111–120 of 192 posts
The main reason why Facebook is not in China is that Chinese government wishes to regulate Facebook while Facebook (like Google) refuses to obey.
In some ways, Chinese government was right in the judgement that unfiltered and unregulated freedom of speech bring its own problems. And now the Western free world is starting to see these problems and impose regulations.
Disclaimer: I'm Chinese.
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Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.
Free speech is a dangerous idea by itself, and without democracy and solid institutions, it can easily be the tool of populists and demagogues. It's not an absolute value all on its own.
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Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.
The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors . When a private actor (such as Facebook) chooses to publish or suppress content from a third party, that is a voluntary exercise of Constitutionally protected speech . Social media services have neither a moral nor legal obligation to publish hate speech.
Facebook has more customers than any country has citizens so this question is of great importance to how their service continues to grow and impact the world.
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Free speech is a dangerous idea by itself, and without democracy and solid institutions, it can easily be the tool of populists and demagogues. It's not an absolute value all on its own.
Please elaborate on how populism and democracy are two separate entities, when, by definition, both are characterized by majority rule. Are you sure you aren't confusing democracy with republicanism?
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Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.
The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors . When a private actor (such as Facebook) chooses to publish or suppress content from a third party, that is a voluntary exercise of Constitutionally protected speech . Social media services have neither a moral nor legal obligation to publish hate speech.
> The Constitutional guarantee of free speech mandates the behavior of the government to not interfere with the rights of private actors
Free speech is an ethical concept that is (imo) fundamental to open societies. The US Constitution enshrines this ethical ideal by creating a prohibition against government interference in free speech. GP is lamenting that major corporations do not seem interested in the ethical ideal, not claiming that the codification of the ethical ideal found in the US Constitution requires major corporations to permit certain types of speech on their platform.
>Facebook can no longer deny its moral responsibility to try to understand how cyberspace, law, and politics collide in each of the countries where it operates, nor its responsibility to do something about it. That sentence doesn't make sense. Do something about what? How those things collide? It's very unclear what the author thinks Facebook is supposed to do, or what he thinks Facebook is actually responsible for.…
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Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. They are happy with a giant global monopolist controlling all speech, as long as they use that power to enforce their political agenda. That is an incredibly dangerous mindset and one that seems to be becoming more pervasive in respectable circles.
> Yes, it is interesting that the author sees no place in the modern world for the kind of free speech enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. Well, there is such a place. The U.S. However, in Germany, German rules of speech apply. As a German, I consider this a good thing. And remember, the German constitution was written at the pleasure of the allies -- the US were apparently quite happy with the way our constitution b…
That is sort of the point. Once all speech transits corporate networks and those corporations are empowered to censor that speech then the public square protected by the U.S. Constitution no longer exists.
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Please elaborate on how populism and democracy are two separate entities, when, by definition, both are characterized by majority rule. Are you sure you aren't confusing democracy with republicanism?
Populism stresses a distinction between "the common man" and "the elite", while democracy doesn't have this connotation.
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We already break government up into federal, state and local governments. What you stated is literally how it already works.
That's how it may have used to work. The abuse of the Commerce clause has expanded the regulatory power of the federal government almost unilaterally.
Facebook has to be broken down to pieces. I think it has reached a state where it cannot be allowed to continue as a single company being able to observe/monitor public and private communication / social interaction of so many people and not being regulated and controlled by the government.
I don't understand why do you think that. The biggest problem of big companies is when they hurt consumers with predatory practices. With Facebook I fail to see how that's the case. Everybody is perfectly capable of not being hurt by their own accord by just no using it. If the problem is how it influences politics and government, I think that's even a point against letting the government mess with it, as it is a pow…
No, the biggest problem of big companies is when they stifle innovation and competition in order to maintain an unchanging cycle of use and purchase.