[HN Gopher] U.S. appeals court rejects big tech's right to regul...
___________________________________________________________________
U.S. appeals court rejects big tech's right to regulate online
speech
Author : testrun
Score : 268 points
Date : 2022-09-17 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| kelnos wrote:
| > _" Today we reject the idea that corporations have a
| freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say,"
| Judge Andrew Oldham, an appointee of former President Donald
| Trump, wrote in the ruling._
|
| I don't really understand this; from my perspective, it sounds
| like this judge doesn't really understand the first amendment
| (hopefully this is not the case, and the quote is taken out of
| context). Corporations are not bound by the restrictions laid out
| in the first amendment; only the government is. And it seems like
| this Texas law is an infringement upon the corporation's free
| speech rights.
|
| > _The Texas law forbids social media companies with at least 50
| million monthly active users from acting to "censor" users based
| on "viewpoint"_
|
| What does "viewpoint" mean? I assume it's written that way to be
| vague and enforceable whenever the state feels like it. Is it a
| "viewpoint" to spread false information? Is it a "viewpoint" to
| spam?
|
| I do agree that social media companies need some sort of
| regulation, as they have (unfortunately) become the only place
| where some groups of people communicate and get their news and
| information. But this does not seem like the right call, or the
| right law.
|
| Also, this is a Texas law; if Facebook closed down all of their
| offices in Texas, presumably they could just ignore it, as then
| Texas wouldn't have jurisdiction over them?
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| If a corporation does any business with the government, they
| have to abide by the same First Amendment strictures as any
| government agency.
| ugjka wrote:
| >Also, this is a Texas law; if Facebook closed down all of
| their offices in Texas, presumably they could just ignore it,
| as then Texas wouldn't have jurisdiction over them?
|
| AFAIK the law specifically forbids that kind of move, somehow
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| judge2020 wrote:
| Presumably Texas can represent themselves as long as anyone
| within TX was using a service by a company violating the law.
| Now, if FB banned anyone with a geoip resolving to Texas,
| that'd be quite the firepower to claim that TX has no
| jurisdiction.
|
| However, congress' ability to regulate interstate commerce
| might change this to something TX can rule on but can't
| enforce.
| zionic wrote:
| > Corporations are not bound by the restrictions laid out in
| the first amendment; only the government is.
|
| I think that is no longer the consensus. We have corporations
| that rival governments now.
| didibus wrote:
| I do think there's a rationale middle of the road here. Hear me
| out.
|
| I think if you provide a service that basically creates a free
| public sphere, and you don't charge for it, it makes sense to
| consider what you're offering a public sphere and that just mean
| it has to be treated like one, where you should be free to speak
| up and mobilize peacefully.
|
| If social platforms charge a fee, or subscription, then it is a
| private sphere, and I think platforms should be allowed to do
| whatever they want in that case.
|
| Finally, the constitution only applies to lawful citizens of the
| US, which means that in order for platforms that would provide a
| free sphere of discourse, to be excluded from their enforcements,
| you would need to have performed full know your customers, and
| proven to the platform you are a real citizen of the US, with
| regularly having to re-proove that your account is still owned
| and used only by real citizen of the US. If you didn't provide
| this info and proved your status, the platform should be allowed
| to apply enforcement, because you could very well be a bot, or a
| foreigner.
|
| Lastly, you should also have to speak non-anonymously, if you
| don't reveal your true identity to others in the public sphere,
| enforcement would still apply to you, because in a real-life
| public sphere people are not anonymous either, you should be able
| to know who is speaking.
|
| Lastly, you shouldn't be allowed to make it look like you are
| more than one person, so use of multiple accounts and various
| pseudonyms if found should also make you eligible for enforcement
| again.
|
| I think with these, it's reasonable on both front, prove you're a
| real US citizen, have a single public account that's not hiding
| your identity, go ahead and say what you want unrestricted,
| you're right to free speech applies. Otherwise, it's not clear
| you're someone who has a right to free speech, and therefore
| enforcement should be taking place.
| variadix wrote:
| I agree. I also think the 'free to use' model of most big
| social media websites undermines competition.
| magicalist wrote:
| I think relying on advertising undermines the news market as
| well, but I wouldn't argue freedom of the press only applies
| if you use a paywall.
| themitigating wrote:
| Your argument starts with an assertion that I don't think is
| true
|
| "think if you provide a service that basically creates a free
| public sphere, "
|
| You don't provide any justification for this
| didibus wrote:
| > "think if you provide a service that basically creates a
| free public sphere, " You don't provide any justification for
| this
|
| My justification is two fold. Number one, I think there's a
| large amount of people who believe that these new media
| should be covered by free speech. I think you can disagree,
| but just the fact that a lot of people think so makes it
| legitimate in my opinion. The question is, is it reasonable
| for others who don't think so, and what's the right balance.
| It's one thing to say people can exercise there right to free
| speech on these new media platforms, and another to allow
| them to be abused by various bad actors, or for undemocratic
| political gain.
|
| My second justification is that these platforms effectively
| steal public channels of their attention, through
| subsidization.
|
| In my opinion, if you subvert public spheres by making
| spheres of discussion that are more enticing, but still free,
| but obviously you make money from secondary means from it.
| This in itself is against free speech.
|
| People trying to exercise their free speech shouldn't have
| the added difficulty of having to compete with your platform
| to get people's attention and time of day.
|
| My third justification is, we have to go back to what we even
| mean by the right to free speech.
|
| > the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
| petition the Government for a redress of grievances
|
| Now logically, this implies an assumption that you can
| assemble and petition somewhere that will reach others and
| the government.
|
| It would be silly to say, ok, you're allowed to do this, but
| only in some isolated room that's sound proof by yourself.
|
| What that means is to me, it implies there has to be a way to
| do it that can reach others and the government, and that's
| also an implied right.
|
| If people are now online and on some social media platform,
| and that's realistically the only place to reach others and
| the government, I think it makes it that that place now
| becomes the place where this right applies.
|
| Finally, my last justification is on the public/private
| debate.
|
| Public means:
|
| > done, perceived, or existing in open view > ordinary people
| in general; the community
|
| I think even if you're a private space, but you open yourself
| to the public in that sense, it does make you a public
| sphere, and so again the right of the ordinary people you've
| invited now applies.
|
| In the end though, I don't think all of this matters much,
| like I said, I think just the fact many people are asking for
| this can be good enough to consider a reasonable way of
| making it happen. And I think what I described is sensible,
| will protect the platforms from abuse, the people from having
| the platform subverted by bad actors or people looking to
| manipulate or control a narrative for their own interests,
| but also give an avenue for people to petition for changes in
| a fair manner.
| themitigating wrote:
| "In my opinion, if you subvert public spheres by making
| spheres of discussion that are more enticing, but still
| free, but obviously you make money from secondary means
| from it. This in itself is against free speech."
|
| This is an interesting argument. However, if you are
| conservative especially, where does such specific extras
| for freedom of speech come from?
|
| This also isn't something that would just come about
| because of social media. What if it's extremely cold in the
| street that you are protesting on but there's a walmart
| nearby, nice and toasty. All the townspeople who aren't are
| home are inside it.
|
| It's free to go inside and open to the public. Should
| walmart not be able to restrict what I say inside
| didibus wrote:
| I've actually updated my response with two more arguments
| just before you posted. I think it addresses some of your
| other questions here.
| ryeights wrote:
| The 1st Amendment applies to aliens.
| https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/sites/default/files/Are%20Immig...
| didibus wrote:
| There are many various alien statuses, so I would guess it
| depends, but that's fine, whoever it legally applies too,
| just you need to prove it applies to you first.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| The constitution mostly applies to the US government ("Congress
| shall make no law" etc).
|
| Also, people speak anonymously in public spaces all the time. I
| don't have to provide ID to stand on a street corner and shout
| about politics or Jesus etc...
|
| I like the idea of separating public from private spaces based
| on charging.
|
| Of course, none of this solves (at least one of the) core
| issue: if you have moderation, someone has to decide what is
| moderated, if you don't bad faith actors will lie, troll etc.
| Either way, real discourse is very difficult to achieve.
| stevenally wrote:
| "Congress shall make no law... ...abridging the freedom of
| speech".
|
| Certainly doesn't guarantee anyone a right to be published on any
| platform they want....
| peyton wrote:
| It also doesn't say anything about corporations. We strike a
| balance regardless.
| westurner wrote:
| Does this mean that newspaper Information Service Providers are
| now obligated to must-carry opinion pieces from political
| viewpoints that oppose those of the editors in the given
| district?
|
| Does this mean that newspapers in Texas are now obligated to
| carry liberal opinion pieces? Equal time in Texas at last.
|
| Must-carry provision of a _contract for service_ :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Must-carry
| soup10 wrote:
| no
| westurner wrote:
| How limited is the given district court of appeals case law
| precedent in regards to must-carry and _Equal time rules_ for
| non-licensed spectrum Information Service providers? Are they
| now common carrier liability, too?
|
| Equal time rules and American media history:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
|
| Who pays for all of this?
|
| > _" Give me my free water!"_
| westurner wrote:
| From "FCC fairness doctrine" (1949-1987)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine :
|
| > _The fairness doctrine had two basic elements: It
| required broadcasters to devote some of their airtime to_
| discussing controversial matters of public interest, and to
| air contrasting views regarding those matters. _Stations
| were given wide latitude as to how to provide contrasting
| views: It could be done through news segments, public
| affairs shows, or editorials._ The doctrine did not require
| equal time for opposing views but required that contrasting
| viewpoints be presented. _The demise of this FCC rule has
| been cited as a contributing factor in the rising level of
| party polarization in the United States. [5][6]_
| ChoGGi wrote:
| https://archive.ph/t6LtL
| LinkLink wrote:
| God forbid people have to think about whether the idea being
| communicated to them on the internet is true, after all,
| everything on the internet was true before this decision.
| Flankk wrote:
| [deleted]
| oh_my_goodness wrote:
| Transparently, part of the intent here is to expand protection
| for those who incite political violence in the USA. Among other
| things, increased political violence in the US will enable
| foreign states to more effectively intimidate US politicians and
| voters.
|
| "Some conservatives have labeled the social media companies'
| practices abusive, pointing to Twitter's permanent suspension of
| Trump from the platform shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on
| the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Twitter had cited
| "the risk of further incitement of violence" as a reason."
|
| If you don't like this logic, there are two ways to proceed: (1)
| Downvote this message, or (2) consider expressing your concern to
| the politicians and pundits who have publicly supported exactly
| this logic.
| Overtonwindow wrote:
| As a free-speech absolutist, I got no problem with this. Unless
| the speech is threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or
| violating a law, it should be allowed.
|
| At the same time, everyone else should have the tools to filter,
| block, and mute speech they do not like. If a tweet or a social
| media post has a certain word or phrase in it that I don't like,
| I should be able to mute that and never see it.
|
| Social media really has become something of a scourge on society.
| adrr wrote:
| Controlling what content is rendered on a site is speech
| itself. Government making rules infringes on my right what my
| software can and can't display. It would be like the government
| telling Wikipedia can't edit their articles.
| treerunner wrote:
| Yes! Absolutely.
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| As a free-speech absolutist, the basic problem you should have
| with this is that as precedent, it would lead right into the
| legislature being able to force the press to publish certain
| things because not doing so would be 'censorship'.
| imperfect_blue wrote:
| In the hypothetical world, where press is a natural monopoly,
| we would be far less likely to allow the press to refuse to
| publish viewpoints they don't like. Or we would outright
| nationalize the press and lead to a different sort of
| problem.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| I think this is a case where "free speech absolutism" is not
| perfectly aligned with "first amendment absolutism", but
| either is a logically consistent framework.
| evandale wrote:
| How could this set precedent for compelled speech of
| publishers? Facebook, Twitter, and Google aren't even
| publishers.
| treerunner wrote:
| If filtering is not publishing then what is it? Do we need
| a new term for this arrangement?
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _Do we need a new term for this arrangement?_
|
| The term _' filtering'_ already exists.
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into
| a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted?
| Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the
| chalkboard next to the barista?
|
| Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to
| enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media
| is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards.
|
| The internet has plenty of space for people to post their
| opinions on their own servers. They are annoyed because if you
| take away social media, you make it harder for them to get an
| audience.
| saurik wrote:
| Does Starbucks let random people come in and shout about some
| things, but not other things? Do they let anyone write on
| their blackboard at all? No. These are not things you can do
| in a Starbucks, because there are rules and they apply to
| everyone the same regardless of the content of their message
| or the thought they are wanting to express: sometimes you
| don't get to talk to other people in the way you want, and
| that's fine.
|
| However, if I come to a Starbucks and I start having a
| conversation about something in a quiet voice similar to what
| is allowed of any other person at Starbucks--maybe because I
| am on a date with another guy--I certainly do not believe
| that the people who run the Starbucks should decide they will
| refuse to serve me or allow me to talk about our date with
| each other because they disagree with us being homosexual.
|
| You are correct that the right to freedom of speech is not
| the same thing as a right to be heard by the people you want
| to talk at, regardless of whether they want to hear you or
| not... but that isn't what is in question here: people are
| being entirely banned from platforms such that even their
| explicit followers can't access their content, and messages
| with certain forms of content that are merely being sent
| between small groups of people are being "moderated" out of
| existence.
| zosima wrote:
| The court and statute in question specifically mention that
| censorship can happen for a variety of legal reason.
|
| This ruling only denies the right to censor based on
| viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also bound
| by. You can throw a customer out for being obnoxious and
| threatening. But probably not for sitting at a table and
| calmly discussing the pros and cons of various abortion laws,
| sharing opinions Starbucks disagree with.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _This ruling only denies the right to censor based on
| viewpoint, something which I believe Starbucks is also
| bound by._
|
| In California this might be true, I believe political
| affiliation is a protected class in California. But
| political affiliation is _not_ a protected class federally,
| so it should generally be legal for corporations to
| discriminate against people on the basis of political
| belief, as long as they don 't do that in a way that could
| be construed as discriminating on the basis of something
| that _is_ a protected class, like race.
| andrew_ wrote:
| poor examples. a disruptive patron on private physical
| property can be removed on numerous other grounds such as
| trespassing, just as damaging private property has its own
| legal stipulations.
|
| as it is now, virtual private property doesn't have parity
| with laws governing physical private property.
| themitigating wrote:
| Servers are privately-owned and on private property
| netheril96 wrote:
| You can ban speech based on non-content criteria such as the
| volume of sound, but when you ban speech based on the
| content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech.
|
| Whether private companies should not be able to discriminate
| speech based on content is still up to debate, but don't
| compare this to shouting.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| > when you ban speech based on the content, it is a
| violation of the principle of free speech
|
| This is the sealion's argument, that you have to be willing
| to engage with them at all times in all contexts. It
| implicitly denies freedom of association. For example, if I
| am running doomermetalchats.com do I have to tolerate K-pop
| fanatics with their relentless positivity and sunny
| optimism?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Starbucks product is also coffee, not a speech platform.
| tingletech wrote:
| social media's product is eyeballs on ads, not a speech
| platform
| treerunner wrote:
| Yet Facebook and Twitter literally base their business
| model on sorting out what you get to read. These
| companies manipulate access to speech when their
| algorithms decide what you like -- and yes, this includes
| ads.
| evandale wrote:
| > So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk
| into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they
| wanted?
|
| Starbucks is on private property.
|
| > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the
| chalkboard next to the barista?
|
| The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned.
|
| >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their
| own standards.
|
| No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see
| tweets and posts. They're public squares that are closely
| related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location.
|
| > The internet has plenty of space for people to post their
| opinions on their own servers.
|
| Up until other big tech companies like CloudFlare decide they
| don't want to be associated with you and stop offering you
| ddos protection.
|
| > They are annoyed because if you take away social media, you
| make it harder for them to get an audience.
|
| Exactly! And that's why Twitter, Facebook, and Google should
| be treated as public squares. It's not fair that one group
| can access a public resource that others cannot.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > They're public squares that are closely related to a mall
| rather than a private Starbucks location.
|
| Just reading a book on malls, in America, they are mostly
| privately owned and are absolutely famous for rigid
| policing.
| bombcar wrote:
| The decision in discussion explicitly references a
| California case where the mall owners were forbidden from
| kicking out some leafleting teenagers.
| quadrifoliate wrote:
| > Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and see tweets
| and posts. They're public squares that are closely related
| to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location.
|
| Okay, so the mall is a better analogy. But it _still_ doesn
| 't mean I can do anything I want at a mall. If I run in
| there and start shouting slogans at passers-by, I am going
| to be removed by mall security "for my viewpoint" because
| it's bad for business. And no, there isn't a list at the
| mall saying _precisely_ what kinds of crazy behavior you
| 're not allowed to bring in.
|
| It's hard for me to see how Twitter isn't the same.
| Aachen wrote:
| I don't see how the heck my website is a public square but
| my home or cafe isn't, this argument sounds self-
| contradictory
| evandale wrote:
| Your website isn't a public square because you're the one
| publishing content to it. We're discussing the public
| platforms that Facebook, Twitter and Google run, and I
| don't consider those three companies as publishing the
| content they host.
| jimmydorry wrote:
| >We're discussing the public platforms that Facebook,
| Twitter and Google run, and I don't consider those three
| companies as publishing the content they host.
|
| Don't you consider it publishing when they express
| editorial control over what topics are allowed on their
| platform, without transparency or accountability of what
| the forbidden topics are at any given point of time? They
| also modify the user generated content and add labels and
| "fact checks" which are prominently displayed.
| Aachen wrote:
| Well it has input fields, like a contact form and
| comments.
| ryandrake wrote:
| They are not public platforms, though. Not anymore public
| than a Starbucks. Just because "the public" can walk
| through a store's unlocked doors doesn't make the place
| public property. Same with social media. Just because
| "the public" can log into the platform's system doesn't
| make the place public.
|
| Social media does, in my view, publish the content they
| host. It's not like the telephone, where you establish a
| direct connection to your audience and the mediator gets
| out of the way. When you post something to social media,
| there are three separate steps that happen:
|
| 1. You send the content to the SM company.
|
| 2. The SM company does some kind of processing on the
| content.
|
| 3. The SM company publishes that content (or not)
| somewhere on their site.
|
| These things happen pretty much instantaneously, but they
| are still happening. Posting to Social Media is more like
| writing a Letter to the Editor of the newspaper. They
| receive the letter, decide whether to include it in the
| paper, then include it in the paper.
| solarmist wrote:
| Yup. This is the exact problem that we're (as a
| society/world) wrestling with.
|
| The reason it is (not just seems) different is because of
| the scope. A message on a chalkboard cannot reach
| millions of people (without the internet), but it can on
| a website.
|
| That by itself distorts the public/private argument, but
| we as a society aren't sure how or to what extent yet.
|
| These lawsuits are the second step (the first step was
| arguing about it in public) of figuring that out.
| krapp wrote:
| So, because any website can potentially reach millions of
| people, all websites must be considered public spaces and
| must be coerced to allow all legal speech?
|
| I honestly don't think it distorts the public/private
| argument, any more than MacDonald's serving billions of
| customers distorts the question of whether it's a private
| corporation or whether its scale transforms it into a
| public service.
|
| But the inevitable endgame of this is going to be the
| government regulating all speech on the internet, and
| most of the internet no longer allowing any kind of user
| content, and I don't think the free speech absolutists so
| willing to throw the baby of free speech out with the
| bathwater of consequence are going to like it.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| >So, because any website can potentially reach millions
| of people, all websites must be considered public spaces
| and must be coerced to allow all legal speech?
|
| The difference is that your site has some small non-zero
| chance of reaching millions in the future, while Twitter,
| Facebook etc are reaching millions or billions right now.
| The law doesn't have to work on your potential to reach
| millions of views, just like how taxes don't work by
| assuming you might become a trillionaire overnight.
|
| Could you wake up tomorrow to your social media platform
| having grown to millions of users, yes. Is it a realistic
| situation that should roadblock regulation? no.
| solarmist wrote:
| Yes and no, because we've seen society wide effects from
| this over the last 15-20 years.
|
| But all websites? To my knowledge, the only websites
| people agree on this are Facebook and Twitter. So
| probably probably not all websites, but that's one of the
| things that need to be worked out. When does a site reach
| a scale where it can no longer be treated solely as a
| private entity? What should happen then? How should we
| identify those sites? Then what?
|
| There are tons of people who agree with you, tons who
| don't, and tons in between. But the majority seem to be
| on the side that things can't stay the way they've been.
| The effects on society over the last 20 years are not
| good. I haven't seen much disagreement on that. No one
| can agree on what to do about it though.
|
| McDonald's is an interesting example because there are
| debates happening there too, but making people fat
| doesn't have cause the same visceral reaction as
| interfering with elections.
|
| Which government? This is a global issue. It's going to
| be a long painful process of screwing up then trying to
| fix it.
| krapp wrote:
| >McDonald's is an interesting example because there are
| debates happening there too, but making people fat
| doesn't have cause the same visceral reaction as
| interfering with elections.
|
| But no one is saying that, because of their scale and
| cultural influence, they have to be privatized and
| considered infrastructure.
|
| >Which government?
|
| I mean this is obviously an attempt by the US government
| to control speech on US web platforms, based on US
| politics since the election of the last President. The
| rest of the world seems to have settled the question of
| whether websites are allowed to moderate content, and it
| was a settled question in the US until a bit after 2016.
| solarmist wrote:
| I'm not even saying that. My point was that when a
| company gets that large it has an undue amount of
| influence on public/private things and we as a society
| don't know how to deal with that. I'm talking about
| things like banning trans fats from fast food or calories
| on menus. There are many levers you can pull beside the
| public/private switch.
|
| Yes this is US specific, but they're far from the only
| ones planning to do something about it. I disagree that
| this is settled anywhere. We're still trying to
| understand what's been happening.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > So, because any website can potentially reach millions
| of people, all websites must be considered public spaces
| and must be coerced to allow all legal speech?
|
| Yes. When a few corporations dominate anything, they
| cannot be considered 'private' entities that can do
| whatever they want anymore. They are infrastructure, and
| they have to oblige by the democratic rules and
| regulations like how any large infrastructure company
| does.
|
| Free speech is no different. After consolidating a
| majority of the social space and literally gaining the
| power to set the public discourse, no company can be let
| to do whatever they want with that power. That would
| invalidate any concept of free press. Not that current
| 'free' press is any different and that it does not need a
| major regulatory crackdown. But it has to start
| somewhere, and starting from the companies who literally
| ousted the traditional press from the helm of public
| discourse should be a good place to start.
| krapp wrote:
| >After consolidating a majority of the social space and
| literally gaining the power to set the public discourse,
| no company can be let to do whatever they want with that
| power.
|
| >Not that current 'free' press is any different and that
| it does not need a major regulatory crackdown. But it has
| to start somewhere (...)
|
| And so the mask slips and the agenda reveals itself. This
| is not about freedom, it's about control, and this is
| only the beginning. I wonder where it will end?
| unity1001 wrote:
| > This is not about freedom, it's about control, and this
| is only the beginning. I wonder where it will end?
|
| Yeah, its not about freedom. Who told you that it was.
| Society exists only because there is a commonly accepted
| framework for making a society and keeping it. You cant
| just do anything you want. Try sh*tting on the road in
| front of your neighbor's house tomorrow. Try doing it
| naked. Look how freedom is limited.
|
| That you internalized existing rules and restrictions
| does not make you any more 'free'.
| themitigating wrote:
| Anyone can walk into walmart , does that make it a public
| space not a private company?
|
| "Starbucks is on private property." So are servers where
| data is stored
| anigbrowl wrote:
| > No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook and
| see tweets and posts. They're public squares that are
| closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks
| location.
|
| Fine. Nationalize them, remove all advertising, open up all
| the source code and infrastructure, and let open
| cyberwarfare commence.
| croes wrote:
| You can see the tweets and posts because a private company
| allows you to make an account, and even then you don't see
| all.
|
| That's like walking into a Starbucks and reading the
| chalkboard. Everybody who can enter can read it.
|
| Factual it's faster and easier to enter a Starbucks than
| creating an FB account.
|
| And like we all know if FB decides to ban your account you
| can nothing do about it.
|
| Doesn't sound like a public place to me
| nomdep wrote:
| When a private place has 50 million users it clears that
| has become a "public place". Think as if the subway was
| privately owned
| croes wrote:
| "In 2018, a Nielsen Scarborough survey found that over
| 37.8 million Americans visited a Starbucks (Statista,
| 2021) within the last 30 days."
|
| So Starbucks is now a public place?
|
| I don't think so.
| freen wrote:
| nomdep wrote:
| I doubt your blog has 50 million visitors, so your argument
| is ridiculous
| freen wrote:
| What on earth does the number of visitors have to do with
| the legal requirement for private enterprises to host
| spam/nazi content?
| andrew_ wrote:
| RunSet wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20170814002835/https://twitter.
| c...
| sofixa wrote:
| No, because the topic at hand _literally_ includes Nazis.
| The speech being censored, which is being discussed,
| includes Nazis and the like being free to spout their shit
| on Twitter /Facebook or not.
|
| (And they should not, I don't know how that's even a
| debate)
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I've been wondering about a technical solution to this problem
| for a while now. It seems like a properly distributed social
| media network would still need moderation... but who is to say
| everyone has to use the _same_ moderators? What if we
| distributed the task of content moderation and allowed users to
| subscribe to a moderation team the same way they subscribe to a
| friend 's updates? In this way, users could tune their own
| bubble rather than being strictly required to adhere to a
| centralized set of guidelines.
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| That's Mastodon
| treerunner wrote:
| Publish all content to blockchain and let the users create
| their own interfaces as they choose. But first make all
| content equally and indisputably available?
|
| I'd be cool with this.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| I believe you are describing federated networks such as
| mastodon [1] and matrix [2] Individual servers/clusters can
| be moderated by their operators. I've not run either of
| those, but I have run IRC servers that can work in a similar
| model.
|
| [1] - https://joinmastodon.org/
|
| [2] - https://matrix.org/faq/
| bombcar wrote:
| It's really easy to do if they wanted - allow posts to be
| classified and allow users to select scores or other methods
| of ranking classifications.
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| I'm unclear that this isn't a self referential attempt to
| redefine the centre rather than a genuinely held view.
|
| > threatening the direct physical harm of someone, or violating
| a law
|
| The laws already prevent the first by the way, it's called true
| threat
|
| > At the same time, everyone else should have the tools to
| filter, block, and mute speech they do not like. If a tweet or
| a social media post has a certain word or phrase in it that I
| don't like, I should be able to mute that and never see it.
|
| Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they don't
| like? Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish
| opinions they don't like? Why is Facebook's owner and employees
| different to a coffee shop owner?
| evandale wrote:
| > Should a coffee shop owner be forced to hear words they
| don't like?
|
| How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post
| translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like? You're
| free to block him and not read anything he posts.
|
| > Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish
| opinions they don't like?
|
| No, NYT is a publisher and has always had full control over
| what they publish.
|
| > Why is Facebook's owner and employees different to a coffee
| shop owner?
|
| Because Facebook's owner decided to offer a platform that
| anyone can sign up to for free which allows them to share
| their content with friends and the world. Starbucks sells
| coffee.
| themitigating wrote:
| "How does forcing Twitter to allow Donald Trump to post
| translate to forcing you to hear words you don't like"
|
| Not other users but facebook itself is forced to do this
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| I think any newspaper with a classified section seems like
| a sort of primitive social network, with proactive
| moderation.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > Should the New York Times owner be forced to publish
| opinions they don't like?
|
| Yes, if they or their majority shareholders dominate a
| noticeable part of the press. Otherwise you end up how things
| are - a minority of the rich consolidating the press, setting
| the public agenda as they want to.
| swayvil wrote:
| The social media companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter) want legal
| permission to censor us based on our "viewpoint".
|
| Because if they can't do that, they warn, then "dangerous
| content" will grow out of control.
|
| This seems like a big nope to me.
| arrabe wrote:
| I'm very glad that there are people in the higher ups that are
| willing to uphold the constitution. I still have cynicism but
| its good to know that there is a ceiling.
|
| Don't want to alarm any of you but what I'm hearing through the
| grapevines is that anti-trust lawsuit against the big T
| companies are coming and they will be the scapegoat once the
| nasdaq craters (extreme amount of puts purchased by people who
| are suspected to have advanced insider information).
|
| ex) Microsoft post dot come bubble.
| sseagull wrote:
| The alternative is having the government decide whether or not
| a private company can block a particular person for a
| particular reason.
|
| Everyone is generally ok with companies blocking content that
| is irrelevant/off-topic, but there is a very, very large gray
| area. Do you want the government deciding what is acceptable?
| emerged wrote:
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| The way it works absolutely everywhere else in the US is you
| hire a lawyer and sue the shit of them, but since they are
| immune from that alternative are worthy of consideration.
| swayvil wrote:
| Have you seen the typical social media censorship (bans,
| deletions, shadowbans... no explanations... secret forbidden
| words lists...) and appeals process lately? It makes 1984
| look like a church camp.
|
| At least the government has checks and balances. And a
| working appeals process. And is, ostensibly, democratically
| determined.
|
| Yes, I prefer the government here.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I think you may need to re-read 1984.
| fallingknife wrote:
| They already are. It came out recently that the FBI leaned on
| Mark Zuckerberg to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story.
| themitigating wrote:
| Source?
| ModernMech wrote:
| Zuckerberg was free not to listen to anything the FBI had
| to say. No one forced him to do anything.
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| This is either dishonest or naive. Federal law
| enforcement "advice" always comes with a hidden message
| of "Nice company you've got there. It would be a shame if
| something were to happen to it."
| ModernMech wrote:
| And what, exactly, would the FBI have done? File a
| lawsuit? As if Facebook doesn't know how to handle a
| lawsuit?
| unity1001 wrote:
| > Do you want the government deciding what is acceptable?
|
| Yes. Entire world except the US does. People elect
| parliaments, who make laws according to their voters'
| agendas. Then the laws are enforced. What's acceptable and
| what's not acceptable are decided in the same manner. Like
| how going out naked in any city in the civilized world
| constitutes an offense unless you have a mental disorder.
|
| You already obey with a zillion of things in which 'the
| government' decides to be acceptable or not acceptable.
| scarface74 wrote:
| "the people" don't elect anyone on the national level. If
| they did, Montana wouldn't have the same number of Senators
| as California and the person who was elected President in
| 2016 would be the person who won the popular vote
| sseagull wrote:
| I mean, sure. But there's a reason this stuff was invented
| in the US and not elsewhere.
|
| I want everyone to think about how increasing the
| difficulty in moderation will affect all your favorite
| forums/platforms, including HN.
|
| And if you think these laws can be written so they easily
| apply only to "the big ones", or that it will stop there,
| you are being naive. Government will always take a mile if
| you give them an inch.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > But there's a reason this stuff was invented in the US
| and not elsewhere.
|
| And that reason is the immense amounts of liquidity that
| both the US Federal Reserve and the private banks who are
| allowed to do fractional reserve lending, pump into the
| US economy. Thanks to the US dollar not losing value when
| that happens because it is (or was) used as the exclusive
| reserve currency due to the Gulf countries exclusively
| selling their oil for dollars until recently.
|
| When you have THAT much free money, its impossible to not
| invest and innovate. And now that the reserve currency
| status of the US is challenged and some of the dollars
| that were used to buy stuff in the international trade is
| flowing back to the US and causing inflation, we are
| seeing how the investment landscape totally changed. With
| SV firms trying to reach profitability, doing layoffs,
| Twitter and Facebook being questioned as to the
| profitability etc.
|
| This is before the fact that there is immense innovation
| elsewhere but you just are not aware of that since the US
| media need to sell US stocks. Therefore they drum the US
| businesses up. All of them talk about Elon Musk or
| whatever hot investment unicorn is coming up incessantly
| instead of what anyone in any other tech ecosystem is
| doing.
| daemoens wrote:
| Reserve currency status isn't decided by what countries
| use to purchase oil.
| unity1001 wrote:
| The main drivers of the chosen reserve currency were the
| oil producing countries using it. Now that Yuan entered
| the scene, things changed.
| daemoens wrote:
| Oil has almost nothing to do with reserve currency
| status. They use dollars because it is the reserve
| currency, not the other way around.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Repeal section 230
|
| All of this sounds like an aberration created by giving these
| companies immunity.
| belltaco wrote:
| It will result in way higher moderation, instead of less.
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/section-230-good-actua...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I want smaller, tighter knit, and moderated communites.
|
| Why do we care about outcome anyway? The outcome of section
| 230 was arbitrary moderation, consolidation, and surveillance
| capitalism. It is unnatural for an entity to not be liable
| for what they publish.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| When Section 230 goes every forum and smaller community
| becomes the legal wild west, open to being sued by any
| jackass claiming libel and to drag site owners into a years
| long legal battle.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| No Section 230 means more centralization of discourse,
| not less.
| belltaco wrote:
| >It is unnatural for an entity to not be liable for what
| they publish
|
| Since when have paper boys been held liable for what's in
| the newspapers? Social media is distributing someone else's
| opinions.
|
| The very forum you're posting in will cease to exist.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Do you want the owners of those small communities to get
| sued if someone posts copywrited material?
| zionic wrote:
| If they don't censor, they're not liable. If they censor,
| they _are_ liable.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| Important to note that this 5th Circuit ruling conflicts with the
| 11th Circuit's ruling. And SCOTUS had previously reinstated an
| injunction against this very same law.
|
| And this 5th Circuit opinion has very idiosyncratic reasoning [0,
| just the first few pages will blow your hair back]. A sample:
| "In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd
| inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of course,
| protects every person's right to 'the freedom of speech.' But the
| platforms argue that buried somewhere in the person's enumerated
| right to free speech lies a corporation's unenumerated right to
| muzzle speech."
|
| How the 1st Amendment might protect a corporation's religious POV
| but not its exercise of editorial control is a very good
| question. I'm not saying this very conservative SCOTUS won't
| adopt the 5th Circuit's reasoning, but it still seems unlikely.
| In my view -- much more likely is that they resolve the Circuit
| split by adopting the 11th Circuit's view wholeheartedly.
|
| [0]: https://techfreedom.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2022/09/2022-09-1...
| bluejekyll wrote:
| The term "conservative" means nothing if you apply it to a
| court which has overturned years of legal norm across various
| areas of law.
| jacobolus wrote:
| The appropriate description for the 5th circuit is "corrupt,
| incoherent activism".
| xyzzyz wrote:
| This applies to every court in this country, and even more
| so to some. If 5th circuit is "corrupt, incoherent
| activism", I'm lacking words to even describe the 9th.
| jacobolus wrote:
| No, the great majority of judges and courts - even the
| majority of e.g. Trump-appointed district-court judges -
| have internally consistent legal philosophies and
| prejudices which happen to differ from one to another.
| Sometimes judges talk past each-other or fundamentally
| disagree, but that is not the same as corruption. For the
| most part judges take their job seriously and do it
| carefully and in more or less good faith.
|
| What we are talking about here is judges ignoring the
| constitution, the law, past precedent, the will of the
| people, and the facts of the case, in order to make up a
| logically incoherent "argument" that happens to promote
| the judges' pre-decided zany partisan outcome. Such
| rulings are profoundly corrosive to the rule of law and
| the legitimacy of the court system.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > What we are talking about here is judges ignoring the
| constitution, the law, past precedent, the will of the
| people, and the facts of the case, in order to make up a
| logically incoherent "argument" that happens to promote
| the judges' pre-decided zany partisan outcome. Such
| rulings are profoundly corrosive to the rule of law and
| the legitimacy of the court system.
|
| Yes, and this in fact happens in every court, that's my
| entire point. I can provide endless examples of outcome-
| oriented rulings from every single appeals circuit, and
| from SCOTUS too.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I assume you mean SCOTUS _prior_ to 2022? Everyone knows
| about the right-wing corruption at play in the abortion
| and the forced school prayer decisions.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| In fact, the original Roe v Wade decision is the
| archetypical example of outcome oriented judiciary, of
| "judges ignoring the constitution, the law, past
| precedent, the will of the people, and the facts of the
| case, in order to make up a logically incoherent
| "argument" that happens to promote the judges' pre-
| decided zany partisan outcome."
|
| First, nothing in constitution talks about abortion.
| Second, when Roe was passed, it forced states to allow
| actions that previously have been illegal in every single
| one, i.e. it ignored the law. Third, it ignored the
| precedent that saw limiting abortion as perfectly kosher.
| Fourth, it ignored the will of the people, who at the
| time were decidedly against abortion being allowed to the
| extent Roe requires (and in fact, they still are to this
| very day, if you ask them if abortions should be allowed
| in 6th month of pregnancy). Finally, the argument in Roe
| is completely incoherent as a matter of law, being based
| on the "emanations of the penumbra" of what is being said
| in the actual law.
|
| I do think that abortion should be legally allowed, up
| until 15th week. Nevertheless, Roe is the clearest
| example of extremely bad judiciary.
| [deleted]
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _In fact, the original Roe v Wade decision is the
| archetypical example of ... "... zany partisan outcome."_
|
| The Roe v. Wade decision was joined by 1 Roosevelt-
| appointed justice, 2 Eisenhower justices, 1 Johnson
| justice, and 3 Nixon justices, and opposed by 1 Nixon
| justice and 1 Kennedy justice.
|
| Abortion was not a partisan issue until afterwards when a
| group of GOP activists decided it would help them
| politically to spin abortion into a moral panic they
| could organize around in churches (which, except for the
| Catholic church, had mostly been ambivalent before). This
| is hard to remember after 4+ decades of intense partisan
| propaganda about the subject from the GOP.
|
| The Supreme Court was not really a partisan institution
| at the time, and justices regularly split in their
| decisions in every imaginable configuration. (After the
| ignominious end of the Nixon administration, a different
| group of GOP activists started a decades-long conspiracy
| to stack the court with corrupt partisans with no regard
| for the collapse in the court's legitimacy and the rule
| of law. That plan has been highly successful, Leonard Leo
| and Mitch McConnell's great masterpiece.)
| gnaritas99 wrote:
| All court activism is corruption; their job is not to make
| law or have political opinions of any sort, they should be
| slaves to the text of the law, not bending it to their
| will.
| o_1 wrote:
| courts are run by judges, who are people. Suits in DC seem
| to go only one way in a jury trial, or from judicial
| review.
| sofixa wrote:
| Yes, the correct term is reactionary, which many modern
| "conservatives" are - they don't want things to remain the
| same, they want a return to "the good old days".
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| They want the US to be like Saudi Arabia.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| Yeah, certainly not what we once thought of as conservative
| judicial restraint.
|
| One comment I remember reading on Twitter which makes sense:
| "Funny how what the 1st Amendment means seems to align
| perfectly with currently fashionable conservative (MAGA)
| social views."
| epistasis wrote:
| I think it makes perfect sense if you view the courts as
| largely a political operation, with a thin veneer of legal
| language on top.
|
| Given the past decades of highly coordinated--and completely
| politically motivated--court-stacking, it's probably most
| accurate to put the political definitions ahead of the legal
| definitions of conservative.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _The term "conservative" means nothing if you apply it to a
| court which has overturned years of legal norm across various
| areas of law._
|
| your definition of conservative seems to be "obeys Newton's
| second law", or going further, "synonymous with hysteresis":
| "resists change, but thereupon resists changing back"?
|
| that's just not how people use the term.
| Kamq wrote:
| I think it still fits if they return the legal situation to
| what it had previously been.
|
| But any instance that creates a brand new legal situation
| does not qualify.
| eduction wrote:
| > How the 1st Amendment might protect a corporation's religious
| POV but not its exercise of editorial control is a very good
| question
|
| I don't think this court buys the idea that the platforms
| exercise editorial control. For example:
|
| "But the more fundamental problem with the Platforms' reliance
| on Herbert is that they do not have an "editorial process" that
| looks anything like a traditional publisher's. See supra Part
| III.C.2.c. Herbert involved discovery into how an editor
| selected, composed, and edited a particular story. See 441 U.S.
| at 156-57. But the Platforms, of course, neither select,
| compose, nor edit (except in rare instances after
| dissemination) the speech they host. So even if there was a
| different rule for disclosure requirements implicating a
| newspaper-like editorial process, that rule would not apply
| here because the Platforms have no such process."
|
| Or:
|
| " The Platforms are nothing like the newspaper in Miami Herald.
| Unlike newspapers, the Platforms exercise virtually no
| editorial control or judgment. The Platforms use algorithms to
| screen out certain obscene and spam-related content.8 And then
| virtually everything else is just posted to the Platform with
| zero editorial control or judgment. "Something well north of
| 99% of th[is] content . . . never gets reviewed further. The
| content on a site is, to that extent, invisible to the
| [Platform]." NetChoice, LLC v. Moody, 546 F. Supp. 3d 1082,
| 1092 (N.D. Fla. 2021). Thus the Platforms, unlike newspapers,
| are primarily "conduit[s] for news, comment, and advertising."
| Miami Herald, 418 U.S. at 258. And that's why the Supreme Court
| has described them as "the modern public square." Packingham,
| 137 S. Ct. at 1737; see also Biden v. Knight First Amend.
| Inst., 141 S. Ct. 1220, 1224 (2021) (Thomas, J., concurring)
| (noting Platforms are also "unlike newspapers" in that they
| "hold themselves out as organizations that focus on
| distributing the speech of the broader public"). The Platforms'
| own representations confirm this.9 They've told their users:
| "We try to explicitly view ourselves as not editors. . . . We
| don't want to have editorial judgment over the content that's
| in your feed."10 They've told the public that they "may not
| monitor," "do not endorse," and "cannot take responsibility
| for" the content on their Platforms.11 They've told Congress
| that their "goal is to offer a platform for all ideas."12 And
| they've told courts--over and over again--that they simply
| "serv[e] as conduits for other parties' speech."13"
|
| They kind of have a point. The platforms seem most interested
| in minimizing financial costs like the hiring of moderation
| staff and loss of advertising and reputational costs like PR
| damage and pissing off sensitive users. They don't seem to have
| any particular editorial mission. They seem to mainly want to
| grow and profit. I actually wonder if they would have a
| stronger case if they _were_ avowedly advancing a leftist
| agenda. IANAL
| linkdink wrote:
| The last paragraph of page 111 is interesting because I don't
| think the majority opinion tries to rebut that criticism, and
| it destroys the premise of most of their arguments.
|
| It's also interesting to compare the tone of the two opinions.
| The majority is theatrical. That's not what I want to see from
| a court. Unfortunately, it's hardly unique to this court.
| DannyBee wrote:
| This opinion is just badly written and badly reasoned. It's not
| even well written enough that it is worth trying to debate. Of
| course the judges in question were rated unqualified by the ABA
| (which is a really low bar) so not surprising.
| kyrra wrote:
| The ABA at this point is a partisan institution. Go read into
| some of their politics and realize that they are very much
| left-leaning.
|
| Edit: example https://www.wsj.com/articles/anticompetitive-
| woke-law-school...
| mpalmer wrote:
| You have made an incomplete point.
|
| How exactly do their political positions figure into their
| ratings? Conservative judges are de facto unqualified? Left
| leaning judges get a pass?
|
| If you have a concrete criticism of their rating practices
| you don't need to focus on their politics, do you?
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Maybe instead of telling people to "go read into some of
| their politics" you can provide some examples and make the
| argument yourself?
| kyrra wrote:
| Added a context link. Here it is for you
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/anticompetitive-woke-law-
| school...
| malshe wrote:
| That's an opinion piece like a blogpost
| abathur wrote:
| The "do your own research" meme works better when the
| initiator can make the target go refer to a corpus of
| questionable content (that is often already ideologically
| skewed), actively filter out whatever they find benign,
| and zero in on whatever lights up their confirmation
| bias.
| mpalmer wrote:
| It seems like you're trying to turn someone's objection
| to a weak argument into a weak argument itself by
| referring to it as an example of a "meme". I'm not sure I
| need to say anything else to be honest.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Yes, it turns out that professional vetting institutions
| have biases.
|
| If those biases appear partisan, it may be the case and
| that they are partisan for a reason having to do with the
| nature of the professional expertise that and the lack of
| said expertise on the other side of a partisan divide.
| noelsusman wrote:
| Next you'll try to convince me the Chamber of Commerce is a
| leftist institution.
| eduction wrote:
| > Of course the judges in question were rated unqualified by
| the ABA (which is a really low bar) so not surprising.
|
| Not true.
|
| The first of the two judges who concurred on this opinion,
| Andrew Oldham, was unanimously rated "well qualified" by
| ABA's federal judiciary standing committee on Feb 15 2018
| according to their website see page 5: https://www.americanba
| r.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/g...
|
| Also concurring, Leslie Southwick was also unanimously voted
| "well qualified" by that same ABA committee on Jan 9 2007 see
| top of page 1 https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/adm
| inistrative/f...
|
| Edith Jones was appointed by Reagan in 85 so I can't readily
| find her rating, but she almost entirely dissented from this
| ruling, so if she's unqualified it runs against your point.
|
| (Judges names via original opinion https://www.ca5.uscourts.g
| ov/opinions/pub/21/21-51178-CV1.pd...)
|
| Can I ask what the basis for your statement is?
|
| Here is a sloppy copy paste of the list of judges voted
| unqualified by ABA since 1989 to further confirm the above
| (none of the concurring judges are on it and both were
| appointed since then)
|
| ------------------
|
| Via https://ballotpedia.org/ABA_ratings_during_the_Trump_admi
| nis...
|
| Nominee Court President Rating Outcome
|
| Alexander Williams Jr. District of Maryland Clinton
| Substantial majority not qualified Confirmed on August 6,
| 1993
|
| Bruce Greer Southern District of Florida Clinton Substantial
| majority not qualified Nomination withdrawn
|
| David Hamilton Southern District of Indiana Clinton Majority
| not qualified Confirmed on October 7, 1994
|
| David Katz Northern District of Ohio Clinton Substantial
| majority not qualified Confirmed on October 7, 1994
|
| Daniel Patrick Ryan Eastern District of Michigan G. W. Bush
| Substantial majority not qualified Nomination withdrawn
|
| David Bunning Eastern District of Kentucky G. W. Bush
| Majority not qualified Confirmed on February 14, 2002
|
| Dora Irizarry Eastern District of New York G. W. Bush
| Majority not qualified Confirmed on June 24, 2004
|
| Frederick Rohlfing District of Hawaii G. W. Bush Unanimously
| not qualified Nomination withdrawn without hearings
|
| Gregory Van Tatenhove Eastern District of Kentucky G. W. Bush
| Majority not qualified Confirmed on December 21, 2005
|
| Michael Brunson Wallace Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals G. W.
| Bush Unanimously not qualified Nomination withdrawn without
| hearings
|
| Roger Benitez Southern District of California G. W. Bush
| Substantial majority not qualified Confirmed on June 17, 2004
|
| Vanessa Bryant District of Connecticut G. W. Bush Substantial
| majority not qualified* Confirmed on March 28, 2007
|
| Brett Talley Middle District of Alabama Trump Unanimously not
| qualified Nomination withdrawn
|
| Charles B. Goodwin Western District of Oklahoma Trump
| Majority not qualified Confirmed on August 28, 2018
|
| Holly Lou Teeter District of Kansas Trump Substantial
| majority not qualified Confirmed on August 1, 2018
|
| John O'Connor Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts of
| Oklahoma Trump Unanimously not qualified Nomination withdrawn
|
| Jonathan Kobes Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Trump
| Substantial majority not qualified Confirmed on December 11,
| 2018
|
| Justin Walker Western District of Kentucky Trump Substantial
| majority not qualified Confirmed on October 24, 2019
|
| L. Steven Grasz Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Trump
| Unanimously not qualified Confirmed on December 12, 2017
|
| Lawrence VanDyke Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Trump
| Substantial majority not qualified Confirmed on December 11,
| 2019
|
| *This rating represents Bryant's nomination to the 109th
| Congress; Bryant's rating changed when her nomination was
| submitted to the 110th Congress. A substantial majority rated
| her as qualified at that time. Source: American Bar
| Association Ballotpedia f in Twitter logo
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| eduction's comment asserts the exact opposite of what you are
| saying. Who is lying here?
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > a corporation's unenumerated right to muzzle speech ..
|
| That is clearly not based on facts. Corporations simply have
| a right to choose which speech they will AMPLIFY. That is not
| the same as muzzling anybody.
|
| They don't knock on your door and say you better stop
| expressing these views or we will harm you. They don't even
| harass people online. They just simply choose which speech
| they will pass on and which not.
|
| If you tell me something and I don't tell anybody what you
| told me, does that mean I "muzzle your speech". Of course
| not. Rather it is the case that you don't have the right to
| demand that I pass on your emails to all my contacts.
|
| This is bad jurisprudence. I wonder, was this judge perhaps
| nominated by D. Trump?
| jeff-davis wrote:
| "choose which speech they will AMPLIFY"
|
| That makes private messages an interesting question,
| though. Or even cases where many people explicitly
| subscribe to a single voice -- is the platform really
| amplifying anything?
|
| Blocking such messages (to specific recipients who
| specifically opt to receive them) seems materially
| different than declining to promote/amplify such messages.
|
| I'm speaking from an ethical standpoint; it may or may not
| matter legally.
| wernercd wrote:
| "that is not the same as muzzling"
|
| They are actively blocking stories about Biden. Actively
| filtering stories about negative aspects of COVID vaccines.
| They are actively filtering stories about inconsistencies
| in the 2020 election - "The most secure ever".
|
| They are amplifying stuff - absolutely... but they are also
| censoring free speech because "corporations are allowed
| too".
|
| "If you tell me something and I don't tell anybody what you
| told me, does that mean I "muzzle your speech"."
|
| No... but if you post a story and your account gets banned
| for stuff that's later found out to be true (IE: hunters
| laptop and the New York Post _RIGHT BEFORE AN ELECTION_ )?
| that's absolutely muzzling speech and suppressing facts.
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| "They" also ban anyone not supporting Trump from posting
| to their site
|
| ...or from forever blocking nonsense unscientific
| articles from a newsfeed
|
| ...or from wearing a shirt that's pro-Democrat at a
| convention
|
| ...or from bringing scientific consensus into Fox talking
| heads shows
|
| ...or from posting on their subreddit unless certified by
| a peer as being sufficiently conservative
|
| That your post focuses singularly on denial of Republican
| establishment talking points shows the real intent
| implied by those pushing such laws, without any
| consideration that the "cancel culture" has been a deep
| tradition pervasive in media and American life on both
| sides of the aisle.
| concinds wrote:
| > Corporations simply have a right to choose which speech
| they will AMPLIFY
|
| I'll readily admit that algorithms can amplify content; but
| more than enough people have been tweeting for years and
| barely have any likes on their tweets (see @CNN, though I'm
| being cheeky). People say that algorithms reward bad
| content, because they amplify controversy; but really they
| just give people what they want. A "controversial" tweet
| with no likes won't get amplified.
|
| The crux is that if you agree that due to their use of
| algorithms, these platforms "amplify" all the content they
| host, then surely that means they endorse whatever they
| don't ban, to some extent? I'm not making a legal argument,
| just an intuitive one. That reasoning doesn't scale to an
| understaffed, undermoderated social media platform that
| can't even ban the omnipresent "double your crypto" scam
| accounts.
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| If social media wishes to be immune from lawsuits regarding the
| content it publishes, section 203, then it should not have the
| ability to censor such content for an explicit commercial
| revenue model.
|
| I understand why people hate that opinion, because they want
| civil discourse and nearly free access to media online.
| Uncensored content pushes normal people out.
|
| Those things are great, but are ultimately out of alignment
| with a commercial revenue model. The result is social media
| imposing an algorithmic bias to increase engagement, the
| results of which are often toxic, and that toxicity ultimately
| pushes normal people out anyways. You can't have your cake and
| eat it too.
| root_axis wrote:
| > _If social media wishes to be immune from lawsuits
| regarding the content it publishes, section 203, then it
| should not have the ability to censor such content for an
| explicit commercial revenue model._
|
| Why? This is seems like a total non-sequitur. It's pretty
| obvious that the individual posting illegal content is the
| person responsible for it and not the platform it's posted
| to, unless the platform is soliciting or refusing to remove
| said content. The anti-230 reasoning seems purely motivated
| by punitive thinking rather than what actually makes sense in
| reality.
|
| > _Those things are great, but are ultimately out of
| alignment with a commercial revenue model._
|
| I would say it's out of alignment with the _ad_ model
| specifically. Currently, there exists a financial incentive
| to curate content in a manner that pleases advertisers and
| the internet mobs that patronize their businesses. However,
| if social media companies were somehow forced into a
| subscription model, they would have a financial incentive to
| avoid banning users because it would hurt the bottom line, it
| would also eliminate the incentive to curate content to the
| prerogative of advertisers, and it would make the user
| experience much better due to lack of ads and the need to
| create better user experiences to maintain retention.
| puffoflogic wrote:
| A fairly simple argument for this position is: This speech
| (the content posted to social media) is either speech by
| the poster or speech by the social media company; you can't
| have it both ways. If the social media company isn't
| responsible for illegal content, then ipso facto it must be
| the user's speech. But then the company doesn't have first
| amendment rights attached to that speech itself, such as
| the right against compelled speech that would be implicated
| by this law. (Note that this law doesn't by any plausible
| interpretation _limit_ anyone 's speech acts.)
|
| I think everyone intuitively understands you can't assert
| 4A rights on contraband held by the police while also
| denying owning that contraband to dodge criminal
| responsibility. This thing with social media is the same
| thing but with 1A instead of 4A.
|
| I would consider myself a first amendment absolutist; and
| yet I don't have a 1A problem with the concept of this law
| [0] _insofar as social media companies choose the position
| that user speech isn 't their speech_. The problem is that
| they won't come out and state that position, they
| intentionally flipflop on whose speech their websites host
| exactly depending on what is most convenient. So of course
| it _looks like_ this is a massively overreaching law when
| the position flops to "company speech". And if a company
| came out and said okay we accept responsibility for what's
| posted on our platform, then I'd be the first in line to
| say that the government can't force them to publish certain
| content.
|
| Contrast traditional publishers who definitely have first
| amendment rights to publish or not to publish things. Well,
| yes, they do, but they also have legal responsibility for
| what they publish. The rights follow the responsibility.
|
| [0] Saying nothing of the wording; because I'm sure it was
| drafted by censorious assholes, like every other law.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| 230 is broad.
|
| At the time, websites were mostly just hosts of content.
| The individual is posting on the website but otherwise the
| website is a tool.
|
| This changes with recommendation algorithms. Nearly all
| social media is based on some kind of recommendation
| algorithm. Should that be covered by 230? It could be
| argued that it starts to get closer to an endorsement of
| certain content (and indeed, some of that recommended stuff
| is ads.)
| 8note wrote:
| Chronological is still fits the interface of a
| recommendation algorithm.
|
| You can take HN as an example of a recommendation service
| - while they remove things that are off topic, you'd have
| to argue that YC endorses whatever is in the #1 spot on
| HN.
| kelnos wrote:
| Who is "they", though? Aside from the spam filters, posts
| largely make it to the front page (or not) due to
| community moderation. YC isn't the one making those
| endorsements, the moderating population of HN users as a
| whole are doing so.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The HN mods routinely give posts they feel are
| interesting a second chance [0], and posts deemed
| "controversial" via a combination of human and automated
| factors are deranked.
|
| HN has more active, hands on moderation than most social
| media sites, and there's a stronger argument that dang
| "endorses" the front page of HN than that Steve Huffman
| "endorses" the front page of reddit.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23239449
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| And at any rate, #1 on HN is not the product of any
| simple rule like "most upvotes per unit time with some
| decay function applied." There is significant judgment in
| expressed in the way that stories are ranked. The source
| code as of 2012 was enough to demonstrate this, but in my
| understanding yet more judgment has been applied since
| then.
|
| https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/master/news.arc
| root_axis wrote:
| > _It could be argued that it starts to get closer to an
| endorsement of certain content_
|
| But we know that isn't actually the case. The algorithms
| are designed to drive engagement, what they show you is a
| function of your behavior on the site, it's not an
| "endorsement" by the site creators, they're finely tuned
| machine learning systems optimized for ad dollars -
| that's it.
|
| Once again, this is just another example of how the ad
| model incentivizes pernicious behavior. If these sites
| were under a subscription model they'd be happy to offer
| you the option to sort your feed with a purely
| chronological algorithm because they'd still be getting
| paid regardless of your engagement behavior.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| If people don't explicitly look for recommendations and
| we shove it in their face anyways, is that not an
| endorsement? "We think you'll like this."
|
| There are also active efforts to remove "bad" content
| from such recommendations, which is effectively un-
| endorsing it.
| throwaway0asd wrote:
| > Why?
|
| It is a non-sequitur only from the perspective of a social
| media company protecting its media business, but not from
| any other perspective. If I, as not even a user of the
| given social media service, were to receive numerous death
| threats as a result of content published and republished on
| that social media service I should have the ability to sue
| them for libel. This, of course, also ignores the numerous
| criminal liabilities faced by that social media company had
| they not been shielded by something like section 203, such
| as depraved indifference harm. There are numerous examples
| of this scenario both large and small, for example pizza-
| gate conspiracy theory and various online conspiracy
| theories attributed to Alex Jones.
|
| At the moment harmed individuals get neither the ability to
| sue to recoup their harms nor a vote to censor content that
| is clearly illegal and/or harmful in the immediate to their
| person. This immunity does not exist for any other
| communication venue in the US irrespective of first
| amendment concerns, for example if a radio show or
| newspaper allowed such conspiracy theories you could sue
| them into bankruptcy as did Hulk Hogan versus Gawker.
| 8note wrote:
| Alternatively, if you want a free speech platform as a public
| square, you should convince your government to build and
| operate it, rather than delegating to private entities who
| aren't bound by the constitution
| themitigating wrote:
| So walmart is responsible if a person in one of their stores
| walks around holding an image of child pornography?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| It's a pretty abrupt turnaround from the same legal movement
| that brought us _Citizens United_.
|
| I'd be interested in a fair (i.e. not overly critical or
| fawning) book length history of the Federalist Society and how
| it's evolved.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| The Federalist Society is very poorly named, with aims nearly
| diametrically opposed to the Federalists it is named after.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Not too surprised that so many HNers don't know this. The
| Federalist party called for a strong national government to
| fix all the ills in the previously weak confederation, and
| they succeeded spectacularly, making the US the most
| powerful government on Earth. The very first aim of the
| Federalist Society is "checking federal power."
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| I think that history is happening as we speak (Yo, media
| outlets/reporters interested in writing a feature! This would
| be an amazing topic.). The crux is really 2016/Trump, Adrian
| Vermeule's "common good constitutionalism", and outlets like
| Claremont's The American Mind. For lack of a better term,
| MAGA conservatives are building an intellectual
| infrastructure for a very aggressive conservative judiciary
| right now.
| mindslight wrote:
| Can we stop miscategorizing reactionary regressivism as
| "conservatism" ? There is nothing conservative about it.
| They're essentially trying to drag us back at least a few
| decades and destroy longstanding institutions, including
| things like separation of church and state and the right to
| access medical care.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| No. Because as much as your absolute moral certitude
| might feel good to express you aren't changing anyone's
| mind with it. On the contrary.
|
| There's tens if not hundreds of millions of them and same
| for you guys. We are all stuck together in one polity.
|
| If we are ever going to achieve a synthesis and get back
| to a healthier place it's not going to involve the kind
| of rhetoric you are indulging in here.
| mindslight wrote:
| Rhetoric? I'm making an objective point about the
| political spectrum. Moldbug labeled his own philosophy as
| the Reaction, and condemned conservatism as being doomed
| to perpetual failure because some progressivism
| inevitably occurs regardless. And it's just plainly
| nonsensical to label a movement aimed at undermining
| longstanding institutions as "conservative".
|
| As far as synthesis and reconciliation, for a long time I
| viewed the answer as that of respecting individual
| liberty. Each party seems to get its constituents excited
| about a desire for individual freedoms on topics that
| matter to them, and then transmutes that energy into
| enacting authoritarian regulations that benefit their
| commercial sponsors. I had hoped that over time the
| liberty would be an attractor that gained ever more
| ground. But the flare up of grassroots authoritarianism,
| specifically in the Republican party where it has gone
| _mainstream_ , has shown this was too optimistic. So I'm
| left hoping that there are enough _actual conservatives_
| horrified by these developments that will end up voting
| for the _actually conservative_ options (which now seems
| to be mostly in the Democratic party) to keep the off the
| rails reactionary populism from causing too much damage.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Some Republican movements have been authoritarian, but an
| effort to prevent people from saying that which is
| undesirable is definition authoritarian just as much if
| not more so. I don't know what example of
| authoritarianism you would offer as characteristic of the
| Republican party, but I'm sure you could offer more than
| one or two. That's because both political parties must
| push authoritarianism because both must accumulate
| authoritarian power to stay in the game, lest they be
| overpowered by the opposing party.
|
| While constituents, we the people, agree on most points
| like personal freedom, individuality, respect of human
| life, and liberty etc., politicians of both parties, out
| of necessity, must paint their opponents as the
| authoritarian regime, set on revoking personal freedom
| and individuality, and devaluing human life.
|
| If you dislike either party, it's not because one is more
| authoritarian than the other. It's because we lack the
| mental capacity to retain all the information that makes
| up the world around us, and must therefore make easier to
| process, generalizations to survive; Republican,
| Democrat, grassroots, mainstream, Black, Hispanic, White,
| etc. And it's obviously no secret that this necessity to
| generalize is very much exploitable.
|
| What you don't like about the Republican party is all the
| things that are also the Democratic party, but only in a
| generalized view that the opposing parties' electorate
| has succeeded to exploit in your mind.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| This is simply not true. You're trying to do a 'both
| sides are bad it's only your perception coloring your
| things' deal, but I live in a red state where Republicans
| encouraged bounty hunters to go after and harass women
| while also trying to control them if they leave to other
| states.
|
| The only 'generalized view' is the one being created by
| Republicans, which I see pushed by Republicans and
| supported by Republicans. You don't have to look far to
| see some of the dreadful things they're pushing, and
| trying to pretend both sides are equally bad is not only
| intellectually dishonest but it's also argumentally lazy.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| You've given me anecdotes and then proceeded to
| generalize. And called me lazy, which taken together is
| hilarious. Let's investigate that philosophy, shall we?
|
| Generalizing by nature requires the ignorance of certain
| truths or anecdotes, in favor of others in order to
| simplify and conceptualize complex ideas about the world
| around us.
|
| Read that again. Generalizing requires ignorance.
|
| When you generalize, which you just did, you are, if only
| by definition, wrong. You must be, logically. If you need
| help gaining some understanding of logic systems, I'm
| happy to oblige, because I'm not "argumentally" lazy.
| (That's not a real word by the way.)
|
| Not all Democrats make up words. Not all Republicans hire
| bounty hunters.
|
| In summary, when you generalize people as a group to be
| of a particular belief or characteristic, you must by
| definition ignore the vast majority of ideas that are
| intrinsic to the humanity and individuality within the
| group. That is dehumanizing; it's factually wrong, and
| it's frankly immoral.
| peyton wrote:
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > You don't have to look far to see some of the dreadful
| things they're pushing, and trying to pretend both sides
| are equally bad is not only intellectually dishonest but
| it's also argumentally lazy.
|
| When you wrote that, you thought of conservative
| policies. When I read that, all I can think is children
| being pumped with hormones at the behest of trans
| activists, children being encouraged by woke teachers to
| "explore their sexuality", womens spaces and activities
| being violated by men pretending to be women, allowing
| abortion at 8 or even 9 months, promoting abortion as a
| political statement, reducing cities to third world
| shitholes by defunding the police, ethnic cleaning by
| means of unrestricted immigration, forced vaccination
| under the threat of losing jobs and rights, the undoing
| of the internet and it's glorious promise of free
| exchange of ideas being by deplatforming and witch hunts,
| the constant vilification of white people, the money
| spent on "period dignity officers" and other such
| nonsense instead of infrastructure, and I could go on and
| on and on.
|
| Yeah, I agree. Both sides are not the same. One may be
| bad. The other is outright evil.
| Test0129 wrote:
| >But the flare up of grassroots authoritarianism,
| specifically in the Republican party where it has gone
| mainstream
|
| Wow that took a turn to a hot take really fast. You don't
| find the rise of the green left, the authoritarian self-
| described socialists like "The Squad", etc to be the
| equivalent on the left? Or do you only view things
| through the lens of the party you like? Yes, the green
| energy, banning ICE, defunding police, anti-liberty left
| is just as bad as the deep right wing that wants to ban
| abortion and all the other things they do. There's no
| question and there is no ambiguity. Both want control of
| what you do in nearly every aspect of your life. Waking
| up involves realizing both of the extremes (left and
| right) would happily put you against the wall.
|
| Extremism begets extremism. Authoritarianism begets
| authoritarianism. The horseshoe theory of politics has
| reached its peak in the last 6 years and opinions like
| this are part of the reason why. It's always "Them".
| Never "Us". If only "They" could wake up they'd finally
| love "Our" version of big brother.
|
| How exhausting it must be to constantly find a way to
| simplify a vast group of people down into the absolute
| edge cases and judge them entirely on that edge case.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| You're posting in a thread about a topic where they're
| literally trying to do exactly what the GP is saying. I
| don't know what you view as a 'middle road' given that
| their starting negotiating point is 'users cannot be
| banned for any reason ever'.
| o_1 wrote:
| Whoa things escalated quickly, points like these are a
| complicated of saying no their baddies and here's some
| fear on top.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Sorry, can you explain the turnaround to me? What's the
| relationship between Citizens United and this?
| woodruffw wrote:
| Citizens United determined that corporations have some of
| the same natural rights that people do. In particular,
| First Amendment right, which in turn means that
| corporations can do the same politicking (and political
| funding) that natural persons do.
|
| This ruling countermands that: the (implicit) right to not
| be compelled to speak would seemingly no longer apply to
| corporations or, more accurately, the people within them.
|
| Edit: It's important to note that corporations' rights to
| moderate their online holdings does _not_ rely on the CU
| ruling.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Citizens United determined that corporations have some
| of the same natural rights that people do. In particular,
| First Amendment right, which in turn means that
| corporations can do the same politicking (and political
| funding) that natural persons do._
|
| A more charitable way to put this: you don't lose your
| First Amendment rights just because you joined with other
| people for commercial or other purposes.
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's not charitable, that's obsequious!
|
| You have _never_ lost your First Amendment rights in the
| context of a corporate venture. Citizens United goes
| substantially beyond affirming that fact: it establishes
| a _separate_ notion of 1A personhood for the corporation
| _itself_.
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _You have never lost your First Amendment rights in the
| context of a corporate venture_
|
| Hmm. Technically yeah, but corporations tend to gag their
| own employees more than the government gags corporations.
| The corporation can say just about anything it wants
| about politics and faces no repercussions from the
| government, but if an employee says the wrong thing about
| politics, they'll be shitcanned very quickly.
| themitigating wrote:
| That's because it's an employee employer relationship. If
| say the wrong shit my gf might break up with me, is that
| censorship on her part?
| 8note wrote:
| But that's the same between government and corporations.
| It's an entity built of a relationship between people and
| the government
| themitigating wrote:
| Not by choice, at least not reasonable choice.
|
| I can find another job corporation must have its
| relationship with the government. Basically choice
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Technically yeah, but corporations tend to gag their
| own employees more than the government gags corporations.
|
| That's my point! That's the political financing world as
| established post-CU.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| It's the same old "personhood" fiction for doing things
| in groups that's been around since Dartmouth College vs
| Woodward, which is over 200 years at this point.
|
| Corporations are also entitled to other rights that can
| be exercised by groups, like not having their property
| searched without a warrant or seized without just
| compensation, or their contracts broken. They are
| presumed innocent in court unless demonstrated guilty.
|
| The actual Citizens in question were getting together
| (uniting, if you will) to spend money and engage in
| overtly political speech in a tradition that goes back to
| Thomas Paine. They used a non-charitable not-for-profit
| corporation to make and to show a stupid movie about
| Hillary Clinton. They used a corporation because that's
| what you're supposed to use for things like this and the
| alternative is sending the money to one private person's
| individual bank account and that's got all sorts of
| problems. And the court found that was a valid way for
| the people who contributed to exercise their rights to
| free speech, because of course it is.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is the second time in this thread[1] that someone
| has tried to talk Citizens United down into some sort of
| scrappy outfit, when it was anything but.
|
| I am also not convinced that use of a personal bank
| account was a significant problem here, unless you mean
| in the sense that the FEC (rightfully) prohibits
| excessive individual contributions.
|
| Assuming it was, however: it stands to reason that
| everyone (including myself!) would be content with a
| legal structure where _N_ people can pool their money
| into a publicly auditable political contributions
| account. I would happily support a law that makes that
| easier! But that wasn 't the intended goal with CU -- the
| goal there was to channel extraordinary donations from a
| very small handful of individuals in a manner not
| accountable to the public.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32880236
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| You know what? You want to talk down Citizens United the
| organization, say I'm playing them as too scrappy and
| they're really big money? ... be my guest.
|
| But don't use your personal bank accounts to run
| businesses or charities, and don't let anyone at the
| business or charities you might some day run do that
| either. That's a massive red flag, the IRS will come
| auditing and looking for money laundering, and besides
| that there's just an ocean of ways that can go wrong.
|
| And the mechanism for sharing your account like you want
| already exists. It is called "incorporation". That is
| like 85% of the point, _easily_. (That and doing things
| with the money, like entering into contracts or owning
| property.) You're reinventing the corporation.
|
| Anyway. The goal of CU was to air a movie (a stupid
| political hit-piece movie, I wouldn't watch it, but it's
| plenty politics).
| gwbrooks wrote:
| Further: Citizens United didn't just pop into our
| reality, fully formed, from a vacuum. Decades of prior
| jurisprudence and SCOTUS rulings related to campaign
| speech led to it.
|
| Too many people think CU was some sort of this-changes-
| everything moment when it was actually a fairly narrow,
| technical decision based on prior rulings.
| woodruffw wrote:
| A slow knife is a knife nonetheless!
|
| I agree that CU was a culmination of decades of
| jurisprudence. But that doesn't meaningfully change the
| fact that it _has_ had a substantial effect on corporate
| money in politics.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| Right it means that every dollar counts in our political
| decision making
| woodruffw wrote:
| Right, which is a very bad place to be -- it takes the
| already-low standard for politicking and campaigning and
| lowers it further. Why make yourself accountable to your
| constituents when you can keep your base inflamed with an
| infinite supply of PAC-funded rage clips?
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think that's accurate. I don't think anyone
| believed that joining a company would -- for example --
| mean that they were no longer allowed to make financial
| contributions, individually, to political campaigns.
|
| Citizens United affirmed that it was ok for corporations
| to use corporate funds to make political speech via
| financial contributions. Not allowing that would not
| imply that people who work for a corporation have lost
| their _individual_ first amendment rights.
| miedpo wrote:
| This is correct... but there's also a good reason as to
| why allowing companies might be a good idea.
|
| Companies allow individuals to limit their liability.
|
| Now I'm sure there are people who abuse this, but it also
| allows good people to not risk their life getting
| involved in a political process where they could be sued
| for their personal assets.
|
| Perhaps it would be better if the government created a
| separate category though to separate regular businesses
| from political liability protection "businesses".
|
| I'm still not entirely sure that would be for the best
| though on a practical level. Businesses do advocate for
| themselves with lots of money but that money also prefers
| a stable boring economy... meaning without those actors,
| we might start seeing laws and lawmakers that are crazy
| on both sides more than we are now.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > which in turn means that corporations can do the same
| politicking (and political funding) that natural persons
| do.
|
| How can a _corporation_ do any of these without natural
| persons being actually the ones deciding on and
| performing these actions? Corporation is, after all, just
| a form of organization of natural persons, and cannot do
| anything on its own.
|
| In Citizens United, government argued that the government
| can ban you from publishing a book, unless you're
| completely self funding it: if any corporate funds are
| used in book publishing process (as they typically are
| with books where authors are paid royalties, it is likely
| that no books you ever heard about have been completely
| self-funded). Are you also supporting this position, that
| government can suppress your speech if any at any point
| corporate funds are used?
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Corporation is, after all, just a form of organization
| of natural persons, and cannot do anything on its own.
|
| A corporation is a synthetic legal object: beyond basic
| restrictions on its form, it's allowed to legislate
| itself internally according to whatever bylaws and
| structure it pleases. There is no requirement (and no
| particular precedent) for them having a democratic
| structure.
|
| This produces a fundamental tension between the people
| who _comprise_ the corporation and the decisions that the
| corporation makes: the corporation can choose to do
| things that are _overwhelmingly_ unpopular with its
| employees without significant recourse, since the
| corporation does not operate according to the will of its
| members.
|
| In other words: corporations are naturally susceptible to
| undemocratic power concentrations, where a small number
| of executives or board members use the financial heft of
| the corporate body to achieve their personal goals.
| Allowing those concentrations to then seep into _our_
| democratic system is fundamentally corrosive.
|
| > Are you also supporting this position, that government
| can suppress your speech if any at any point corporate
| funds are used?
|
| No. I'm not obliged to defend whatever argument the USG's
| lawyers presented during the particulars of the CU case.
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| > you seem to believe that the government should be
| allowed to block speech by powerful corporations, what
| about speech by powerful and rich individuals?
|
| It's like speed-limits. You can only drive so fast.
| Similarly we should limit how many dollars any single
| person can spend on manipulating public opinion.
|
| With corporations I guess we should divide the amount
| they spend on political adds by the number of share-
| holders, and put a limit on that.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > It's like speed-limits. You can only drive so fast.
| Similarly we should limit how many dollars any single
| person can spend on manipulating public opinion.
|
| Does this apply to all advertising, or just "political"
| advertising? Is "Enjoy Coca Cola" the acceptable kind of
| "manipulating public opinion", or the bad kind that is
| limited? Who draws the distinction?
|
| Is Shell or Exxon allowed to advertise their products?
| Are they allowed to advertise their products in a
| positive light? Are there spending limits on their just,
| like, normal product advertising?
|
| Can I air anti-oil and pro-clean-air advertisements? Are
| these "political" even if Shell's aren't?
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > This produces a fundamental tension between the people
| who comprise the corporation and the decisions that the
| corporation makes: the corporation can choose to do
| things that are overwhelmingly unpopular with its
| employees without significant recourse, since the
| corporation does not operate according to the will of its
| members.
|
| Sure, but it's still natural persons who are actually
| making those decisions, no? After all, a "synthetic legal
| object" cannot actually make any decision. You seem to be
| conceding that the Citizen United did in fact protect the
| speech right of natural persons, you just complain about
| the technical aspects of how this speech act was
| performed.
|
| > In other words: corporations are naturally susceptible
| to undemocratic power concentrations, where a small
| number of executives or board members use the financial
| heft of the corporate body to achieve their personal
| goals. Allowing those concentrations to then seep into
| our democratic system is fundamentally corrosive.
|
| So you are only against Citizens United as applied to big
| and powerful corporations, but are totally fine with it
| with less powerful corporations? Say, you totally support
| the actual plaintiff, the Citizens United organization,
| in its right to publish the movie that was the subject
| matter in the case?
|
| Also, given that you seem to believe that the government
| should be allowed to block speech by powerful
| corporations, what about speech by powerful and rich
| individuals? Should government also have a right to
| restrict speech of individuals if they are rich and
| powerful enough?
| kelnos wrote:
| > _Sure, but it's still natural persons who are actually
| making those decisions, no?_
|
| It is a small handful of natural persons (or corporate
| board or executive team) deciding for the entire
| corporation full of people who have zero say that the
| fruits of their economic output (under the auspices of
| the corporation) are being used to support a particular
| political party or candidate.
|
| If we look at individual political campaign
| contributions, then it's one person deciding that some of
| their hard-earned cash should go to support a particular
| candidate or cause. But with a corporate structure, it's
| five people deciding that the collectively-earned cash of
| thousands of people should go to support a particular
| candidate or cause.
|
| To put it another way, an individual campaign
| contribution is "one person, one vote". A corporate
| contribution is "one person, many votes".
|
| And no, most people do not have the realistic option to
| quit their job because they don't agree with the
| political contributions the executives have decided the
| company will make.
|
| > _Should government also have a right to restrict speech
| of individuals if they are rich and powerful enough?_
|
| Governments already do this: individuals are subject to
| political campaign contribution limits[0]. This
| unfortunately gets muddied by PACs and the like, which
| was the issue at hand in Citizens United.
|
| [0] https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-
| committees/candidate...
| woodruffw wrote:
| If it's a natural person, then they can do it with their
| own time and money. This is not what we've seen in the
| post-CU political financing world: we've increasingly
| seen opaque corporate structures where unknown
| individuals ply unknown amounts of money (collected from
| the labor of people who almost certainly wouldn't approve
| it directly) into races.
|
| CU does nothing to protect the free expression of
| individuals; it has markedly _diminished_ the expressive
| power of individuals in the political sphere in favor of
| opaque and legally established (rather than natural)
| entities.
|
| > So you are only against Citizens United as applied to
| big and powerful corporations, but are totally fine with
| it with less powerful corporations? Say, you totally
| support the actual plaintiff, the Citizens United
| organization, in its right to publish the movie that was
| the subject matter in the case?
|
| I don't know if this is intentional on your part, but
| you're dropping a key piece of context: Citizens United
| (the organization) is a PAC, with extraordinarily wealthy
| corporate financiers. It's not some kind of scrappy
| outfit with a handful of unpaid undergraduate interns,
| and it would not exist independent of the corporate
| interests that use it as a more palatable front for
| political influence ("Koch Interests Action Campaign"
| just doesn't have quite the same ring to it, I think).
|
| > Should government also have a right to restrict speech
| of individuals if they are rich and powerful enough?
|
| Frankly, there should be no private financing of
| elections at all. But that's not realistic.
|
| Realistically: rich and powerful people have the exact
| same right to engage in electoral politics as everyone
| else, and there is no _immediately_ feasible way to stop
| them from dominating those politics via their wealth and
| power. What we _can_ do is make those attempts at
| domination as transparent as possible. Rulings like CU
| directly stand in the way of electoral transparency.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > If it's a natural person, then they can do it with
| their own time and money.
|
| > (...)
|
| > Citizens United (the organization) is a PAC, with
| extraordinarily wealthy corporate financiers.
|
| So what is your complaint here, exactly? That wealthy
| corporate financiers can do everything that Citizens
| United tried to do, as long as at no point any of the
| funds pass through any corporation or a non-profit? Seems
| like you're just trying to make the speech of the wealthy
| corporate financiers difficult. I don't think people
| should lose their rights just because they are wealthy.
| kelnos wrote:
| No, because they can't actually do everything that
| Citizens United tried to do.
|
| Here's a structure that I think would be fairly
| unobjectionable: Citizens United works collectively to
| raise funds for political causes. Once funds are raised,
| the money -- in its entirety, minus administrative and
| other overhead costs -- is distributed to all the
| employees of Citizens United itself. That money is taxed,
| as it should be. Then the employees are free to
| voluntarily choose to contribute that money -- up to
| individual contribution limits -- to whatever candidates
| they so choose.
|
| The same should be the case if an ordinary corporation
| (one that doesn't exist for political purposes) wants to
| donate to political causes: they should be forced to
| distribute the sum total of that desired contribution as
| salary to employees, who could then choose to make (or
| not make) those contributions.
|
| Obviously there are flaws to this plan, and it needs more
| scrutiny and fleshing out, but I think it is much more
| democracy-preserving and -- critically -- transparent
| than just allowing corporations to act as "people" and
| fund political campaigns directly, or via shadowy means.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Is CU allowed to pay people a nominal fee to be on-paper
| employees, whose only responsibility is to, a few times a
| year, sign a release form that allows CU to make a bundle
| of political donations on their behalf, with the fee paid
| out to the individual.
|
| Or on the personal level, I can't actually tell if it's
| illegal for me to pay you $3000 to sign a contract saying
| you will donate $2600 to a particular candidate. And if
| it's legal for me and you do to that, why shouldn't it be
| legal for a corporate entity to do that at scale?
|
| And it's certainly legal for _you_ to hire me to handle
| the minutia of donating money to a political candidate.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Nobody is talking about anybody losing any rights. To
| paraphase Anatole France: the law, in its majestic
| equality, permits the rich as well as the poor to express
| and petition as private individuals.
|
| My "complaint" is about civic integrity and transparency:
| you are (presumably) a member of the same society as me,
| so you should have an _intuitive_ (and civically gained)
| understanding that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Our
| country is _better off_ when those who engage in our
| political processes, _especially_ disproportionately,
| cannot hide behind corporate structures.
| rmilk wrote:
| Agreed. This is why we insist on campaign finance limits
| and public lists of donors. See new article just today
| from the UK where someone wanted to donate $300k to a US
| election, and did so by funneling it through a lobbying
| group to obfuscate the foreign source.
|
| https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-10-chief-of-staff-
| in-f...
| rmilk wrote:
| The key point being made is that corporations give both
| an opaque knowledge of their funding and also a
| multiplier effect of that funding in a way that a wealthy
| individual cannot. You saw this immediately with
| astroturfing on candidates and issues all neatly hidden
| behind the PAC facade, with no way to discern who funded
| it.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I think feigned confusion for the purpose of disagreement
| is rude.
| majormajor wrote:
| It's a mistake to think of much of the American right as a
| _legal_ movement or theory vs something more akin to a moral
| or religious one. Consistency is not the point. The examples
| of this in the media are the easiest to see: consider the
| performative outrage and hurt feelings you 'll get on a
| Monday with the grief of how everyone is such a snowflake
| today on a Tuesday.
|
| (EDIT: this is in all likelihood true for every political
| party everywhere - that in practice not every decision comes
| down to strict application of some theory - but the American
| right often makes fairly strong claims to some inherent
| pureness of principle that cannot be backed up by the facts
| of their behavior.)
| PKop wrote:
| >this is in all likelihood true for every political party
| everywhere
|
| Of course it is. And of course consistency is not the
| point. Hypocrisy is just good politics. "It's bad when you
| do but good when we do it" is optimal strategy.
|
| Check out Schmitt for the "friend/enemy distinction" in
| politics [0]. All political factions plays this game, this
| is fundamental to democracy [1]. Holding your opponents to
| standards and principles you yourself don't follow is how
| you win. And of course speech rules within social media
| platforms is fundamentally a political issue.
|
| [0] https://youtu.be/0d3aRYlSHDU "The friend-enemy
| distinction"
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/HqgLlYO4JSo "Carl Schmitt On the
| Contradiction Between Parliamentarism and Democracy"
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| I'm not so sure, since section 230's safe harbor is involved.
| If section 230's protections were dropped for social media, I
| am sure that most courts would adopt the Citizens United
| standard.
|
| However, that would mean a ton of lawsuits for all the
| defamation and harassment that happens on those platforms.
| themitigating wrote:
| And even more censorship
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Section 230 is a federal law, it cannot make a state law
| that would otherwise violate the First Amendment as
| incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment somehow okay.
| That's not how the relationship between state, federal, and
| constitutional law works.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| If this court case is over a state law, is Citizens
| United even precedential? That was a ruling about a
| federal law, and this appears to be a matter of Texas
| law, adjudicated with Texas court precedent. I assume
| it's only in federal court due to diversity jurisdiction.
| themitigating wrote:
| The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution of the United
| States (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the
| Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and
| treaties made under its authority, constitute the
| "supreme Law of the Land", and thus take priority over
| any conflicting state laws.[1]
|
| Wiki
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Both state and federal laws have to comport with the
| constitutional free speech doctrines. Technically they
| apply to the federal government via the First Amendment
| and state governments via the Fourteenth Amendment but
| for a hundred years now the content of the doctrines have
| been considered identical when applied to either.
|
| _Citizens United_ isn't directly on point. That was a
| question of positive corporate speech while this law, if
| it's struck down will be struck down under the corporate
| compelled speech doctrine. But they are both part of the
| same body of Constitutional law that the federal courts
| very much have jurisdiction to enforce.
| axpy906 wrote:
| Can someone explain to me how corporations are protected
| by the first in America? I've never understood this.
| swayvil wrote:
| In one case the corporation is speaking. In the other the
| corporation is facilitating me speaking to you (like a
| telephone wire).
|
| That strikes me as a pretty clear distinction.
|
| My hair is not blown back at all here.
| DannyBee wrote:
| The first amendment does not protect you against anything but
| the government. Full stop. Between people and people,
| corporations and corporations, and corporations and people it
| does nothing.
|
| The opinion fails at this very basic fact because they want
| it to be false. Not because there's any law suggesting it is
| false, nor has there been in a hundred years, but because
| they dont like it they just decided to make it up.
|
| The states do not get to change this. If you want something
| else pass an amendment, don't try to get a bunch of crazy
| unqualified judges to make a mess.
| eduction wrote:
| > The first amendment does not protect you against anything
| but the government. Full stop.
|
| Even setting aside this opinion, this is false, at least
| according to the Supreme Court. See the PruneYard case that
| this court repeatedly cites https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki
| /Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v....
| sangreal wrote:
| That decision does not dispute what you quoted at all.
| That case is not even about the first amendment, it is
| based on California's state constitution. In fact your
| link makes the exact claim as the one you say is false.
|
| > the federal constitution's First Amendment contains
| only a negative command to Congress to not abridge the
| freedom of speech
| eduction wrote:
| Touche! But the bit I quoted is something of a non
| sequitur as this case, like PruneYard, concerns a state
| law extending additional speech protections into the
| private sector, so PruneYard does seem relevant, as
| PruneYard affirmed a state's ability to do this. Further,
| it doesn't seem much rebuttal of this ruling about a
| state law to argue the First Amendment offers no
| protection to those censored by Facebook (as the part I
| quoted was doing). The First Amendment enters the case in
| terms of whether it protects Facebook from this law, not
| whether it protects users from censorship corporate
| censorship.
| mustache_kimono wrote:
| I'm not sure telephone companies or shipping services are a
| good analogy here, though, yes, that's an example the opinion
| uses. One key difference is that telephones are generally one
| to one or one to few communications, whereas social media
| platforms are a megaphone to speak to many people? Do other
| forms of mass communication require you deliver any and all
| speech?
|
| If you're going to say social media is like a telephone, I
| think you have to at least consider in what ways it actually
| isn't like a telephone.
| belltaco wrote:
| So a Linux User Group cannot kick out someone that's
| espousing neo-nazi viewpoints during meetings because they're
| a facilitator of them speaking to you, and because neo-nazism
| is a political viewpoint?
| swayvil wrote:
| Is it a free forum or isn't it? Is it a transparent window
| between you and me or isn't it?
|
| To pretend that it is when it actually isn't is a lie.
|
| So trim the conversation all you like, just don't pretend
| that you aren't doing it.
|
| An "accounting of all trimming" might be appropriate here,
| right up front.
|
| Or, alternatively, some kind of "untrimmed" certification.
| BrandonM wrote:
| Does the LUG have 50M MAU?
| belltaco wrote:
| Where in the law does it say different rules for 50M MAU
| vs 50?
| csande17 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > The Texas law forbids social media companies with at
| least 50 million monthly active users from acting to
| "censor" users based on "viewpoint," and allows either
| users or the Texas attorney general to sue to enforce the
| law.
|
| From the law (https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/872/billt
| ext/html/HB00020F...):
|
| > This chapter applies only to a social media platform
| that functionally has more than 50 million active users
| in the United States in a calendar month.
| jlawson wrote:
| This is really the critical factor.
|
| Anti-speech pro-corporate-authority advocates always try
| to put these monopolistic, unescapable megacorporations
| in the same category as some local mom-and-pop operation.
| It's a massive intentional category error; megacorps are
| not little companies you can just walk awawy from. There
| is a point where a corporation's influence becomes so
| unescapable and so capable of greatly degrading your life
| that it must be treated in some ways like a government,
| for the same reasons we treat government differently from
| just another company or citizen.
|
| The same reason that the phone company or a company that
| owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to
| "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion.
| SantalBlush wrote:
| Facebook, Twitter, etc. are not even close to
| inescapable. It's remarkably easy to leave those sites
| for one of the hundreds of other social media sites out
| there. We're using a nice one right now.
| vel0city wrote:
| Facebook doesn't own all the local roads or water mains
| though. They're one website. It's just as easy to go to
| twitter.com as it is truthsocial.com or mastodon.social.
|
| If Comcast owned practically the only ISP in my area then
| yes they should be considered a common carrier and
| shouldn't be able to discriminate traffic that isn't
| trying to break their stuff. In that case they would be
| the company that owns the roads or the water mains.
| Facebook isn't like that in the slightest.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Okay, but how are they "inescapable"? I hear this
| argument a lot, but no one can seem to dot that very
| important i.
|
| If I can't use Facebook, I can use Reddit. If I can't use
| YouTube, I can use Vimeo. If I can't use Instagram, I can
| use TikTok or Snapchat. If conservatives get banned from
| Twitter, there's a bevy of conservative-leaning Twitter
| clones. Plus Mastodon, which you can't get banned from
| because you can just set up your own instance.
| scarface74 wrote:
| You mean corporations have a monopoly on violence like
| the government has where they can legally take away your
| property and liberty.
| belltaco wrote:
| >The same reason that the phone company or a company that
| owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to
| "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion
|
| Because it's hard to impossible to get alternate services
| for roads, water and electricity, i.e common carriers.
| But there are plenty of neo nazi forums, Gab, Truth
| Social, Parler, 4chan for racists to express and spread
| their views.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| There already are common carriers for communication, see
| email services.
|
| These are unmoderated, just spam filtered. Forums, social
| sites and video sharing sites are typically not one of
| these, and the distinction is important. The most
| important distinct piece is ownership. Shen you signed
| the Terms of Service with say YouTube, you granted them
| rights that vastly exceed ones a common carrier has.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Email is not carrier and is not regulated as such. I can
| create a private mail server, invite users and keep any
| email from being delivered that I so choose.
| deepsquirrelnet wrote:
| Those places should allegedly be held to the same
| standards in suppression of speech. Only they don't have
| numbers to withstand the destruction of their platform
| if, say, numerous other people suddenly showed up to
| disagree with them.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| I've never been forced into using Twitter, Facebook etc.
| I've always been forced into choosing one of two ISPs,
| usually Comcast or Verizon.
|
| Could you explain how these two things are identical?
| [deleted]
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| By some readings of section 230, they may not be able to
| unless they want to be treated as a publisher of speech.
| However, almost nobody is going to actually argue that this
| is the case.
|
| Also, IIRC moderation rules are allowed, and if your rule
| is "no politics on the forum" and someone talks politics,
| they can be banned. Same with "no racism" or "no
| antisemitic comments."
| mijoharas wrote:
| Section 230 (c) 3. Seems pretty clear that they can
| moderate for anything the provider finds objectionable.
|
| Do you think this is unclear?
|
| > No provider or user of an interactive com- puter
| service shall be held liable on account of--
|
| > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to
| restrict access to or availability of material that the
| provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd,
| lascivious, filthy, exces- sively violent, harassing, or
| otherwise objec- tionable, whether or not such material
| is constitutionally protected;
| magicalist wrote:
| > _By some readings of section 230_
|
| No, only by a reading of a made up text that some people
| wish was in section 230. If you're bringing it up I'm
| sure you've had pointed out before that there is no
| publisher/platform distinction in it.
|
| > _Also, IIRC moderation rules are allowed, and if your
| rule is "no politics on the forum" and someone talks
| politics, they can be banned._
|
| The first person you ban is going to argue with you about
| the definition of "politics". So many people have been
| through this idea before, and it always leads right back
| to "we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone".
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| It turns out that there actually _are_ several subjects
| that are pretty well defined to be "politics," and there
| are lots of subjects of conversation that are definitely
| not "politics." There is a gray area, and as a forum
| moderator you can choose where the line is as long as you
| apply the rule consistently. Most of the discussion about
| this right now is about the consistent application of
| those rules: people point out one side getting moderated
| more heavily on certain forums than the other side.
| guelo wrote:
| > like a telephone wire
|
| That's not why people write on social media. There are very
| many "telephone wires" that have nobody listening on the
| other side. What every contributor is after is the audience.
| But there is no legal right to an audience.
| guelo wrote:
| > That Amendment, of course, protects every person's right to
| 'the freedom of speech.'
|
| Wow that's just made up! All the amendment says is "Congress
| shall make no law...".
|
| These are supposedly _originalist_ judges but really they 're
| just culture warriors.
| favorited wrote:
| They're only originalists until you ask to see where the
| Constitution grants them judicial review. Then they need to
| start pointing at the Federalist Papers.
| rayiner wrote:
| The distinction the court is drawing isn't about corporations
| versus non-corporations, but speech versus moderation.
|
| You say moderation is about "editorial control" but that's
| exactly the debate. Is Facebook moderation equivalent to the
| NYT deciding what to publish and not publish?
|
| When someone reads a Facebook post, does anyone think that
| _Facebook is the speaker?_ That legal fiction is attractive for
| various reasons, but I don't think it's such a slam dunk. I
| think there is a fair argument that Facebook is a pipe for
| someone else's speech.
| mattwilsonn888 wrote:
| People often want free speech when it favors their side, and they
| will likewise rationalize against free speech when it doesn't. We
| should be able to talk and think about _laws_ outside the very
| specific political context of the day, but Reuters cannot help
| but remind the reader that free speech online may enable
| 'violence' and that this ruling is a win for all sorts of people
| associated with Republicans and Donald Trump - as if to say you
| are somehow associated with such viewpoints because you have
| libertarian views on what thoughts people are allowed to be
| exposed to. It reads very biased.
| rdxm wrote:
| [deleted]
| jfengel wrote:
| Seeing as the tech companies have no interest in censoring based
| on "viewpoint" I don't see what difference this makes. Their
| entire existence relies on being the single point where everyone
| goes.
|
| No Republicans have ever been removed solely for being
| Republican. People are removed for promoting violence and
| harassing other users.
|
| The fact that Republicans consider violence to be a "viewpoint",
| and _their_ viewpoint rather than that of a few extremists who
| use their name -- that worries me. A lot.
| Yawnzy wrote:
| Are you doing that "rules for radicals" think where you accuse
| the other side of doing the exact thing you're guilty of?
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. We ban
| accounts that post like this.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. Even by
| the (low) standard of the current thread, your comments here
| are standing out in a flamey way. It's not what this site is
| for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rullelito wrote:
| You should try to get out of your filter bubble more often.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site
| guidelines yourself. That only makes everything worse.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tempie_deleteme wrote:
| that's not so easy... there are some national bubbles which
| the internet used to be good as igonring, but not once it
| became the mainstream internet.
|
| now the national barriers exist online too, in addition to
| the pre-existing language barriers. i.e. the information
| technology has been deployed as an extra tool to apply
| national-linguistic barriers between peoples.
| jfengel wrote:
| freen wrote:
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| happytoexplain wrote:
| I don't visit a single website that tries to serve me
| political content dynamically - no Facebook, no Twitter.
| Except YouTube, but I don't watch anything political there,
| and the algorithm seems to know it. I don't read the "MSM"
| news outlets, as they're called. But I observe the same trend
| the parent describes - in forums, in apparently objective
| news stories, in the previous US president, and in real life.
| I'm not saying this as a political cudgel. This personality
| "flaw" is common across the world and is just one of many on
| all sides, and it's not a surprise that people with any given
| personality commonality will bias to one side in any given
| two-party system, and in the US, this one appears to bias
| toward the Republican party. It's hard to talk about
| objectively and not invoke anger, which is reasonable. It is
| worrying, but there's rarely a time in polite conversation
| when it is relevant enough to bother pointing out. Content
| moderation is one of those times, I think. There's plenty of
| unfair moderation out there, but a lot of what people call a
| bias against the right in the US seems to usually just be a
| bias in the tendency of what they say to break seemingly
| reasonable content/behavior rules.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| pmalynin wrote:
| The consequences of this law aren't very clear, especially in the
| post Citizens United world where scotus has established that
| corporations have first amendment rights that are protected by
| constitution. Now, if a corporation is in some sense required to
| carry someone's message due to some law, that gets into
| (arguably) the realm of forced speech.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I think Citzens United is a horrible ruling,
| and this whole fiasco just further shows the "rules for thee but
| not for me" doctrine the Republican Party has been operating for
| the past 25 odd years.
| leereeves wrote:
| It's been done before. See: the Fairness Doctrine for TV, or
| common carrier laws for phones.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Broadcast TV was using public airwaves. That never applied to
| cable or satellite TV.
| leereeves wrote:
| And the Internet was created by the US government, so it's
| also a public resource.
|
| Ok, it's been privatized, but can the government abdicate
| it's responsibility to protect freedom of speech by
| privatizing?
|
| Edit because I'm "posting too fast": Paying for most of the
| infrastructure didn't make TV stations or phone companies
| exempt from similar regulation. I don't see why it would
| make social networks exempt.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The internet may have been "created" by the federal
| government. But most of the investment and infrastructure
| is very much done by private companies.
|
| If the government of Texas wants a free for all social
| platform, they can create one.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > If the government of Texas wants a free for all social
| platform, they can create one.
|
| Actually, it seems like they can create these laws, that
| have been upheld by the court system as being completely
| legal.
|
| And then if social media companies break these completely
| legal laws, then they will be massively fined and ordered
| by the court to change.
| scarface74 wrote:
| thrown_22 wrote:
| It's truly bizarre to see liberals argue that corporation
| have a right not to be raped, ergo we must let them
| decide what is and isn't acceptable speech.
| scarface74 wrote:
| We are not forced to use Twitter or Facebook. If Truth
| Social is more your speed, go for it.
| stale2002 wrote:
| We don't have to do that though.
|
| Instead, we live in a democracy, and if these social
| media companies don't like it then they can move to a
| different country.
|
| These laws are legal, according to the court system.
|
| You are the one who is going to have to find a different
| country if you don't like them.
| leereeves wrote:
| There are many reasons why that won't work for a lot of
| people:
|
| What if people who have a variety of opinions just want
| to be able to communicate with each other?
|
| Or what if someone wants to hear all the facts without
| censorship? Maybe the Hunter Biden's laptop story was
| true, but you wouldn't hear that on Twitter. Maybe Trump
| was very wrong about Invermectin, but you wouldn't hear
| that on Truth Social.
|
| What if someone believes that open debate is better for
| democracy than a few alternative echo chambers?
| mcphage wrote:
| What constitutes a "viewpoint" in this law?
| brighamyoung wrote:
| Racism, sexism, homophobia, capitalism, etc.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| The article says:
|
| >The largely 2-1 ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
|
| And at the end:
|
| >(This story corrects to largely 2-1 ruling in second paragraph)
|
| I don't understand this. What does "largely" mean here? Was it a
| 2-1 decision or not? Why the qualifier?
| eduction wrote:
| Full opinions here:
| https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-51178-CV1.pd...
|
| Each judge wrote their own opinion. You can see the first two
| judges are in agreement, the last writes, " I concur with the
| judgment in Part IV of the majority's opinion. I respectfully
| dissent from the remainder." So they were 2-1, except for part
| IV, where they were 3-0. (I am confused about this part as I've
| read each section IV several times and it seems like they
| disagree here, one side arguing that the platforms are, and
| they other that they are not, entitled to pre enforcement
| relief. But IANAL.)
| BCM43 wrote:
| One of the judges issued a partial concurrence and partial
| dissent.
| robust-cactus wrote:
| If this passes, basically what's going to happen is a lot of pre-
| filtering of people entering social networks akin to next doors
| strategy.
|
| I've worked at a civic tech social network that had no rules, and
| eventually the extremists pushed out all the normal folks - it's
| just stupid shouting matches. We tore it all down and made
| isolated communities. It's basically the only way to have real
| discourse.
| seydor wrote:
| Sure but it moves the goalposts, away from employees. I think
| it's better if individual sub-networks selfregulate
| analog31 wrote:
| Is there anything to prevent a platform from _categorizing_
| content without censoring it?
| efitz wrote:
| Yet Reddit, that follows this model, still manages to engage in
| suppression of on-topic viewpoints that moderators and/or
| Reddit employees disagree with.
| tootie wrote:
| Probably because mods are unpaid and not employees.
| supernovae wrote:
| And reddit was a massive experiment in far right takeover.
| It went from hosting the rally for reason to electing
| Donald trump at lightning speed.
|
| Not because of the overall community, but because of
| business actions, manufactured turmoil, and well funded
| trolling.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| I'm surprised to see this being downvoted. It was
| shocking to see how large /r/TheDonald was around the
| 2016 election. Now, whether they were real, voting US
| citizens is a valid question.
| threeseed wrote:
| You still see on subreddits like /r/wayofthebern and
| /r/conspiracy accounts which are posting full-time (i.e.
| dozens of posts and comments a day) with pro-Russia, pro-
| China, anti-US content.
| leereeves wrote:
| The admins, who are paid employees, also engage in similar
| suppression by banning subreddits they dislike.
|
| Proof? Read about how reddit suppressed dissent during the
| pandemic.
|
| I'm not going to post any particular link because the topic
| is too political and every source (left and right) spins
| things in some way that I dislike.
|
| The facts, without spin, are these: reddit banned and/or
| quarantined many anti-lockdown subs. Initially, they said
| they would not, because "Dissent is a part of Reddit and
| the foundation of democracy", but ultimately, they did.
| themitigating wrote:
| Proof?
|
| You should cite sources instead of saying the equivalent
| of "do your own research "
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Reddit banned /r/TheDonald, which would have certainly run
| afoul of this law. You may respond that there were policy
| based reasons for doing so (brigading, harassment, etc.) and
| you'd be right. But that's true of moderation decisions made
| by Facebook and Twitter too, or at least they would say so.
| In fact that ban was far more egregious than any of the
| moderation decisions that are being targeted by this law at
| the big platforms.
| richbell wrote:
| Prior to banning /r/The_Donald, Reddit created /r/popular
| as a default alternative to /r/all to prevent posts from
| /r/The_Donald from making it to the front page.
| Interestingly, they didn't ban any of the other obnoxious
| political subreddits that people were complaining about.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5u9pl5/intr
| o...
|
| (Not a Trump fan or even right-leaning, just pointing out
| that Reddit administrators went to great lengths to
| suppress a subreddit they disliked long before banning it.)
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Yeah I mean I think it is and should be within their
| rights. /r/TheDonald was _not_ merely expressing a
| political viewpoint. It was doing a lot of other stuff.
| But the proponents of this law would view banning it was
| a violation.
| themitigating wrote:
| What evidence do you have of reddit employees censoring
| information they disagree with?
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Obligatory: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comment
| s/5ektpc/rthe...
| themitigating wrote:
| This says an admin was accused of editing posts, it
| doesn't provide proof. It then says users down voted him
| not employees of reddit.
|
| Also subbit reddit admins aren't employees , I believe
| most people can create a subreddit and be an admin
| Jensson wrote:
| He admitted it himself that he did it:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5frg1n/ti
| fu_...
| themitigating wrote:
| That's one person in a large company the original comment
| claimed it was multiple employees and a policy of the
| company
| Jensson wrote:
| That's the founder and CEO at the time, he created the
| reddit culture and he did the worst thing you can do in
| that situation: silently editing the posts of people you
| disagree with. Nobody said that post was proof that lots
| of admins do this, but it is proof that Reddits
| leadership is rotten to the core. If the CEO is fine with
| editing others speech to make it look like they said
| things they didn't, then obviously he is also fine with
| unfairly banning people or communities he disagrees with
| since that is a much lesser evil.
| richbell wrote:
| > This says an admin was accused of editing posts, it
| doesn't provide proof. It then says users down voted him
| not employees of reddit.
|
| SubredditDrama is a meta-subreddit. They linked to the
| post by Spez where he admitted to editing the comment --
| unfortunately, it's no longer available due to Reddit
| banning r/the_donald, but you can find numerous news
| articles that include his original comment. E.g.,
| https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-38088712
|
| > Also subbit reddit admins aren't employees , I believe
| most people can create a subreddit and be an admin
|
| In Reddit terminology those are moderators.
| Administrators are site-wide and employed by Reddit.
| uwuemu wrote:
| One look at r/worldnews or r/news? Those are not even some
| obscure subreddits.
|
| It's a community ruled by progressives, posted into by
| progressives and mostly read by progressives. The content
| reflects that. This has been achieved by years of content
| filtering and banning of any centrist or right wing views.
| It's the definition of an echo chamber. Or another of the
| main subreddits, r/video, just recently I'm watching a post
| where a guy describes some valve or whatever and his little
| kid comes in yadda yadda cute video of dad with his
| daughter. In the comments it's all about how the guy said
| something about supporting truckers or whatever and how
| terrible that was. Yep. Meanwhile the video has basically
| no dislikes on Youtube..But by reading the r/video thread
| you'd think it's unpopular and the guy is a nazi or
| something. No. It's just that Reddit is a manufactured
| community of left wingers.
|
| Btw try to talk about how "trans women are not women" and
| refer to transitioning people by their pre-transition name
| (because you don't recognize their transition or it is
| against your religion), which is absolutely a
| political/religious statement and 100% a point of view, see
| how long your account lasts :)
| [deleted]
| mikkergp wrote:
| I wonder if the underlying goal of all this is actually classic
| authoritarian restriction of freedoms. The big public platforms
| are much better for spreading progressive ideas than
| conservative ideas. Maybe this was the underlying reason they
| wanted to repeal section 230. It wasn't a misunderstanding it
| was strategic.
| lkrubner wrote:
| The only research that has been done on this found that on
| Twitter the conservative voices were amplified more than
| progressive voices:
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/27/twitter-
| am...
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| The opinion of three journalists working for the same
| retail tech conglomerate is hardly "research." WaPo has
| suffered a Pulitzer Prize revocation in 1981 for
| fabricating stories, has continuously circulated
| advertisements from China Watch (operated by the CCP),
| repeatedly settled on libelous claims made for profit, and
| on numerous occasions assisted in providing platforms for
| anti-Western and anti-Semitic groups supported by Iran.
| It's a joke to imagine they would do research in hopes of
| drawing any conclusion but the one that makes them the most
| money.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Really you had to go back to 1981?
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Yeah, I guess I couldn't find any examples of journalism
| for profit since 1981. Or maybe, I chose an old example
| to make a point about how it's always been for profit.
| abraae wrote:
| It would take some time to fact check your assertions, so
| I only looked into the first one. It involved a single
| reporter, not systemic plagiarism by the paper, and she
| was fired when it came to light. The Post's ombudsman,
| who handles readers' complaints as well as internal
| problems, undertook an investigation.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Wait, so you mean a bunch of wild assertions posted on
| the internet were in fact false? But I did research!
|
| Thanks for making my point.
| themitigating wrote:
| So have many other media outlets. It's an old company
| with many employees some of whom aren't going to be
| ethical.
|
| As for the Chinese government ads: do you want them to
| censor it?
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| You're too generous. It's all media, it's all for profit,
| and it's all unethical. No editor will willingly submit a
| piece that makes his/her company, or conglomerate
| overlords LESS money. That is, unless he/she plans to
| change careers. The circumstances imply that only the
| most submissive journalists, who are most willing to lie,
| are left in action.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Interesting point, I guess I'm making the assertion that
| conservative ideas can spread better in small groups then
| liberal ideas since liberal ideas are trying to change the
| status quo they just have to plant a seed. Conservative
| ideas have to be fought for since "everyone already know
| them" (quotes for broad generalizations without data, but
| leaning into the fact that conservative ideas should be
| inherently more well known since they've been practiced in
| the past.)
| themitigating wrote:
| So conservatives viewpoints spread in small groups
| better, a situation where you are less likely to be
| challenged and less likely to hear opposing viewpoints
| (because of the size)
| seydor wrote:
| Are you sure? Seems like Twitter&FB and the like were more
| likely to promote the reactions to conservative ideas, which
| by necessity gives more airtime to those.
| throwaway0x7E6 wrote:
| > The big public platforms are much better for spreading
| progressive ideas than conservative ideas.
|
| wouldn't be necessary to suppress the opposition as much as
| they do if that was true.
| ajross wrote:
| It already passed, it's a law on the books in Texas. And now
| it's been upheld at by both trial and circuit courts.
|
| FWIW: there's one last chance at SCOTUS to undo this, but if
| that doesn't work out what we're almost certain to see instead
| of "pre-filtering" is just "No Tweeting from Texas".
| galangalalgol wrote:
| No tweeting from Texas sounds like a great idea! We can
| expand it to no tweeting from anywhere after we see the
| effects on Texans. Then I bknow the popular nexts step would
| be to get rid of FB and Instagram, but I'm in favor of
| dissolving Pinterest first. It is like charlie and the
| football everytime I follow a link from an image search
| looking for something only to notice it was Pinterest right
| afterwards but before it loads, realizing I am about to be
| hounded to load an app, then log in, and then be shown that
| image is no longer part of Pinterest.
| [deleted]
| DannyBee wrote:
| Actually, they will likely ask for en banc first. This is
| just a three judge panel
| aliasxneo wrote:
| The apparent disdain for Texas in this thread is bizarre.
| cddotdotslash wrote:
| I mean... it's the state that implemented this law. So
| we're not talking about Montana or something here.
| the_jeremy wrote:
| As a not-Texan, almost all of what I hear about Texas is
| oil, conservatism, failed power systems during winter,
| anti-abortion-rights, and using immigrants as political
| theater by sending them to DC/NY. I don't know that the
| disdain is unexpected given the political leaning of people
| working in technology.
| sacrosancty wrote:
| You're probably living in a filter bubble. You'd be
| hearing only the same kind of things about California if
| you were in a different bubble.
| themitigating wrote:
| Whataboutisn.
|
| He didn't claim what he heard was true.
|
| He didn't say he doesn't hear things about other states.
|
| Nor did he make a judgment about Texas.
|
| He only offered a possible explanation to the gp
| themitigating wrote:
| Because they are the state that implemented the law while
| at the same time is actually censoring information. A
| direct violation of the first amendment. A public library
| is a public space and the state government is an authority
| that can impose punishments.
|
| The hypocrisy is insane
|
| "Texas governor calls books 'pornography' in latest effort
| to remove LGBTQ titles from school libraries"
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/us/texas-lgbtq-books-
| schools/...
| supernovae wrote:
| There wouldn't be disdain for Texas if Texas didn't do
| stupid things.
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop taking HN threads further into
| flamewar? It's not what this site is for, and it destroys
| what it is for.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I'm a big fan of simply exiting sovereign markets that are
| not worth it and would like to see corporations do this
| more frequently
|
| It is very easy for private sector of almost any size to
| remind sovereigns about overplaying their hand
| houstonn wrote:
| The obvious byproduct is their happiness and productivity
| would increase, and other states would swiftly copy them to
| remain competitive. Then social media would have to respond
| to that.
| robust-cactus wrote:
| It's kinda interesting how a world like "no tweeting from
| Texas" might jive with EU laws which want to restrict IO and
| data storage to just inside the region or country.
|
| Are we about to get more decentralized just because the laws
| are accidentally forcing us to?
|
| Imagine connecting to EU or Texas Twitter to see what's going
| on there.
| mwint wrote:
| Oh, it's not accidental.
| [deleted]
| ben_w wrote:
| It's not accidental. I don't see how the old "Wild West"
| era of the internet was ever going to be compatible with
| any two sovereign nations that had even a minuscule
| difference of opinion about any of copyright and database
| rights, privacy, obscenity, hacking, incitement, libel, or
| anything else that might come broadly under the heading of
| "free speech".
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Maybe they can finally secede and take Elon with them.
| taylodl wrote:
| Simple. Shut off Texas. You don't have a right to use social
| media. I wouldn't even appeal the decision. Let Texas lie in
| the bed they made.
| mythrwy wrote:
| If Texas were shut off from social media, would net mental
| health and productivity of Texans increase?
|
| I say we do the experiment and find out!
| thechao wrote:
| My exurban Texan neighbors wouldn't be able to post their
| dog whistles on the neighborhood FB page. Oh! Woe is me!
| sacrosancty wrote:
| Didn't happen with EU's internet laws. Instead, we get
| cookie banners all over the world. I don't think exiting a
| market full of money because of ideology is good business.
| efitz wrote:
| ben_w wrote:
| For there to be a parallel in that specific case, that
| community would've had to have had the power to prosecute
| and enforce judgments against any organisation that
| published blood libels.
|
| They didn't, so it isn't.
| chelical wrote:
| While I think the hate of Texas is unusual in this
| thread, this is an awful comparison. Please don't use
| comparisons that trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I seriously do not.
| efitz wrote:
| "Othering" has moved from race to political viewpoint,
| but the human tendency to exclude others from
| discourse/commerce/society is still alive and well.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Do you consider it othering based on political viewpoint
| when us companies block European access for gdpr reasons?
| SantalBlush wrote:
| >"Othering" has moved from race to political viewpoint
|
| No it hasn't. People have been othered for either reason
| for millennia, and continue to be so. This is probably
| one of the safest eras for having an unpopular political
| view in the US. For example, try being accused of holding
| communist views during most of the 20th century.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| Lol. Are you for real? Try expressing any concerns about
| the excesses of the trans activists or concerns about the
| demographic replacement of europeans. People who do that
| wish they were treated like communists in the 50s!
| FollowingTheDao wrote:
| It's called living offline.
| disruptiveink wrote:
| No, if this passes, tech companies will just stop operating in
| Texas outright. It's really as simple as that.
| fooey wrote:
| The Texas law makes it illegal to not do business with Texas
|
| Which is hilarious, but who the hell knows what the courts
| will decide these days
| gfodor wrote:
| I hope the internet returns to this model for like a dozen
| reasons. Insofar as we can be sure this kind of regulation gets
| there it should be celebrated imo.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The internet should be a common carrier. A private company
| that sits on top of the internet is not a common carrier. Why
| should the government be able to regulate what private
| companies publish?
|
| I bet you dollars to doughnuts that neither RedState or Truth
| social would want to be under the same regulations. I've been
| banned from RedState twice.
| [deleted]
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I don't get it. Restaurants can choose their customers based on
| how they behave or even how they are dressed. Why shouldn't
| online businesses be able to reject some of their customers?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| > Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of
| their customers?
|
| If they were advertising it as "a website for everyone except
| these opinions: ...", your point would have been valid. That's
| why.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| It's right there in the T&C and content guidelines isn't it?
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| That's the thing, it's not. If they specifically said that
| I'd be banned for having certain opinions different from
| Zuckerberg, I'd have never complained but they didn't. They
| are vague, they are disingenuous and I honestly cannot
| believe so many people are defending them for censoring
| others.
|
| Politics aside, Facebook bans people for smallest of
| things. I got banned for 30 days for quoting someone's
| comment. It's a censorship dystopia that only people with
| short-sighted vision of the future could support.
| stevenally wrote:
| That's the irony of all this. It's the "freedom" party
| interfering with a company's right to run its own website.
| nequo wrote:
| Would this outlaw for example Gmail's spam filter, too?
|
| Or only if the spam is wrapped up as a political viewpoint?
| giaour wrote:
| Not related to the Texas law, but the RNC has already filed FEC
| complaints accusing the GMail spam filter of censorship. So I
| imagine a creative Texas lawyer will probably try to make the
| case you're describing.
|
| https://www.axios.com/2022/06/29/gops-gmail-feud-escalates
| saurik wrote:
| I would think that users could be allowed to choose to have a
| spam filter on their own account--in the same way that I can
| choose to screen calls on my telephone service--but, if Google
| unilaterally decides that I am not allowed to receive the call
| even if I am interested (giving me no way to opt out of their
| spam filter or allow people I consider not spam), then that
| could be a problem.
| themitigating wrote:
| You can already block specific email addresses. With the
| amount of spam this will be a daily problem for you.
|
| Note -, I think spam is filtered before it even hits your
| account and goes to the spam folder however correct me if I'm
| wrong
| saurik wrote:
| I don't understand your point or what you are responding to
| :(. The issue at hand is whether the concept of a spam
| filter violates the position of these laws, and I do not
| think it does _as long as the spam filter is not a
| universal configuration that is forced on everyone_. As
| long as you can either deactivate the spam filter entirely
| or whitelist specific senders (though I can make more
| elaborate arguments where this isn 't quite sufficient due
| to bias) / specific content (which should be sufficient),
| then I believe that Google's spam filter is not the same
| thing as "moderation" which deletes or blocks the content
| for everyone, whether they wanted to see it or not.
| themitigating wrote:
| It was to your comment.
|
| Google blocks some spam messages before they reach your
| inbox and you can't disable this
| saurik wrote:
| In which case I am saying that that seems dangerous for
| them to be doing under this law, but that the concept of
| a spam filter isn't fundamentally broken and so people--
| such as the person I am responding to--who seem concerned
| that they won't be able to filter spam going forward are
| off-base, as I would think the spam filter need only be
| configurable (and, certainly, it would not prevent a
| third-party spam filter from existing).
| themitigating wrote:
| It is configurable in that if you don't like the spam
| filter you don't have to use the service
| enchantments wrote:
| The language in the law says that email providers cannot do
| something "impeding the transmission of email messages based
| on content." So, they can probably give you tools to
| allow/deny emails from addresses you can enter, at least.
| Given that spam filters blocking fundraising emails from
| conservative groups is already something discussed among
| conservatives, it seems at least plausible that making spam
| filters illegal was actually intended here. I guess we'll
| find out as soon as someone sues (or the supreme court throws
| it out).
| JimmieMcnulty wrote:
| What's funny is that none of the big tech firms would need to
| change their policies or behaviors, should this actually become
| the law of the land, as there are currently no policies that
| prohibit political speech from any of their platforms.
| a_shovel wrote:
| There's discussion over what exactly a "political view" is here.
| I find this quote from a previous article [1] enlightening:
|
| > _" No one--not lawyers, not judges, not experts in the field,
| not even the law's own sponsors--knows what compliance with this
| law looks like."_
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/05/texas-law-
| bannin...
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Well the difficult thing is that apparently every day mundane
| activities can be "political" depending on who is doing them
| and in what context. Even a character in a show or video game
| suddenly becomes a political statement (to some people) just by
| being female, or brown, or gay, etc.
| philippejara wrote:
| Well, yes, everything is political whether we like it or not.
| Even not having a character in a videogame that represents a
| minority can be a political statement. It's far too broad a
| brush to paint to be useful for anything
| nomdep wrote:
| No, like you said, everything CAN be a political statement
| but, more often than not, everything is not, by default, a
| political statement
| philippejara wrote:
| I agree actually, that's fair. Assuming a default
| position to not be a political statement does complicate
| things when you try to classify what is political due to
| giving the status quo a bit to much leeway, but honestly
| this classification is a waste of time.
| sircastor wrote:
| But we've reached a political climate where anything
| characterized as political is so. It's unavoidable, and I
| think that's the intention of this law. It wasn't created
| to provide some fair and balanced public experience for
| citizens on private platforms. It was created to threaten
| large tech companies that make some politicians
| uncomfortable.
| judge2020 wrote:
| I imagine you could assume that everything is, indeed, a
| political statement, to at least one person in the US.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Everything is a statement, intentionally or not. The
| characterization of what is mundane is itself a political
| statement.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I kinda of want to go back in time when politics was sort of
| on the back burner. Both left and right wing politics is
| unrecognizable to me. Everything is politicized and taken
| into conflict where it need not be.
|
| Maybe I was in college and didn't pay attention to this stuff
| or maybe the world has really gone mad.
|
| Start treating people as people and not some political entity
| embodied in an activist form. Most of my friends are on the
| sidelines, thankfully. I treasure my relationships more,
| there isn't too much time to live.
|
| I'm exhausted.
| anon84873628 wrote:
| Some might say that you and your friends' ability to sit on
| the sidelines is a form of privilege not available to
| everyone. Along with this idea that in the past, politics
| was more polite, or less bothersome or whatever.
|
| Maybe for some people, participating in politics has been a
| matter of life and death - something they don't have the
| luxury to ignore.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| True, it is the sign of bad times. Deglobalization is
| going to cause more hurt. I expect a rough ride for next
| decade or two until we come to our senses.
| kansface wrote:
| This is a terrible argument - a secular Pascal's mugging,
| conveniently invoked to force everyone and everything
| into politics; a currently un-ironic "think of the
| children"!
|
| It is not healthy for our society to demand that 100% of
| things be politicized - to claim that not politicizing
| stuff is immoral because some issues are profoundly
| impactful for some people!
|
| I want the good, the equitable, the right, the just and
| far, far less of the political! Politics deserves the
| deference due politics in any particular situation - not
| that derived from catastrophizing the most extreme
| outcome and then universalizing it into the quotidian!
|
| | Some might say that you and your friends' ability to
| sit on the sidelines is a form of privilege not available
| to everyone.
|
| I say the ability and demand to turn everything into
| politics and require the same of everyone else is itself
| a form of privilege!
| a_shovel wrote:
| Jeez, save some exclamation marks for the rest of us.
|
| If what other people want is bad, inequitable, wrong, or
| unjust, then wanting the good, the equitable, the right
| and the just is _politics itself_.
| dpifke wrote:
| The Court talks about this in the decision[0]. It makes a
| strong argument that striking down the Texas law before it's
| ever been enforced makes no sense, because all discussions of
| its benefits or harms are in the hypothetical realm. Quoting
| from pages 9-10:
|
| _First, the judicial power vested in us by Article III does
| not include the power to veto statutes. And that omission is no
| accident: The Founders expressly considered giving judges that
| power, and they decided not to do so. Several delegates at the
| Constitutional Convention suggested creating a "Council of
| Revision" consisting of federal judges and the executive.
| Jonathan F. Mitchell, The Writ-of-Erasure Fallacy, 104 Va. L.
| Rev. 933, 954 (2018). They wanted to empower this Council to
| veto Congress's legislation, subject to congressional override.
| Ibid. A veto would render the legislation "void." Ibid. But
| despite the best efforts of James Wilson and James Madison, the
| Convention rejected the proposal--three times over. Id. at
| 957-59. That means we have no power to "strike down," "void,"
| or "invalidate" an entire law. See id. at 936 (explaining that
| "federal courts have no authority to erase a duly enacted law
| from the statute books" but have only the power "to decline to
| enforce a statute in a particular case or controversy" and "to
| enjoin executive officials from taking steps to enforce a
| statute"); Borden v. United States, 141 S. Ct. 1817, 1835-36
| (2021) (Thomas, J., concurring in the judgment) (noting that
| "[c]ourts have no authority to strike down statutory text" and
| that "a facial challenge, if successful, has the same effect as
| nullifying a statute" (quotations omitted)); Kevin C. Walsh,
| Partial Unconstitutionality, 85 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 738, 756 (2010)
| (explaining that the Founders did not conceive of judicial
| review as the power to "strike down" legislation)._
|
| _Second, the judicial power vested in us by Article III is
| limited to deciding certain "Cases" and "Controversies." U.S.
| Const. art. III, SS 2. A federal court "has no jurisdiction to
| pronounce any statute, either of a state or of the United
| States, void, because irreconcilable with the constitution,
| except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of
| litigants in actual controversies." Liverpool, N.Y. & Phila.
| S.S. Co. v. Comm'rs of Emigration, 113 U.S. 33, 39 (1885);
| accord Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 178 (1803).
| This limitation on federal jurisdiction to "actual
| controversies" prevents courts from "ancitipat[ing] a question
| of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding
| it." Liverpool, 113 U.S. at 39; see also Broadrick v. Oklahoma,
| 413 U.S. 601, 610-11 (1973) ("[U]nder our constitutional system
| courts are not roving commissions assigned to pass judgment on
| the validity of the Nation's laws."). And it makes pre-
| enforcement facial challenges a particularly nettlesome affair.
| Such suits usually do not present "flesh-and-blood legal
| problems with data relevant and adequate to an informed
| judgment." New York v. Ferber, 458 U.S. 747, 768 (1982)
| (quotation omitted). Instead, they require the court "to
| consider every conceivable situation which might possibly arise
| in the application of complex and comprehensive legislation,"
| forcing courts to deploy the severe power of judicial review
| "with reference to hypothetical cases." United States v.
| Raines, 362 U.S. 17, 21-22 (1960)._
|
| _Third, federalism. Invalidate-the-law-now, discover-how-it-
| works- later judging is particularly troublesome when reviewing
| state laws, as it deprives "state courts [of ] the opportunity
| to construe a law to avoid constitutional infirmities." Ferber,
| 458 U.S. at 768. And "facial challenges threaten to short
| circuit the democratic process by preventing laws embodying the
| will of the people from being implemented in a manner
| consistent with the Constitution." Wash. State Grange, 552 U.S.
| at 451. The respect owed to a sovereign State thus demands that
| we look particularly askance at a litigant who wants unelected
| federal judges to countermand the State's democratically
| accountable policymakers._
|
| [0]
| https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-51178-CV1.pd...
| (PDF)
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| I think what you're proposing is that major providers should
| have either obeyed the law (with all the claimed negative
| consequences taking place instantly through that compliance)
| or they should have _disobeyed_ the law and waited for a
| "case or controversy" to emerge from that decision.
|
| I don't think the court actually wants appellants to disobey
| the law, so I find it hard to take this argument seriously.
| dpifke wrote:
| The decision talks about this. The law does not allow for
| damages, only injunctive relief. So any negative
| consequences from enforcement would be fleeting,
| potentially stayed while the actual case or controversy
| worked its way through the courts. Quoting from page 14:
|
| _This rationale for overbreadth adjudication is wholly
| inapposite here. First of all, there are no third parties
| to chill. The plaintiff trade associations represent all
| the Platforms covered by HB 20. Additionally, unlike
| individual citizens potentially subject to criminal
| sanctions--the usual beneficiaries of overbreadth rulings--
| the entities subject to HB 20 are large, well-heeled
| corporations that have hired an armada of attorneys from
| some of the best law firms in the world to protect their
| censorship rights. And any fear of chilling is made even
| less credible by HB 20's remedial scheme. Not only are
| criminal sanctions unavailable;_ damages _are unavailable.
| It's hard to see how the Platforms--which have already
| shown a willingness to stand on their rights--will be so
| chilled by the prospect of declaratory and injunctive
| relief that a facial remedy is justified._
|
| _Third, the Platforms principally argue against HB 20 by
| speculating about the most extreme hypothetical
| applications of the law. Such whataboutisms further
| exemplify why it's inappropriate to hold the law facially
| unconstitutional in a pre-enforcement posture._
|
| (emphasis in original)
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| (c) If a social media platform fails to promptly comply
| with a court order in an action brought under
| this section, the court shall hold the social
| media platform in contempt and shall use all
| lawful measures to secure immediate compliance with the
| order, including daily penalties sufficient to
| secure immediate compliance.
|
| It does appear to allow for something akin to damages.
| Would an appeal preclude contempt charges?
| thrown_22 wrote:
| No one knows what pornography is either. But for some reason
| we've managed to keep going as a society for 60 years after it
| was declared that "I'll know it when I see it."
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Well, I know my political opinion is that you should check out
| my new product, and I'm going to express this political opinion
| a lot. If necessary I'll include a sentence about a US
| President.
|
| I'm half serious here. I would love to tell people about a new
| game I have on Steam (let's say), so I code a WebDriver "tool".
| It searches out gaming related Tweets and then expresses my
| political opinion. I have to press enter once for each post it
| makes. It's not a bot, since it only responds to user input
| from a genuine Texan. I even do a captcha by hand every once in
| a while.
|
| I guess it goes back to your excellent quote, nobody know what
| compliance with this law looks like.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| The very fact that you made this comment implies that you
| expect the public to understand what it means. Therefore, so
| would a jury of your peers. In other words, if you get that
| this behavior is just a twist on botting, it's safe to assume
| the courts will too.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| If I have to run a thin thread of politics through my
| product from beginning to end I will. It won't be the first
| time a product is tied to a political identity, and it's
| often beneficial to do so.
|
| Heck, I'll even make two similar products and tie each to a
| different political party, so everyone can buy the product
| that matches their political view. My products are
| political statements, and 1% of all profits go to political
| causes!
|
| I'm not faking, if you give me an incentive to let my
| political opinion seep into every aspect of my life, I can
| do it; even without incentive I find it hard to avoid.
| Being able to spam social media about my product without
| punishment is a pretty big incentive.
|
| If I genuinely believe that the most important thing people
| can do to support <politician> is buy my product, that is
| still far - far! - from the most extreme political views
| out there.
|
| Someone out there is pushing their product as a supposed
| political view, you drag them into court and find that they
| actually believe it, and they also genuinely believe the
| world is flat and the government is run by lizard people.
| What are you going to do? All their speech about those
| things is now protected.
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| Sure, all of that's true, so long as you can convince a
| judge, or a jury of peers selected by a team of attorneys
| highly paid to make your life a nightmare.
|
| The law is subjective, just like your spiteful view of
| it. And you can bet there are spiteful judges, just like
| you.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| A lot of your comments seem to be in the realm of "it
| doesn't matter what the law is, judges and juries will do
| what they want", which I partly agree with, but within
| the context of this debate we should assume that judges
| and juries will uphold the law. Otherwise, why are we
| debating the pros and cons of the law if nobody is going
| to uphold it?
| judge2020 wrote:
| What is 'botting'? Would it include paying a bunch of
| college kids $50 to spam reply this message to people for 3
| hours a day?
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| That all depends on how many years your attorney has been
| playing golf with the judge.
| okaram wrote:
| You expect way too much of the justice system... The
| 'peers' on HN are very different from the peers on an
| average jury
| trimethylpurine wrote:
| You expect way too much of HN. Apparently, the average
| poster on HN doesn't know how jury selection works.
| There's nothing "average" about a jury.
| seydor wrote:
| It is weird that there is no country that allows such freedoms in
| the world. There is clearly a gap in regulation and constitutions
| when it comes to the internet because they could have never
| imagined it 400 years ago. But this needs to be settled in the
| positive direction and in an egalitarian way: speech that is
| legal should be free everywhere. and that's the basis upon which
| every tech business should be built . The fact that they were
| able to get away with censoring the public for so many years was
| the aberration.
|
| I wonder what s the role of advertisers here, since they
| effectively demonetize platforms that are not strictly censoring
| (e.g. reddit)
| supernovae wrote:
| Reddit is highly moderated and censored.
|
| You can't even post facts in /r/conservative without being
| banned.
|
| Reddit also has a Terms of Service and it has banned hate
| groups under such terms of service. With a large bias towards
| far right hate groups because there really is no existence of
| far left hate groups.
|
| So of course moderation seems biased when your views are
| hateful to begin with.
|
| Advertisers generally want nothing to do with advertising on
| low quality networks unless those advertisers are targeting
| people because they profit from their misery.
| seydor wrote:
| Moderated by unpaid users = shit moderation, you get what you
| pay for. Moderators get rewarded with the rush of 'power'
| richbell wrote:
| > Moderators get rewarded with the rush of 'power'
|
| Powermods have been detrimental to Reddit's health. There
| are some great communities with unpaid moderators who care
| about and foster their subreddits, but most of the
| prominent moderators don't care about their subreddits
| beyond the 'power'.
| seydor wrote:
| Reddit doesnt seem to care (hey it's free work , right?).
| There s literally nothing that users can do against bad
| moderation in grandfathered subreddits. It s really
| terrible that the same people "moderate" subreddits for
| 10+ years, while their audience has changed so much.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It is fun getting the "punch a Nazi" edgelords banned for
| inciting violence.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| > speech that is legal should be free everywhere.
|
| Yes! This is precisely what should be the standard. Everything
| that is not explicitly illegal is legal and protected. No
| corporation should prohibit legal things.
| cabaalis wrote:
| Naming who appointed judges when writing articles about their
| decisions is a dog whistle. Change my mind.
| bglazer wrote:
| Its not a dog whistle, its just a whistle. Judges have the
| politics of the politicians who appoint them; why else would
| the politicians appoint them?
|
| Frankly, it's extremely naive to assume that judges are
| apolitical.
| fallingknife wrote:
| On the one hand this clearly violates the 1st amendment. On the
| other hand, the 1st amendment is already out the window when the
| FBI is leaning on social media platforms to censor news stories
| that turn out to be true.
| mcphage wrote:
| > when the FBI is leaning on social media platforms to censor
| news stories that turn out to be true
|
| I'm impressed with Mark Zuckerberg... everyone was mad at him
| for blocking that story, yet with a single vague implication
| that people stretched into something very different, he managed
| to deflect all of the anger onto the FBI. Very smooth.
| 14 wrote:
| The thought police over at Reddit are going to have some issues
| after this.
| solarmist wrote:
| Copied from a comment thread below. Because I feel this is the
| root of the issue/problem.
|
| > I don't see how the heck my website is a public square but my
| home or cafe isn't, this argument sounds self-contradictory.
|
| Yup. This is the exact problem that we're (as a society/world)
| wrestling with.
|
| The reason it is (not just seems) different is because of the
| scope. A message on a chalkboard cannot reach millions of people
| (without the internet, ignoring [mass] media because the way it
| amplified things like this was far more complicated and was
| intentional), but it can on a website.
|
| That by itself distorts the public/private argument, but we as a
| society aren't sure how or to what extent yet.
|
| These lawsuits are the second step (the first step was arguing
| about it in public) of figuring that out.
|
| (Going back to my side note on media, these arguments will affect
| media outlets directly/indirectly as well.)
| dpifke wrote:
| The decision[0] gives different logic (quoting from page 85):
|
| _If a firm's core business is disseminating others' speech,
| then that should weaken, not strengthen, the firm's argument
| that it has a First Amendment right to censor that speech. In
| PruneYard, for example, the shopping mall was open to the
| public--but for the purpose of shopping, not sharing
| expression. So it was perhaps tenuous for the State to use the
| public nature of the mall to justify a speech-hosting
| requirement. Cf. PruneYard, 447 U.S. at 95 (White, J.,
| concurring in part) (noting that California's hosting
| requirement involved communication "about subjects having no
| connection with the shopping centers' business"). But here, the
| Platforms are open to the public for the specific purpose of
| disseminating the public's speech. It's rather odd to say that
| a business has more rights to discriminate when it's in the
| speech business than when it's in some altogether non-speech
| business (like shopping or legal education)._
|
| A point a lot of commenters here seem to be missing is that it
| would be perfectly legal under the law to ban _all discussion
| of politics_ , regardless of viewpoint. The law just says that
| if you're a site with more than 50 million users, you cannot
| dictate which political parties your users are allowed to write
| favorably about and ban users for having opposing viewpoints.
|
| [0]
| https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/21/21-51178-CV1.pd...
| (PDF)
| taeric wrote:
| That seems like a silly distinction. At a broad level, all
| discussion can be seen as political. And it is natural for
| events to be dominated by actions from a side for a time,
| such that it would be natural for more criticisms of a
| political party over others at any time.
|
| This gets dangerously into the "whataboutisms" of toxic
| discourse. Especially when they are not presented in at all
| an even or good faith manner.
| solarmist wrote:
| What? No they aren't. A discussion about my week or grocery
| shopping isn't political.
|
| You can make any discussion political, but that's not at
| all the same.
| themitigating wrote:
| "I had to get gas this week, the prices are so high
| because of Biden"
| taeric wrote:
| You'd be surprised. Folks will pick brands for political
| reasons, too. More, folks will band against brands for
| said reasons.
|
| I mean, you are correct that there can be neutral
| discussions. Typically, neutral isn't as neutral as you'd
| think.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| That would be an example of people making something
| political out of a non-political issue. Both people and
| companies can be guilty of this.
|
| "Oh, I ran into Lucy at the supermarket today"
|
| "Awesome, did they have that new brand of ice cream?"
|
| "I didn't see it, but they did have a massive sale on
| strawberries."
|
| "Darn, I guess I'll check Market Cart next time I go."
|
| ---
|
| "Oh, I ran into Lucy at the supermarket today"
|
| "Did you hear she voted for Tom?"
|
| "Oh... uh, no?"
|
| "I dont know how people can enable such evil. Did they
| have that new ice cream?"
|
| "No, but they did have a massive sale on strawberries"
|
| "Oh, I heard they donated to Tom, so I don't want it in
| my house anyways."
| themitigating wrote:
| "I ran into Lucy at the supermarket, she told me
| everything is costing so much because of inflation. She
| said this is terrible for her family and wonders why the
| government won't fix it"
| solarmist wrote:
| I agree, but you're being pedantic. Most discussions
| people have not about political topics wouldn't be viewed
| as such even if individual decisions, such as your brand
| example, were politically motivated.
| [deleted]
| solarmist wrote:
| Current law doesn't have machinery to represent this idea, so
| it makes sense their arguments won't match.
|
| But at the core of all the arguments this is the idea that's
| trying to be settled.
|
| And really it's more complicated than all that because it
| boils down to the algorithm deciding who to show the posts
| too.
|
| An unbiased algorithm is impossible.
|
| Show all political messages to all people, now you've just
| incentivized politicians to have multiple people full time
| jobs be to produce more messages.
| Kloversight2 wrote:
| What's most interesting about this is that, as far as I can
| tell, no current "big tech" company violates this law.
| mikem170 wrote:
| This is an interesting precedent! The big social network
| companies could make the legal argument that they are
| advertising networks, not free speech networks, and should be
| able to censor people in order to better fulfil their primary
| purpose. They would be telling the truth.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| If you say "we are going to restrict ourselves [at the
| Government's insistence] to only moderating non-political
| speech" then someone will insist that some part of your non-
| political speech is actually political. And from some
| perspective they will be right.
|
| Then you get to negotiate with the government and the courts
| about what _they_ consider to be political speech or not. And
| suddenly you no longer live in a country that has a
| meaningful First Amendment.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _And suddenly you no longer live in a country that has a
| meaningful First Amendment._
|
| The overarching issue is that I don't see what the first
| amendment has to do with this at all. Corporations have
| zero obligations to anyone under the first amendment, which
| only applies to the government.
| catiopatio wrote:
| The intent of the first amendment was to preserve free
| speech in the public square; "what the first amendment
| has to do with this at all" is a desire to preserve that
| underlying societal principle.
|
| Section 230 was a give-away to corporations that allowed
| them to privatize and co-opt the public square; they reap
| the economic benefit of being shielded from liability for
| what people post, but none of the responsibility to carry
| everyone's speech.
|
| If we want to preserve free speech in the public square,
| some form of balance has to be restored, either by:
|
| 1. Eliminating the section 230 liability shield that
| allowed them to privatize public discourse in the first
| place.
|
| 2. Requiring privatized "public squares" to operate more
| like common carriers.
|
| Solution (1) -- eliminating section 230 -- would likely
| make it infeasible to run a private website carrying
| public speech.
|
| Texas seems to have attempted a nuanced version of
| solution (2): in exchange for being granted the privilege
| of being shielded from liability for the speech they
| carry, platforms of a size large enough to justify
| treating them as a "public square" must meet common-
| carrier-like requirements that prevent them from
| discriminating based on viewpoint.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Contrary to what people often claim, the government making
| any decision at all about what is and is not speech, or
| political speech, does not cause immediate free speech
| violations.
|
| Yes, the government decides all the time, in a long
| standing and well studied legal history, about what is or
| is not speech.
|
| In fact, I would go so far as to say that the primary
| purpose of the court system, with regards to free speech
| cases, is deciding what does or does not count as speech.
| [deleted]
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| If people want there to be a public square online, lobby the
| government to build and maintain it. Call it "US GOV Civic Not-
| Facebook public square". Let your taxes pay for it and enjoy
| all the awesome freedom it'll bring. Otherwise, stop trying to
| dictate how a private company runs their own business. You
| already pay for literal, physical town squares, why not a
| digital one?
| dpifke wrote:
| No need for a government-sponsored forum, when smaller forums
| are explicitly exempted from the Texas law.
|
| The law at issue still allows forums with 49,999,999 or fewer
| users to discriminate based on political viewpoint. It only
| says sites larger than that need to allow all political
| viewpoints (but only if they allow _any_ political
| viewpoints, and only if they have users in Texas).
|
| Legal: Message board with 49 million users that says "no
| Republicans allowed."
|
| Legal: Message board with 51 million users that says "no
| politics allowed."
|
| Legal: Message board with 51 million users (none in Texas)
| that says "no Libertarians allowed."
|
| Not legal: Message board with 51 million users (some in
| Texas) that says "no Democrats allowed."
| themitigating wrote:
| Why the cutoff? Is it because all the companies it would
| apply to agents conservative, like Truth Social?
| dpifke wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
|
| I think moderation gets exponentially more difficult, the
| larger a community is.
|
| There's probably something in the legislative history[0]
| as to why that particular number was chosen, but I keep
| getting 404s and certificate errors when I try to click
| on links to the remarks.
|
| [0] https://capitol.texas.gov/billlookup/History.aspx?Leg
| Sess=87...
| cdash wrote:
| Because there needs to be a cutoff in determining when it
| becomes a "public" square.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| I just googled it and found that "With so many "small
| towns," the average local jurisdiction population in the
| United States is 6,200." why not use that as the limit?
| anotherOneSound wrote:
| i don't think the crux of the issue is determining how to
| legislate the priv/publ dichotomy, but rather how can we enable
| as many people as desire an ability to establish their own
| chalkboard. legislation as its proceeding is serving to
| entrench big tech platforms, its disabling the common person
| from having their own chalkboard with its own moderation
| preferences. let the market decide. this, in my opinion, is not
| the place for law. you don't like how twitter does things? use
| a different app. it doesn't exist? build it.
|
| this includes things like legislation determining how to
| "appropriately" handle user data. it would be very easy to make
| it too expensive for any one person to "appropriately" handle
| user data in their webapp, which is my concern with the current
| twitter drama
| themitigating wrote:
| Make your own website if you want a chalkboard
| solarmist wrote:
| That may be a better ideal solution, but that's not the world
| we live in.
|
| I have no interest in establishing my own chalk board, nor do
| most people.
| themitigating wrote:
| Your lack of motivation is on you
| NeverFade wrote:
| > _I don 't see how the heck my website is a public square but
| my home or cafe isn't, this argument sounds self-
| contradictory._
|
| If it's a website with over 50 million users, and it's designed
| explicitly as a place for these users to express themselves,
| then calling it "a public square" seems entirely warranted.
| [deleted]
| themitigating wrote:
| Why?
| NeverFade wrote:
| If you're not protecting free speech in the places where
| free speech actually happens, then you are not protecting
| free speech at all.
|
| If speech has shifted online, to massive social media
| websites like Twitter, and you don't protect it there, then
| you have no free speech in your country.
| themitigating wrote:
| There's no protection for free speech in the US only that
| the government can't make laws restricting it
| [deleted]
| MichaelCollins wrote:
| > _reach millions of people_
|
| I think this is the heart of the problem. These social media
| companies didn't merely build agoras, they built
| _amphitheaters._ They build amphitheaters so large that control
| over the amphitheater makes you a kingmaker. Now they can 't
| let go of that control, because doing so would risk the wrong
| people using it.
|
| They never should have built amphitheaters this large in the
| first place. Better if they had built thousands of smaller
| amphitheaters, or none at all. Stop giving _anybody_ bullhorns
| that can reach millions of people. Let ideas reach millions of
| people the natural way. One person tells a few hundred people
| their ideas, using the un-amplified power of their own voice.
| If what they say has any sense, each of those hundreds can tell
| hundreds more, and each of those can tell hundreds more again.
| That 's how one person can reach millions, without the
| existence of massive kingmaker amphitheaters.
| thrown_22 wrote:
| MySite.com will crash if a million people try to read it.
|
| BigCorp.com will not.
|
| If you can serve more than two dozen people you're not a home,
| pub or private property, you are by definition a public square.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Will this apply to bots? What if I have a big list of a
| complaints about a certain politician (use your imagination,
| there's more than one politician to complain about), but the
| "other party" doesn't follow me, in fact, I have very few
| followers overall.
|
| So I create a bot that spreads my opinions by replying to
| millions of other Tweets. Anyone who mentions the politician of
| interest will receive a reply from "me" (my bot) within 2
| minutes. Now I will be heard by millions, and my lawyer is ready
| should I be banned from the entire site.
|
| Now imagine many people doing this, what a cesspool, you make a
| Tweet and the bot flood gates open. You Tweet about your
| grandchild and 30 seconds later you have 400 replies expressing
| "political opinions" about shady websites with cheap Viagra.
| Twitter can't ban them though. Welcome to truly free speech. You
| better learn to code if you want to be heard.
|
| We're already at the point where websites can't control bots. AI
| that can write better than most humans is knocking on the door,
| and it can run on my personal computer. This law will only make
| it worse by adding real legal risk to banning suspected bots.
|
| Am I exaggerating here, or is this actually possible? This feels
| like a loss in the humans vs bots battle more than a political
| one.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I was assuming your question would be answered in the article
| but I guess they really didn't go into much detail. The short
| answer is no; the law is much more narrow than that, more about
| banning politicians to influence elections and bots are
| excluded.
| TobyTheDog123 wrote:
| > Users cannot have their speech limited on these platforms
|
| "Will this also apply to [completely unrelated issue]? Bet they
| didn't think of that."
|
| What?
| teawrecks wrote:
| Once they figure it out they'll write a special case against
| using bots, but troll farms will be alive and well. At which
| point the site will switch to more stringent sign up
| requirements, as another post said.
| catiopatio wrote:
| They're free to ban bots. That would clearly be a viewpoint-
| neutral restriction on content/behavior. "Using a bot" isn't a
| viewpoint, and banning bots is not a viewpoint-based
| restriction on user expression.
|
| This is a very well-explored area of law, and nobody is
| confused about the definitions of the terms used here. Even the
| _government_ has reasonable authority to restrict speech based
| on time, place, or manner (e.g. by disallowing amplified sound
| systems).
| [deleted]
| calculatte wrote:
| That's basically what Twitter is right now, with the exception
| that their moderators ban those they don't agree with. So you
| get millions of sockpuppets saying the same thing. What a great
| way to manufacture consent.
| dustedcodes wrote:
| lossolo wrote:
| The problem here is accountability, with traditional solutions
| you can't have accountability and anonymity, anonymity
| encourages bad behaviour but also encourages sharing your
| thoughts without censoring yourself, maybe in future you will
| be only allowed to post when your account is registered using
| your special ID that every citizen will get from government
| saying "this is a real person" but you will not know who it is,
| and then appealing blocked account will be regulated by special
| law for social networks with more than x million users. This
| will limit bot usage to minimum, free speech problem would be
| partially solved because now you can be identified the same way
| as you would on the street IF you break the law but if you are
| not breaking any law then social network employees or other
| participants in the social network will not know who you are or
| know what's your name if you don't want them to. Maybe
| something like that would work?
| nmilo wrote:
| I would actually like this. Imagine if online discussion was so
| visibly bad that no one used it anymore.
|
| Talk to real people. Go outside.
| nyuszika7h wrote:
| Some people have social anxiety.
| smt88 wrote:
| YouTube comments used to be that bad. People still read them.
| 14 wrote:
| Well you kind of need to ever since the dislike count was
| removed.
| themitigating wrote:
| You checked the dislike count before reading the comment?
| That's almost a superpower of visual focus since they are
| next to each other
|
| Edit -Didn't realize he meant video counts
| ipaddr wrote:
| Parent is referencing seeing the total dislike summary
| that appeared before the comment section where you are
| talking about dislikes on each comment.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| It's really not this complicated at all, and arguments like
| this just come across like reaching for a rebuttal.
|
| What these people want is very simple: a clear standard
| uniformly applied and not done so in a partisan fashion.
| Everyone is onboard with preventing the scenario you brought
| up: it's not killing free speech, it's stopping egregious spam.
| This is completely orthogonal to that.
|
| This is about not getting banned for disagreeing with one
| side's political ideology. We've managed to do that before -
| even just a decade ago, and manage to do it now on other
| platforms, all without ridiculous hypotheticals like this one
| every occurring.
|
| One your last paragraph: yes, you're 100% exaggerating. This
| scenario is as reasonable as saying "legal self defense is
| dangerous because just think of all the bad actors that will
| murder and call it self defense!". It's just nonsense and goes
| against all evidence.
| bboygravity wrote:
| You're literally describing Twitter here.
|
| Source: search for "Penabots". There are great detailed
| documentaries about how far this went. That's one example, but
| this is ongoing for every major (geo)political topic and big
| businesses / hedge funds and the media "news" companies they
| own.
| wumpus wrote:
| Congrats, you're reinventing this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic
| taf2 wrote:
| This does not sound to me like an issue of free speech more of
| one of you abusing an online service. Use of a bot maybe is
| against the services tos. So it's not the content of your
| message rather the method you abused to spread it?
| Brybry wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer but I don't think this would apply to bots.
|
| The Texas law text[1] says it only protects 'users' which are
| defined as people. And even then the law only prohibits
| censorship for specific reasons.
|
| It doesn't say companies can't ban users for running bots. Even
| if the messages the bot is posting are protected the fact of
| running the bot itself should still be a bannable offense if
| it's not allowed in the TOS.
|
| [1]
| https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/872/billtext/html/HB00020F...
| patmcc wrote:
| So can I hire someone from a low cost-of-living jurisdiction
| and get them to behave like a bot for me?
| [deleted]
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Probably, but I don't they that should be allowed. I
| suppose someone with an applicable disability could also
| use software/automation to they point where they can post
| more than someone without that disability.
| giaour wrote:
| The line between "user" and "bot" would get very murky
| very quickly. If you write a tweet and then use a bot to
| post it at a certain time of day, is your speech still
| protected, even if it was posted by a bot? What if you
| have the bot post it at the same time every day? What if
| you have the bot post it in reply to all tweets with a
| certain hashtag? Or just all tweets?
|
| In each of those cases, the original speech is a user's,
| and the bot is merely following the human user's
| publication instructions.
| peyton wrote:
| Fortunately there's hundreds of years of cases and
| frameworks to help us get this right. Application of the
| law won't turn on minor technical details.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The problem of course being that this ruling violates
| hundreds of years of cases and frameworks (and probably
| the constitution!), saying "we can rely on precedent"
| when this law flips precedent on its head is unhelpful.
| giaour wrote:
| That's my point as well. Twitter's terms of service allow
| automated users, so I have a hard time seeing how anyone
| would successfully convince a court that "users" under
| this law means "humans who write the content on
| twitter.com and then press a button on the same site to
| post it."
| catiopatio wrote:
| The law only disallows viewpoint-based censorship.
|
| Twitter remains free to write and enforce an acceptable-
| use policy that disallows "bot-like" behaviors, as long
| as the policy and enforcement is viewpoint-neutral.
| PradeetPatel wrote:
| It's already being done by reputation management firms. As
| someone who worked as a resource liaison manager at one, it
| is not uncommon to see the majority of our social media
| operators are from diverse cost-of-living locations such as
| Nepal, rural Pakistan, and parts of Africa.
| bojangleslover wrote:
| Oldest trick in the book
| barber5 wrote:
| Users should protect themselves from this. With the expectation
| that they will, there will be tons of tools available and this
| scenario will be a nonstarter.
|
| Decentralized defenses against bots will be far more effective
| than the central planning of information ecosystems we have
| today. Just watch.
| kelnos wrote:
| Do you really think the average non-technical user will have
| a clue as to what to do about this hypothetical problem? I
| don't think that's a credible take.
|
| Consider that this situation isn't like email spam filtering.
| I can't run a spam filter on the Twitter app on my phone. And
| if Twitter is not allowed to filter spam, that's it: no spam
| filtering for Twitter users.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > I can't run a spam filter on the Twitter app on my phone
|
| That's nothing fundamentally preventing this. It's Twitter
| themselves who've decided not to allow you to do this. Were
| their app more open to extension you would be able to
| download and configure a spam filter of your choosing.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Are they allowed to provide a default filter?
| coredog64 wrote:
| This is it exactly: Apply the same rules that they have
| today for content moderation, but allow users to opt in
| to that filtering. Even if they apply it by default,
| that's probably enough of an fig lead to get by this
| ruling.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| You'll be able to go to a different platform that does
| allow decentralized spam filtering then
| eternityforest wrote:
| Can't they just ban all mass-botting? That doesn't have
| anything to do with speech, it's just banning what amounts to
| spambots.
| judge2020 wrote:
| What law makes spambotting illegal?
| mperham wrote:
| Doesn't have to be a law, can be terms of service, as it's
| not individual speech.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| Let each user block what they don't want to see. With filters,
| ai, etc. Don't have a centralized "overlord" decide what an
| individual is allowed to see. That should be obvious and not
| controversial.
| rocqua wrote:
| I have argued similarly, based on comparisons with editorial
| decisions of newspapers in the days of yore. You could pick
| which opinions were amplified or shunned by picking your
| newspaper. On Twitter, you are stuck with the decisions made
| by Twitter. Saying 'just start Twitter competitors' would
| lose us the universal platform of Twitter and create more
| walled gardens.
|
| Instead, let people pick their moderators / editorialization.
| [deleted]
| tcgv wrote:
| This is a great answer, and I think it would be relatively
| straightforward to create filters for potential bot/spammer
| accounts that used this strategy (ex: high comment frequency,
| using similar text patterns and engaging mostly in an
| unidirectional way) and make it available for users to enable
| it.
| ineptech wrote:
| "Hey Twitter, please block this crap" _is_ users trying to
| block what they don 't want to see.
|
| Blocking unpopular content doesn't become a political act
| just because one side produces more of it than the other.
| catiopatio wrote:
| > "Hey Twitter, please block this crap" is users trying to
| block what they don't want to see.
|
| No, it's users trying to censor what they don't want
| _other_ people to be _permitted_ to say or see.
|
| Twitter users have a "block" button; they're free to use
| it, and thus limit what they themselves will see.
| ineptech wrote:
| Being kicked off Twitter isn't the same as being
| silenced.
| catiopatio wrote:
| What would you call it?
| houstonn wrote:
| This is what Jack wanted to do with Bluesky at Twitter.
| programmarchy wrote:
| Yeah this makes the most sense. There's probably enough local
| compute power to run these filters on the client. But that's
| a huge power shift and the change is likely more political
| than technological.
| lanstin wrote:
| Doubtful. With the rise of natural language spam, you have
| to analyze it in terms of networks or social graphs of bots
| reinforcing each other. E.g. a lot of bots will comment
| positively on other bots spam posts, in a manner very
| similar to my agreeing with some human. It is data bounded,
| not compute bounded. Will Twitter be forced to open their
| full internal conversation graph, including using real IPs
| probably for accurate targeting, to companies writing spam
| modules? It seems weirdly implausible.
| CJefferson wrote:
| Having run a mail server, I don't think it's reasonable to
| expect most people to contain the deluge of spam and phishing
| attacks they would get if just told them to "sort it out"
| themselves.
| ajvs wrote:
| Or following the mail example, adopt a spam control
| mechanism that doesn't require coding it yourself.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| You misunderstood. Don't require users to build their
| bubbles, but have providers offer bubbles for a user to
| choose from. You could even have external bubble providers
| that offer different technologies and qualities of filters.
|
| Just don't have one centralised overlord.
| nmstoker wrote:
| This seems like it could be substantially better than
| current systems.
|
| It could be effectively a crowdsource / peer recommended
| model where you opt in to aspects of the bubbles. So my
| elderly parents could get some of the safety guidance
| mirroring mine (eg weeding out conspiracy thought or
| spam) but then also picking up aspects that mirror older
| peers (eg reflecting their more traditional tastes)
|
| Right now there's a remarkable amount of undesirable
| content that gets through that ought to be easy to
| filter. On Twitter you see it a load with searches for
| regular terms that show up inappropriate content for the
| term, yet you don't want to set content filtering or it
| cuts things that are genuinely interesting but edgy!
| greesil wrote:
| we have a centralized overlord?
| eitland wrote:
| Several:
|
| - Google (including GMail)
|
| - Twitter
|
| - Meta (Facebook, Instagram)
| greesil wrote:
| And discussion outside of these platforms is impossible?
| sfifs wrote:
| Not impossible. Insignificant in volume.
| cguess wrote:
| He said on a platform that's controlled by any of those
| organizations.
| cmoscoso wrote:
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| > providers offer bubbles for a user to choose from
|
| How is this different from the current internet?
| infogulch wrote:
| The platform is _tied_ to the bubble. GP is proposing
| decoupling them, so the user can choose the platform and
| choose the bubble separately.
|
| > Tying (informally, product tying) is the practice of
| selling one product or service as a mandatory addition to
| the purchase of a different product or service. In legal
| terms, a tying sale makes the sale of one good (the tying
| good) to the de facto customer (or de jure customer)
| conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good
| (the tied good). Tying is often illegal when the products
| are not naturally related.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
| monetus wrote:
| Is the implication that you would have a
| Netflix/Hulu/Disney dynamic of... Social media
| subscriptions?
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| The bubble must by necessity have some sort of interface
| associated with it in order to get the content to the
| user. There's a generic platform (HTTP, browser/mobile
| APIs) and then the "bubble service" implements against
| those to reach the user. Seems like a completely natural
| form of tying to me. Are you proposing we force another
| layer of middlemen to be added in between there?
| infogulch wrote:
| I think there's a reasonable argument to be made that the
| problems surrounding platforms regarding their control of
| censorship & free speech would be largely resolved if
| that aspect were decoupled. You may also think that the
| tying that bell and the railroads did with their
| respective infrastructure is 'natural', but that was made
| illegal and those platforms were forced to break up, so I
| don't think its appropriate to dismiss this issue
| offhand.
|
| I'm not interested in hashing out a complete argument and
| coming to a vacuous conclusion with some other random on
| an internet forum, I'm just saying that there seems to be
| a reasonable argument to be had in this direction.
| concinds wrote:
| A better comparison would be if Gmail placed emails you
| _really want to receive_ in the spam for you. Actually,
| they wouldn 't even put it in the spam folder; they'd just
| delete it permanently before you can read it, "for your
| safety".
|
| With email, if you don't want to receive someone's emails
| anymore, you unsubscribe. Or put it in spam (equivalent to
| social media block) and you won't see those emails anymore.
|
| "Platforms" claim that because they're platforms, they have
| a duty to "remove toxic elements from the platform". That
| doesn't work when they're practically monopolies for online
| speech, i.e. when if you get banned by one and you're
| famous enough, you get banned by all of them.
| zrail wrote:
| > A better comparison would be if Gmail placed emails you
| really want to receive in the spam for you. Actually,
| they wouldn't even put it in the spam folder; they'd just
| delete it permanently before you can read it
|
| Gmail regularly does both of these things to me despite
| explicit filter rules to the contrary.
| adventured wrote:
| There's a very simple solution that works very well with
| social media for that.
|
| You don't receive the OP's messages unless you are friends
| him them, or change your default settings to allow
| strangers to message you.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| This ruling appears to apply to the content of speech. There's
| nothing that says you couldn't rate limit replies to prevent
| spam. Limiting posts to 1 per 30 seconds, or linking the number
| of replies you are allowed per day to your rate of organic
| interactions with other people would be a way to effectively
| eliminate these sort of bots without censoring based on
| content.
| hailwren wrote:
| In Reamde, Neal Stephenson posits a future where we pay
| individuals/services to filter and prioritize the unordered
| deluge of data from the web.
|
| It seems like this ruling pushes us along that path.
| cpeterso wrote:
| If "social media" services aren't allow filter posts, could
| Twitter spin off the "social media" service to a new, wholly
| owned subsidiary company and retain twitter.com as a web
| client free to filter the service's posts?
| drexlspivey wrote:
| Welcome to microdata refinement
| fdye wrote:
| Seems like this is gonna get overruled, but who knows with this
| supreme court nowadays. Aside from that issue, I'd like to
| discuss why social media always seems so impotent in their
| response to misinformation. Seems Youtube, Facebook, etc, are all
| letting people post misinformation, it gains traction through
| whatever means and is shared to millions of people. Then after
| the damage is done they swoop in and block it after the damage
| has been done.
|
| I think they could instead limit the possible exposure by
| building tiers/gates a post has to move through to truly go to a
| mass audience. First it would start with a mass audience of 10^1,
| mostly direct connections. If no keywords were triggered for
| misinformation, and none of the eyeballs on that post marked it
| as misinformation or offensive, then send it to 10^2 people
| outside their immediate social circle. Repeat until it hits 10^4,
| 10^5 or whatever and then it hits a tier of truly mass audience.
| Perhaps here it requires a real review by a moderator if it has
| keyword matches or isn't from a trusted source. Then it is let
| out to reach everyone because its just a kitty cat video, or
| about the best way to stain a table, or all the community content
| we actually want.
|
| This approach is closer to an A/B test for a social post. If it
| is posted and highly offensive within a small group of close
| connections, then it never ripples out of those echo chambers.
| Again it's about uniqueness of the post, so grandma can click
| reshare or whatever, when she looks at her history she see's it
| in her timeline, but it's never massively put on others feed
| until its gone through above.
|
| Ironically, the social platform killing it right now works
| somewhat close to this in terms of showing you others posts. My
| feed shows me a lot of big posters, but like 10% of the time I am
| reached by people i've never viewed, with a post with like 5-10
| views. Then they measure engagement (how long did you watch, did
| you like, etc), before they decide to push it to more people. (My
| summary of their algorithm, not theirs). I'm advocating for
| similar but to gate for offensive/misinformation. Seems like it
| would work like a sieve where good/unoffensive content would rise
| to the top "in general" and the bad stuff would stay with a small
| amount of eyeballs.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| What you have described is nothing short of a horror dystopian
| hell scape. My God, listen to your self man!
|
| > If no keywords were triggered for misinformation, and none of
| the eyeballs on that post marked it as misinformation or
| offensive
|
| Keywords? Who decides the keywords? What are you going to do
| when normal words get a coded meaning. Remember "milk" and the
| "ok" sign. 4chan is going to have a field day with this! What
| about the ((( echos ))). You gonna write a regex for potential
| use of non letter characters?
|
| Marked as misinformation. What, you're going to ask the
| ministry of truth for input? Do you think this will achieve
| anything except build an echo chamber and increase division?
| The same for offensive. What's going to happen when all posts
| by trans people are marked as offensive? Or that doesn't count
| cause you're ok with it. Should we establish a Ministry of
| Morality, perhaps with a morality police like the saudis to
| tell us what's offensive and what's not?
|
| Everything you wrote is, I don't even know how to call it. It's
| evil. It's evil, that's what it is. You have though up an evil
| system whose only outcome will be oppression, division and
| resentment.
| anotherevan wrote:
| Them: "You must censor hate speech on the internet!"
|
| Also them: "I didn't mean you should censor _my_ hate speech!"
| xavor wrote:
| It's your right to have an opinion, it's my right not to have to
| listen to it.
| houstonn wrote:
| It's my right to be able to hear it.
|
| As Frederick Douglass, a former slave and writer, wisely
| stated, "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates
| the right of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is
| just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as
| it would be to rob him of his money."
| supernovae wrote:
| Nothing stops this. You can hear what you want to hear.
|
| What's funny is, y'all claim you should be able to hear what
| you want to hear, but when others don't want to hear it - you
| scream "cancel culture".
|
| You can't have it both ways. Either grow up and run your own
| businesses/communities and attract revenue to support them or
| realize your ideas are bad and can't be sustained. This
| happens to _everyone_ regardless of their beliefs.
|
| You can't take successful companies and force them to be
| unsuccessful by embracing communities that fail.
| AstralStorm wrote:
| It isn't your right to have a particular newspaper publish
| your particular opinion. It is your right to publish your own
| newspaper.
| NayamAmarshe wrote:
| This analogy doesn't work. Social Media is not newspaper,
| they're a printing machine letting you publish your own
| newspaper. You can't just register with a newspaper and
| post opinions for free.
|
| Social Media websites and platforms are acting as common
| carriers. They provide you an audience, without upfront
| cost.
|
| If they discriminate against you for an opinion their
| 'experts' do not like, they should suffer the consequences
| for it because social media websites, let me publish my own
| newspaper.
| smaddox wrote:
| > You can't just register with a newspaper and post
| opinions for free.
|
| You don't have to register to send a letter to the
| editor. The newspaper has discretion about whether or not
| to publish it.
|
| There's certainly a difference in scale, but I don't
| really see a fundamental difference in kind.
| ViViDboarder wrote:
| I'm not sure it is. You certainly don't have a right to
| listen to every conversation that every person has. Where
| would this basis come from?
| saurik wrote:
| You are reading something very weird into it, but the idea
| is that if I want to hear _what you want to tell me_ it
| shouldn 't be someone else's decision to prevent us both
| from doing that.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| That's easy enough, don't read it, turn off your computer,
| follow the people saying things you want to hear from, etc...
| Oh you mean you don't want ANYONE to potentially hear those
| things, so that you might not accidentally come across a
| position you don't like? Yeah, that's called being fragile, and
| the sort of people you will empower if you push for that as
| policy are those who are more than happy to control the flow of
| information to their own ends / enrichment.
| vsareto wrote:
| You can equally make the argument that whining about a post
| removed is also being fragile, just go to a different
| website, turn off the computer, start your own blog, etc.
|
| The difference now is that corporations have to allow this,
| and that if you don't want to deal with that content, you
| essentially have to not start a company because you can't
| moderate it, so it closes the door to the freedom of running
| opinionated companies, which is anti-thetical to conservative
| viewpoints.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| You're still free to block the people you don't like.
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| An ideology that dies without censorship is not a very good
| one.
| pilgrimfff wrote:
| Absolutely. But not your right to ensure that nobody can hear.
| rvz wrote:
| > But not your right to ensure that nobody can hear.
|
| Exactly. On social networks, the block button is there for
| anyone to use if you don't want to hear it.
| intrasight wrote:
| Censoring and moderating and content, as it relates to this
| lawsuit, is very expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if it ranks
| pretty high in their cost chart. The only reason that social
| media platforms do content moderation is to manage the financial
| (advertisers), and the political risk. Well, if the politicians
| and the courts tell them they can't moderate political stuff,
| then the political risk has been removed. All that remains is the
| financial risk.
|
| Advertisers aversion to controversy is based on, I assume, their
| adherence to cultural norms. These norms are fluid. So I actually
| think these laws will give them the cover they need to stop doing
| something that they would prefer not to do. I also believe that
| we'll be litigating this for eons.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > The only reason that social media platforms do content
| moderation is to manage the financial (advertisers), and the
| political risk.
|
| What about the legal risk of hosting illegal content?
| intrasight wrote:
| Yes certainly. But I was referring to moderation that is the
| topic of this lawsuit.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| Hugely expensive. Zuck mentioned in the rogan episode they
| spend roughly $5b annual on "Defense" aka moderation and
| safety. To put it in perspective, that's roughly in line with
| what the defense budgets of Switzerland and Mexico.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| It's not the only reason. Without _any_ moderation, sites would
| degenerate into cesspools that only cesspool dwellers would
| want to visit. Few site owners want their properties to be
| cesspools.
| fallingknife wrote:
| People say this, but not long ago Twitter/Reddit/Youtube were
| basically a free for all for anything except porn. And their
| user numbers were skyrocketing at the time.
| intrasight wrote:
| Exactly. The court isn't saying you can't moderate out the
| cesspool posts. They are saying that you can't choose
| political sides.
| guipsp wrote:
| Every decision is inherently "political"
| Kamq wrote:
| Perhaps in the technical definition of political, but not
| in the layman's definition of political.
|
| The definition of political used by the populace is
| almost always the narrow subset of societal/cultural
| fights that are actively being argued. Generally speaking
| these arguments are headed by politicians.
|
| There is also a space in the definition for arguments
| directly impact the structure/scope of the government.
| Although this may be separate enough that it may warrant
| being considered a second definition instead of an
| additional category within the first definition.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| Exactly, grey zones can happen really quickly. For
| example if someone says "I think Candidate X from Party Y
| is a total a-hole." Is that a political statement or a
| cesspool comment? I see legitimate arguments for either.
| intrasight wrote:
| And this is why the us supreme court will throw out this
| appellate ruling. They really don't like grey zones.
| andrew_ wrote:
| I often see this sentiment associated with those who wish
| to regulate political speech they find offensive. It's
| convenient if everything is political so that everything
| said can be regulated.
| krapp wrote:
| Regulating political speech for whatever reason
| (including offense), should be considered a legitimate
| exercise of moderation. It happens on Hacker News all the
| time - political speech is only considered on topic if
| and when it contains evidence of a "new or interesting
| phenomenon," and even then, users will mod down anything
| they don't like. And given the quality of most political
| threads here, I don't think many people here would prefer
| it if that were allowed to run amok.
|
| If I'm running a car forum, I should be able to ban pro-
| Nazi rhetoric if I want, regardless of whether I find it
| offensive or merely technically off topic. Not every
| space on the internet needs to be /pol/.
| andrew_ wrote:
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Yeah, internet content laws are becoming increasingly
| conflicting. On one hand, you have places that are making
| it more difficult to legally moderate websites. On the
| other, you have legislation like SESTA and FOSTA where
| websites are being held legally responsible for content
| that others may post on the website.
|
| Section 230 was an unusually great piece of internet
| legislation, and it's not great to see it start to
| crumble with these new changes. Just let every site be
| its own site.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I think quite literally lots of things are political.
| _This discussion_ is political. Anything to talk about
| h1b visa is political. Immigration is political. The most
| offensive speech is arguably political speech, such as
| advocating for genocide.
| luckylion wrote:
| There's a bit of a gap between "everything" and "lots of
| things" though. I agree with you that lots of things are
| political, but _everything_?
| o_1 wrote:
| I think the only thing that is clearly not political is
| people sharing pictures of pets. Everything else
| including Insta Thotts and what have you have been co-
| opted.
| bombcar wrote:
| If you want to sell X to group Y which coincides mostly
| with party Z and has little overlap with the opposite
| party, it is _worth your while_ to make buying X a
| political activity, however you can go about doing that.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Whether or not pineapple on pizza is acceptable can
| technically be brought to a political argument but anyone
| not turned into a rage monster by current social media
| can tell that it isn't a political debate in the current
| environment.
| slavak wrote:
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| You get invocations of the reductio ad Hitlerum fallacy.
| slavak wrote:
| Firstly, that is _not_ what reductio ad Hitlerum means.
|
| More importantly, it's not a fallacy. It's pretty well
| documented by now that what you get when you have a
| social network with very little moderation is, almost
| inevitably, a social network for Nazis:
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/nazis-free-speech-hate-crime-
| jews-s...
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/voat-the-alt-
| right-r...
|
| https://thehill.com/policy/technology/456415-founder-i-
| wish-...
|
| Just because people like bringing up Nazis a little too
| often doesn't mean every reference to Nazis is
| fallacious. Sometimes, it really is about [neo-]Nazis.
| themitigating wrote:
| Where did they say you can't choose a side? It's also
| possible that I moderate content, the majority is
| conservative, and I'm not choosing a side.
| mcphage wrote:
| That's just saying "until it became a problem, it wasn't a
| problem". Those sites were a free for all, up until it
| became a problem. And then they were no longer free for
| alls.
| amatecha wrote:
| Yeah, this is exactly right. Stronger moderation started
| happening because more and more toxic/abusive BS became
| prevalent. I only really experienced true "hostile
| attacks from a complete stranger" on Twitter in the last
| year or two, and I've been a heavy user of it since 2007.
| (tbh my usage has dwindled and I'm wayyy more focused on
| Mastodon now, which thus far fosters a stronger sense of
| community than Twitter will ever be able to)
| [deleted]
| mattnewton wrote:
| And after they attempted to clean up, they were able to
| attract more advertisers and mainstream users the
| advertisers wanted to reach. Doesn't the story of those
| sites back the person above you's point?
| intrasight wrote:
| Reddit is still a free for all - including porn
| philippejara wrote:
| It's not even close, admins ban subs all the time, mods
| are under strict grip of admins on how they need to mod
| thing otherwise they get replaced, there are cases where
| admins straight up say that mod teams need to get more
| people in the team or they'll lose the sub, i've seen
| subs with automods straight up saying that they need to
| be careful with what is written otherwise they'll be
| banned.
|
| The huge Aimee Challenor thing, that lead to people being
| banned anywhere the name was uttered is just the super
| high profile example I know, i'm sure reddit users would
| be able to show more smaller cases.
|
| Just want to make it clear, I'm not claiming this control
| is good or bad, there are good reasons for and against
| moderation, but reddit is not even close to a free for
| all.
|
| [0]: https://www.newsweek.com/reddit-aimee-knight-
| challenor-fired...
| DuskStar wrote:
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| > anything except porn
|
| That's moderation. Both because they are actively excluding
| certain content, but also because 'porn' can be subjective
| and so decisions have to be made about what does and does
| not qualify.
| intrasight wrote:
| Porn is and has always been very political
| nomdep wrote:
| Just don't follow anyone on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram
| with those views, how is that a ceespool?
| diydsp wrote:
| Websites routinely disperse unconnected users' messages to
| encourage discussion. Hence the youtube alt-right
| indoctrination spiral.
| themitigating wrote:
| Even if you don't follow people you still see user content
| netheril96 wrote:
| Why not give users the power of moderation? Currently the
| website owner makes the decision for me about what content I
| should not be seeing. I want instead all or at least almost
| all content preserved and the ability to create and subscribe
| to blocklists. The website can have a default blocklist
| active to make it palatable for the majority.
| Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote:
| This is an interesting model, and there's nothing stopping
| someone from starting a social media site that works like
| this. But that doesn't mean that existing ones should be
| forced to use this model. Let's try them both (and others)
| and see which ones work best for their users.
| stevenally wrote:
| How Twitter used to be I think? If I remember correctly, I
| only got tweets from people I followed, in chronological
| order. I could unfollow someone and never hear from them
| again. Now the algorithm decides what I see.
| swayvil wrote:
| There's a weird bias towards "we need a daddy to tell us
| how to talk". Maybe it's because moderation is too hard for
| mere crowdsource+algorithms and maybe it isn't. I dunno.
|
| And maybe the owners just want to keep that sweet fascist
| option open.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| IMHO, the deeper aversion is because user-driven
| moderation goes hand in hand with user-driven ranking.
|
| Which is turn makes it harder to non-obviously put your
| hand on the scales and insert paid content into high
| visibility feeds.
|
| If TikTok inserts a well-matched piece of paid content
| into a feed, who would even recognize?
|
| If HN inserts a piece of paid content onto the front
| page, people tend to notice.
| swayvil wrote:
| I'm not seeing the hand-in-hand here.
|
| We're looking at 2 different moderation processes.
|
| Daddy
|
| Voting
|
| There is no necessary connection that I can see.
| kelnos wrote:
| Perhaps that's how it _should_ be, though? Paid content
| -- even if I 'm required to see it in my feed and can't
| filter it out -- should be marked as such.
|
| HN has something similar to "paid" content: YC alum
| companies are allowed to post hiring notices that end up
| on the front page, and decay down the page according to a
| pre-determined algorithm. They're obvious in that you
| can't comment or vote on them, but HN does allow them to
| be hidden. I think that's the right way to do things; if
| HN allowed YC companies to post on the front page, and
| made it look like they were regular posts that got
| organically upvoted, it would reduce my trust in HN.
|
| Any social media platform that puts paid content in a
| feed, while trying to make it look like regular content,
| would also lose my trust.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Even if it proved successful, this definitely won't appease
| the ruling to not censor speech.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Why not just go to a different website that runst he way
| you want? Or revive NNTP and host community servers or
| something.
| Victerius wrote:
| arrabe wrote:
| Tech companies can do whatever they want but it won't help them
| from becoming the scapegoat when the bubble bursts.
|
| If they followed your advice, they would make the pending anti-
| trust lawsuit far easier for the prosecutor. ( Yes, a major
| anti-trust action is under works is what I'm hearing but first
| they will come for the crypto companies/exchanges who are
| officially allowing buy/sell of unregistered securities post-
| Ethereum merge)
| nicce wrote:
| The problem is that there is no common ground what should be
| censored and not. The power of selecting the subjects for
| censoring gives more power to companies which they should not
| have.
|
| Or someone can pay for them to censor some specific topics.. Or
| they can censor some specific topics to appeal some political
| decisions which touches only one party.
| gruez wrote:
| So to be clear you're advocating for tech companies to ignore
| the justice system?
| Victerius wrote:
| stale2002 wrote:
| Then I expect that their assets or be confiscated or people
| will be arrested.
|
| Facebook might ignore the law, but bank of America won't.
|
| So that money will be taken away from them, by the
| government.
|
| Or, they could confiscate assets or arrest people in Texas.
| There are lots of options.
| [deleted]
| gruez wrote:
| "proactive"... how? By making rulings that you agree with?
| Is it fair to say that your opinion on this matter boils
| down to "companies should ignore the courts if it's a
| ruling I don't like"?
| a_shovel wrote:
| Reducing all objections to anything to "disagreement" or
| "not liking it" is a sure sign of bad faith discussion.
| gruez wrote:
| I'm not claiming that the objections are of equal merit,
| but a moral/legal system is clearly not going to work on
| a societal level if it's just going to be "it's fine to
| disregard the legal system if you think there's a good
| reason for it".
| a_shovel wrote:
| A moral system that doesn't allow one to break the law
| for any reason, no matter how good the reason is, can
| hardly be called a moral system at all. Obedience to the
| state is not a functional moral code.
| gruez wrote:
| >Obedience to the state is not a functional moral code.
|
| What's your bar for "functional moral code"? More
| importantly, what makes you think the alternative (ie.
| "it's okay to break laws if _you_ think there 's a Really
| Good Reason for it") is functional?
| Victerius wrote:
| Where did I say that?
| gruez wrote:
| If that's not your opinion please explain what you mean
| by courts being more "proactive"
| Victerius wrote:
| By shortening enforcement timelines. In the current
| system, it would take years for someone to bring a case
| before a court and even more years before the company
| would pay any fines.
|
| Courts and the government in general should be more
| proactive by shortening execution timelines. Shorten the
| time it takes to go from "Maybe tech companies shouldn't
| censor people" to "We're arresting Mark Zuckerberg today
| and he's going to jail next week" from a decade to
| something resembling weeks.
|
| I'm tired of slowness. I want events to happen quickly.
| gruez wrote:
| >"We're arresting Mark Zuckerberg today and he's going to
| jail next week"
|
| To be clear you want the state to more aggressively
| police/prosecute "bad" people on social networks?
| Victerius wrote:
| Prosecution in general, not just for social networks but
| for everything in society, shouldn't necessarily be more
| aggressive, just faster.
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| That's literally the opposite of what the courts job is.
| The court rules on laws, not makes them.
| RichardCNormos wrote:
| The state has the power to enforce laws and court rulings with
| violence. Perhaps tech companies should be made aware of that
| fact.
| [deleted]
| mikkergp wrote:
| Hacker News avoids political discussion, would this mean a site
| like hacker news(assuming it's big enough) couldn't moderate
| heated political discussion as off topic?
|
| Im curious how this would apply to Reddit, will there just be
| constant brigading of the political forums?
|
| Ironically as others have pointed out this will probably have a
| severe chilling effect on speech.
| chillfox wrote:
| Hacker News is full of political discussions all the time. In
| fact politics usually gets some of the most comments.
| LinkLink wrote:
| A bit of a stupid question, if political content isn't allowed
| then what content is there to discriminate on a political basis
| of?
| mikkergp wrote:
| But isn't disallowing political content discrimination once
| the post is flagged and deleted? I guess what happens if we
| allow discussions of SOPA but not bit a gay marriage bill,
| again it may be relatively easily grockable to an HN user,
| but a court? What if HN had to go to court every time they
| flagged a political post.
| surfpel wrote:
| > ...banning or censoring users based on "viewpoint,"...
|
| There are many offenses that are not strictly viewpoint. Unruly
| behavior could be one of those.
| mikkergp wrote:
| True but big tech's policies have always been based on
| behavior, not viewpoint. The question becomes how will that
| be ultimately adjudicated.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > Hacker News avoids political discussion
|
| Yet look what we're doing right now.
| [deleted]
| efitz wrote:
| There's political discussion all over hacker news, in the
| comments.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Yes but new posts are often closed as overly heated/off
| topic.
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| It is often one sided. As soon as you say something that
| doesn't fall into line, like against the monarchy, then you
| get censored.
| mikkergp wrote:
| On hacker news the overwhelmingly hardcore libertarian
| forum? I could see that. I don't see a lot of progressive
| discussion here
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The political views of HN vary _wildly_ depending on both
| the subject and the thread.
|
| People tend to notice either their own opinions or the
| opposite much more though.
| rvz wrote:
| > As soon as you say something that doesn't fall into line,
| like against the monarchy, then you get censored.
|
| Or anything crypto-related. The HN 'anti-crypto squad' will
| flag, downvote and censor anyone that talks about it or
| attempts to defend it.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| Good. This is especially welcome news in the context of the
| unprecedented attack on kiwi farms.
|
| As I said in a different thread, we have laws preventing
| businesses from discriminating. We do not allow shops to put up
| "no blacks here" signs. Why do we allow infrastructure providers
| from doing essentially the same thing?
|
| Censorship, of any kind from anyone, government or corporation is
| an abomination that must be stamped out. We cannot have a
| civilised society as long as censorship is accepted.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| Do you filter "spam" from your email inbox?
|
| If so, why?
|
| By your...train of thought. "Censorship of any kind" means that
| rejecting those leagues of boner pills and overseas wives ready
| to marry you is rejection of their right to speak freely to you
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| You can't be serious. Are you serious? Spam is not censored.
| You have access to it. You click on the spam folder and you
| can read the spam email in all it's glory!
|
| And before you even mention auto deletion, you can disable
| that. I think that should be opt in not opt out but, yeah,
| spam in not being censored.
| IntelMiner wrote:
| You have to click a spam _folder_. You have to make a
| conscious effort to interact with the free speech being
| sent to you. Therefore it 's not free
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| We have different definitions of censorship. To me that
| is not censorship.
|
| Censorship is making information functionality
| unavailable or altering it. Delete it or deliberately
| make it very hard to access or change it's contents.
|
| If you click a button or even add a message ( apart from
| the content ) that is not censorship. That's why for
| example I don't consider it censorship when youtube added
| covid messages to certain videos.
| boopmaster wrote:
| This wouldn't be my first choice of examples. Unmoderated
| swatting forums (as I understand that it was) goes beyond free
| speech. The first amendment does not protect death threats.
| throwawayacc2 wrote:
| You understand wrong what kiwi farms is. The moderation there
| is far better to facebook for example. Not in small reason
| due to the fact they don't censor. They comply with the law.
| Unlawful content is pulled down immediately, lawful content
| stays up. Cloudflare lied to you when they said "human life
| is in immediate danger".
|
| In matters like this, it's best to actually look at how both
| sides present the issue.
| msie wrote:
| andrew_ wrote:
| Political tribalism is a cancerous disease.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Will Truth Social be complying?
| fells wrote:
| They'd have to hit 50 million users first, or whatever
| arbitrary bar Texas will make so they don't have to.
| stall84 wrote:
| ooooohhh muahahahaah spooky "dangerous content" !!!!
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments? You've
| been doing it a lot and we ban that sort of account.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| concinds wrote:
| I don't like the frame of "big tech's rights."
|
| Sure, corporations have free speech rights in America. But the
| pressure to ban "bad people" comes from below; organized
| campaigns pressure Twitter/Facebook et al to ban certain people,
| and they oblige in order to protect their brand. That's a problem
| when we live under a "platform oligopoly" where high-profile
| people banned from one platform get banned everywhere at once.
| It's strange that people conflate corporations' free, voluntary
| actions, with corporations being pressured by an intolerant
| minority[0]. And before you respond with "we shouldn't be
| tolerant of intolerance", read this thread:
| https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1037273239347703808
|
| [0]: https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-
| dict...
| oneplane wrote:
| At some point it's going to be too hard and too negative to be an
| online 'speech' company. If anything big enough to have to deal
| with this were to disappear (bankrupt, pivot to other business,
| shrink to a smaller niche, or just disband), that would be nice
| and quiet for everyone. At least there is no law requiring a
| business to continue to exist just so a screaming cesspool that
| depends on it can also exist.
| themitigating wrote:
| It will create echo chambers of similar views.
| daemoens wrote:
| Which will speed up issues with extremism greatly.
| themitigating wrote:
| Which is bad. Are you adding to my assessment or is this a
| counter that I'm not getting?
| daemoens wrote:
| Just adding.
| zionic wrote:
| As opposed to the centralized extremism export machine we
| have now.
| daemoens wrote:
| Which is why I said it'll speed it up.
| mkl95 wrote:
| > A U.S. appeals court on Friday upheld a Texas law that bars
| large social media companies from banning or censoring users
| based on "viewpoint," a setback for technology industry groups
| that say the measure would turn platforms into bastions of
| dangerous content
|
| There are many reasons why those companies censor content and
| they usually have nothing to do with "viewpoints". If some
| partner demands I shut some content down, should I be forced to
| refuse and ruin that partnership? Let's not forget that public
| facing sections of social networks are just fronts for huge B2B
| operations.
| themitigating wrote:
| Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling
| First Amendment right to censor what people say," Judge Andrew
| Oldham,
|
| 1st amendment
|
| Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging
| the freedom of speech, ...
|
| This doesn't apply to people or busineeses making their own rules
| dionian wrote:
| so is it ok for a telephone company to cut your line if you
| support the resistance?
| themitigating wrote:
| Is it ok for them to cut my line if I don't pay the bill?
|
| They are common carriers, like ISPs , social media companies
| are not
| leereeves wrote:
| Are ISPs considered common carriers right now? I know
| that's changed a few times and I haven't kept up with the
| latest.
|
| Will social media companies be considered common carriers?
| That's still possible too.
|
| Ultimately, a "common carrier" is whatever the government
| says it is.
| themitigating wrote:
| Yes so change that then come back and make your argument.
| The 1st amendment can also be undone but I'm not making
| arguments as if that had happened
| leereeves wrote:
| It sounds like Texas is on the way to changing it.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Yes because the phone company is a natural monopoly. Twitter
| isn't.
| plandis wrote:
| Telephone companies are common carriers (AFAIK) and have
| additional rules they must follow. Twitter is not.
| yesco wrote:
| Looks like it does now
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-17 23:00 UTC)