4 ms·

Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. However, not everyone posting on social is a citizen, or even human, and they should be

Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. However, not everyone posting on social is a citizen, or even human, and they should be able to block non-citizens. This has been the single consistent problem with social media. [1] However, citizens harassing them in real life can be handled by the police, what is the social media equivalent that doesn't block them outright?

chrischen 4y ago
Maybe disallow anonymous or only allow pseudo anonymous interaction?
- naasking 4y ago
  That's one possibility, but pseudonmyous is the default on Twitter now unless you pay for the privilege. It's a tricky problem. We want some degree of anonymity but that also invites abuse. We need something like a zero-knowledge proof of citizenry, at the very least.
btown 4y ago
This gets murky. How is a pseudonymous account, where I schedule posts, different from a bot account, legally? Should I lose rights to information just because my “main” account doesn’t have my full name and face?
- bilbo0s 4y ago
  Well, I mean, how else can we prove that a slimeball politician is blocking his constituents unless we can identify the constituents blocked. A politician in Wisconsin shouldn't be able to block Wisconsinites in his constituency, but I can see where it'd be legal for him to block Nebraskans. Fundamental to attribution here is determining the one from the other. Courts of law are generally sticklers about that sort of thing.
- papito 4y ago
  I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random handle on the Internet.
  - naasking 4y ago
    > I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random handle on the Internet. I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random telephone number that's calling my office. I am not blocking a person, I am throwing out all mail from a random mailing address in my district.
    - papito 4y ago
      You get one mailing address that is verifiably yours. You get one phone number that is verifiably yours. I can whip out my phone right now and create 1000 of fake me. I know what you did there, but - no joy.
      - naasking 4y ago
        You can have multiple mailing addresses and phone numbers. It's not even uncommon. Plenty of people still have a home phone number and a cell phone. As for fake profiles, see my original post re: the "single consistent problem with social media".
blululu 4y ago
Applying the heuristics of physical interaction to online interaction is usually fraught with issues. But if we are taking the physical analogy, as a model for online interaction then I would point out that people have a range of options before calling the cops and getting a restraining order. For starters, they can simply walk away. You can definitely ignore someone in physical space: we don't expect congress people to listen to everyone heckling them in a restaurant.
- naasking 4y ago
  > But if we are taking the physical analogy, as a model for online interaction then I would point out that people have a range of options before calling the cops and getting a restraining order. For starters, they can simply walk away. What I said was in the context of someone visiting the representative's office. You can make all sorts of comparable analogies, like calling them on the phone, or mailing them a letter. Can't "walk away" from your own office, so the police would be involved in extreme cases of threats or abuse.
WaitWaitWha 4y ago
Besides the online anonymity others have noted... Define harassment. Unfortunately you cannot use established legal or historical dictionary definition. As anecdotal examples why not, someone smashed their neighbor's car windows because they were "harassed" by parking on the street front of their house; harassed because lawn was cut on Friday afternoon, when they had kid's birthday party; harassed because couple laid out in their own back yard in their bathing suits. I was told I am harassing someone because the material I was reading on my laptop for work, in-flight. Flight attendant was called, and told that I am violent and harassing the person next to me. That they are afraid for their life. (It was a delightful experience; I got moved to first class.)
- danaris 4y ago
  I'm not sure why the existence of people who attempt to redefine "harassment" as "upsetting or inconveniencing me in any way" means one cannot use the established legal or dictionary definitions of it when attempting to draw guidelines and laws for conduct in online spaces...? Like, I'm sure that there are loopholes and gray areas in the dictionary and legal definitions; the English language is woefully inadequate to fully convey the breadth of human experience. But nothing you've described falls into that category.
- singleshot_ 4y ago
  Actually we can use the legal definition. In fact, we do. (To be sure, we must).
papito 4y ago
Right. I can understand making it illegal to delete your posts as a public servant. That applies to YOU, but I don't see how not being able to block a troll in Portugal posing as someone else is helpful. There is no standard for verification in social media.
groby_b 4y ago
>>> Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. I think both the question within the context of current law, and the wider question of "what should be true, beyond current law" is a very interesting one that deserves more thought than a simple "it should not be possible" On the face of it, it sounds like a noble principle. But even if we sidestep the issue of harassing, it raises the question why it should be so. If it is about the citizen being heard by the representative? That's not happening anyways. For a reasonably powerful representative, a social media coordinator will likely pre-filter what they see (and should - I'd like my representatives to work, not read their twitter feed all day) If it is about having a public voice, you can reasonably argue that being blocked by an individual doesn't deprive you of your public voice, even if you can't talk to a single specific person via a single specific medium. If it is about having the platform granted by being in front of the wider audience the representative has, I'm not sure that currently is a guaranteed right, and I'm not sure it needs to or should. The one point I find most naturally resonating is the idea that public representatives should be afforded limited to no ability speaking to a semi-public audience without a recording of what they said. This would suggest shadow-banning instead of blocking as the most useful tool. You can of course argue that it's the state censoring a private citizen, but I'm not sure that holds in current circumstances. The state is allowed to censor in many well-circumscribed circumstances based on harm vs benefit. And even if we accept that this is censorship, we still have the second important question, does a representative speaking on social media function as an individual, or as a representative of the state. (And I'd expect that if we pick door number two here, we'll sooner or later get to interesting questions like "can you commingle private and public function", and more specifically "can you commingle governmental and campaign function") There's a lot of (important) nuance that gets lost when we phrase this in terms of absolutes.
- naasking 4y ago
  > If it is about the citizen being heard by the representative? That's not happening anyways. For a reasonably powerful representative, a social media coordinator will likely pre-filter what they see (and should - I'd like my representatives to work, not read their twitter feed all day) Your representative should not be permitted to block your phone number, or forbid you from visiting their office, or forbid you from visiting a town hall they're hosting, or any other venue or activity open to the public, without some court order due to a history of abuse or harassment. Their social media account is a comparable medium of communication open to the public.
steveBK123 4y ago
Right, but not every "should" needs a law behind it. One must be mindful of how a law would be enforced, before creating it.. and if it makes sense in the context of consistency with existing law. If blocking a constituent on Twitter is illegal, can they mute them? Must they leave their Twitter & IG DMs open? What about the absence of an account on a social media platform, is that allowed? Are thy allowed to have a spam filter on their email inbox? Can they ignore "Spam Likely" flagged calls on their iPhone? Does someone in their office have to go to through the spam flagged items in iMessage & WhatsApp? How many communication methods are they legally mandated to have openly available to constituents? Does each need to be enumerated in law?
- naasking 4y ago
  > How many communication methods are they legally mandated to have openly available to constituents? I'm going off of a hazy memory here, but if some means of communication or some venue hosting a representative is open to the public, it must be open to all, modulo restraining orders and the like.

chrischen 4y ago

Maybe disallow anonymous or only allow pseudo anonymous interaction?

naasking 4y ago
That's one possibility, but pseudonmyous is the default on Twitter now unless you pay for the privilege. It's a tricky problem. We want some degree of anonymity but that also invites abuse. We need something like a zero-knowledge proof of citizenry, at the very least.

btown 4y ago

This gets murky. How is a pseudonymous account, where I schedule posts, different from a bot account, legally? Should I lose rights to information just because my “main” account doesn’t have my full name and face?

bilbo0s 4y ago
Well, I mean, how else can we prove that a slimeball politician is blocking his constituents unless we can identify the constituents blocked. A politician in Wisconsin shouldn't be able to block Wisconsinites in his constituency, but I can see where it'd be legal for him to block Nebraskans. Fundamental to attribution here is determining the one from the other. Courts of law are generally sticklers about that sort of thing.
papito 4y ago
I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random handle on the Internet.
- naasking 4y ago
  > I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random handle on the Internet. I am not blocking a person, I am blocking a random telephone number that's calling my office. I am not blocking a person, I am throwing out all mail from a random mailing address in my district.
  - papito 4y ago
    You get one mailing address that is verifiably yours. You get one phone number that is verifiably yours. I can whip out my phone right now and create 1000 of fake me. I know what you did there, but - no joy.
    - naasking 4y ago
      You can have multiple mailing addresses and phone numbers. It's not even uncommon. Plenty of people still have a home phone number and a cell phone. As for fake profiles, see my original post re: the "single consistent problem with social media".

blululu 4y ago

Applying the heuristics of physical interaction to online interaction is usually fraught with issues. But if we are taking the physical analogy, as a model for online interaction then I would point out that people have a range of options before calling the cops and getting a restraining order. For starters, they can simply walk away. You can definitely ignore someone in physical space: we don't expect congress people to listen to everyone heckling them in a restaurant.

naasking 4y ago
> But if we are taking the physical analogy, as a model for online interaction then I would point out that people have a range of options before calling the cops and getting a restraining order. For starters, they can simply walk away. What I said was in the context of someone visiting the representative's office. You can make all sorts of comparable analogies, like calling them on the phone, or mailing them a letter. Can't "walk away" from your own office, so the police would be involved in extreme cases of threats or abuse.

WaitWaitWha 4y ago

Besides the online anonymity others have noted... Define harassment. Unfortunately you cannot use established legal or historical dictionary definition. As anecdotal examples why not, someone smashed their neighbor's car windows because they were "harassed" by parking on the street front of their house; harassed because lawn was cut on Friday afternoon, when they had kid's birthday party; harassed because couple laid out in their own back yard in their bathing suits. I was told I am harassing someone because the material I was reading on my laptop for work, in-flight. Flight attendant was called, and told that I am violent and harassing the person next to me. That they are afraid for their life. (It was a delightful experience; I got moved to first class.)

danaris 4y ago
I'm not sure why the existence of people who attempt to redefine "harassment" as "upsetting or inconveniencing me in any way" means one cannot use the established legal or dictionary definitions of it when attempting to draw guidelines and laws for conduct in online spaces...? Like, I'm sure that there are loopholes and gray areas in the dictionary and legal definitions; the English language is woefully inadequate to fully convey the breadth of human experience. But nothing you've described falls into that category.
singleshot_ 4y ago
Actually we can use the legal definition. In fact, we do. (To be sure, we must).

papito 4y ago

Right. I can understand making it illegal to delete your posts as a public servant. That applies to YOU, but I don't see how not being able to block a troll in Portugal posing as someone else is helpful. There is no standard for verification in social media.

groby_b 4y ago

>>> Elected representatives should not be able to block real citizens [1]. I think both the question within the context of current law, and the wider question of "what should be true, beyond current law" is a very interesting one that deserves more thought than a simple "it should not be possible" On the face of it, it sounds like a noble principle. But even if we sidestep the issue of harassing, it raises the question why it should be so. If it is about the citizen being heard by the representative? That's not happening anyways. For a reasonably powerful representative, a social media coordinator will likely pre-filter what they see (and should - I'd like my representatives to work, not read their twitter feed all day) If it is about having a public voice, you can reasonably argue that being blocked by an individual doesn't deprive you of your public voice, even if you can't talk to a single specific person via a single specific medium. If it is about having the platform granted by being in front of the wider audience the representative has, I'm not sure that currently is a guaranteed right, and I'm not sure it needs to or should. The one point I find most naturally resonating is the idea that public representatives should be afforded limited to no ability speaking to a semi-public audience without a recording of what they said. This would suggest shadow-banning instead of blocking as the most useful tool. You can of course argue that it's the state censoring a private citizen, but I'm not sure that holds in current circumstances. The state is allowed to censor in many well-circumscribed circumstances based on harm vs benefit. And even if we accept that this is censorship, we still have the second important question, does a representative speaking on social media function as an individual, or as a representative of the state. (And I'd expect that if we pick door number two here, we'll sooner or later get to interesting questions like "can you commingle private and public function", and more specifically "can you commingle governmental and campaign function") There's a lot of (important) nuance that gets lost when we phrase this in terms of absolutes.

naasking 4y ago
> If it is about the citizen being heard by the representative? That's not happening anyways. For a reasonably powerful representative, a social media coordinator will likely pre-filter what they see (and should - I'd like my representatives to work, not read their twitter feed all day) Your representative should not be permitted to block your phone number, or forbid you from visiting their office, or forbid you from visiting a town hall they're hosting, or any other venue or activity open to the public, without some court order due to a history of abuse or harassment. Their social media account is a comparable medium of communication open to the public.

steveBK123 4y ago

Right, but not every "should" needs a law behind it. One must be mindful of how a law would be enforced, before creating it.. and if it makes sense in the context of consistency with existing law. If blocking a constituent on Twitter is illegal, can they mute them? Must they leave their Twitter & IG DMs open? What about the absence of an account on a social media platform, is that allowed? Are thy allowed to have a spam filter on their email inbox? Can they ignore "Spam Likely" flagged calls on their iPhone? Does someone in their office have to go to through the spam flagged items in iMessage & WhatsApp? How many communication methods are they legally mandated to have openly available to constituents? Does each need to be enumerated in law?

naasking 4y ago
> How many communication methods are they legally mandated to have openly available to constituents? I'm going off of a hazy memory here, but if some means of communication or some venue hosting a representative is open to the public, it must be open to all, modulo restraining orders and the like.