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> the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated. Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what the

> the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated. Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.

londons_explore 3y ago
Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things... It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation" That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.
- mingus88 3y ago
  Slippery slope fallacy
  - johngladtj 3y ago
    It's not a slippery slope when that's literally the law in the EU.
    - dzader 3y ago
      [dead]
    - atoav 3y ago
      And as an EU citizen: Good 1. Corporations having "free speech" is a fucking perversion of the original purpose of that law. Corporations are not people. Governments protecting corporate rights more than individual rights is the root of a good chunk of all problems the US is having right now. 2. I expect my government to scrutinize the hell out of corporations and protect the rights of individuals. Article 1 of the European Charter of Human Rights states: the dignity of man is inviolable. People having to be at the receiving end of discrimination, racism, sexism etc. is a violation of their dignity — their rights. Rights I expect them to protect. Now I always thought of people in the US to be adamant about individual freedoms, but maybe I have been wrong and it is more about shilling for corporations and letting them divide you into small, easy to manage camps with the help of corporate media and lobbied politicians that get surprisingly rich when they are in office. Government + Corporations = Fascism And there is 99% chance you won't profit from it
      - mrguyorama 3y ago
        It upsets me that "companies shouldn't have the same rights as people" is apparently controversial in the US. A "company" is explicitly an organization that we throw a handful of benefits and handouts to as a society, like limited liability and apparently the unwillingness to punish you for crimes. Surely it's justified that this legal fiction should be held to some standards that you couldn't necessarily hold a person to. Hell, if you believe "Free speech" should apply to businesses, then "False marketing" laws should be unconstitutional! That's insane.
      - nemo44x 3y ago
        Corporations are made of people and are protected from government tyranny. This is case law. No one has a right to not be offended. Race, sex, etc are arbitrary things. Why not add weight, hair color, accent, etc to the list? No - what it means is government will respect those aspects of people and treat all with dignity. But private citizens and the organizations they build are not compelled to that standard. What you describe is totalitarian, authoritarian government that exists to oppress freedom and liberty. No danke.
        atoav 3y ago
        offended ≠ victim of a hate crime You can try to equate the two, but that says more about you than about the topic at hand.
      - dahwolf 3y ago
        And yet so-called "reverse discrimination" is widespread, normalized and even celebrated. Hate towards all men, all white people, specifically white men, straight people, "cis" people, old people, neuro-typical people, able-bodied people. The progressive narrative is that this type of discrimination doesn't count because these people are magically privileged and powerful. Letting this go completely unchecked is what is fueling a new rise in "traditional" types of discrimination. It's hate fueling more hate. If you believe in the rights of individuals, it should be based on first principles. All individuals, not just the ones you happen to like.
  - AnonCoward42 3y ago
    This is not a real counter argument or a fallacy in itself (slippery slopes do exist). It happened in other countries already (i.e. Germany) so it makes sense to assume this is happening here as well - especially with California. The real question is: What is the justification to mandate a collection of this data?
    - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
      Step 1: Thing that is happening Step 2-N: Things I made up, but I put them in quotes so they seem more impressive Step N+1: Bad thing, literally 1984 thought police
    - freejazz 3y ago
      The public's interest in knowing what the social media companies are doing to moderate their platforms. It's everything Musk complained of, not knowing about Twitter, prior to his purchasing it. A report would reasonably allow the public to come to its own conclusion whether or not these social media companies are fairly following their policies or not, or if they are targeting specific groups. It's facially clear that Musk's issue is that he doesn't want it to be revealed that he hasn't been fair, has been arbitrary, and has been boosting the groups he's been alleged to have been boosting, because this will all be inherently reflected in the report. Also likely to be reflected in the report is information that can lead people to the conclusion that Twitter use is down, which he doesn't want to reveal because it will make his decisions look stupid.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      Except the entire point and concept of government/states is that most slopes AREN'T slippery and will have a line drawn somewhere. You can't just saw "slippery slope", you have to provide evidence that there's strong public (in a democracy) and political will to continue down that slope. Even if you believe abusing Twitter is popular and wanted from democrats (it isn't), it sure as hell isn't popular for the entire nation.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - fwungy 3y ago
    Slippery slope only applies as a critique when the its spurious. In this case the precedent of government required reporting leading to regulation is very well established.
JackFr 3y ago
> It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing. And what possible interest does the State of California have in gathering this information? It's close enough to have a chilling effect, and thus the state should have to provide a justification.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Ar-Curunir 3y ago
  LOL, if we left everything to companies, they wouldn't even report the list of ingredients they put in your food. I get that governments can overreach, but not all constraints on private entities are bad.
  - JackFr 3y ago
    Yes, there is an obvious public health interest in food labelling. I feel that the compelling interest is not obvious here, and given that the law is not censorship, but lives in the same zip code as censorship, the state should demonstrate a public interest being served that would withstand 1st amendment scrutiny.
- atoav 3y ago
  One possible interest: You are living in a democracy. Social media has shown that there are strong tendencies to support abolishment of democracy (or how it is also called: fascism). It is expected of a government to resist against any tendencies to abolish democratic rule and peaceful transition of power. That is the single most important task given to a government by us. And soley for that purpose we often allow them to wear a big stick — why? Because outside of democratic rule the law is a arbitrary set of words that can be interpreted by the ruling class in any way they please and that isn't good for the individual, unless you are foolish enough to believe you'd end up in that ruling class (that is 50% of the appeal of fascism). Now as a government would have any right to forcefully resist coup attempts and such, it can (and does) also restrict certain social movements that aim for its abolishment. Usually this happens more on the left than on the right tho, remember the whole communism craze in the US?

> the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated. Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.

londons_explore 3y ago

Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things... It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation" That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.

mingus88 3y ago
Slippery slope fallacy
- johngladtj 3y ago
  It's not a slippery slope when that's literally the law in the EU.
  - dzader 3y ago
    [dead]
  - atoav 3y ago
    And as an EU citizen: Good 1. Corporations having "free speech" is a fucking perversion of the original purpose of that law. Corporations are not people. Governments protecting corporate rights more than individual rights is the root of a good chunk of all problems the US is having right now. 2. I expect my government to scrutinize the hell out of corporations and protect the rights of individuals. Article 1 of the European Charter of Human Rights states: the dignity of man is inviolable. People having to be at the receiving end of discrimination, racism, sexism etc. is a violation of their dignity — their rights. Rights I expect them to protect. Now I always thought of people in the US to be adamant about individual freedoms, but maybe I have been wrong and it is more about shilling for corporations and letting them divide you into small, easy to manage camps with the help of corporate media and lobbied politicians that get surprisingly rich when they are in office. Government + Corporations = Fascism And there is 99% chance you won't profit from it
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      It upsets me that "companies shouldn't have the same rights as people" is apparently controversial in the US. A "company" is explicitly an organization that we throw a handful of benefits and handouts to as a society, like limited liability and apparently the unwillingness to punish you for crimes. Surely it's justified that this legal fiction should be held to some standards that you couldn't necessarily hold a person to. Hell, if you believe "Free speech" should apply to businesses, then "False marketing" laws should be unconstitutional! That's insane.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      Corporations are made of people and are protected from government tyranny. This is case law. No one has a right to not be offended. Race, sex, etc are arbitrary things. Why not add weight, hair color, accent, etc to the list? No - what it means is government will respect those aspects of people and treat all with dignity. But private citizens and the organizations they build are not compelled to that standard. What you describe is totalitarian, authoritarian government that exists to oppress freedom and liberty. No danke.
      - atoav 3y ago
        offended ≠ victim of a hate crime You can try to equate the two, but that says more about you than about the topic at hand.
    - dahwolf 3y ago
      And yet so-called "reverse discrimination" is widespread, normalized and even celebrated. Hate towards all men, all white people, specifically white men, straight people, "cis" people, old people, neuro-typical people, able-bodied people. The progressive narrative is that this type of discrimination doesn't count because these people are magically privileged and powerful. Letting this go completely unchecked is what is fueling a new rise in "traditional" types of discrimination. It's hate fueling more hate. If you believe in the rights of individuals, it should be based on first principles. All individuals, not just the ones you happen to like.
- AnonCoward42 3y ago
  This is not a real counter argument or a fallacy in itself (slippery slopes do exist). It happened in other countries already (i.e. Germany) so it makes sense to assume this is happening here as well - especially with California. The real question is: What is the justification to mandate a collection of this data?
  - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
    Step 1: Thing that is happening Step 2-N: Things I made up, but I put them in quotes so they seem more impressive Step N+1: Bad thing, literally 1984 thought police
  - freejazz 3y ago
    The public's interest in knowing what the social media companies are doing to moderate their platforms. It's everything Musk complained of, not knowing about Twitter, prior to his purchasing it. A report would reasonably allow the public to come to its own conclusion whether or not these social media companies are fairly following their policies or not, or if they are targeting specific groups. It's facially clear that Musk's issue is that he doesn't want it to be revealed that he hasn't been fair, has been arbitrary, and has been boosting the groups he's been alleged to have been boosting, because this will all be inherently reflected in the report. Also likely to be reflected in the report is information that can lead people to the conclusion that Twitter use is down, which he doesn't want to reveal because it will make his decisions look stupid.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    Except the entire point and concept of government/states is that most slopes AREN'T slippery and will have a line drawn somewhere. You can't just saw "slippery slope", you have to provide evidence that there's strong public (in a democracy) and political will to continue down that slope. Even if you believe abusing Twitter is popular and wanted from democrats (it isn't), it sure as hell isn't popular for the entire nation.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- fwungy 3y ago
  Slippery slope only applies as a critique when the its spurious. In this case the precedent of government required reporting leading to regulation is very well established.

JackFr 3y ago

> It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing. And what possible interest does the State of California have in gathering this information? It's close enough to have a chilling effect, and thus the state should have to provide a justification.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Ar-Curunir 3y ago
LOL, if we left everything to companies, they wouldn't even report the list of ingredients they put in your food. I get that governments can overreach, but not all constraints on private entities are bad.
- JackFr 3y ago
  Yes, there is an obvious public health interest in food labelling. I feel that the compelling interest is not obvious here, and given that the law is not censorship, but lives in the same zip code as censorship, the state should demonstrate a public interest being served that would withstand 1st amendment scrutiny.
atoav 3y ago
One possible interest: You are living in a democracy. Social media has shown that there are strong tendencies to support abolishment of democracy (or how it is also called: fascism). It is expected of a government to resist against any tendencies to abolish democratic rule and peaceful transition of power. That is the single most important task given to a government by us. And soley for that purpose we often allow them to wear a big stick — why? Because outside of democratic rule the law is a arbitrary set of words that can be interpreted by the ruling class in any way they please and that isn't good for the individual, unless you are foolish enough to believe you'd end up in that ruling class (that is 50% of the appeal of fascism). Now as a government would have any right to forcefully resist coup attempts and such, it can (and does) also restrict certain social movements that aim for its abolishment. Usually this happens more on the left than on the right tho, remember the whole communism craze in the US?