5 ms·

Hello, what right do you have to regulate the presentation of speech? If you regulate this format because it’s now considered harmful, what stops El Presidente

Hello, what right do you have to regulate the presentation of speech? If you regulate this format because it’s now considered harmful, what stops El Presidente from moving to ban “zines” because the format is “harmful to young minds” and used by “antifa”? What stops CA from moving to ban forums because threaded formats are suddenly considered “too addicting”? Maybe we should ban VR or first person shooter video games? There is no allowable constitutional authority for actions like this. CA is literally overstepping the 1A limits of the Constitution here.

post-it 4mo ago
I disagree. Looking forward to reading your amicus brief.
- iamnothere 4mo ago
  [flagged]
coldbrewed 4mo ago
We already do limit harmful speech, at presence it's limited to speech and will immediately cause harm (the whole "shouting fire" thing) and the demonstrable addiction properties can be reasonably shown as harmful. It's also telling that only corporations seem to be the ones demanding the right to infinite scroll; what's the scenario where an individual can only express themselves and their ideas through implementing infinite scroll on a social media? We draw lines in the sand all the time for the sake of public safety, I'd like to hear a specific case of harm here.
- iamnothere 4mo ago
  “Shouting fire” was a bad decision denying the right to protest the draft, and it’s since been overturned. (Thankfully, as we may need that right soon!) The First Amendment is clear: there shall be no law abridging freedom of speech. Courts have bent around that in the past, in earlier eras, but they were wrong to do so. Their mistakes have mostly been corrected although there’s still a few left. The document that governs this country spells it out: it can’t be done. Public safety be damned. There’s no public safety exemption in the Constitution. If you want it done, pass an amendment. There’s a process for it. I personally dislike infinite scroll, but I dislike the camel’s nose in the tent even more. No speech laws.
  - coldbrewed 4mo ago
    Hang on, let's go back - clarify for me how we're calling an addictive feature in a product built by the wealthiest corporations on the planet a matter of individual free speech? Precisely whose free speech would be harmed here? Seriously, this diffusion of individual liberties into corporations has no presence in the constitution, and courts have fabricated this wholesale. There is no idea, no concept, no notion that infinite scroll provides. We regulate the size, location, and brightness of billboards; is this also a matter of speech?
    - iamnothere 4mo ago
      Oh is this law’s scope limited to only the world’s largest corporations, and not smaller competitors, new entrants, individual developers, or nonprofits? I didn’t realize that. Oh is the presentation of text and images not “speech” because it’s “addictive”? I didn’t realize that. Your strategy with billboards is more clever than I’ve usually seen from you lot; I’ll give you credit for that. A billboard is actually a physical structure. The message on the billboard is the speech. If I stopped here you’d have a “gotcha”; the software must be like the billboard! But no, because first of all, code is speech, and secondly, the layout of items on the screen and how they interact is also just speech. It’s just graphic and UX design! There is no physical structure here. You’re attempting to regulate the presentation of information—design.
      - EPWN3D 4mo ago
        The 1A jurisprudence, to my understanding, basically results in the courts virtually never finding that the government has a legitimate, competing interest in limiting political speech. But courts are willing to find that certain speech that is apolitical can be limited (the previous "fire in a crowded theatre" example). Basically the courts have recognized 1A established freedom of speech to protect political dissent and political ideas. Porn, for example, has limitations that would never apply to political ideas.
        iamnothere 3mo ago
tzs 4mo ago
I doubt that this will run into any 1A issues. It will probably pass the test for allowable time/place/manner restrictions. • It is content neutral. • The government can probably show a significant government interest in reducing the harms infinite scroll often leads to. • It is narrowly tailored. It achieves the goal without burdening more speech than is substantially necessary to achieve the goal. Arguably it doesn't burden any speech since every word you can have on an infinite scroll page you can have on a paginated site. • There are alternate channels. The speakers still can get their message across. In this case they can get it across to the exact same audience in the exact same place. They just have to stick in page breaks.
- iamnothere 3mo ago
  Time/place/manner restrictions typically apply to public property. These are private websites. While the court has once or twice extended protections to people using private property as a public forum, to my knowledge they have never done so with time/place/manner restrictions.
  - 7402 3mo ago
    "No loud music between 10pm and 7am." That's on private property when it can be heard by others. Laws have all kind of restrictions on the time/place/manner of self-expression when what is being expressed has a negative effect on others. What you can't do is have laws that would say loud opera after 10pm is OK but loud Country & Western isn't.
    - iamnothere 3mo ago
      “No writing at home between 10pm and 7am.” Would that be allowed? I imagine you agree the answer is “no”. What, specifically, is the difference? Because the answer lies there. Hint: the physical world is very different from the virtual world, and has different limitations. Hint #2: if I crank up the amp to 1000db and shout into it, it’s obviously not a question of speech anymore. This is obviously an extreme example (the energetic release just destroyed the planet), so dial it back to where it’s reasonable and concerns are balanced. Are you still facing actual physical discomfort? Did you dial it back enough? Hint #3: is my nighttime writing keeping you awake in your home?
itsautocomplete 3mo ago
[flagged]
seanhunter 3mo ago
Courts already do lawfully regulate the “presentation of speech” as you’re calling it. Say facebook was to present each post surrounded by pornography for example. That’s clearly a “presentation of speech” in your framing. However courts have decided that it is possible to regulate the circumstances under which that would or would not be ok and 1A arguments have not prevailed in that case.
- iamnothere 3mo ago
  That’s more likely to be publication in itself, not presentation, but regardless porn is one of the very few areas where the courts still listen to speech arguments. However, the remaining decisions allowing (limited) regulation of porn rely on complicated, twisted reasoning—it’s clear that the justices don’t like touching this subject and feel that there are still constitutional issues here that may eventually need to be resolved via amendment. Usually this involves classifying porn in some other context, so it’s no longer “just” speech. Then the non-speech part can be regulated. Whenever they do this, they like to draw a very tight line biased towards favoring speech wherever possible, and they have consistently made it clear that they are not looking for more areas to do this kind of tightrope walking.
htek 3mo ago
First they came for the infinite scroll, and I said nothing... That was a little hyperbolic. The government already can regulate "speech" to some extent in limited, targeted ways, as this is. For example: they can (and increasingly will) require ADA accessibility standards on web and mobile sites and apps-- even private sector-- that deal with the public.
- iamnothere 3mo ago
  Can they? Why haven’t they enforced this yet? It may be that this isn’t as settled as you think when speech concerns are present. The existence of alternative accessible formats, or sufficient assistive technology in the marketplace, may be just as compliant. It’s likely that these will be favored over mandating changes that affect design or presentation, given the Court’s prior decisions on balancing speech concerns in other areas.
  - inigyou 3mo ago
    Someone would have to sue the website to get the ADA enforced
inigyou 3mo ago
btw zines are already illegal in the USA. 30 year sentence. https://culture.org/art-and-culture/thirty-years-for-a-box-of-zines-the-case-against-daniel-des-sanchez-estrada/ https://culture.org/art-and-culture/thirty-years-for-a-box-o...
- iamnothere 3mo ago
  That specific case is why I brought this up, no they aren’t illegal, this is Making Shit Up and exaggerating beyond what actually happened. But if people like you got your way, they could be made illegal.
- initatus 3mo ago
  Funny. You're citation never says what he was sentenced for, specifically.

post-it 4mo ago

I disagree. Looking forward to reading your amicus brief.

iamnothere 4mo ago
[flagged]

coldbrewed 4mo ago

We already do limit harmful speech, at presence it's limited to speech and will immediately cause harm (the whole "shouting fire" thing) and the demonstrable addiction properties can be reasonably shown as harmful. It's also telling that only corporations seem to be the ones demanding the right to infinite scroll; what's the scenario where an individual can only express themselves and their ideas through implementing infinite scroll on a social media? We draw lines in the sand all the time for the sake of public safety, I'd like to hear a specific case of harm here.

iamnothere 4mo ago
“Shouting fire” was a bad decision denying the right to protest the draft, and it’s since been overturned. (Thankfully, as we may need that right soon!) The First Amendment is clear: there shall be no law abridging freedom of speech. Courts have bent around that in the past, in earlier eras, but they were wrong to do so. Their mistakes have mostly been corrected although there’s still a few left. The document that governs this country spells it out: it can’t be done. Public safety be damned. There’s no public safety exemption in the Constitution. If you want it done, pass an amendment. There’s a process for it. I personally dislike infinite scroll, but I dislike the camel’s nose in the tent even more. No speech laws.
- coldbrewed 4mo ago
  Hang on, let's go back - clarify for me how we're calling an addictive feature in a product built by the wealthiest corporations on the planet a matter of individual free speech? Precisely whose free speech would be harmed here? Seriously, this diffusion of individual liberties into corporations has no presence in the constitution, and courts have fabricated this wholesale. There is no idea, no concept, no notion that infinite scroll provides. We regulate the size, location, and brightness of billboards; is this also a matter of speech?
  - iamnothere 4mo ago
    Oh is this law’s scope limited to only the world’s largest corporations, and not smaller competitors, new entrants, individual developers, or nonprofits? I didn’t realize that. Oh is the presentation of text and images not “speech” because it’s “addictive”? I didn’t realize that. Your strategy with billboards is more clever than I’ve usually seen from you lot; I’ll give you credit for that. A billboard is actually a physical structure. The message on the billboard is the speech. If I stopped here you’d have a “gotcha”; the software must be like the billboard! But no, because first of all, code is speech, and secondly, the layout of items on the screen and how they interact is also just speech. It’s just graphic and UX design! There is no physical structure here. You’re attempting to regulate the presentation of information—design.
    - EPWN3D 4mo ago
      The 1A jurisprudence, to my understanding, basically results in the courts virtually never finding that the government has a legitimate, competing interest in limiting political speech. But courts are willing to find that certain speech that is apolitical can be limited (the previous "fire in a crowded theatre" example). Basically the courts have recognized 1A established freedom of speech to protect political dissent and political ideas. Porn, for example, has limitations that would never apply to political ideas.
      - iamnothere 3mo ago

tzs 4mo ago

I doubt that this will run into any 1A issues. It will probably pass the test for allowable time/place/manner restrictions. • It is content neutral. • The government can probably show a significant government interest in reducing the harms infinite scroll often leads to. • It is narrowly tailored. It achieves the goal without burdening more speech than is substantially necessary to achieve the goal. Arguably it doesn't burden any speech since every word you can have on an infinite scroll page you can have on a paginated site. • There are alternate channels. The speakers still can get their message across. In this case they can get it across to the exact same audience in the exact same place. They just have to stick in page breaks.

iamnothere 3mo ago
Time/place/manner restrictions typically apply to public property. These are private websites. While the court has once or twice extended protections to people using private property as a public forum, to my knowledge they have never done so with time/place/manner restrictions.
- 7402 3mo ago
  "No loud music between 10pm and 7am." That's on private property when it can be heard by others. Laws have all kind of restrictions on the time/place/manner of self-expression when what is being expressed has a negative effect on others. What you can't do is have laws that would say loud opera after 10pm is OK but loud Country & Western isn't.
  - iamnothere 3mo ago
    “No writing at home between 10pm and 7am.” Would that be allowed? I imagine you agree the answer is “no”. What, specifically, is the difference? Because the answer lies there. Hint: the physical world is very different from the virtual world, and has different limitations. Hint #2: if I crank up the amp to 1000db and shout into it, it’s obviously not a question of speech anymore. This is obviously an extreme example (the energetic release just destroyed the planet), so dial it back to where it’s reasonable and concerns are balanced. Are you still facing actual physical discomfort? Did you dial it back enough? Hint #3: is my nighttime writing keeping you awake in your home?

itsautocomplete 3mo ago

[flagged]

seanhunter 3mo ago

Courts already do lawfully regulate the “presentation of speech” as you’re calling it. Say facebook was to present each post surrounded by pornography for example. That’s clearly a “presentation of speech” in your framing. However courts have decided that it is possible to regulate the circumstances under which that would or would not be ok and 1A arguments have not prevailed in that case.

iamnothere 3mo ago
That’s more likely to be publication in itself, not presentation, but regardless porn is one of the very few areas where the courts still listen to speech arguments. However, the remaining decisions allowing (limited) regulation of porn rely on complicated, twisted reasoning—it’s clear that the justices don’t like touching this subject and feel that there are still constitutional issues here that may eventually need to be resolved via amendment. Usually this involves classifying porn in some other context, so it’s no longer “just” speech. Then the non-speech part can be regulated. Whenever they do this, they like to draw a very tight line biased towards favoring speech wherever possible, and they have consistently made it clear that they are not looking for more areas to do this kind of tightrope walking.

htek 3mo ago

First they came for the infinite scroll, and I said nothing... That was a little hyperbolic. The government already can regulate "speech" to some extent in limited, targeted ways, as this is. For example: they can (and increasingly will) require ADA accessibility standards on web and mobile sites and apps-- even private sector-- that deal with the public.

iamnothere 3mo ago
Can they? Why haven’t they enforced this yet? It may be that this isn’t as settled as you think when speech concerns are present. The existence of alternative accessible formats, or sufficient assistive technology in the marketplace, may be just as compliant. It’s likely that these will be favored over mandating changes that affect design or presentation, given the Court’s prior decisions on balancing speech concerns in other areas.
- inigyou 3mo ago
  Someone would have to sue the website to get the ADA enforced

inigyou 3mo ago

btw zines are already illegal in the USA. 30 year sentence. https://culture.org/art-and-culture/thirty-years-for-a-box-of-zines-the-case-against-daniel-des-sanchez-estrada/ https://culture.org/art-and-culture/thirty-years-for-a-box-o...

iamnothere 3mo ago
That specific case is why I brought this up, no they aren’t illegal, this is Making Shit Up and exaggerating beyond what actually happened. But if people like you got your way, they could be made illegal.
initatus 3mo ago
Funny. You're citation never says what he was sentenced for, specifically.