4 ms·

100% this. The 1st amendment protects free speech from the government. If you're in a bar, and they don't like what you're saying, they can ask you to leave. Th

100% this. The 1st amendment protects free speech from the government. If you're in a bar, and they don't like what you're saying, they can ask you to leave. Then it all boils down to whether things like Twitter and Facebook are akin to the public square, a public street. That is hard to fathom given you are using their servers, their software, which they pay for and provide as a service (in something of a quid-pro-quo since they advertise to you, but that is beside the point). If the government were paying the bill for the servers, as something as a free fully scaled hosting service - then maybe services operating on those platforms could be considered public (yet the software seems like it still would be proprietary). So, seemingly it would need to be a free and fully government run Twitter clone to then have first amendment protections kick in.

rayiner 4y ago
But is Facebook like a bar? Or is it a pipe for user generated content?
- scarface74 4y ago
  So is HN. Are you comfortable with the government telling HN that it can’t ban overly political content?
- seadan83 4y ago
  I think the definition for a 'pipe' is a bit ambiguous. With a solid definition we could then test its criteria against how Facebook operates. IMHO, Facebook is like the bulletin board in a bar. A pipe would likely treat all content equally, Facebook does not do that, and I don't think there is an expectation that they would. If Facebook were a pipe, then there would be no recourse to moderate anything. Ergo it could be chock full of illegal content & porn, and if it were a pipe - nobody could complain to Facebook about the 'bad' stuff that is getting posted. Hence, seemingly they can moderate user-generated content pretty much however they please, it's their bulletin board. Further, if Facebook were a pipe, it could easily get flooded by several hundred/thousand payed trolls to post an overwhelming amount of content that Facebook could do nothing but allow to drown out everything else. Seemingly government telling Facebook they couldn't do (or how to do) moderation could put Facebook out of business (it could just wind up being crap/porn/spam) I think the bulletin board analogy within a private space is likely a good analogy. The theme of the board is supposed to be posting for your friends by friends. I think it's within Facebooks right to then keep to that theme. The alternative is that they cannot in which case the users could utterly hijack the content within Facebook, and seemingly government regulation at that point would be preventing them from operating how they want (a seemingly very Ayn Rand like situation)
- seadan83 4y ago
  One other thought I had regarding this - how about sites like 'github'? It's not that much different to be able to create a public repositories with blog-like content. Is github a pipe? If github were a pipe, then they couldn't moderate illegal content based on the point of view that "all software should be free" or the point of view that "viruses are useful and necessary to find and exploit security holes, otherwise those security holes do not get found nor fixed." Both of those points of view are, points of view (perhaps with some flaws, but nonetheless, they are points of view). Then.. if github were forced to host almost whatever content, they seemingly could become another 'pirate-bay'. I suspect the 'is it a pipe' or 'is it a bar' question is perhaps easier to look at via 'proof-by-contradiction' when examining other large websites and services that are not so dissimilar. Another thought, what if a private company wanted to not be a pipe, or what if they actually wanted to be a pipe. Let's say someone had a product launch that was intended and was for all purposes a pipe - though they "couldn't" be because of a user requirement. That seems odd, seems like whether you are a 'pipe' or a 'bar' could be stated in a prospectus and would not need to be a function at all of user count (but instead a function of services provided and how they are provided). In another example, a new phone carrier, just because they are small, would still be a pipe.
trafficante 4y ago
This argument, much like the “just make your own x” meme, is one of the many hypotheticals that actually saw real world testing in the past two years. These days, the ”private company so this isn’t 1A” argument oddly reminds me of the omnipresent 200x-era GOP claim that running a federal budget is akin to balancing a household checkbook. Designed to be convincingly simple to state and yet extremely obnoxious to refute to a layperson. Facebook in particular probably wouldn’t even exist without backing from DARPA, the “defunct” TIA program, and a host of other spooky agencies, corporations, and individuals (Palantir and Thiel for instance). Skip over 18 years of also-damning stuff to when the public/private mask started to blatantly slip in 2020: Since then, we’ve had multiple leaks, whistleblowers, etc demonstrating overt collaboration between the government and social media companies to censor, ban, and shape narratives. Not a lawyer, don’t know how you’d frame a 1A lawsuit, but it is absolutely unacceptable that our digital public square is being operated by companies that clearly serve as “Bill of Rights Avoidance” shell corporations for the intelligence agencies and now the Executive Branch writ large. It’s like everyone forgot about Snowden. This sort of highly suspicious take should be everyone’s default position at this point, particularly in tech. And no, you absolutely cannot “just build your own Project Lifelog if you don’t like it”.
- seadan83 4y ago
  I don't know if I'm saying, just "build your own if you don't like it". More, if you don't like it, don't use it (eg: if you don't like Arby's, don't go there). Though, I do concede that these platforms/apps/companies are very monopoly-like and that certainly creates its own gravitational pull and challenges to competitors. Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be? I'm really suggesting that "open to the public" does not mean "public". Hence, while anyone can sign on to 'Facebook', the nature that they pay for their servers, to develop software, have a business model, etc.. does not make it a public square even if it might feel like that at times (it's a private corporation, which means nobody has a first amendment right to do whatever they want with that software - there actually is no freedom of expression in the US, just freedom from government persecution to express what you want - that is what is written in the constitution)

rayiner 4y ago

But is Facebook like a bar? Or is it a pipe for user generated content?

scarface74 4y ago
So is HN. Are you comfortable with the government telling HN that it can’t ban overly political content?
seadan83 4y ago
I think the definition for a 'pipe' is a bit ambiguous. With a solid definition we could then test its criteria against how Facebook operates. IMHO, Facebook is like the bulletin board in a bar. A pipe would likely treat all content equally, Facebook does not do that, and I don't think there is an expectation that they would. If Facebook were a pipe, then there would be no recourse to moderate anything. Ergo it could be chock full of illegal content & porn, and if it were a pipe - nobody could complain to Facebook about the 'bad' stuff that is getting posted. Hence, seemingly they can moderate user-generated content pretty much however they please, it's their bulletin board. Further, if Facebook were a pipe, it could easily get flooded by several hundred/thousand payed trolls to post an overwhelming amount of content that Facebook could do nothing but allow to drown out everything else. Seemingly government telling Facebook they couldn't do (or how to do) moderation could put Facebook out of business (it could just wind up being crap/porn/spam) I think the bulletin board analogy within a private space is likely a good analogy. The theme of the board is supposed to be posting for your friends by friends. I think it's within Facebooks right to then keep to that theme. The alternative is that they cannot in which case the users could utterly hijack the content within Facebook, and seemingly government regulation at that point would be preventing them from operating how they want (a seemingly very Ayn Rand like situation)
seadan83 4y ago
One other thought I had regarding this - how about sites like 'github'? It's not that much different to be able to create a public repositories with blog-like content. Is github a pipe? If github were a pipe, then they couldn't moderate illegal content based on the point of view that "all software should be free" or the point of view that "viruses are useful and necessary to find and exploit security holes, otherwise those security holes do not get found nor fixed." Both of those points of view are, points of view (perhaps with some flaws, but nonetheless, they are points of view). Then.. if github were forced to host almost whatever content, they seemingly could become another 'pirate-bay'. I suspect the 'is it a pipe' or 'is it a bar' question is perhaps easier to look at via 'proof-by-contradiction' when examining other large websites and services that are not so dissimilar. Another thought, what if a private company wanted to not be a pipe, or what if they actually wanted to be a pipe. Let's say someone had a product launch that was intended and was for all purposes a pipe - though they "couldn't" be because of a user requirement. That seems odd, seems like whether you are a 'pipe' or a 'bar' could be stated in a prospectus and would not need to be a function at all of user count (but instead a function of services provided and how they are provided). In another example, a new phone carrier, just because they are small, would still be a pipe.

trafficante 4y ago

This argument, much like the “just make your own x” meme, is one of the many hypotheticals that actually saw real world testing in the past two years. These days, the ”private company so this isn’t 1A” argument oddly reminds me of the omnipresent 200x-era GOP claim that running a federal budget is akin to balancing a household checkbook. Designed to be convincingly simple to state and yet extremely obnoxious to refute to a layperson. Facebook in particular probably wouldn’t even exist without backing from DARPA, the “defunct” TIA program, and a host of other spooky agencies, corporations, and individuals (Palantir and Thiel for instance). Skip over 18 years of also-damning stuff to when the public/private mask started to blatantly slip in 2020: Since then, we’ve had multiple leaks, whistleblowers, etc demonstrating overt collaboration between the government and social media companies to censor, ban, and shape narratives. Not a lawyer, don’t know how you’d frame a 1A lawsuit, but it is absolutely unacceptable that our digital public square is being operated by companies that clearly serve as “Bill of Rights Avoidance” shell corporations for the intelligence agencies and now the Executive Branch writ large. It’s like everyone forgot about Snowden. This sort of highly suspicious take should be everyone’s default position at this point, particularly in tech. And no, you absolutely cannot “just build your own Project Lifelog if you don’t like it”.

seadan83 4y ago
I don't know if I'm saying, just "build your own if you don't like it". More, if you don't like it, don't use it (eg: if you don't like Arby's, don't go there). Though, I do concede that these platforms/apps/companies are very monopoly-like and that certainly creates its own gravitational pull and challenges to competitors. Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be? I'm really suggesting that "open to the public" does not mean "public". Hence, while anyone can sign on to 'Facebook', the nature that they pay for their servers, to develop software, have a business model, etc.. does not make it a public square even if it might feel like that at times (it's a private corporation, which means nobody has a first amendment right to do whatever they want with that software - there actually is no freedom of expression in the US, just freedom from government persecution to express what you want - that is what is written in the constitution)