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First of all, from a purely legal perspective, the first ammendment has nothing to say on whether a private company can or can't censor speech. Secondly, the a

First of all, from a purely legal perspective, the first ammendment has nothing to say on whether a private company can or can't censor speech. Secondly, the article is saying that tech companies are starting to censor speech in the USA that dictators in China or authoritarian leaders in India don't like. It is positing a slippery slope where you may one day soon be banned from Twitter globally for posting an image of Winnie the Pooh, which would be done in order for Twitter to gain and maintain access to the Chinese market.

bmelton 4y ago
> the first ammendment has nothing to say on whether a private company can or can't censor speech Yes, but the first amendment _does_ bear on whether or not a private company can or can't be compelled by the state to censor speech, which is what OP was referring to.
kneel 4y ago
Ok fair enough. Doing 3 minutes of research on this topic lead me to the Indian posters page, in which he doesn't even remember the context of his tweet and has reposted the screenshot. He has dozens of tweets discussing censorship, they're all up and available. Tbh this just sounds like incompetence rather than malevolence, which considering Musk's bungling overhaul of Twitter shouldn't surprise anyone.
- simiones 4y ago
  Very possibly, which is why I was only saying that the article is positing such a slippery slope, not that they have proved it in any way.
- matthewdgreen 4y ago
  Sufficient incompetence can be indistinguishable from malice. For example, it's possible Elon may have fired all the teams that review and push back on government complaints -- effectively ensuring that any large government can report and block tweets through a portal that has no reviewing staff. Even if true, the fact that Elon did this through ineptitude would not change the final result, namely that foreign governments can now block Tweets in the USA at will, with little oversight and pushback from Twitter. Perhaps such incompetence will be corrected. But it is definitely worrying that Twitter has continued to keep the content blocked even after multiple news articles brought it to public attention. To me that takes it from "whoopsy daisy we made a mistake" to "we do not intend to/are not capable of correcting this mistake." One can apply the principle of charity too liberally.
paxys 4y ago
The first amendment directly powers section 230 of the communications decency act which gives these companies the legal right to host whatever they want. So the first amendment has everything to do with what a private company can or cannot say.

bmelton 4y ago

> the first ammendment has nothing to say on whether a private company can or can't censor speech Yes, but the first amendment _does_ bear on whether or not a private company can or can't be compelled by the state to censor speech, which is what OP was referring to.

kneel 4y ago

Ok fair enough. Doing 3 minutes of research on this topic lead me to the Indian posters page, in which he doesn't even remember the context of his tweet and has reposted the screenshot. He has dozens of tweets discussing censorship, they're all up and available. Tbh this just sounds like incompetence rather than malevolence, which considering Musk's bungling overhaul of Twitter shouldn't surprise anyone.

simiones 4y ago
Very possibly, which is why I was only saying that the article is positing such a slippery slope, not that they have proved it in any way.
matthewdgreen 4y ago
Sufficient incompetence can be indistinguishable from malice. For example, it's possible Elon may have fired all the teams that review and push back on government complaints -- effectively ensuring that any large government can report and block tweets through a portal that has no reviewing staff. Even if true, the fact that Elon did this through ineptitude would not change the final result, namely that foreign governments can now block Tweets in the USA at will, with little oversight and pushback from Twitter. Perhaps such incompetence will be corrected. But it is definitely worrying that Twitter has continued to keep the content blocked even after multiple news articles brought it to public attention. To me that takes it from "whoopsy daisy we made a mistake" to "we do not intend to/are not capable of correcting this mistake." One can apply the principle of charity too liberally.

paxys 4y ago

The first amendment directly powers section 230 of the communications decency act which gives these companies the legal right to host whatever they want. So the first amendment has everything to do with what a private company can or cannot say.