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The obligation on content platforms is not to allow any legally permissible message to be posted. It is to prevent any legally impermissible message from being

The obligation on content platforms is not to allow any legally permissible message to be posted. It is to prevent any legally impermissible message from being posted. Moreover, as a business, just because something’s theoretically legal, if it exposes you to a nonzero risk of being prosecuted - even if you are pretty sure you will prevail - you’re well within your rights to elect not to be the vehicle through which that bit of caselaw gets made. The claim that 90% or so of these deleted messages were ‘legally permitted’ seems to rest on a somewhat untestable hypothesis that if these platforms had left this content up, it would not have resulted in legal consequences, or if it had, the hosting platforms and posters would have been exonerated. Whether or not to make those gambles with facebook’s shareholders’ money is really facebook’s business.

Georgelemental 2y ago
If the government is passing laws that strongly incentivize censoring speech they don't like, then the government is engaging in unjust censorship, even if "officially" the speech in question remains legal. And it's our business as citizens when our governments act in a tyrannical manner.
friend_and_foe 2y ago
You've just described a mechanism for the chilling effect, and why laws like this are to be avoided in free societies. The article is basically saying the same thing, the problem isn't the behaviors of the companies, it is the "unintended" yet totally forseeable consequence of these laws. The incentives set up by these laws lead to injustice for people.
- jameshart 2y ago
  I think reasonable people can disagree about whether having your message fail to be amplified by a corporate algorithmic megaphone is an ‘injustice’.
  - friend_and_foe 2y ago
    If you believe that free people have a right to speak their opinions, which I do, any government action that hinders that is as a matter of fact an injustice. All this language about "amplification" and "platforming" is a way to get people to forget that I think.

Georgelemental 2y ago

If the government is passing laws that strongly incentivize censoring speech they don't like, then the government is engaging in unjust censorship, even if "officially" the speech in question remains legal. And it's our business as citizens when our governments act in a tyrannical manner.

friend_and_foe 2y ago

You've just described a mechanism for the chilling effect, and why laws like this are to be avoided in free societies. The article is basically saying the same thing, the problem isn't the behaviors of the companies, it is the "unintended" yet totally forseeable consequence of these laws. The incentives set up by these laws lead to injustice for people.

jameshart 2y ago
I think reasonable people can disagree about whether having your message fail to be amplified by a corporate algorithmic megaphone is an ‘injustice’.
- friend_and_foe 2y ago
  If you believe that free people have a right to speak their opinions, which I do, any government action that hinders that is as a matter of fact an injustice. All this language about "amplification" and "platforming" is a way to get people to forget that I think.