[HN Gopher] Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social net...
___________________________________________________________________
Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common
carriers
Author : pseudolus
Score : 57 points
Date : 2022-09-22 18:08 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| protomyth wrote:
| Welcome to the natural consequence of social networks becoming
| important to just do daily business. The phone companies, and
| other utilities, operate under strict rules. I do wonder how many
| and type of companies will become internet utilities?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| 99.5% of Americans could never log into Facebook, Twitter or
| anything ever again with no substantial impact on their daily
| lives. The remaining 0.5% have careers centered around social
| media and should probably find a real job.
|
| Honest to goodness, the hyperventilation about how "important"
| social media is just amazes me.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| And 100% of people could live without phone companies with no
| impact to their daily lives, we've got internet right? Of
| course I would be the one defining impact here. You may
| consider impact to daily lives not substantial, but others
| see the substantial impact of not being able to reach their
| family, friends, and customers and the disadvantage that
| comes with others having that access but you not. It's not
| like Facebook actually is making the "social media" you see
| in your feed, it is 100% carrying social media from users,
| the same way a phone company aren't the one making calls.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Are you really comparing the level of effort of setting a
| phone company to creating a social media platform or a
| website to get your ideas out there?
| paxys wrote:
| > becoming important to just do daily business
|
| How is any social network today important for daily business?
| You can live a perfectly normal life after deleting every
| single one of them, and so many people have done exactly that.
| Facebook is not equivalent to electricity or running water.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The phone companies and utilities are natural monopolies.
| Creating a social media platform isn't. Doesn't every senior
| developer interview at a BigTech company involve a question
| "how would you design Twitter?".
| bell-cot wrote:
| IANAL, and have not read Florida's law, but it sounds ripe for
| abuse by trolls: 1 - Become a political
| candidate (even if a write-in for some bottom-end office in a
| tiny municipality) 2 - Register with social networks as a
| Florida-protected candidate 3 - Spend all your time
| spewing hate at people you don't like. Maybe automate that, to
| get both far more spewing and far more free time.
| danaris wrote:
| ...and this is where the difference between law and code kicks
| in, as the social networks ban you, and when you sue under this
| law, the courts say, "but everyone knows they only meant _real_
| political candidates; you know, from one of the two parties
| that can actually win elections ".
| bell-cot wrote:
| You might want to look into how easy it can be to become a
| real "major party" candidate, for a minor office, in a small
| municipality. Especially if "your" major party is the "no
| hope" party in a dyed-in-wool municipality, or you're just a
| primary candidate. Or the party understands that you'll
| mostly be spewing hate at people they hate.
|
| And if the social networks are forced to follow this Florida
| law, and Mr. A. Troll De Vile was spewing hate at the
| politicians behind the law...might some social networks feel
| "deepest frustration" that they were, alas, legally barred
| from banning Mr. De Vile?
| pwinnski wrote:
| Hi from Texas, where real-life candidates belonging to one of
| the two major political parties spew open hate and then win
| office.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Entirely reasonable either they are publishers and thus have free
| speech and carry full penalties for all the content they allow.
| Or they are carriers and thus should have no say, but also no
| risks of content.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| They are obviously publishers at this point.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not sure what you mean. Publishers are held responsible for
| bad content, and they are not. So we're deciding whether we
| want to make them publishers, make them common carriers, or
| keep the status quo.
|
| -----
|
| edit: my guess as to what they are now is _online services
| who republish submitted third-party content_ or however
| section 230 defines them.
|
| -----
|
| edit2: An _interactive computer service_ that retransmits
| material provided by an _information content provider._
|
| > No provider or user of an interactive computer service
| shall be treated as the _publisher_ or speaker of any
| information provided by another information content provider.
|
| So they are explicitly and definitively not publishers.
| krapp wrote:
| https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-
| referre...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-
| platform-...
|
| > We'll say it plainly here: there is no legal significance
| to labeling an online service a "platform" as opposed to a
| "publisher." Yes. That's right. There is no legal
| significance to labeling an online service a "platform." Nor
| does the law treat online services differently based on their
| ideological "neutrality" or lack thereof.
| boardwaalk wrote:
| It's a little (a lot) frustrating that people are so sloppy
| with their thoughts (and by relation speech) on this
| subject.
|
| It wouldn't take that long for people to read up on what
| section 230 actually is before saying "publisher" like that
| means anything (is related to anything the law talks
| about).
|
| Laws of course need interpretation, but if people think,
| "Oh, they're a 'publisher'" (whatever that means; they
| probably couldn't tell you) "they must be subject to
| different rules," they're frankly just kind of dumb.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The people who wrote 230(c)(1) must be really dumb then,
| since they wasted all of that space to say that websites
| wouldn't be treated as publishers.
| layer8 wrote:
| In the latter case, they might turn into an equivalent of Kiwi
| Farms. It would certainly be interesting.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| That's not how the law is written. Section 230 of the
| Communications Decency Act was SPECIFICALLY written to allow
| providers of "interactive computer services" to moderate 3rd
| party content posted to their servers. This was to address the
| issue in the early 90s where online forms didn't moderate at
| all for fear of taking on liability.
|
| A situation of only draconian moderation or none at all will
| tend towards only draconian moderation since very few users
| want a truly unmoderated space like the more obscure chan
| sites. Its the worst of both worlds.
| cjensen wrote:
| Congress passed a law to specifically ensure they are websites
| are not responsible for the speech they reproduce. This law is
| good because it encourages content moderation because there are
| never consequences for the moderation decisions.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > This law is good because it encourages content moderation
|
| This is too direct for me to be putting words in your mouth:
| do you believe that any and all content moderation is an
| unambiguous good?
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Content moderation is legal, and companies will do as much
| or little of it, using whatever parameters necessary, to
| attract people to their platforms and compete with other
| platforms.
|
| Very few things are unambiguously good; particularly
| without specifying a moral or ethical context.
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| Content moderation is a balancing act. Companies are going
| to make mistakes and have to take corrective action.
|
| Do you believe that zero content moderation is good?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I take content moderation on a case by case basis. That's
| like asking me to decide between whether all movies are
| good or all movies should be banned.
|
| > Companies are going to make mistakes and have to take
| corrective action.
|
| We should help them by giving them far less latitude.
| jcranmer wrote:
| Note that the First Amendment prohibits the government
| from being able to mandate any moderation guidelines
| whatsoever, as moderation is inherently a content-based
| restriction on speech.
| triceratops wrote:
| > do you believe that any and all content moderation is an
| unambiguous good?
|
| Yes. Because it's a natural extension of property rights.
| Do you not believe in property rights?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I don't believe in _natural_ property rights, because I
| don 't know how to find them in nature. Property rights
| as assigned by law don't have to be believed in, just
| observed, because they are enforced.
|
| "Natural extensions" of property rights are religious
| beliefs. I believe they should be protected, but not
| indulged.
| triceratops wrote:
| I didn't say anything about "natural" property rights.
|
| Property rights as assigned by law let you decide who to
| allow or disallow access to your property. If the
| property is open to the general public, there are some
| additional rules you have to follow. But you're free to
| ban activities from your property.
| cjensen wrote:
| Unambiguous good? No, it will depend on the quality of the
| moderation.
|
| But I think it is more important to encourage good
| moderators to moderate more than it is to punish poor
| moderation.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Do you want a law telling you what you can publish on your
| website?
| pfisch wrote:
| How would this even work on Reddit? Currently user moderators
| control all the user made subreddits.
|
| If Reddit now has legal liability does Reddit need to moderate
| All subreddits by themselves? That sounds impossible.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Just hire enough people and charge the posters. There are
| many models that could work.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| That's partially true. Reddit assigns moderators to your
| subreddit as well and if you don't moderate in a way they
| like will force you to remove certain moderators or even ban
| your community.
| buildbot wrote:
| I'll ask the same question I asked on the other threads to all
| those cheering this - do you think HN will be the same without
| moderation? Or just another 4chan? Will r/conservative stop
| banning users who dare suggest trump was maybe not such a good
| person, even if they are otherwise extremely conservative?
| klyrs wrote:
| If HN and other forums are doomed to become 4chan, it would
| probably be a net positive in my life. I waste too much time
| here.
| klyrs wrote:
| Meanwhile, Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political
| opinions. This is _not_ about a principled approach to free
| speech. It 's about protecting the right to enforce religious-
| inspired bigotry, tearing down the separation of church and state
| even as that bigotry becomes "unpopular."
| a-user-you-like wrote:
| weakfish wrote:
| What book is encouraging that? Or are you using hyperbole to
| try and make your point sound more scary?
| blast wrote:
| I agree with you about that, but I also (might) agree with them
| about this.
|
| Not that you said otherwise, but... I think we should go back
| to a transactional mix-and-match style of politics, with
| different coalitions per issue, instead of the "agree with your
| friend tribe and disagree with your enemy tribe about
| everything" style that we seem to be locked into these days.
| There shouldn't be any shame in being part of the same
| coalition on one issue with people who are reprehensible on
| other issues. Agreeing with the Florida government about some
| point of social media regulation doesn't imply I agree with
| them about anything else.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Well put. Welcome to contemporary political discussions.
| Objectivity is really scarce. The entire discussion goes down
| the toilet due to some form of 1) whataboutism 2) moral
| superiority complex 3) strawmanning 4) gas lighting. Add a
| dozen or so common biases and you've got a toxic brew of non-
| productivity. Furthermore, reconition of biases from a list
| like this [1] can be both good or bad. Bad in a way that it
| can be weaponized to shutdown conversation. Basically,
| everything you ever say (including this comment) would
| violate one of these cognitive biases, its a huge list. Feel
| free to use them as weapons! /s. There are also eggregious
| misuse of 2) which comes in the form of "For the children" or
| "Killing babies" or "For the good of the planet", etc.
|
| Modernity has brought us closer to subjectivism than ever.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
| munk-a wrote:
| I am a one-issue voter (whenever it's on the ballot) and my
| issue is voting reform because, in my view, the two party
| system America (and almost Canada!) is stuck with is just
| making inter-party discussions on policies impossible. Once
| the political class has stratified like it has in America and
| can box out anyone who doesn't pass a litmus test of dozens
| of issues (Oh, you're pro-gun rights but also pro-abortion
| access? Sorry, neither us nor the other guys want you) then
| the political system will quickly break down.
|
| We desperately need elections where more than just the two
| dominant parties can compete without a spoiler effect.
|
| This is happening, just FYI, up in Canada right now - there
| are four parties worth talking about - Liberals,
| Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Quebecois - the last two are
| essentially just regional parties which do occasionally win
| surprise seats but mostly just exist within a localized area.
| That is enough, in our parliamentary system to force
| cooperation at a federal level - but without serious action I
| can't see any ending in sight other than slowly devolving to
| American politics.
| space_fountain wrote:
| Isn't it consistent to say the government deciding not
| distribute books is wrong for the same reason the government
| telling private companies they must distribute speech they
| disagree with is wrong? Both clearly violate free speech.
| Maybe you don't actually think free speech is the standard,
| maybe it's something more vague like an open society, but I
| don't see this as any different than the state mandating
| churches reserve 15 minutes at the start of each sermon for
| anyone who wants to get up and say something
| case0x00 wrote:
| To what are you referring?
| klyrs wrote:
| There is a "satire[1]" meme floating with some disinformation
| about book bans in Florida. However, the state is second,
| only behind Texas, in actual book bans[2].
|
| Relatedly, the vague "don't say gay" law has a significant
| impact on LGBTQ teachers right to free expression -- straight
| teachers are totally free to talk about their spouses, for
| example, but gay teachers are not. Quite reminiscent of the
| "don't ask don't tell" policy.
|
| [1] https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2022/a-viral-list-
| of-b...
|
| [2] https://floridapolitics.com/archives/557111-florida-
| second-o...
| zdragnar wrote:
| What's struck me as weird about this is that I don't recall
| a single teacher ever mentioning their spouse, or their
| personal weekend plans.
|
| The idea that a teacher wants to talk to their students
| about their personal lives is utterly foreign to me.
|
| Maybe it's just a sign of times changing?
|
| Edit: this thought came to me in the context of a quote I
| saw from a teacher upset he couldn't talk about going
| surfing with his husband.
|
| There was a wide enough income gap in our school that
| teachers talking about vacations was frowned upon, since
| you never really knew which kids didn't actually ever get
| to go on vacations, etc.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Did you never have a teacher you were friendly with or
| served as a mentor even outside of class? I grew up in
| poverty and if it wasn't for a couple teachers going
| above and beyond I probably would've never got the help I
| need to get free community college tuition.
|
| With cases like that, personal details end up discussed
| inadvertently because it's impossible to avoid. So-and-
| so's wife might be a teacher in the same district, or
| they might show up at school during late work hours and
| so forth. Same if they're running a club or some
| extracurricular activity.
|
| I don't think that's especially weird at all.
| klyrs wrote:
| I had a teacher who taught a class that regularly
| featured his vacation photos because he spent his summers
| traveling. Sounds super corny, but he managed to make it
| interesting, and the first-person account brought to life
| the countries, religions and philosophies that we
| learning about. His wife occasionally showed up in those
| pictures.
|
| My school also had two married teachers who shared a
| surname. We all knew they were married.
|
| There were also a few teachers (band, orchestra, sports
| coaches) whose spouses would volunteer at events and
| travel with them.
|
| Also quite a few teachers wore religious symbols -- cross
| on a necklace kind of thing. And quite a few of my
| teachers had pictures of their families on their desks.
| They didn't make a big deal about it, but evidence was in
| plain sight.
|
| Now, I was in the high school in the 90s. I'm not sure
| when you think this changed.
| Kerbonut wrote:
| I agree and we should classify the underlying Internet service
| providers, that social media providers depends on, as common
| carriers as well!
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| That's where the cognitive dissonance here kicks in: the case
| for ISPs to be common-carriers looks much stronger (from any
| principled perspective) than does the case for social media
| networks.
|
| And yet, because this is a party-political issue, you have the
| Republican Party swearing up and down that ISPs are not
| (presumably because common-carrier status implies net
| neutrality and this is unpopular with donors or something?) but
| that social networks are (because they exhibit "bias").
| Meekro wrote:
| I agree that we should have both ISPs and major social
| networks as common carriers. Based on talking with Republican
| friends, I think the difference is that social networks are
| well-known censors. If Xfinity was known to censor as
| aggressively as Twitter and Facebook do, they would also be
| in favor of common carrier rules for them. But as it is,
| they're content to leave well enough alone.
| layer8 wrote:
| Also services like Cloudflare, and email providers like GMail.
| case0x00 wrote:
| I agree, unless the alternative is to break apart the
| monopolies which I think is better.
| scarface74 wrote:
| How is an email server a common carrier? People have been
| setting up email servers for decades and there are plenty of
| alternatives.
| elil17 wrote:
| It's unclear to me that email and CDNs are the kinds of
| natural monopolies that need to be regulated as common
| carriers
| layer8 wrote:
| Look what happened to Kiwi Farms, and what happens to
| people who try to host their own outgoing SMTP server.
| elil17 wrote:
| Something requiring decent scale is totally different
| than being a natural monopoly. There were plenty of DDoS
| protection options on the market. I can't grow my own
| wheat, build my own car, or DDoS protect my own website -
| these all require economies of scale. But they aren't
| natural monopolies, there's plenty of competition in each
| space. On the other hand, internet is a natural monopoly
| because the capital costs are so high and are relatively
| inelastic with the number of users served.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| What happened to Kiwi Farms was that no-one wanted to do
| business with them from a risk-management and just
| general good-moral-fiber basis.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Kiwi Farms is offline not because CloudFlare refuses to
| do business with them, but because _everybody_
| collectively refuses to do business with them. Otherwise
| they could just have gone to a competitor.
|
| One can still find what happened to them chilling, but
| that doesn't make CloudFlare a "common carrier."
| vkou wrote:
| Also television channels and libraries. They are as much of a
| common carrier as a website is.
|
| Which is to say, they are not at all.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Broadcast TV only exists because they license the public
| airwaves and the spectrum they use is of limited supply and
| is again a natural monopoly. Cable TV networks have no such
| restrictions.
| brk wrote:
| This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO is
| the wrong motivation.
|
| Politicians really should not have special exemptions or
| privileges when it comes to free speech issues. Eg: they have
| exceptions to use robo-calls, text spam, etc.
|
| Realistically, we probably need to define when an organization is
| a media influencer vs. a niche communications platform. I do
| think Facebook/Twitter/Etc. need to be held to a different level
| of accountability on things like this than say Tomshardware, or
| HN.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The law applies to social media sights with > 100,000 monthly
| active users.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO
| is the wrong motivation.
|
| Because political censorship is the worst censorship (you might
| argue that all censorship is political.) It's like how
| political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a
| dictatorship.
|
| If the powerful are censoring the political process, there are
| no means to make any of the powerful less powerful. It becomes
| self-perpetuating.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Political speech is not "speech made by politicians".
| brk wrote:
| But at the same time, politicians using social media to
| continuously publish blatant lies is also not a mechanism for
| stable government. In the past, this was regulated to a large
| degree by traditional media outlets being a filter of sorts
| and not just printing any random direct statement made by a
| politician.
|
| I think there is a balance between "social media must not
| interfere with blatantly false statements from politicians"
| and "social media can ban their political detractors without
| consequence". The ideal reality would be the public actually
| holding politicians responsible for being deceptive or
| treasonous, but that does not appear to be on the horizon
| either.
| scarface74 wrote:
| There is absolutely nothing stopping conservatives from
| establishing their own social media platform. Conservatives
| love "the free market" as long as it is working for them.
|
| Whose fault is it that Truth Social is an abysmal failure?
| b800h wrote:
| I think there's a potential argument against this.
|
| 1. Network effects mean that there's only space for one
| platform in a particular niche.
|
| 2. There are reports (are they reliable?) that people who
| are more left wing are more habitually online and post much
| more.
|
| If the above two are true, then left-wing social networks
| will naturally dominate.
| scarface74 wrote:
| There is only space for one platform, yet there are
| plenty of platforms for discourse. Are you really arguing
| that for instance Trump or Foxnews don't have the
| following to start an alternate social media?
|
| As far as #2, why should tgat be an argument for the
| government to be involved?
| b800h wrote:
| Well I'm hedging my bets. If it really is true that the
| market in a particular area (microblogging for instance)
| can only be dominated by a single company, and also that
| left-wing users are more active, then absolutely, I'm
| arguing that Fox would be unable to maintain a successful
| rival to Twitter.
|
| As far as #2 is concerned, well I don't know if it is an
| argument for the government to become involved, but if
| something is driving huge divisions in society which are
| arguably destabilising the country (again, this is
| arguably wrong) then should the government not intervene?
| I'm European by the way, so my philosophical priors might
| be different to those of an American.
|
| It's not as though government doesn't regulated other
| human behaviours which cause damage if left unregulated.
| Drink driving, for example.
| scarface74 wrote:
| I actually have my own "micro blog" at wait for it
| "micro.blog" (https://digitalnomadder.micro.blog/about/)
| It's more of a journaling thing. But I'm sure if I had
| the reach of many of the conservatives I could make a
| healthy living by monetizing it (not interested) or at
| least getting my own views out there.
|
| I've made the offer plenty of times, I would gladly
| overcharge any conservative to lead the creation of a
| social media site that could stand up to the likely
| traffic. It would be like the atheist who got rich
| selling a mobile Bible app.
|
| If I couldn't lead the charge, I need to give up my
| $DayJob.
| [deleted]
| bandyaboot wrote:
| > It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a
| place is a dictatorship.
|
| That's an easy sign right up until you have to define
| "political prisoner". According to some, people convicted of
| crimes committed during the January 6th insanity are
| "political prisoners".
| Volundr wrote:
| It'd also not be unreasonable to look at many of the people
| imprisoned for the US's "war on drugs" that way. Many of
| those laws were written targeting "undesirable" voters.
| rayiner wrote:
| The first amendment case law recognizes that protection for
| political speech is the very core of the First Amendment. It's
| the whole point.
|
| Indeed, prior to the mid-20th century, it was understood that
| other kinds of expressive speech (pornography, etc.) did not
| receive as much, if any, protection.
| scarface74 wrote:
| First Amendment case law involves the government. If the
| government of Florida wants a free for all social media
| platform, it can create one. If they don't have the technical
| aptitude, I'll gladly accept a multi million dollar contract
| to lead the creation of one. Leading the development of large
| scale infrastructure and back end development is kind of mg
| thing.
| vdnkh wrote:
| Mattasher wrote:
| At this point we need to recognize that these "private companies"
| are now de facto state actors. They take censorship advice from
| government agencies (like the CDC), ban certain people in
| response to political pressures, and hand over user's private
| data without a warrant.
|
| That doesn't mean regulating them like common carries is good or
| workable, but we need to start by recognizing that there are
| first amendment claims on both sides now.
| aNoob7000 wrote:
| The problem is finding the right balance between free speech
| and censorship.
|
| I look forward to see how cases that go to the Supreme Court
| are going to be handled. I personally believe that a private
| business like Facebook has the right to control content on
| their app/website.
| klyrs wrote:
| The Supreme Court is little more than a chapter of the
| Federalist Society right now. Even Roberts cannot moderate
| them.
| throwaway4220 wrote:
| So if you say the sky is green, and NASA says "That's wrong",
| you call that censorship?
| radford-neal wrote:
| If someone writes a post saying the sky is green, NASA says
| "that's wrong", and then goes on to say that if the social
| media platform doesn't remove the post saying the sky is
| green, NASA will forbid the platform from sending any
| messages using communication satellites, then yes, that is
| censorship.
|
| Of course, they're unlikely to behave so blatantly, at least
| initially. They're more likely to just sort of hint at how
| anti-trust prosecutions might be started or not depending on
| whether the platform follows the government's "advice".
| fallenasleep wrote:
| the big ones are also global companies who operate in many
| countries (and cooperate with many countries' law enforcement).
| For me, the better metaphor is to think of them as virtual
| governments of virtual territories
| Mattasher wrote:
| This seems like a better analogy than "private companies",
| but then where does that lead you in terms of how they should
| be treated? No snark here, genuine question.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Sorry, where are the First Amendment issues with allowing
| social media networks to censor whatever they want?
|
| "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right
| of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the
| Government for a redress of grievances."
|
| Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that
| relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues.
| kcplate wrote:
| > Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that
| relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues.
|
| The problem is when government and social media actively
| collude to side step the government's responsibility to the
| first amendment...the government has dragged the social media
| companies into first amendment territory.
|
| You have two ways of handling this: one...have the government
| police itself...which it won't do, because it is already
| actively trying to find ways around its responsibility to
| freedom of speech; Or two, start lawsuits that expose the
| collusion and start making it expensive for social media
| companies to collude with the government to censor.
| HotGarbage wrote:
| sanp wrote:
| Isn't it up to Congress to legislate this? Or, is the hope that
| the current SC will make law?
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It should be incredibly obvious to just about anyone that this
| sort of law is untenable and would just lead to social media
| companies either completely banning anyone from Florida from
| posting on their platform or putting them into their own special
| space completely separated from the rest of the world.
|
| Someone in Florida will issue a terrorism threat that goes afoul
| of European laws or something and social media platforms will
| sooner side with the rest of the world than Florida. And how is
| Florida going to have any standing to try and sue a company in
| compliance that does not operate in or offer service to Florida?
|
| It's the same as what's going down in Texas. Never mind that as
| another commentator mentioned these same state governments are
| also busy burning books and censoring other individuals so it's
| not a matter of equal freedom. They want the ability to threaten
| minorities.
| Jemm wrote:
| Funny how they care now when they feel oppressed.
| paxys wrote:
| When a state is against net neutrality, pro super PACs, pro hobby
| lobby/religious tests in employment, pro book banning in
| libraries, but wants to regulate social networks because
| "political freedom", their motivations are a bit suspect.
| jrm4 wrote:
| No, but seriously, they're doing this stuff in such a sloppy
| way that I'd definitely be looking for opportunity, e.g. the
| wording of one of their anti-CRT things essentially said "no
| one can make someone else uncomfortable about race" and I'm
| like "word? I can work with that."
| munk-a wrote:
| At the same time - this one move might make Florida
| accidentally the most progressive state in America.
| scarface74 wrote:
| The same Florida that passed a law specifically to punish
| Disney because they spoke out against the "Don't Say Gay" law
| and passed the "Stop Woke" act?
| munk-a wrote:
| I suppose I should've added some more overt humor markers
| on the above statement.
| eddof13 wrote:
| 100% agree with florida here, would be huge for me
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Why would this be huge for you?
| brink wrote:
| Probably because his ideas and opinions are actively
| censored. It's no secret that social media has a heavy bias.
| fallenasleep wrote:
| both sides think "social media" is biased against them; I
| honestly could not guess which way you think the bias goes
| pessimizer wrote:
| They're biased against something, because they delete
| legal content.
| nrb wrote:
| Who cares that it's legal though? You're on their
| property, committed to abiding by their terms of service
| even.
|
| If you're hosting a garden party and one of the guests
| has become disruptive to everyone else, are you not
| allowed to demand they cease their behavior or leave your
| property just because their angry ranting is not illegal
| speech?
|
| You're totally within your right to say "I'm out, this
| party sucks anyway, you guys don't want to have honest
| debate" but it's a little absurd to force the property
| owner to allow you to stick around when you are no longer
| welcome.
| luckylion wrote:
| And both Ukraine and Russia say they are being attacked.
|
| I think there is real bias (and in the West it's more
| biased against conservatives and some minority groups
| while it's different elsewhere, depends mostly on the
| dominant ideology) and there's faux discrimination to get
| victim points to trade in for control.
| eddof13 wrote:
| it aligns with my values on free speech and I think social
| media platforms should be common carriers and be forced to
| allow all free speech (aside from fire in a crowded theater)
| triceratops wrote:
| Enjoy the deluge of spam
| b0sk wrote:
| And getting banned because you repeatedly say that the
| election is fraud and urge your supporters to storm the
| capitol (and getting one such person killed) isn't the
| equivalent of fire in a crowded theater?
|
| Moderation is hard. They get it right 99% of the time.
| acomjean wrote:
| I guess you'd support no more downvoting or flagging post here
| either.
| eddof13 wrote:
| fine with downvoting, just no banning or censoring for
| unpopular opinions
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| People don't usually get banned for their opinions. They
| get banned for being jerks. Try enabling showdead. There
| are some accounts marked as [dead] that I don't get, but
| the vast, vast majority of flagkilled posts and banned
| accounts I've seen don't deserve the product of someone
| else's labor to propagate their speech.
| smaryjerry wrote:
| This is idealistic thinking however there are countless
| cases where a ban was done by a bad actor or bad
| algorithm, with the only recourse being a user taking
| their ban to another platform to complain, and if they
| gain enough traction on another platform then they get
| the ban reversed. Unfortunately that only works for large
| creators while small creators have zero recourse for
| unjust bans.
| acomjean wrote:
| I'm not sure how that would work. Isn't enough downvotes
| the same a censoring as the site isn't letting your opinion
| be heard. Dang won't be able to step in and maintain order.
| Spam couldn't be disallowed.
| pfisch wrote:
| If you want to post on 4chan, go post on 4chan.
|
| Don't turn the rest of the internet into 4chan so you can force
| gross ideas and content onto everyone else.
| eddof13 wrote:
| we should put speed limiters on cars so they can't go faster
| than 5 mph and endanger someone else
| pfisch wrote:
| Are you describing speed limits on roads?
| triceratops wrote:
| Cars run on public roads. On the other hand if you said
| that only speed-limited cars are allowed on your property,
| you would be entirely in the right.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Hyperbole aside, I've ridden in supercars that are equipped
| with speed limiters in order to be able to drive on public
| roads legally in the US.
| b0sk wrote:
| Now that we've come to analogies, think that they are
| traffic lights.
| ProAm wrote:
| This would be a terrible precedent. These are private companies,
| who is the government to tell them how to operate without funding
| them. If you don't like what you read, or if you read things that
| are not true that is on you as an individual to make appropriate
| choices. The government shouldnt meddle with social networks.
| They are just that, social and voluntary.
| protomyth wrote:
| Private companies are regulated all the time. Look up the rules
| for any utility or communications company. They banned
| politicians, so that's going to get laws passed.
| scarface74 wrote:
| Utilities and communication companies are natural monopoles
| because they require government easements on private property
| and a license to limited airways
| triceratops wrote:
| So why aren't ISPs regulated like common carriers?
| protomyth wrote:
| Before 2018 they were, and now they are listed as Title I
| information services. There is a bit of a court fight over
| the ability of state regulators to impose rules. I would
| imagine that they could be moved back if they cause trouble
| for politicians.
| triceratops wrote:
| That's an open admission that none of these laws are
| about principles or "freedom of speech". They're openly
| political, and they should be upfront about that.
| protomyth wrote:
| Every law is politically motivated. "Freedom of Speech"
| is a politically motivated.
| ProAm wrote:
| They are given massive subsidies from the government to do
| so. Social networks have nothing to do with infrastructure
| where as utilities and communications do.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Social networks have nothing to do with infrastructure
| where as utilities and communications do
|
| Social network and communications have nothing to do with
| each-other? are you reading what you are writing? How is
| Facebook messenger call different from a phonecall of the
| 21st century?
| scarface74 wrote:
| A phone call is enabled by easements on public land.
| Facebook Messenger is just one of many messaging
| programs. I bet you right now Google has 5 in the works.
|
| I have at least 7 apps on my phone now that I can use to
| call someone over an app.
| ProAm wrote:
| Communication is infrastructure. A social network is not.
| Pretty straight forward.
| triceratops wrote:
| I only have one or 2 choices of phone carriers with a
| high cost to switch. I have a multitude of alternatives
| to FB Messenger (which I don't even use) with very low
| cost to switch.
| danaris wrote:
| Your conclusion ("this is a terrible precedent") is correct,
| but the way you get there makes no sense.
|
| The government makes laws about how private companies and
| citizens can act all the time without funding them. You think
| the government has to fund every auto maker in order to impose
| emissions standards on them? Or that every company making
| communications equipment/chips is funded by the government, so
| that they can impose regulations on what spectrum they can use?
|
| This is a terrible precedent because there is no sane, logical
| way to define social networks as common carriers, and because
| Section 230 was _specifically_ written to allow and encourage
| content moderation.
| ejb999 wrote:
| >>These are private companies, who is the government to tell
| them how to operate without funding them
|
| You are kidding right? You don't think the government already
| controls almost everything about how companies can operate?
| [deleted]
| chasd00 wrote:
| social networks straddle the fence. They want to be common
| carriers when it comes to being responsible for the content
| published on their platforms and then they want to be
| publishers when it comes to deciding what content is curated,
| promoted, and publicized on their platform.
|
| They were allowed to have it both ways because the Internet and
| especially user generated content was new and no one knew where
| it would go. Now I think there's been plenty of history and
| time to see it shake out and they should pick an option; either
| common carrier or publisher but not both.
|
| / did i use that semicolon right?
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The government already regulates publishers. When you make
| decisions about what to feature and what to exclude you are a
| publisher.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| A corporation is a _creation_ of government. Why shouldn 't
| they be able to regulate them any way they think best? Which
| isn't _necessarily_ to say this is a good idea, but... of
| course government should be able to tell companies how to
| operate.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Except in ways that are constitutionally prohibited, right?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, sure.
|
| For corporations that aren't closely held, it's not clear
| that changes much, though.
|
| [EDIT] Changes much legally, I mean. Ethically--well,
| again, corporations are a _creation of_ of government, so
| it seems to me that can come with whatever strings attached
| the government cares to create (so far as what 's ethical,
| if not what's _a good idea_ ), and if the folks running
| corporations don't like it, they can always... stop running
| corporations. No one's _forcing_ them to run a corporation,
| and they can all go do whatever they like with full
| protection of the US Constitution and all that jazz, if
| they use their own personal resources and don 't hide
| behind corporate liability shields.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| Surely you don't think it would be legal for Congress to
| pass a law preventing newspaper publishers (whether
| persons natural or juridical) from, for example,
| endorsing presidential candidates?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Surely you don't think it would be legal for Congress
| to pass a law preventing newspaper publishers from, for
| example, endorsing presidential candidates?
|
| Nah, but I also reckon there's a reason the press is
| mentioned specifically in that amendment.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| What about a law prohibiting unions from doing so?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I wouldn't _want_ them to--again, that 's separate--but
| yeah, maybe, since they're also effectively chartered by
| the government (as they pretty much can't exist in any
| useful way absent special government support of some kind
| or another--but then, same goes for corporations).
|
| I mean, they _do in fact_ already dictate a lot about how
| both unions and corporations can operate, so yeah,
| prohibiting endorsement of candidates using union
| resources doesn 't seem entirely crazy to me. Though,
| again, I'd rather they didn't.
| scarface74 wrote:
| So in that case, why not let the government just take over
| any company it sees fit?
|
| If you're okay with the government controlling any legal
| organization do yoh feel the same way about government
| controlling churches? Advocacy groups?
| klyrs wrote:
| On the other hand, stripping corporations of their speech,
| reversing Hobby Lobby and Citizens United, would be great. But
| that isn't the real objective behind this law.
| eddof13 wrote:
| nah. my bank, electric company, telephone carrier, internet
| carrier, and social media platforms (effectively the public
| square) should have no choice but to carry me regardless of my
| opinions
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