4 ms·

I just don't understand this "please behave yourself" attitude. Freedom of speech is mostly about with regard to the state and government, but commercial servi

by yason 15y ago

I just don't understand this "please behave yourself" attitude. Freedom of speech is mostly about with regard to the state and government, but commercial services ought to similarly be obliged to follow its ramifications as well. Basically freedom of speech means that you have the right to shoot yourself in your foot, for better or worse. And that nobody has the right to prevent you from doing so, for better or worse. You have the right to offend people but you suffer the appropriate consequences, if any, if they decide to get offended. Google should have no say about the profile picture of the original poster: an offended individual could certainly report the picture to the police (although I personally assume that in no circumstances would there be a case). Still, it should never be Google who gets to decide this on behalf of the potential "victim".

sliverstorm 15y ago
No. Free speech is about government, not business. End of story.
- 4ad 15y ago
  Yes, businesses have very few obligations regarding free speech, in contrast to the government. That doesn't mean they should not support something just because nobody forces them to do it. It's not a question of legality, it's a question of ethics.
- harlanlewis 15y ago
  While that is true, it's hardly the end of the story. This is all a bit slipperyslopey and devilsadvocatey, and definitely a 2am runon sentence, but when businesses maintain the most extensive and authoritative identity rosters on the planet (having millions of realtime and historical data points about each individual), and those businesses serve as the primary soapbox for citizens to shout from, and the businesses increasingly act as independent states, we may need to reevaluate how we make sure those businesses behave, and we may need to expand the definition of "behave". Looking to the near-ish future: I expect Facebook to show all the "important" stories in my news feed - but as they continue to tweak what's "important", what happens if they hide everything related to a specific topic (be it Facebook redesign moaning, Ron Paul, Falun Gong...), effectively removing it from the public discourse? At the scale they currently have and will achieve, is their obligation to provide the "right" content mandated by user engagement metrics, PR, or just what advertisers will pay the most money for? What if they'd like to nudge an election? It may be user engagement metrics are all that's necessary - Google+ is doing its best to prove folks won't use what they don't like. It may be that fiddling with newsfeed content is all it takes for Facebook's future as "that thing people used for a while after MySpace" to emerge. Or maybe something else happens. All I'm saying is this isn't quite so open and shut. Oh man. I need to get some sleep before I start thinking I make any sense.
- bambax 15y ago
  This is not the end of the story. The First amendment is about government, yes -- but not "free speech" in general. Speech is not really free when you need to subscribe to a private service in order to express yourself, and those services can edict their own rules defining what can be said. A business is not free to do anything it wants. For example, a business is not free to demonstrate prejudice in hiring. Just because, as of now, businesses who are in the business of providing tools for self expression, can define their own rules as regards to how those tools are used, does not mean they will always be able to do so, nor that they should. Free speech should be enforced in private companies. My guess is, it eventually will.
  - notahacker 15y ago
    Speech is free in the sense of absence of legal restrictions on it, not in the sense of the presence of third parties obliged to unconditional bear the costs of broadcasting it. Why should Google be obliged to host and display MG Siegler's silly picture if they don't want to? Should misapplication of the First Amendment also oblige Google, at their own expense, to also deliver all spam to and from Gmail accounts, host every copyright-cleared hardcore porn video uploaded to YouTube and allow people to turn their Google Circle into the next Stormfront if it's their wish to do so? Legislation implying that permitting some forms of user- generated content on your internet property cedes all owners' rights of control of what is broadcast would have the counter-intuitive effect of killing free-speech on the internet stone dead; better to shutter the comment field than be sued by spammers for filtering them.
- ugh 15y ago
  That’s one view. It’s not the only view. In general you are, of course, correct. Constitutional rights only limit the government, not people or companies. It’s “Congress shall make no law …”, not “People and companies shall make no contract …”. But it’s not that simple. In Germany† there is the third-party or horizontal effect of constitutional rights („mittelbare Drittwirkung“). This is, for example, relevant when it comes to discrimination. The famous example you will always hear quoted if you learn about German constitutional law is the Lüth decision∆. Therein the German constitutional court decided that a call for the boycott of a movie is covered by freedom of speech and the film company can’t sue for damages. Knowing that constitutional rights in general only limit the government (and the reasons for why that is so) is a great starting point, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the conversation. I think, for example, that critical communication infrastructure needs to allow for and enable freedom of speech – and because of that it can be necessary to limit what companies responsible for this infrastructure can do to their users. The important question for me is then whether Google+ is critical communication infrastructure. I don’t think so. There are too many easily accessible alternatives. But Facebook might be … — † I’m not terribly familiar with US law. I want to have at least a half-decent understanding about what I’m talking. ∆ Wikipedia has a great article about it, sadly only in German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüth-Urteil http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüth-Urteil
zobzu 15y ago
Exactly the same as with SOPA and other laws. Police/Judge etc are there to solve such matters. No company should be allowed to do so. Not only that but judges, police and so on have specific safe guards to prevent, as much as possible, any unfair treatment or anything that would violate your human rights and/or constitutional rights. People dying and fought their whole life for us to have those safeguards. And many disregard them nowadays, or bypass them with such laws, without even bothering or feeling ashamed. That is so bad. There is a good damn f* reason for those to be at the base of all laws. That's something that should never be forgotten. I'd even say it's way more important than wars, terrorism, whatever other "never forget!" event (which are closer to "think of the children" events, in order to enforce bad stuff, to me)
DanBC 15y ago
> You have the right to offend people but you suffer the appropriate consequences, if any, if they decide to get offended. Yes. He had the right to upload the image, and Google had the right to get offended, and the consequences were that they took the image down. It's not like they put him in prison, or gave him a fine, or stopped him getting a job, or shut down his Google account. They just took down the image, with a polite explanation the second time he put it up. tl:dr their website, their rules.

by yason 15y ago

sliverstorm 15y ago

No. Free speech is about government, not business. End of story.

4ad 15y ago
Yes, businesses have very few obligations regarding free speech, in contrast to the government. That doesn't mean they should not support something just because nobody forces them to do it. It's not a question of legality, it's a question of ethics.
harlanlewis 15y ago
While that is true, it's hardly the end of the story. This is all a bit slipperyslopey and devilsadvocatey, and definitely a 2am runon sentence, but when businesses maintain the most extensive and authoritative identity rosters on the planet (having millions of realtime and historical data points about each individual), and those businesses serve as the primary soapbox for citizens to shout from, and the businesses increasingly act as independent states, we may need to reevaluate how we make sure those businesses behave, and we may need to expand the definition of "behave". Looking to the near-ish future: I expect Facebook to show all the "important" stories in my news feed - but as they continue to tweak what's "important", what happens if they hide everything related to a specific topic (be it Facebook redesign moaning, Ron Paul, Falun Gong...), effectively removing it from the public discourse? At the scale they currently have and will achieve, is their obligation to provide the "right" content mandated by user engagement metrics, PR, or just what advertisers will pay the most money for? What if they'd like to nudge an election? It may be user engagement metrics are all that's necessary - Google+ is doing its best to prove folks won't use what they don't like. It may be that fiddling with newsfeed content is all it takes for Facebook's future as "that thing people used for a while after MySpace" to emerge. Or maybe something else happens. All I'm saying is this isn't quite so open and shut. Oh man. I need to get some sleep before I start thinking I make any sense.
bambax 15y ago
This is not the end of the story. The First amendment is about government, yes -- but not "free speech" in general. Speech is not really free when you need to subscribe to a private service in order to express yourself, and those services can edict their own rules defining what can be said. A business is not free to do anything it wants. For example, a business is not free to demonstrate prejudice in hiring. Just because, as of now, businesses who are in the business of providing tools for self expression, can define their own rules as regards to how those tools are used, does not mean they will always be able to do so, nor that they should. Free speech should be enforced in private companies. My guess is, it eventually will.
- notahacker 15y ago
  Speech is free in the sense of absence of legal restrictions on it, not in the sense of the presence of third parties obliged to unconditional bear the costs of broadcasting it. Why should Google be obliged to host and display MG Siegler's silly picture if they don't want to? Should misapplication of the First Amendment also oblige Google, at their own expense, to also deliver all spam to and from Gmail accounts, host every copyright-cleared hardcore porn video uploaded to YouTube and allow people to turn their Google Circle into the next Stormfront if it's their wish to do so? Legislation implying that permitting some forms of user- generated content on your internet property cedes all owners' rights of control of what is broadcast would have the counter-intuitive effect of killing free-speech on the internet stone dead; better to shutter the comment field than be sued by spammers for filtering them.
ugh 15y ago
That’s one view. It’s not the only view. In general you are, of course, correct. Constitutional rights only limit the government, not people or companies. It’s “Congress shall make no law …”, not “People and companies shall make no contract …”. But it’s not that simple. In Germany† there is the third-party or horizontal effect of constitutional rights („mittelbare Drittwirkung“). This is, for example, relevant when it comes to discrimination. The famous example you will always hear quoted if you learn about German constitutional law is the Lüth decision∆. Therein the German constitutional court decided that a call for the boycott of a movie is covered by freedom of speech and the film company can’t sue for damages. Knowing that constitutional rights in general only limit the government (and the reasons for why that is so) is a great starting point, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the conversation. I think, for example, that critical communication infrastructure needs to allow for and enable freedom of speech – and because of that it can be necessary to limit what companies responsible for this infrastructure can do to their users. The important question for me is then whether Google+ is critical communication infrastructure. I don’t think so. There are too many easily accessible alternatives. But Facebook might be … — † I’m not terribly familiar with US law. I want to have at least a half-decent understanding about what I’m talking. ∆ Wikipedia has a great article about it, sadly only in German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüth-Urteil http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lüth-Urteil

zobzu 15y ago

Exactly the same as with SOPA and other laws. Police/Judge etc are there to solve such matters. No company should be allowed to do so. Not only that but judges, police and so on have specific safe guards to prevent, as much as possible, any unfair treatment or anything that would violate your human rights and/or constitutional rights. People dying and fought their whole life for us to have those safeguards. And many disregard them nowadays, or bypass them with such laws, without even bothering or feeling ashamed. That is so bad. There is a good damn f* reason for those to be at the base of all laws. That's something that should never be forgotten. I'd even say it's way more important than wars, terrorism, whatever other "never forget!" event (which are closer to "think of the children" events, in order to enforce bad stuff, to me)

DanBC 15y ago

> You have the right to offend people but you suffer the appropriate consequences, if any, if they decide to get offended. Yes. He had the right to upload the image, and Google had the right to get offended, and the consequences were that they took the image down. It's not like they put him in prison, or gave him a fine, or stopped him getting a job, or shut down his Google account. They just took down the image, with a polite explanation the second time he put it up. tl:dr their website, their rules.