[HN Gopher] Social Media First Amendment Cases
___________________________________________________________________
Social Media First Amendment Cases
Author : Mjadams
Score : 64 points
Date : 2024-02-26 17:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.lawfaremedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.lawfaremedia.org)
| btilly wrote:
| It isn't often that I see a case which really could change the
| internet. Particularly eye-opening was
| https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22-277/292540/2023... -
| an amicus brief from the moderators of the subreddits r/law and
| r/SCOTUS. It brought home how different a world with laws like
| this could be. And I had to laugh at pages 15-22. "We aren't
| going to argue the law. We're just going to show you the content
| that we are moderating." Followed by screenshots of attacks, many
| of them death threats, aimed at the Supreme Court. That's one way
| to get a judge's attention!
|
| Arguments were heard yesterday. Luckily
| https://www.npr.org/2024/02/26/1233506273/supreme-court-soci...
| suggests that the justices were skeptical of the Florida and
| Texas laws.
|
| Arguments are being heard today.
| https://www.oyez.org/cases/2023/22-555 links to a current
| recording.
| michaelt wrote:
| Wow, that's a great find! You don't even have to read beyond
| the table of contents:-
|
| _> TABLE OF CONTENTS [...]
|
| > ARGUMENT ............... 6
|
| > Amici Censor Irrelevant and Inappropriate Speech to Cultivate
| Healthy Online Communities Built on Common Interests. This
| Includes Removing Death Threats Aimed at Members of This Court.
| ........... 9
|
| > Amici Could Be Sued for Censoring Internet Trolls Who Are
| Calling for the Execution of Supreme Court Justices. ........
| 19
|
| > Those Who Are "Censored" by Amici Can Speak Elsewhere.
| ........... 22_
| japhyr wrote:
| That was a fantastic read. My favorite excerpt:
|
| > These laws are not about protecting speech. They're about
| politicians ensuring that a favored constituency has access to
| someone else's megaphone to spread a message
|
| I was a high school teacher for a long time. When explaining to
| students how I facilitated discussion in the classroom, I
| talked with them about the idea of the loudest voice. If you
| don't moderate a discussion thoughtfully, it will be taken over
| by the few people with the loudest voices.
|
| We see this same dynamic all the time in online communities.
| Moderators quiet the loudest voices so everyone else can have a
| meaningful conversation. These laws are aimed at letting the
| loudest people shout everyone else down, so the people trying
| to hold onto power can't be challenged.
| sanity wrote:
| > They're about politicians ensuring that a favored
| constituency has access to someone else's megaphone to spread
| a message
|
| I think this is an inaccurate characterization. Over the past
| 20 years content creators were encouraged to use and invest
| in building an audience on these platforms based on the tacit
| understanding that they would behave like content neutral
| common carriers. If the platform's willingness to abuse this
| power had been apparent from the start they would never have
| become so powerful.
|
| People created their own "megaphones" over many years only
| for the platform to start dictating to them how they can
| communicate with the audiences they've built, often based on
| naked political animus. It was a bait and switch - a fraud.
|
| That said, having listened to most of the oral arguments I
| think SCOTUS will strike down these laws.
|
| The fundamental problem is that the Internet centralizes
| power in a small number of corporations which then become
| ripe for capture by powerful interests, whether political,
| ideological, or commercial.
|
| IMO the ultimate solution is a decentralized Internet like
| https://freenet.org/ that doesn't require creators to hand
| over control of their voices to powerful third parties.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Over the past 20 years content creators were encouraged to
| use and invest in building an audience on these platforms
| based on the tacit understanding that they would behave
| like content neutral common carriers.
|
| That's a strong assertion. Do you have any _evidence_ to
| back that up?
|
| AIUI, the _law_ governing this (at least in the US -- which
| is relevant since we 're discussing US state laws being
| challenged in the courts) is the Communications Decency Act
| of 1996[0], with section 230[1] of that law being the
| pointy end of the stick WRT these particulars. I would also
| point out that the above serves as a front-end (in that it
| allows the courts to reject lawsuits misdirected at
| platforms, when they should be directed at the source of
| the speech) to the First Amendment[2].
|
| Please detail where, exactly, any of the above supports the
| claim that "content creators were encouraged to use and
| invest in building an audience on these platforms based on
| the tacit understanding that they would behave like content
| neutral common carriers."
|
| Perhaps I'm missing something important (which is certainly
| possible) and I'd appreciate being enlightened. As such, I
| look forward to your response.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Decency_Act
|
| [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-
| referre...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_Un
| ited_...
|
| Edit: Cleaned up prose.
|
| Additional Edit: I'm responding to [3] below as I am
| apparently rate limited and wanted to make sure I was clear
| in what I'm trying to say as I am pretty passionate about
| it:
|
| That's as may be, and I remember it fondly too.
|
| However, it wasn't by government or the law that "content
| creators were encouraged to use and invest in building an
| audience on these platforms..."
|
| Rather it was those platforms themselves. It would be easy
| for me to just say "sucker! you've been rooked!" and leave
| it at that.
|
| However, I'll (attempt to) respond substantively by saying
| that the surveillance capitalism[4] business model was
| still nascent and there were many more options for
| interpersonal interaction back then.
|
| It was inevitable that after the consolidation of "social"
| media that advertiser influence (since they're actually the
| customers -- not you) would be paramount to these
| platforms.
|
| And that's what drives the moderation/censorship folks are
| complaining about -- because advertisers don't want to be
| associated with anything controversial, they just want you
| to buy their products/services and (the advertisers and the
| platforms as well as various middlemen) collect (ala [4])
| as much information about you as they can to aid in that
| process.
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39527216
|
| [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism
| hamhock666 wrote:
| I think to most people on the internet in the early
| 2000s, it was unthinkable that content on the major
| platforms would be censored based on political content. I
| don't think there is any evidence for that, it's more of
| a general feeling, and the fact that political censorship
| took off in the next decade.
|
| If these platforms had started out censoring particular
| political content, they would not have had the same mass
| adoption, or there may have been more free-speech
| competitors.
| sanity wrote:
| Agreed, the overt political censorship didn't start until
| the mid-2010s, over a decade after today's tech giants
| solidified their dominant positions.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| I'd potentially reverse this: 'overt' political
| censorship didn't start until certain creators started to
| market their otherwise objectionable content as
| "political" as a way to bypass existing moderation
| policies.
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's App Store. It all started with the App Store.
| Zak wrote:
| Advertisers are also considerably more picky about the
| content they're willing to be associated with, and
| considerably more influential with regard to the content
| most people see online than they were 20 years ago.
| Advertiser demands have produced rapid policy changes
| from the likes of Youtube and Reddit where other forms of
| pressure have had little effect.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I agree with the person you're responding to, that the
| assertions you're making here don't seem to be supported
| by the evidence:
|
| As one of those people in question, it was never
| unthinkable. Even during the 2000's, it was common to ban
| people from MSN chatrooms. Before that, it was common to
| ban people from IRC channels, individual IRC servers, or
| even entire IRC networks. Did the GNAA have a right to
| "be platformed" indefinitely wherever they wanted?
|
| Also, the "censorship" in question more often deals with
| things like insults and other incivility, spamming, death
| threats, etc. _Not_ mere "political" speech. I doubt
| many folks were banned from /r/SCOTUS for politely saying
| _" I politically disagree with this ruling"_. We see via
| screenshots in the amicus the sort of stuff that was
| _actually_ moderated.
|
| Indeed, the "censorship" which spawned these laws was the
| banning of a dude actively calling for violent
| insurrection against the government, and receiving it,
| and continuing to encourage it _during_ the violent
| insurrection. That 's the "political speech" the bill
| authors had in mind when drafting it. It's possible that
| the "censorship" in question is all that stopped the
| putsch from succeeding. One can see why fans of said dude
| and his insurrection were so upset by that.
| hamhock666 wrote:
| I think you're right that people have been banned from
| things as long as the internet has been around. However
| more tools exist today to censor, things like AI
| generating and reading subtitles for YT demonetization
| and algorithm deranking.
|
| If someone makes a threat on a person or groups life
| online, or doing something illegal, then I agree it
| shouldn't be allowed. But censorship today goes far
| beyond that.
|
| The purpose of the platform matters. MSN chats (group
| chats?) and sub-reddits are smaller places presumably set
| up by another user for a specific purpose. I have no
| problem with people being banned/censored for whatever
| reason from these smaller forums.
|
| I have an issue with censorship when the platform is
| generic, not dedicated to a particular topic or group,
| like Twitter, YouTube, or Reddit as a whole. When one or
| more dominant third party platforms censor the same
| people, it has an effect similar to that of government
| censorship.
|
| I also think the censorship will backfire, because by
| being shut down, it gives power to the ideas being
| censored. "There must be a reason they are shutting down
| discussion. They have no real answer to it!"
|
| I agree that online harassment is ugly, but I still
| believe in absolute free speech on these generic
| platforms. The best solution to all of this would be to
| have block lists that people could opt-in or out of.
| Don't want to see something? Subscribe to the block list.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> more tools exist today to censor, things like AI
| generating and reading subtitles for YT demonetization
| and algorithm deranking_
|
| I don't see how that justifies the government compelling
| you or I or IRC chanops or subreddit moderators or
| Twitter admins to say what the government wants us to
| say. None of those were used to ban the former president
| when he was engaging in the "political speech" of
| inciting a violent insurrection and encouraging it while
| it was happening.
|
| _> If someone makes a threat on a person or groups life
| online, or doing something illegal, then I agree it
| shouldn't be allowed. But censorship today goes far
| beyond that._
|
| And yet, the speech the government is trying to compel
| here includes, but is not limited to: insults; slurs;
| obscenity; spam; inciting violence; inciting
| insurrection; death threats; and more.
|
| _> The purpose of the platform matters_
|
| Does it, though? That seems like an arbitrary line drawn
| to avoid logical inconsistencies. Who defines what the
| purpose is? Who defines how it matters?
|
| _> The best solution to all of this would be to have
| block lists that people could opt-in or out of. Don't
| want to see something? Subscribe to the block list._
|
| Is it, though? This part of the post you replied to,
| bears repeating:
|
| _> Indeed, the "censorship" which spawned these laws
| was the banning of a dude actively calling for violent
| insurrection against the government, and receiving it,
| and continuing to encourage it during. That's the
| "political speech" the bill authors had in mind when
| drafting it. It's possible that the "censorship" in
| question is all that stopped the putsch from succeeding._
|
| Blocklists wouldn't have prevented it. If you or I or
| Twitter don't want to aid and abet violence and
| insurrection, the government should not be able to compel
| us to do so.
| sanity wrote:
| >>Over the past 20 years content creators were encouraged
| to use and invest in building an audience on these
| platforms based on the tacit understanding that they
| would behave like content neutral common carriers.
|
| > That's a strong assertion. Do you have any evidence to
| back that up?
|
| I was there, I remember it. I co-founded a pioneering but
| ultimately unsuccessful online video company around 2006
| called Revver that had to deal with moderation issues
| quite early on, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Video were our
| competitors. The idea that we would use this power in a
| politically biased way never occurred to us, it was
| _obvious_ that it would be unacceptable, it was
| unconscionable.
|
| And we weren't the exception, we were the norm that
| included companies like YouTube and Reddit. I think
| anyone working on a user-generated content startup at
| that time would tell you the same thing.
| creato wrote:
| > I co-founded a pioneering but ultimately unsuccessful
| consumer-facing video company around 2006 called Revver
| that had to deal with moderation issues quite early on.
| The idea that we would use this power in a politically
| biased way never occurred to us, it was obvious that it
| would be unacceptable, it was unconscionable.
|
| In 2006, the internet was probably dominated by western
| audiences. Now, the user base of any large social media
| site includes much more of the world, including groups
| like Hamas, ISIS, etc. and they would absolutely claim
| their content is political.
| sanity wrote:
| > In 2006, the internet was probably dominated by western
| audiences. Now, the user base of any large social media
| site includes much more of the world, including groups
| like Hamas, ISIS, etc. and they would absolutely claim
| their content is political.
|
| After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious
| concern - but most people seemed to understand that
| freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't
| like.
|
| For example, just a year after 9/11 the New York Times
| published a letter by Osama bin Laden explaining his
| views and motivations. That's almost impossible to
| imagine today (when apparently the NYT will fire a writer
| for admitting they like Chick-fil-A).
| vkou wrote:
| > After 9/11 radicalization on the Internet was a serious
| concern - but most people seemed to understand that
| freedom of speech meant tolerating speech you didn't
| like.
|
| Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student lounge.
|
| You've forgotten how everyone else lost their mind in
| 2001, and rallied behind a folksy strongman, and his
| cabal of stooges, useful idiots, and bad Boyars.
|
| Most people at the time seemed to believe that finding
| and exterminating every terrorist (Alleged or otherwise)
| the government could get its hands on would be the only
| way we could remain free. They hate us for our freedom,
| and all that. Things like the PATRIOT act have support
| outside the nerd-sphere, and the NSA revelations were a
| nothingburger to most people, and torturing people in Abu
| Ghraib and Gitmo, well, they are all guilty anyways.
|
| The only reason those views and motivations get any
| airtime is so they can be attacked (without opportunity
| for debate or rebuttal). Had his values and goals had
| been less comically antithetical to ours, or if he wasn't
| condemned by his own actions as an irredeemable monster
| (which further damns anything he has to say), you
| wouldn't have seen a whiff of them. We only hit those we
| can beat.
| sanity wrote:
| > Maybe in the filter bubble of a comp sci student
| lounge.
|
| My example of the NYT publishing Osama bin Laden had
| nothing to do with comp sci student lounges, can you
| imagine they NYT publishing something like that today?
| The equivalent might be an op-ed by Vladimir Putin, it
| wouldn't happen. The views of the legacy media have
| shifted dramatically on free speech over the past two
| decades, particularly over the past 8 years.
| philipkglass wrote:
| By the time the United States Senate held its "Jihad 2.0"
| hearing in 2015 [1], social media companies were already
| working to prevent ISIS and other terrorist groups from
| spreading their messages or media. If there was any
| pressure from government and the general public, it was
| to the effect that social media companies weren't
| censorious _enough_ regarding this sort of content.
|
| I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of
| preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent
| lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting
| it. But I don't think that YouTube should be legally
| _required_ to keep hosting an ISIS video that is
| technically legal under the First Amendment, and I also
| understand that my preference is unpopular. I 'd be
| surprised if more than 10% of Americans agreed with me
| when I say that an ISIS member should be able to publish
| repugnant, bigoted, propagandistic, even _violent_ videos
| so long as those videos are legal under First Amendment
| standards.
|
| I personally want minimal filtering on this sort of
| content because:
|
| 1) I'm in no danger of actually being recruited to a
| terrorist cause.
|
| 2) Primary sources, like combat videos from the Syrian
| civil war (including propaganda videos that compile such
| clips) can provide more information about ongoing
| conflicts, combatants, and world events than general
| purpose news outlets can provide.
|
| I think that most people are against dissemination of
| this sort of content because point 2 is irrelevant to
| them (they're not news junkies closely following armed
| conflicts) and, stochastically speaking, a few people who
| see terrorist propaganda videos will be persuaded to take
| up terror. Or maybe it's even less calculating: the
| reasoning could be as simple as "ISIS has a disgusting
| ideology, and disgusting ideologies shouldn't get free
| speech considerations."
|
| The extreme breadth of speech protected under the First
| Amendment is more than what the median American wants
| protected, and spans more than what social media
| companies want to provide hosting for. High minded
| commitments to free speech like news outlets publishing a
| letter by Osama bin Laden in 2002 [3] are more notable
| for their rarity than for exemplifying a general standard
| of the time.
|
| [1]
| https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/hearings/jihad-20-social-
| media-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio
|
| [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_the_American_
| People
| jcranmer wrote:
| > I personally fall on the "maximal free speech" side of
| preferences. If an ISIS video isn't calling for imminent
| lawless action [2], then I don't want YouTube deleting
| it.
|
| An online video is almost by definition incapable of
| being incitement to imminent lawless action. The
| threshold for this magic phrase is roughly along the
| lines of leading a mob and saying "there is <member of
| outgroup>, lynch them." Pretty much anything short of
| that is constitutionally-protected free speech under the
| First Amendment, and it's virtually impossible for an
| internet video to be sufficiently imminent for the
| purposes of incitement to imminent lawless action.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't realize that the "imminent"
| component disqualified recordings. I would have thought
| that an exhortation to do something lawless as soon as
| you hear the message would count. Something like "Here's
| the home address of a Senator who called for military
| action against the Islamic State -- go burn his house
| down now!"
| jcranmer wrote:
| > I would have thought that an exhortation to do
| something lawless as soon as you hear the message would
| count.
|
| That is almost literally the opposite of what Brandenburg
| v Ohio held! (Many people tend to do this: they assume
| that the phraseology is meant to limit speech along the
| lines of Schenck v US or Whitney v California, what is
| now known as the "clear and present danger" standard,
| which is what Brandenburg v Ohio was explicitly
| overturning.)
|
| Brandenburg v Ohio held that advocating violent overthrow
| of the government is free speech, but you need the very
| direct link between the speech and the illegal actions
| for the speech to become illegal. The emphasis in
| "incitement to imminent lawless action" of Brandenburg is
| meant to be "imminent", and later court cases have
| generally held that "imminent" is meant to be read in
| very short timespans.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> stochastically speaking, a few people who see
| terrorist propaganda videos will be persuaded to take up
| terror_
|
| Empirically speaking, we saw more than a few of these
| people on January 6th.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Over the past 20 years content creators were encouraged
| to use and invest in building an audience on these
| platforms based on the tacit understanding that they would
| behave like content neutral common carriers.
|
| Beyond what the other (excellent) comment had to say about
| this, why does what content creators may have believed mean
| fuck-all in terms of what these cases are arguing? Nobody
| would have used Facebook if they thought Facebook would
| "censor" them?
|
| And besides that, your assertion that it's a bait and
| switch implies that all these creators would've been able
| to foster the exact same followings using, what, their own
| websites? Accounts on different social networks? Dubious at
| best. A lot of the aforementioned creators benefited
| strongly from the network effects of those platforms and
| the algorithms bringing their content to new followers.
| It's likely if they didn't grow up on whichever platform
| they picked, they wouldn't have grown at all.
| sanity wrote:
| > why does what content creators may have believed mean
| fuck-all in terms of what these cases are arguing?
|
| I didn't say it did, I acknowledged that SCOTUS would
| probably rule against the TX and FL laws. I'm talking
| about the broader context.
|
| > Nobody would have used Facebook if they thought
| Facebook would "censor" them?
|
| I think if people knew then what they know now about how
| these platforms would behave starting around 2015 they
| would have had a much more difficult time achieving their
| dominant positions, there would have been _far_ more
| skepticism.
|
| Of course it's hard to prove a counterfactual but that's
| my view having been a small part of it.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > I think if people knew then what they know now about
| how these platforms would behave starting around 2015
| they would have had a much more difficult time achieving
| their dominant positions, there would have been far more
| skepticism.
|
| Maybe. The polarization of the country has increased
| significantly since the covid era.
|
| Plus most of this censorship discourse really only occurs
| at the edges. 99% of my meatspace social network cares
| about seeing puppy vidoes or whatever Taylor Swift has to
| say. Exactly zero of them have any expectation that their
| posts will ever be censored because they don't post
| anything oppositional.
|
| I think that, even with censorship, void a real
| alternative competitor, the networks would have grown all
| the same. The only difference is maybe TruthSocial or
| Rumble would have spun off a few years earlier.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I'd support Freenet if it wasn't for their massive CSAM
| problem. I absolutely hate that I know what "PTHC" stands
| for.
|
| Maybe it's changed. I haven't touched Freenet since...I
| think 2010? I just remember seeing index pages with links
| to tons of sites on Freenet, and a considerable number of
| them were links to CSAM.
|
| Nope. Deleted that. Ain't gonna be a part of that.
| sanity wrote:
| I find that surprising, even in 2010 it was difficult to
| find illegal content on Freenet unless you were looking
| for it - and certainly in recent years it's virtually
| impossible, the default indexes are carefully vetted.
|
| In any case, the original Freenet was never going to be a
| general-purpose replacement for today's centralized
| services as it can only handle static content. For the
| past few years we've been working on a sequel to Freenet
| that is much more general-purpose, you can learn about it
| at https://freenet.org/. While the original Freenet was
| analagous to a decentralized hard drive, the new Freenet
| is like a decentralized computer.
|
| As part of it we're building a decentralized reputation
| system (based on a "web of trust") to address
| illegal/offensive/objectionable content.
| at_a_remove wrote:
| I'm guessing it isn't Parent-Teacher Home Conference.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| Not to embarrass you doing a nearly effortless Google
| search for the answer, but it's clearly Percutaneous
| transhepatic cholangiography /s [1]
|
| On a more serious note - part of me really wants to know,
| and a much larger part of me doesn't.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percutaneous_transhepat
| ic_chol...
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Amusingly, I nearly had that procedure done.
| duskwuff wrote:
| For better or worse, the answer to your question is in
| the header of the Wikipedia page you linked.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| The half of HN without proper impeccable impulse control
| are probably on a list now. You could have said "hate
| that I learnt lingo used by abusers, just by being on
| Freenet".
|
| For those wondering, the initialism relates to extreme
| child abuse. And now I too get to wish I hadn't looked.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| FWIW, I am relatively certain a good chunk of HN users
| are marked as "mostly harmless" already. In other words,
| we are all on the list. We just have different tags:D
|
| edit: Or at least, if I was responsible for running IC,
| we would all be on the list with appropriate tags.
| Thankfully, I am not.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Mike Masnick wrote the speed run guide to content
| moderation here: https://www.techdirt.com/2022/11/02/hey-
| elon-let-me-help-you...
|
| In short, the problem is that there is no universally
| agreed-upon definition of "problematic" content. No matter
| what definition you think is reasonable for moderation,
| there will both be people who complain that it is too
| permissive and people who complain that it is too
| restrictive. At a large enough scale, people on both
| extremes of the spectrum will be complaining about your
| moderation policies--and at very large scales, there will
| be politicians to listen to them!
| sanity wrote:
| There's definitely a slippery slope when you start with
| centralized moderation, which seems to be the article's
| central argument.
|
| With the new Freenet, we're using a decentralized
| moderation system that lets users control what they see
| or don't see, based on sensible defaults. This builds on
| a concept from the original Freenet called web-of-
| trust[1]. I believe this method, combined with the fact
| that centralized censorship is impossible in the new
| Freenet due to its lack of centralized control, offers a
| strong alternative.
|
| [1] https://github.com/hyphanet/plugin-
| WebOfTrust/blob/master/de...
| echelon wrote:
| > In short, the problem is that there is no universally
| agreed-upon definition of "problematic" content.
|
| I got banned from my city's subreddit for making a mild
| criticism about crime once. Now I'm shut off from events,
| networking, etc.
|
| I'm from the southeast, which is a conservative area of
| the country. The internet I grew up on had thicker skin,
| wasn't trigger happy with banning, and because of that I
| was exposed to ideas and perspectives that I wouldn't
| have ordinarily been in contact with. People didn't have
| a disgruntled disposition that immediately banned
| opposing views on sight, so I was able to soak in so much
| information.
|
| Expressly because of this, I was able to change my shape
| from a conservative kid into a well-rounded moderate. I
| don't think I could replicate this experience easily on
| today's internet. People are divided into factions and
| are quick to mute and ban those they disagree with. (The
| rage-centric algorithms also heighten confrontational
| language and showdowns, but that's another issue.)
|
| Censorship almost always leads to imbalanced power
| dynamics and gatekeeping. It's become a tit-for-tat tool
| of retaliation and playing "gotcha". People enjoy
| digitally flicking each other off by banning them. It's
| super fucked.
|
| Filtering is important, but we should have protocols for
| that where individuals have complete control and
| discretion. I don't know how that's supposed to work on
| platforms that are wholly controlled by profit-seeking
| corporations, but maybe legislation can craft a way
| forward.
|
| I really hope we don't dive deeper into the censorship
| rabbit hole. It genuinely terrifies me more than any
| other issue facing humanity.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > In short, the problem is that there is no universally
| agreed-upon definition of "problematic" content. No
| matter what definition you think is reasonable for
| moderation, there will both be people who complain that
| it is too permissive and people who complain that it is
| too restrictive.
|
| But this is rather the point. What you need is a wall
| between hosting and discovery.
|
| Alice has some rather controversial things to say, Bob
| wants to hear about them and Caren doesn't. So Bob and
| Caren should be using different filtering systems that
| they can choose for themselves. What _shouldn 't_ happen
| is that Alice gets banned from the internet or shadow
| banned on a dominant platform with a network effect just
| because Caren doesn't like her, because Caren should only
| be deciding for Caren and not Bob.
|
| This doesn't mean Caren has to design her own filtering
| system. She can use someone else's. But she should have a
| _choice_ in which one to use, _independent of the
| underlying platform_ , and so should Bob.
|
| Right now we tie the filtering system to the thing with
| the network effect and then have Zuckerberg or Musk
| deciding for everybody when it should be everybody
| deciding for themselves.
| firejake308 wrote:
| The problem is that it's an awful lot of work for
| everyone to decide for themselves, and I don't think the
| average user is going to care enough to build their own
| moderation algorithm. They'll just complain and move on
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > _This doesn 't mean Caren has to design her own
| filtering system. She can use someone else's._
|
| There can be one filter that only blocks spam and scams,
| another that blocks conservatives, another that blocks
| spam, scams and celebrity gossip, another that only shows
| technical content etc. You open the config options and
| pick one, like you choose an ad blocker or a radio
| station. If you don't like it you pick a different one.
| It shouldn't be that hard.
| nradov wrote:
| What you say is true only in an idealized fantasy world. We
| might sometimes get close to that ideal in small communities
| such as a classroom. But in the real world, moderators on
| large online platforms constantly abuse their power to push
| preferred narratives and suppress dissent rather than
| facilitating meaningful conversations.
| fallingknife wrote:
| But this doesn't fundamentally change the situation. It just
| effectively makes the moderator the loudest voice. This is
| not necessarily a bad thing, e.g in your classroom example
| with a teacher moderating a bunch of kids works very. When it
| is the executives of a few large corporations moderating
| everybody, I'm not so sure.
| saurik wrote:
| I think there is a big difference between "I am using Twitter
| and thereby I expect random people to get my tweets promoted
| by their algorithm" and "I am using Twitter and expect that
| the people who actively went out of their way to follow me
| will get to see my content" or even "I am using Twitter and
| expect that the data I gave them in trust to store won't
| arbitrarily be deleted without first attempting to return it
| to me" (along with a minimum retention period and potentially
| some requirement to hand over the data to the state rather
| than destroy it... note that these are the kinds of
| requirements we legally place on rental storage agreements).
| Most of the functionality of these social media platforms are
| NOT similar to a forum, and if I chose to follow someone it
| makes no sense for me to whine about the things they say: I
| can and should just unfollow them.
| almatabata wrote:
| In person two people cannot talk at the same time hence one
| person can monopolize the discussion unless moderated.
|
| The same thing does not necessarily happen on social media,
| at least not in the same way. Two people can talk and post at
| the same time without preventing each other from
| communicating to their audience. And you can filter obnoxious
| users should you wish to do so.
|
| But if the platform bans people or deletes posts because they
| discuss things they disagree with politically, you prevent
| the audience from accessing content they might find
| interesting. In this case the moderation is trying to
| shutdown the debate not really facilitating it.
|
| You need moderation, but the big platform have clearly shown
| that they have trouble resisting the temptation of abusing
| it.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Somewhat ironic considering the mods of those subs have
| deliberately banned anyone who disagrees with their political
| slant and stickied a post at the top of one of them stating
| words to the effect of "this is not the place to be wrong and
| belligerent about it."
|
| But I guess a bunch of people that full of themselves are full
| enough of themselves to think that SCOTUS is going to care
| about an amicus written by a bunch of anonymous Internet
| people. Sure, they moderate death threats, but they also
| moderate away anything they might have to disagree with. And
| then pull stunts on the order of "I'll reinstate your account
| if you write a 500-word essay on why you're wrong."
| rdtsc wrote:
| > In their briefs responding to Texas and Florida, the platforms
| argued that both laws infringe on their First Amendment rights by
| preventing them from exercising editorial discretion--which they
| view as protected expressive conduct--in deciding when and how to
| disseminate speech. The platforms asserted that the laws would
| prevent them from removing problematic content, such as terrorist
| propaganda.
|
| Interesting take. So the platforms, as entities, want them some
| first amendment speech rights. And of course, it's all been about
| the terrorists. Thank you Google, Facebook and others, for keep
| us safe from those villains.
| lgleason wrote:
| If they want editorial discretion, then they are
| publishers...no section 230. If they want to be common carriers
| then they should not be making editorial decisions.
|
| Ironically, if they had not taken steps as egregious and
| suspending the account of the current president of the US these
| laws would never have been considered by FL or TX.
| dingnuts wrote:
| section 230 does allow platforms the ability to remove
| unwanted content
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| This seems so obviously correct to me. The issue seems to be
| big companies wanting to have it both ways and screwing
| everyone else.
| michaelt wrote:
| Imagine if you time-travelled back to 2002, before Reddit and
| Facebook, when the internet had thousands of unconnected
| phpBB forums.
|
| I happen to think the Porsche Cayenne is an ugly midlife-
| crisis-mobile driven by assholes. Should the Porsche Owners
| Club phpBB forum be permitted to censor my speech, when I
| want to share my opinion that Cayenne owners can suck a fat
| one?
|
| In 2002 the answer would be obvious - it's no problem if they
| censor me, there's like 1000 other forums I can go to.
|
| Are things really so different these days?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It shouldn't matter even if there truly is nowhere else for
| you to go. There were zero forums in 1860 and yet we still
| figured out how to call each other race traitors in
| pamphlets. The first amendment right is to not have the
| government police your speech (often nowadays extended
| beyond speech to influence), it does not give you a
| positive right to force anyone else to spread your speech.
|
| More than that, forcing someone else to spread your speech
| when they don't want to is a DIRECT violation of their
| first amendment right, of the "government forcing you to
| say things" kind.
|
| You cannot make "free speech is an ideal" without breaking
| someone else's free speech.
| ryandrake wrote:
| These companies want their cake and they want to eat it, too.
| They want to be treated as a publisher when it comes to
| making editorial decisions, but they also want to be treated
| as a dumb pipe when it comes to liability for the content
| that they publish. They're Schrodinger's Forums: Both
| publishers and non-publishers, depending on which one helps
| them.
| icandoit wrote:
| The point of 230 was to eliminate the "publisher"
| distinction. Otherwise, you can't eliminate spam withouth
| accepting liability for whatever psycho comments.
|
| If anyone wants to delete spam or kick people off their own
| servers, why should they be denied?
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-
| platform-...
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >If they want editorial discretion, then they are
| publishers...no section 230. If they want to be common
| carriers then they should not be making editorial decisions.
|
| If any post in this discussion called for it, this one
| does[0][1].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697823 (9 January,
| 2021 -- 439 points, 304 comments)
|
| [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-
| referre...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| What, particularly, was egregious about suspending the
| account of someone who violated their TOS a hundred times
| over?
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| My concern, ultimately, is what's going to happen when these laws
| are introduced and a republican congress continues to pursue a
| rejection of Section 230?
|
| So social media platforms are no longer able to censor any
| content posted to their sites (outside of specific cases), but
| are also liable for what users post to their platform?
|
| If I was a conspiracy theorist I'd say these actions are
| specifically to make social media itself inhospitable in a legal
| sense. What company wants to take the risk of not being able to
| moderate user-generated content but are also legally responsible
| for that same content?
| cuckatoo wrote:
| Do we need to protect the social media platforms? Do they even
| add value to society?
| dingnuts wrote:
| I'm sure the spooks agree that information was a lot easier
| to control when it was just ABC, NBC, and CBS
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Do you think this would stop at the big boys like Facebook
| and Twitter?
|
| What about Reddit? If I post a story in r/AITAH that the
| other person discovers, this opens Reddit up to a possible
| libel lawsuit if the other person thinks I'm not being
| truthful. Do you think that's a risk that Reddit's legal
| department will let them take? I highly doubt it. Do you
| think unpaid volunteer mods want to be legally liable if they
| remove a post for violating guidelines?
|
| Let's go another level deeper, your neighborhood's Nextdoor
| forum. If Susan from down the road starts saying I slept with
| her husband to bad mouth me on the app, I could not just sue
| Susan for libel, but I can also include Nextdoor in the
| lawsuit. Do you think Nextdoor's legal team will allow that?
| Again, nope. But Nextdoor wouldn't be able to remove Susan's
| post because it would be "silencing her freedom of speech".
| So instead, Nextdoor takes the logical legal decision to
| completely remove any user-generated posts, effectively
| killing their product.
|
| And another level deeper, some random classic car forum with
| maybe 100 users per month. What do they do? I think you get
| the hint.
|
| This isn't just going to affect social media platforms. This
| will affect all platforms that allow users to post in any
| capacity, text, photos, videos, links, etc.
| simpletone wrote:
| > Do they even add value to society?
|
| Your presence here is your answer. Why are you here if social
| media doesn't provide any value?
|
| You'd have to be braindead to not understand the immense
| value social media has added to society. But like all things,
| social media has it's negative aspects. But just because
| social media isn't perfect, doesn't mean it has no value. As
| I said, your presence here is proof of that.
| tarxvf wrote:
| I guess I'm braindead.
|
| Their presence here does not indicate they value their time
| here in a net-positive way. It offers no proof whatsoever.
|
| They could be addicted. FOMO could drive them to
| compulsively check the site. It might be their only social
| interaction at all during the workday. This might be the
| only group of people on the internet with similar
| interests.
|
| None of those things would necessarily make it a net-good
| thing, if it also has negative repercussions that outweight
| the benefits. Many drugs, legal and illegal, are fairly
| harmful. Sometimes the benefits are worth the negatives.
| Sometimes they are very firmly not. Much of the anti-
| social-media position is about social media being addicting
| and net-harmful.
|
| I personally don't see the immense value that you see. I've
| seen some value for some specific sites for some short,
| specific times. My grandma could interact with some of her
| grandkids for a short while on Facebook, for instance. Of
| course, she (or we) used to just pick up the phone, which
| is what happens now too. I've seen some cool projects on HN
| I'd otherwise likely never have seen. Otherwise I'm drawing
| a blank.
| simpletone wrote:
| > I guess I'm braindead.
|
| Lets see shall we.
|
| > None of those things would necessarily make it a net-
| good thing
|
| Who is talking 'net' here? The commenter simply
| questioned whether social media added any value to
| society. To deny social media has provided any value to
| society is as braindead as denying that fossil fuels
| added value to society. Now whether the negatives
| outweight the positives ( aka net value ) is an entirely
| different question.
|
| > My grandma could interact with some of her grandkids
| for a short while on Facebook, for instance. Of course,
| she (or we) used to just pick up the phone, which is what
| happens now too. I've seen some cool projects on HN I'd
| otherwise likely never have seen.
|
| Oh so it does provide value. So you are agreeing with me
| then?
|
| > Otherwise I'm drawing a blank.
|
| You aren't braindead. You are disingenuous. So you never
| asked for or search for information on reddit, hn,
| stackoverflow, etc. You never found solutions to problems
| on tiktok, youtube, etc? You don't know anyone who found
| a job via hn, linkedin, etc? Bought or sold stuff on
| facebook, etc?
|
| If you believe that the negatives of social media
| outweigh the positives of social media, then fine. That's
| your opinion. But to cavalierly dismiss or deny that
| social media provides value to society is being
| disingenuous at best or braindead at worst. Or more
| likely agenda driven nonsense.
|
| Your comment reminds me of this excellent monty python
| clip: What have the romans done for us?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ
| lgleason wrote:
| This is why we can't have nice things. The social media
| platforms took things too far. Most republicans would be in
| favor of the platforms not being liable for content if they
| don't censor. Most and both political sides would probably also
| agree that they should be taking steps to protect minors from
| child predators etc., and that was the intent behind 230
| protections. The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is
| was initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against
| people who's politics they don't agree with. Obviously with
| that kinds of a loophole 230 was not well thought out from that
| regard and would need a re-write.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is was
| initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against
| people who's politics they don't agree with.
|
| So what? And I mean that quite seriously.
|
| To clarify, I despise the big social media platforms and
| refuse to use them even if that inconveniences me (and
| occasionally it does). At the same time, those platforms have
| the same free speech rights that I do, and curtailment of
| _their_ free speech (and property) rights (in this case, the
| right _not_ to publish /amplify the speech of others) also
| curtails _my_ free speech (and property) rights.
|
| And since I want to protect my own rights, I support the
| _right_ of those rapacious scumbags to moderate /censor on
| their own _private property_.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| If platforms are going to be editors then they don't need
| section 230 protection.
| someuser2345 wrote:
| You're right, these companies do have the right to censor
| speech that they disagree with. However, if they do that,
| then they are responsible for any speech that they do not
| censor. So for instance, if someone posts a libelous
| statement on Reddit, and Reddit doesn't remove that
| statement, then victim of libel should be allowed to sue
| Reddit directly, instead of just suing whoever made that
| post.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I think I'd agree if the circumstances are the same, and
| on request a libel was not taken down for you when it was
| for other people. The same circumstances including being
| on the same subreddit, being caught by the same auto-
| filter, being notified in the same way, at least.
|
| So, for example if libel against you wasn't caught by a
| particular filter then that's not bias against you, and
| so they are not party to the libel (unless you can show
| the filter was specifically designed to fail to catch
| libels against you).
| Analemma_ wrote:
| > The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is was
| initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against
| people who's politics they don't agree with.
|
| So what? You're taking it as a given that "if a website
| moderates content in a way I don't like, the government must
| step in and force them to do moderation in a different way I
| do like"; I don't accept that premise at all, it's quite
| totalitarian in both concept and real-world execution.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| So it turns out, inconveniently, "Children need protection
| from predators" and "People need protection from bigots" are
| two sides of the same coin.
|
| It's all politics and it always was. Claiming one is "common
| sense" and one is "political" misses what "political" means.
|
| I think S230 set a pretty good tone in biasing in favor of
| the right of the service owner to set the tone over-and-above
| within the constraints of the law (for a simple practical
| reason: if you don't give them that right, they'll just stop
| providing the service). But that does mean that when your
| provider decides that, say, debating the humanity of trans
| folks is no longer acceptable, we toe the line there or we
| start our own service.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Thanks for your input on this, especially for S230. I never
| understood the concept that a private business has to
| entertain or host content that they do not want on their
| site.
|
| If a friend invited me to their house I can start calling
| their wife a fat cow and tell them how ugly I think their
| children are. It doesn't mean they have to put up with it
| or accept that sort of speech on their private property.
| That doesn't mean he censored me or inhibited my freedom of
| speech.
| tiltowait wrote:
| Well, did your friend invite you there saying his house
| was a place for you to share your mind?
|
| For me, it's an issue of scale. Your friend is a single
| person (or family). Twitter is a gigantic, faceless
| corporation (okay, Elon Musk makes it less faceless, but
| you know what I mean) that tries to cater to everyone--in
| effect, it tries to be a commons. Can we consider it one?
| Should we? Should we make a law that says once a social
| media company gets to a certain size, it can't censor
| anything anymore if that content is legal?
|
| I'm generally against additional regulation. I don't
| think, for instance, a small pro-life forum should be
| forced to allow pro-choice people to spew vitriol, nor
| vice versa. I'm hesitant to say the same for a giant
| company like Twitter or Facebook. There, I think it might
| be more appropriate to have comprehensive filtering and
| self-moderation tools vs. shutting people out completely
| (assuming their behavior is legal).
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| A lot of these issues stem from the fact that, until
| recently, society has never had to grasp these issues.
| Our laws are not equipped to handle these sorts of
| questions. Especially when that question ultimately is
| "When does a private company become a public service and,
| therefore, must abide by the laws and regulations
| applicable to all public services?"
|
| My statements, while I myself do not necessarily agree
| with them, are what I view as possible when operating
| within the current legal framework our government has
| built for these private companies.
|
| To me, if the government wants to hold a private company
| to the standard of a public service, then that private
| company must fully, legally, and entirely become
| (somewhat) a public service. I view that as becoming a
| service similar to the United States Post Office.
|
| It's allowed to continue to operate as a company but has
| to comply with government regulations (whatever those may
| be). That also means that its goal is not profit
| generation. It can still charge users for certain
| services if it wishes but is no longer able to sell user
| data, and it must remain revenue-neutral.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| This is a fair analogy but I think it could go further:
| your friend shouldn't be required to take what you say,
| print it out, and hand copies to everyone else that comes
| in to their house. They can say no, you can't do this
| here and I won't repeat it.
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Most Republicans want to censor just different things, just
| look at all the book bannings across the country. There are
| tons of things that lefty people complain about being
| censored on social media but we don't here about it because
| left-wing media is nowhere near as powerful as right-wing
| media. (The main lie in a lot of these discussions is that
| corporate media is lefty.)
| kmeisthax wrote:
| CDA 230 exists because the Wolf of Wall Street was trying to
| censor evidence of his crimes. He got one ruling against
| Prodigy saying moderation makes you liable for defamation;
| and another from Compuserve saying no moderation means no
| liability.
|
| Let me be very clear about how the law would work sans CDA
| 230: any time someone does not like what you are saying, they
| can sue the platform you host it on to get you censored. The
| only platforms resistant to this would be ones full to
| bursting with spam. This is already really bad. If you want a
| partial repeal, i.e. one where platforms are still allowed to
| "protect minors from child predators", I'm not sure that'll
| pass muster at SCOTUS. Selectively removing speech
| protections based on content is a no-go.
|
| Furthermore, platforms being able to take down political
| speech they disagree with is not a "loophole". That's just
| what moderation _is_. The whole point of a moderator is to
| silence the loudest voices, so that others may speak.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Section 230 was written without limitation on the kind of
| censorship allowed because it was an end-run around
| Constitutional prohibition of government content favoritism
| that had destroyed previous censorship laws and waa
| (correctly) suspected would endanger much of the rest of the
| law it was incorporated into.
|
| If you want to allow the kind of private censorship S230 was
| intended to protect, and stay within the First Amendment,
| S230 is what you get.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| 230 isn't a loophole, it's a requirement for any business on
| the web. You cannot even have product reviews without
| something like 230.
| vik0 wrote:
| >to make social media itself inhospitable
|
| I see nothing wrong with that. Social media has done nothing
| but harm its users, and people that know its users (or:
| everybody)
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| > Social media has done nothing but harm its users
|
| _Nothing_? I don 't think it's that cut and dry. While there
| has been harm, no doubt, there has been a lot of positives
| too (maintaining connections, thoughtful conversations, etc).
| NavinF wrote:
| Then why did you write this comment on HN (an example of
| social media)?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Then why are you writing here on this social media and
| harming people?
|
| Social media is such a big part of modern communications,
| that arguing against it is like arguing against telephone
| lines or the printing press. There's a lot to criticise the
| owner companies for, including how social media can harm
| people and infamously promote and accelerate genocide, such
| as Facebook is accused of having done in Myanmar. But the
| same accusations can be levied against any means of
| communication and publishing technology.
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| Thanks for your comment here on the social media site, Hacker
| News!
|
| I think we have to reorient ourselves on what counts as
| social media. It's not just Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
| It's forums like Hacker News, it's comment sections on your
| favorite blogs you frequent. It's the products available on
| Etsy or a small creator's personal Shopify store.
|
| Free speech isn't just about photos and text, it covers all
| forms of expression.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| We used to just call these forums. Social media is a subset
| of forum where the posts are presented in a personally
| curated timeline of some kind.
| Goronmon wrote:
| I would argue forums are just a subset of social media.
| "Social media" being the high level umbrella for
| platforms where users interact. Differentiated from
| platforms which are "read-only".
| vik0 wrote:
| I knew I would get the replies that I got. It reminds me of
| this meme: https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/647/Scr...
| tekla wrote:
| Why single out Republicans?
|
| The Democrats hate Section 230 as much as the republicans.
| michaelt wrote:
| The Florida and Texas laws were both passed by Republican
| legislatures. And Biden and Obama have not yet been banned by
| Twitter.
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| what?
| DoodahMan wrote:
| i share your tinfoilery: the goal is to erode public discourse
| on the internet, censorship (self or otherwise), and so on.
| hellojesus wrote:
| > My concern, ultimately, is what's going to happen when these
| laws are introduced and a republican congress continues to
| pursue a rejection of Section 230?
|
| It's not a mystery. Look what happened when sesta/fosta became
| law. Craigslist had to dump their entire personal section for
| fear they miss a single ill intentioned post.
|
| The consequence of 230 removal is only to destroy the ability
| for people to interact with one another publicly online unless
| one of them (or the platform) is willing to take on liability
| for the interaction.
| troyvit wrote:
| > As distasteful as this content may be, it is protected by the
| First Amendment. But that protection only extends to government
| actors. Amici are private actors, and the forums they control are
| private forums. Those who are censored are free to make their own
| websites to host their speech. They are not free to hijack
| amici's websites.
|
| This is the crux of so much happening on the internet right now.
| Users treat our largest providers like google like public
| resources similar to roads, and governments want to treat our
| largest forums like twitter and facebook like government entities
| beholden to the same rules they are.
|
| Neither is true, and to me it points to the massive impact our
| largest companies have been able to achieve. It seems larger than
| what the law has words for.
|
| I don't know what the answer is.
| dingnuts wrote:
| the answer is probably standards and thoughtful regulation to
| enforce them, but the chances that today's Congress can produce
| those things are slim to none imho
| vik0 wrote:
| What is thoughtful to you is likely not to be thoughtful to
| somebody else
|
| What is generally accepted as thoughtful in one world region,
| will likely not be considered to be generally thoughtful in
| another world region
|
| Furthermore, the concept of "thoughtfulness" may not exist in
| some world regions -in fact, it may be a concept in a
| minority of world regions
|
| Should these thoughtful regulations (whatever they may be)
| only apply to denizens of a certain region or regions, or
| everybody in the world?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Uh, they should apply to the 350 million Americans that
| this government represents.
|
| What is your point? Iran is free to tell Google to take a
| hike if Google censors their calls to violence. Germany is
| free to tell id software to remove the swastikas or hit the
| road.
|
| This isn't hard. Don't pretend it is.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Just build a Gestapo this time with proper controls and
| oversights. That's weird, but if there are multiple mob
| groups doing the same, some even foreign, that's a threat
| to any free nation and their power shall be transferred to
| rightful governments.
|
| dc: not a US person
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Just build a Gestapo this time with proper controls and
| oversights
|
| Where Poe's and Godwin's laws intersect.
| sanity wrote:
| > Amici are private actors, and the forums they control are
| private forums
|
| Except we now know through the twitter files and other
| disclosures that government agencies were intimately involved
| if not the driving force behind much of the censorship,
| although this isn't relevant to the SCOTUS case.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| The answer is simple: if the USSC would be against
| nationalizing these services, then they should also be against
| attempting to restrain their ability to moderate their own
| content. Nobody with even a pair of brain cells can logically
| conclude that actors like Google and Facebook have ever been
| either benign or neutral, nor should courts pretend that an
| inability to understand those facts should be burdens for said
| networks.
|
| Just because, as Chaya Raichik complained the other day, that
| she should be able to say what she wants because "there's no
| law against lying," doesn't mean that platforms have to
| necessarily allow harmful bullshit either.
| troyvit wrote:
| I think I'm down for this in the abstract, but that's because
| I'm not a powerful voice that has been censored by one of
| these big players, and I also am glad for most of the
| censorship I've seen them do.
|
| But if I step out of my shoes and look at Trump for instance,
| does he have a legitimate grievance for being kicked off of
| Twitter if he actually _did_ think that he fairly won the
| election and was deplatformed because he tried to speak about
| it?
|
| If Twitter at the time was as powerful as a government in
| regulating speech ... should it have to follow the same
| rules? If the playing field for social media was more level,
| it wouldn't be an issue. He can just go to another provider
| and have his speech.
|
| Still, re-reading what you said I have to agree that the end
| goal should be people understanding that Google and Facebook
| (and Twitter) are not benign or neutral and never will be.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| > I don't know what the answer is.
|
| Well, one obvious option would be the government making its own
| competitors to Twitter/Youtube/et al.
|
| Yes yes, I realize there's a bunch of issues there, like how
| the government would REALLY have to permit virtually any kind
| of speech, or general technical incompetence from government
| agencies in running such a site. But it _could_ be done, there
| 's nothing actually stopping it.
|
| I actually think a government-run Twitter could work okay and
| be accepted by people IF they didn't do any kind of algorithmic
| recommendations, sorting, or even have a search function at
| all. You could see tweets/content that you got to via external
| link, you could go onto that person's page to see a
| chronological list of things they've said, they could have a
| manually created profile page that links to others, but no
| curation of any kind by the platform itself. The home page
| would be mostly blank, or maybe only have a list of official
| government accounts or something.
| ploxiln wrote:
| > Those who are censored are free to make their own websites to
| host their speech.
|
| I'm very sympathetic to this argument. Seems fair to me.
|
| But then Cloudflare, and any host big enough to withstand DDoS
| attacks, is strongly pressured by seemingly most people on the
| Web and in the US, to kick "bad websites" by "bad people" off
| their platform. So we can't just let bad people have their own
| website which we don't visit? I kinda wish we could. If most
| people hate that bad people can have public websites, just say
| that this is the best we can do, at least they're not on your
| parent's facebook/twitter.
| paxys wrote:
| There is a very valid argument in favor of treating ISPs and
| hosting providers the same as your electricity and water
| company, and prevent them from being able to ban users on a
| whim. However the companies that are currently being targeted
| are still a few levels removed from that. In fact the party
| advocating for this is also the one opposed to net
| neutrality.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Cloudflare is a weird example to pick here, since kicking
| i.e. stormfront or kiwifarms off CF doesn't deprive them of
| the ability to host a website, it just deprives them of
| obfuscation and a free CDN - effectively, the service CF is
| offering to them is not hosting but cost reduction and
| insulation from the consequences of their speech.
|
| It's reasonable in an abstract sense to think that it's a
| good thing if CF offers those Bad People services like that
| based on philosophical goals or political alignment, but it's
| very distinct from 'having a public website'.
|
| AFAIK it's still possible for anybody to put up a linux box
| with nginx on it and put any content they want there, other
| than the fact that a lot of consumer ISPs don't allow you to
| run servers anymore. But that's a different problem and
| cloudflare can't fix it.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| > effectively, the service CF is offering to them is not
| hosting but cost reduction and insulation from the
| consequences of their speech.
|
| This is somewhat tongue-in-cheek on my part, to be clear,
| but this raises an interesting point about whether
| orchestrating a DDoS attack is a form of free speech. I'm
| inclined to say "yes" more than "no."
|
| (You could draw a parallel, for example, to counter-
| protestors who try to drown out Westboro Baptst Church
| picketers by holding up their own signs....)
| numpad0 wrote:
| It's not weird, it's just an example of how the modern
| society treat anything with sufficient scale as public
| resources just by scale and reach, and how little it cares
| about private corporate rights.
|
| You run the water to a town and the town now owns it. If it
| didn't, the town regulates it to the point you're
| essentially owned by the town, and the result is the same.
| troyvit wrote:
| Good example with Cloudflare, and they offer an interesting
| flip side with Project Galileo, where they offer their
| Business tier product for free to groups they deem
| vulnerable:
|
| > Any qualified vulnerable public interest site can seek
| participation in Project Galileo. Examples of participants
| include, but are not limited to, minority rights
| organizations, human rights organizations, independent media
| outlets, arts groups, and democracy protection programs.
|
| The place I work for qualifies, and it has kept us afloat.
| It's another example where they change the landscape for a
| group they select (I'm just super glad they did).
|
| [1] https://www.cloudflare.com/galileo/
| nradov wrote:
| Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has suggested that Congress
| consider extending Common Carrier legislation to cover online
| services. Essentially this would force them the allow all legal
| content, sort of like a telephone company.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| If that happened what would the repercussions be?
|
| I think they'd come together and create a certifying authority
| for authentic users with traceability. More compliance. Better
| filtering/admin tools for users.
| nradov wrote:
| I doubt it. That wouldn't provide any legal protection or
| cover to social media companies. Their main concern is with
| maintaining a positive brand image which keeps regular users
| and advertisers onboard. So, they don't want to host legal
| but offensive content that would decrease user engagement or
| drive advertisers away.
|
| Forcing users to certify and authenticate themselves would
| drive a lot of users away and thus devastate advertising
| revenue. And many users will happily post offensive content
| using their real identities.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| No repercussions, because being a common carrier is
| voluntary.
|
| What I mean is, you can have a members only club that is not
| a common carrier. For instance a member of the hypthetical
| video snippet network SnipWit can communicate only to other
| SnipWits. This means that SnipWit is not a common carrier.
| They are obviously private, as you can only communicate to
| other members. Worse yet, there is obviously consideration
| required prior to use, which means they would be able to add
| even more draconian terms to their membership requirements.
|
| I'll give a hypothetical. CostCo is members only. You're not
| a member, you can't get groceries there. Full stop. It
| doesn't matter if it's the only grocer in your area, you'll
| have to drive to find a Kroger. And to illustrate what I mean
| by the ability to take things further, CostCo could add
| racial exclusivity requirements to their membership clauses.
| Blacks would then be barred from shopping there like they are
| barred from certain country clubs. And it would be totally
| legal and well within the rights of CostCo, those country
| clubs, or the hypothetical SnipWit. Why? Because these are
| all private organizations and members only.
|
| I guess what I mean is, a lot of people talk about Common
| Carrier being the solution while forgetting about the
| private/public aspect and distinction at play in those
| regulations. We normally entice organizations to become
| common carriers by offering them goodies on the other side of
| that. Like indemnifications for instance. But what happens
| when you have organizations that are already fat, happy and
| growing like weeds under their "private with membership"
| umbrella? What do you offer them? It's a tough problem.
| There's a lot of people and shareholders making a lot of
| money in the current model. Those people will almost
| certainly vote their shares _against_ becoming a common
| carrier unless there is more upside in it for them somehow.
| nradov wrote:
| You have misinterpreted the case law. Although Costco
| requires a membership to shop there, courts have generally
| found such places to be public accommodations rather than
| true private clubs. Thus, they would be legally barred from
| instituting a racial exclusivity requirement for
| membership. (I am only commenting on the strict legal issue
| here; obviously racial discrimination is morally wrong.)
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/good-question-why-
| can...
| icandoit wrote:
| Would that mean that my poltical screeds (or spam) can't be
| deleted from your social media website for dogs?
|
| That you would have continue to host and serve whatever
| content I publish? Even if your userbase only interacts with
| my content to hide it?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Anyone who has been dealing with phone scams should have a
| healthy sense of dread on the idea that internet services
| should achieve parity of quality with phone service.
| AnarchismIsCool wrote:
| Something to keep in mind, the way we view a lot of these cases
| is fundamentally different that the way platforms look at them.
| We care about a free-speech vs moderation debate whereas the
| platforms care about "can we make more money from our advertisers
| this quarter?". These are fundamentally misaligned and are the
| source of a lot of the friction between "publishers"/"carriers"
| and breathing humans.
|
| The set of things advertisers will accept is wildly different
| than the set of things we accept because they believe that their
| brand is being associated with whatever content is on the
| platform.
| ysofunny wrote:
| the free speech rights of giant companies VERSUS the free speech
| rights of the users of the products of them giant corporations
|
| the plot twist is how the figurative judge presiding over this
| contest is the literal will to the power of dictating how people
| ought to think
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are both protected
| by the First Amendment but are separable rights.
|
| It doesn't infringe one's free speech rights if a paper (or
| media service) refrains from transiting one's opinion to their
| readers. Start one's own press.
| ysofunny wrote:
| i'm pointing at how this is an issue between corporations
| exerting their rights and individual users exerting theirs
|
| but you divert the focus towards the technicalities of
| specific rights
|
| further, this is not about "press", social media is different
| enough from "the press" that it should be treated accordingly
| shadowgovt wrote:
| It's not "technicalities;" these rights only exist in a
| legal sense _because_ of the Constitutional protections.
|
| Remove those protections and the rule doesn't become
| "Everyone gets to say whatever on Twitter;" they become
| "Twitter can tell everyone to pound sand, can lie, can
| commit fraud, can pretend to be other people and edit your
| messages in transit," etc. Without the law, it's might-
| makes-right and the corporations _definitely_ control the
| wires and the databases.
|
| I argue that forcing the corporations to transit bits of
| various users infringes upon their rights more than the law
| traditionally demands (and morality requires, since the
| existence of a corporation doesn't immediately infringe
| anyone else's right to start their own website).
|
| > social media is different enough from "the press" that it
| should be treated accordingly
|
| How so?
| ysofunny wrote:
| > How so?
|
| network effects
| devaiops9001 wrote:
| Mike Benz spilling the beans here tells you everything you need
| to know about censorship and who has their hand up who's ass
| causing the pandemic of censorship to happen.
|
| https://rumble.com/v4dtxtu-everything-you-need-to-know-about...
| shadowgovt wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRYSKaS-XtQ
| kevingadd wrote:
| Hard for me to take this seriously when it opens with Tucker
| Carlson talking to me after he just finished doing a
| promotional campaign for Vladimir Putin, and your language in
| this comment + lack of details isn't helping. What do I need to
| know about censorship that he's going to tell me? What is this
| "pandemic of censorship"? Who is Mike Benz?
|
| Wish it was text so I could scan through it to see if it has
| any merit.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It's such a tricky situation and there are so many questions (and
| opinions)!
|
| What was the intent of Section 230?
|
| Part of the text reads: (3)to encourage the
| development of technologies which maximize user control over what
| information is received by individuals, families, and schools who
| use the Internet and other interactive computer services;
|
| Is this happening?
| hellojesus wrote:
| > The court cited several cases in support of this position,
| including Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins. In that case, the
| Supreme Court held that California could permissibly require a
| shopping mall to allow individuals to distribute pamphlets inside
| the premises--reasoning that a business establishment that holds
| itself open to the public has no "expressive" interest in who is
| allowed to speak in the establishment.
|
| I don't understand how this can be true. If I have a bunch of
| hooligans handing out pamphlets to everyone that enters my
| private shopping mall such that the content on the pamphlets is
| actively deturing shoppers from conducting business in my
| privately owned establishment, I have a very compelling interest
| in the "expressive" content of the pamphlet.
|
| Aside, this is akin to forcing my business to allow people to
| sling racial insults at shoppers with no recourse like kicking
| them out.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| You're reading a lot I to the case that wasn't true. In
| pruenyard, the pamphleters weren't being disruptive.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Pamphleteers who didn't hand out pamphlets? Does they only
| have pallets to peddle who went over to them and asked for
| one? Otherwise they would be disruptive.
| hellojesus wrote:
| I'm generalizing the result of the case. Which is applicable
| so long as the current lawsuit references it as supporting
| evidence.
| justinzollars wrote:
| I like David Sacks perspective on SS230. Yes, there is a huge
| bias in Silicon Valley against conservatives. But if we get rid
| of 230 it will get even worse. The moderators are all liberal.
| Personally I think the bias is generational, and will work it
| self out with time.
| DinoDad13 wrote:
| Science is biased against conservatives. Literature is biased
| against conservatives. Logic is biased against conservatives.
| kevingadd wrote:
| This bias is overstated, if it's even true at all. There are
| plenty of conservatives in tech with lots of money and power,
| many of them run hosting companies or CDNs. Trump is easily one
| of the most reviled figures out there right now and he's had no
| problem operating an entire social media service of his own,
| for example. And conservative politicians do just fine - big
| tech CEOs and founders show up to meetings with them and make
| donations all the time.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Conservatives are finding out the hard way what liberals were
| complaining about a decade ago with Net Neutrality and Comcast's
| argument that charging Netflix up the ass was their free speech
| expression.
|
| That being said, these bills are very, very bad ideas. Let's be
| clear: no broadcasting medium can work without some mechanism to
| censor spammers. And this role has to be specialized (rhymes with
| 'centralized') because nobody wants to spend most of their day
| online just manually selecting spam to be blocked. If these laws
| are upheld I can see companies moving to block Texans and
| Floridians to protect the rest of their country from their
| legally mandated political spam.
|
| Let's also appreciate that a good chunk of the speech
| conservatives want to 'protect' is political speech explicitly
| calling for things prohibited by the 1st Amendment. Shit like
| banning an entire religion. I personally don't think that should
| be allowed, though I doubt this particular court's 6-3
| conservative majority would go along with censoring the censors.
| paxys wrote:
| Funny to see people here cheering on these laws (because
| something something _free speech_ ) while simultaneously enjoying
| one of the most productive yet also heavily moderated social
| media sites on the web (HN). Things are already bad enough in the
| country with evangelicals dictating what books we can read and
| how we are allowed to have sex. I don't want them controlling the
| internet as well.
| kevingadd wrote:
| HN is quite lightly moderated compared to most forums I can
| think of. I see lots of boundary-pushing comments survive
| without getting downvoted. The team running HN work hard,
| obviously, and there's some smart tech managing things like the
| front page, but people are allowed to speak pretty freely on
| here as long as they adhere to the rules. Punishing rule
| violations is a little different from moderating speech too,
| I'd argue.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Punishing rule violations is a little different from
| moderating speech too, I'd argue.
|
| That seems... hard to argue. The rules are often _about
| speech_. HN, for example, has rules about being kind,
| avoiding flamebait, not sneering, avoiding ideological
| battle, accusations of astroturfing; the list of
| _restrictions on speech_ is quite extensive.
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| paulddraper wrote:
| > Things are already bad enough in the country with
| evangelicals dictating what books we can read and how we are
| allowed to have sex.
|
| You can't read child porn, or have sex with minors.
|
| If an anyone is dictating something else to you, I'm unaware of
| it.
| kstrauser wrote:
| A reminder that "social media" is not just a bunch of gigacorps.
| I have a small Mastodon server that I host as a hobby. I've
| collected $0.00 in gross revenue from it; not net, but gross. I
| read the Florida law as best I could and didn't find any carve
| outs for small, non-profit, personally run social media.
|
| Well, nuts to that. I can and will censor whatever I and my users
| decide we don't want to see. The people we censor are free to
| download and install their own copies and make their own
| moderation decisions based on their own community norms.
|
| It's ridiculous that we're being held to the same standard as
| Facebook and X. And if that means these laws shouldn't then apply
| to Facebook and X, then so be it. I'm not willing to give up my
| own 1st amendment rights to punish someone else.
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