191–200 of 367 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why would Youtube or Twitter have to? Because combined, Google, Twitter, and Facebook have an effective monopoly on modern public discourse.
No they don't. A huge section of the population is not on Twitter and gets their news from old media.
Honest question: is the source of the problem the hateful intent of the message, or the use of "bad words"? My reading on culture these days is that one can usually get away with spouting horrendous, hateful ideas so long as they do so without using a short list of offensive words. If the truly are trying to scrub hate from their platform, I applaud their effort, but they'll never succeed. Hate is too hard to define…
Throwing HATE at a US politician during a US election in public is foreign interference and should be removed on that basis.
Unaccountable censorship of expression by our main communication providers is incompatible with Democracy. Communication is often a natural monopoly, and you can't just "start a competitor" to Twitter and have the market fix the problem (see gab.ai). If we're going to have censorship on the big platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) and backbone providers (ISPs, Cloudfront), us normal human beings need…
It's like how the New York Times has always published everything anyone sent them. Oh wait. (They aren't quite directly comparable, but they are for the point you are making, where one side of the equation is popular attention...)
Unaccountable censorship of expression by our main communication providers is incompatible with Democracy. Communication is often a natural monopoly, and you can't just "start a competitor" to Twitter and have the market fix the problem (see gab.ai). If we're going to have censorship on the big platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) and backbone providers (ISPs, Cloudfront), us normal human beings need…
Why? Who cares if someone gets banned from YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit etc? It isn't a big deal. I can see it as annoying, but it doesn't truly matter to anyone without some type of social media addiction. If "censorship" is the problem, we should support the establishment of government run internet forums that would be legally obligated to the serve the interest of the people rather than trying to arbitrarily steer certain popular websites into moderation strategies that don't align with their business or political prerogatives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though Twitter and the like might be new technology, they are still replacing the old. People only have so much time in the day and all the other ways that people engage in politics compete with Twitter and the like. And it seems that Twitter and the like have won that competition. This means that a large chunk of political discourse now happens on services like Twitter.
Yes, but why isn't Twitter allowed to curate political content? They have a 1st amendment right to do so. Just like every newspaper before them got the right to curate who got published in their editorial section.
As I understand it, whether social media companies are platforms or publishers forms the actual core and substance of this debate about "free speech."
edit Apparently there is no legal distinction between a platform and a publisher? It looks like this article may explain the confusion that I myself had. => https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190613/03172142391/once-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you mean on a legal level, it's less about what is gained by allowing insults than it is what is lost by disallowing them. That is, it becomes trivial to ban criticism by labeling it an insult. On a social level, there is something to be gained from insults: authenticity. Perhaps it comes down to personal preference, but I would rather live in a society where people can speak their mind (and potentially face socia…
It is easy to say this as long as you are not the victim of insults.
Unaccountable censorship of expression by our main communication providers is incompatible with Democracy. Communication is often a natural monopoly, and you can't just "start a competitor" to Twitter and have the market fix the problem (see gab.ai). If we're going to have censorship on the big platforms (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) and backbone providers (ISPs, Cloudfront), us normal human beings need…
Expression is not public communication. Are you not conflating freedom of speech with freedom to be heard/reach an audience? Even 2 centuries ago, the US government wouldn't intervene to force newspapers to publish the op-eds of hateful people looking to grow their followers. Why would Youtube or Twitter have to?
Comparisons with the old media always neglect to mention the unique protections these platforms enjoy. Unlike the old media, they aren't responsible for the content they publish.
If they'd prefer to be treated like publishers, not platforms, they should also have the responsibility of publishers, not the protections of platforms.
But as long as they remain platforms, they have a unique responsibility to respect the freedom of speech of everyone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfettered access to information requires unfettered access to incorrect information. The power to decide what's "correct" will be abused to block correct information that damages someone powerful.
Nobody is well informed on all issues. You just can't be. You can't fact check everything. We live in a world where the authority we defer judgement to has split up, into less balanced partisan entities. Not saying pre-internet news were unbiased, but public sources tended to be better curated. (At least where I live, I'm sure Fox has always been this horrid) This is why filter bubbles and building psychological prof…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but why isn't Twitter allowed to curate political content? They have a 1st amendment right to do so. Just like every newspaper before them got the right to curate who got published in their editorial section.
There is a difference between a platform and a publisher. Publishers can curate, platforms aren't supposed to. As I understand it, whether social media companies are platforms or publishers forms the actual core and substance of this debate about "free speech." edit Apparently there is no legal distinction between a platform and a publisher? It looks like this article may explain the confusion that I myself had. => h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody is well informed on all issues. You just can't be. You can't fact check everything. We live in a world where the authority we defer judgement to has split up, into less balanced partisan entities. Not saying pre-internet news were unbiased, but public sources tended to be better curated. (At least where I live, I'm sure Fox has always been this horrid) This is why filter bubbles and building psychological prof…
Precisely, the marketplace of ideas has become the cesspit of lies and we need to pull ourselves and everyone else out of it.
The whole point of the marketplace is to sift through all the bad stuff and find the diamonds in the rough. You can't have a market without bad stuff, and the benefit of having a market is that it finds good stuff.
A world with less bad ideas is a world with less good ideas.
It's not impossible to create. It's not necessarily bad. But it would make our society much less dynamic.