3 ms·

The argument if I understand correctly is that they are becoming a public forum with the ability to censor public speech. Imagine this as the other extreme. Ap

The argument if I understand correctly is that they are becoming a public forum with the ability to censor public speech. Imagine this as the other extreme. Apple starts censoring your sentences at the keyboard level. How would you feel then? Just trying to say there are some interesting perspectives here.

TulliusCicero 3y ago
> The argument if I understand correctly is that they are becoming a public forum with the ability to censor public speech. Based on what bar? Because they're popular services? But why should that matter? There absolutely are a bunch of competitors available. And there's no "is a popular forum" exception in the first amendment that I've seen, people just seem to be making up this idea out of whole cloth. And the government could start its own online public forum if it wanted. If Texas and Florida feel this way, why don't they make their own truly public message board or social networking site that's free of censorship?
- trothamel 3y ago
  Because they're using 47 U.S. Code § 230 (c)(1) to avoid responsibility for what's said on their platforms. That section says: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." We're in this weird place where social media platforms want to claim that it's their speech in some cases, and not their speech in other cases, and that just seems unfair. This has been resolved in the past by phone companies and similar platforms being declared common carriers - and that's true even if there are a bunch of competitors available. Why shouldn't that be true of social media platforms?
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    They're taking the only rational position available. * Absolutely censoring nothing is an insane position to take. Even just spammers would flood such a site, let alone super extreme people like outright Nazis or KKK members. The typical person would have no interest in sharing a website with people like that, and they would flee. Very few people want to be posting on 4chan (and IIRC even 4chan has some moderation these days, underscoring the point). * On the other hand, you can't realistically expect a company to take full responsibility for every piece of user generated content immediately. There's no way to do this well at scale, other than to use algorithms to get rid of what seems like the worst stuff, and deal with the grey areas when users submit reports of bad behavior. It's not feasible for a site that lets users upload random things, resulting in millions of pieces of new content daily, to manually approve every single one.
- cheeseomlit 3y ago
  Not just popular, ubiquitous. The competitors you mention are promptly bought out by the big players, or they are massive companies themselves whos policies are indistinguishable from their competition. It's unfortunate but the network effect means everyone will coalesce to where everyone else already is, forming what is in my opinion a de-facto 'public square'. Public discourse in general becomes shaped by corporate editorial policy, to such a degree that these policies could decide the outcome of elections. On paper its a private company exercising their prerogative, in practice its corporate power being used to shape public opinion and control narratives on a scale never before seen, and its effect on our general discourse has been chilling to say the least As for the government starting its own public forum, it would meet the same fate as every other big tech competitor. I wouldn't be surprised if they got bought out.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    > forming what is in my opinion a de-facto 'public square' There is nothing in the Constitution about a "de facto public square". The first amendment concerns how the government can manage speech, and Facebook isn't the government, no matter how popular they are. If you want to make a legal argument, it needs to be grounded in reality, not something you just made up. Now if you want to argue that the current situation is fucked up and unhealthy for a society, sure, I'd probably agree. But that's not the same topic. The topic is whether these laws are Constitutional, and they very clearly are not.
    - cheeseomlit 3y ago
      The concept of a public square or public forum is what we're trying to articulate here, most of us are aware it's not provided for in constitutional language. It's only somewhat recently that it's become relevant, the amount of speech that happens on privately controlled platforms is not something that was predicted or prepared for, it's a massive paradigm shift in human relations. While the proposed laws may be unconstitutional, the grievances that motivated them are legitimate and should be addressed. I just don't think it's helpful to shut down every conversation on the topic on the grounds of constitutionality, particularly in a case like this where the 'spirit' of the constitution is IMO clearly being violated even if the literal words of it are not.
kube-system 3y ago
They've been interfering with what people type for a long ducking time now. :) But there's a lot of keyboard manufacturers out there, I think many people would buy a different keyboard if the one they had did not serve the purpose they intended it for. I don't think anything is really a common carrier unless they are or have been granted a monopoly or oligopoly over limited public resources.
- tsunamifury 3y ago
  Haha so hacker news. You know the vast majority of humanity now uses virtual keyboards embedded in the OS right. And your hardware keyboard would do nothing to stop OS level censorship.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    There are many virtual keyboards built into OSes, and many OSes, even in use by the general public. There is a very extreme difference between the ability to choose an iPhone, and being able to choose which wires are on the pole in front of your house. Common carriers are required to provide service under a special set of terms, in exchange for special and preferential treatment, like having exclusive access to public resources. That's not the case with a mobile phone, virtual keyboard, or OS. If you want to make one, go make one.
TulliusCicero 3y ago
> Apple starts censoring your sentences at the keyboard level. How would you feel then? Vindicated by my choice of operating system. But seriously, "what if <company> did monumentally stupid thing for their business?" can be asked about many sorts of things. What if Apple decides to only support Dvorak keyboards? What if Apple gets rid of all of their game-specific graphics APIs? What if Apple triples their prices overnight? Which of these should the government categorically ban businesses from doing?
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  > Which of these should the government categorically ban businesses from doing? The conventional answer within contemporary (say, post-1950) US capitalism is: nothing, unless they are a monopoly. I don't agree with this assessment, but it has many believers and even a few arguments on its side.
  - TulliusCicero 3y ago
    Correct: the government should not be micromanaging generically bad business practices unless it amounts to actual abuse of consumers/workers/the envinronment/etc. Just doing really dumb bad shit that'll result in a failing business isn't that. If Apple wants to stupidly censor people at the keyboard level and thus incite everyone to switch to Windows or Linux (or Android), well that's dumb, but doing dumb things shouldn't be generally illegal.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

> The argument if I understand correctly is that they are becoming a public forum with the ability to censor public speech. Based on what bar? Because they're popular services? But why should that matter? There absolutely are a bunch of competitors available. And there's no "is a popular forum" exception in the first amendment that I've seen, people just seem to be making up this idea out of whole cloth. And the government could start its own online public forum if it wanted. If Texas and Florida feel this way, why don't they make their own truly public message board or social networking site that's free of censorship?

trothamel 3y ago
Because they're using 47 U.S. Code § 230 (c)(1) to avoid responsibility for what's said on their platforms. That section says: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." We're in this weird place where social media platforms want to claim that it's their speech in some cases, and not their speech in other cases, and that just seems unfair. This has been resolved in the past by phone companies and similar platforms being declared common carriers - and that's true even if there are a bunch of competitors available. Why shouldn't that be true of social media platforms?
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  They're taking the only rational position available. * Absolutely censoring nothing is an insane position to take. Even just spammers would flood such a site, let alone super extreme people like outright Nazis or KKK members. The typical person would have no interest in sharing a website with people like that, and they would flee. Very few people want to be posting on 4chan (and IIRC even 4chan has some moderation these days, underscoring the point). * On the other hand, you can't realistically expect a company to take full responsibility for every piece of user generated content immediately. There's no way to do this well at scale, other than to use algorithms to get rid of what seems like the worst stuff, and deal with the grey areas when users submit reports of bad behavior. It's not feasible for a site that lets users upload random things, resulting in millions of pieces of new content daily, to manually approve every single one.
cheeseomlit 3y ago
Not just popular, ubiquitous. The competitors you mention are promptly bought out by the big players, or they are massive companies themselves whos policies are indistinguishable from their competition. It's unfortunate but the network effect means everyone will coalesce to where everyone else already is, forming what is in my opinion a de-facto 'public square'. Public discourse in general becomes shaped by corporate editorial policy, to such a degree that these policies could decide the outcome of elections. On paper its a private company exercising their prerogative, in practice its corporate power being used to shape public opinion and control narratives on a scale never before seen, and its effect on our general discourse has been chilling to say the least As for the government starting its own public forum, it would meet the same fate as every other big tech competitor. I wouldn't be surprised if they got bought out.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  > forming what is in my opinion a de-facto 'public square' There is nothing in the Constitution about a "de facto public square". The first amendment concerns how the government can manage speech, and Facebook isn't the government, no matter how popular they are. If you want to make a legal argument, it needs to be grounded in reality, not something you just made up. Now if you want to argue that the current situation is fucked up and unhealthy for a society, sure, I'd probably agree. But that's not the same topic. The topic is whether these laws are Constitutional, and they very clearly are not.
  - cheeseomlit 3y ago
    The concept of a public square or public forum is what we're trying to articulate here, most of us are aware it's not provided for in constitutional language. It's only somewhat recently that it's become relevant, the amount of speech that happens on privately controlled platforms is not something that was predicted or prepared for, it's a massive paradigm shift in human relations. While the proposed laws may be unconstitutional, the grievances that motivated them are legitimate and should be addressed. I just don't think it's helpful to shut down every conversation on the topic on the grounds of constitutionality, particularly in a case like this where the 'spirit' of the constitution is IMO clearly being violated even if the literal words of it are not.

kube-system 3y ago

They've been interfering with what people type for a long ducking time now. :) But there's a lot of keyboard manufacturers out there, I think many people would buy a different keyboard if the one they had did not serve the purpose they intended it for. I don't think anything is really a common carrier unless they are or have been granted a monopoly or oligopoly over limited public resources.

tsunamifury 3y ago
Haha so hacker news. You know the vast majority of humanity now uses virtual keyboards embedded in the OS right. And your hardware keyboard would do nothing to stop OS level censorship.
- kube-system 3y ago
  There are many virtual keyboards built into OSes, and many OSes, even in use by the general public. There is a very extreme difference between the ability to choose an iPhone, and being able to choose which wires are on the pole in front of your house. Common carriers are required to provide service under a special set of terms, in exchange for special and preferential treatment, like having exclusive access to public resources. That's not the case with a mobile phone, virtual keyboard, or OS. If you want to make one, go make one.

TulliusCicero 3y ago

> Apple starts censoring your sentences at the keyboard level. How would you feel then? Vindicated by my choice of operating system. But seriously, "what if <company> did monumentally stupid thing for their business?" can be asked about many sorts of things. What if Apple decides to only support Dvorak keyboards? What if Apple gets rid of all of their game-specific graphics APIs? What if Apple triples their prices overnight? Which of these should the government categorically ban businesses from doing?

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
> Which of these should the government categorically ban businesses from doing? The conventional answer within contemporary (say, post-1950) US capitalism is: nothing, unless they are a monopoly. I don't agree with this assessment, but it has many believers and even a few arguments on its side.
- TulliusCicero 3y ago
  Correct: the government should not be micromanaging generically bad business practices unless it amounts to actual abuse of consumers/workers/the envinronment/etc. Just doing really dumb bad shit that'll result in a failing business isn't that. If Apple wants to stupidly censor people at the keyboard level and thus incite everyone to switch to Windows or Linux (or Android), well that's dumb, but doing dumb things shouldn't be generally illegal.