wrong reasons ... Hate-speech is like pornography. You know it when you see it. Of course one man's "pornography" can be another man's "erotica". But social media companies have the right to decide what they think is pornography vs. what is "erotica", and what they then share or not with all their customers. Why are we not complaining that Facebook muzzles the free speech of people who want to spread pornography online? Hate-speech is similar in concept to pornography but far more dangerous. It directly increases the risk of violence. Should social-media companies be forbidden from blocking pornography on their site?

_hcuq 4y ago

That’s the irony of all this. It’s the “freedom” party interfering with a company’s right to run its own website.

starik36 4y ago
That company is a de-facto monopoly on political discourse in the world. It should be treated as such.
- philjohn 4y ago
  It really isn't - far more political discourse occurs on Twitter.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    Or Truth Social. The truth is out there
  - starik36 4y ago
    I was referring to Twitter.

xani_ 4y ago

The difference is that you can go to other restaurant, but social medias are so big that if you're not on twitter/facebook you might as well not exist in public view. Of course that does not apply to smaller forums and I think that if we had laws that force social companies to not censor people they don't like (let's face it, that's exactly what they want to do), it should be limited to anything that's actually big, not random joe shmoe forum about mushrooms.

8note 4y ago
That seem like the government's job to provide an alternative or to break up monopolies s
ZoomerCretin 4y ago
"Social media companies are censoring people they don't like" This is ridiculous. No one is banned for their opinions on tax policy. No one is banned for their opinions on abortion. People (including the former POTUS) were removed for inciting violence, for fomenting harassment campaigns, and for racism/transphobia/other forms of bigotry.
- blisterpeanuts 4y ago
  People have been suspended or banned for "misinformation" ranging from Covid treatments to perceived irregularities in the 2020 elections. The New York Post was censored by Twitter for its initial report on the Hunter Biden laptop, which was subsequently verified as factual. There are countless other such examples. Heck, a friend was suspended from Facebook for a political posting months ago, and he still hasn't been able to find out why.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    I don't want to defend Facebook or any social media platform. I'm sure they are often wrong in who they ban. But it makes sense to me that spreading misinformation about vaccines is a good reason for getting you banned. Vaccines are a matter of life and death not just for people who get vaccinated or not, but to everybody to whom they can spread the disease. If you tell people not to get vaccinated and they believe you, you put their lives in danger. Similarly you can be prosecuted for shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater causing people to panic and die being trampled and crushed. You could then try to argue that "It is just my opinion that I have the freedom of speech to shout 'Fire' anywhere and whenever I want to". But courts are not going to agree with you.

josephcsible 4y ago

If two or three companies owned 99.9% of the restaurants in the world, then we wouldn't let them reject customers willy-nilly. If we mandated that Facebook and Twitter break up into several federated instances owned by different companies with no entity controlling more than one, like we did with Ma Bell into the Baby Bells, then your argument would apply to them.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
It's not about willy-nilly rejecting customers. It's about rejecting customers who are offending or causing harm to other customers or preventing them from enjoying their meal. You are not being banned because of your "opinions" but because of hate-speech. That means speech that can harm others. At least that should be the case, and the law I think.