Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#71

Post by Chris_Chambers » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #62

Private companies should be able to censor political speech, period. If it's my desire to build a platform that is favorable to certain types of speech, that's my right and the government shouldn't be forcing me to modify my platform to rebroadcast speech I disagree with. In terms of conservative complaints about leftist censorship, I have to simply roll my eyes. The conservatives complaining about big tech don't car…

Private social media companies that reach a certain size should be forcibly nationalized and transformed into taxpayer funded instruments of the first amendment with zero censorship. The former owners should be compensated with so much money that it’s impossible they’d be upset about the blessing of retiring early and never working again unless their true goal all along was to use their power in a treasonous fashion. Anyone who disagrees with me should be hanged for treason. Anyone still working at the company after it’s nationalized who is found working on or implementing any form of censorship should be hanged for treason.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#72

Post by goatinaboat » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #46

ChaosDegenerate wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will happen to New York Times when its running sexually explicit, beheading, animal torture, etc? They will get sued. As soon as we can start suing them for the content they provide the sooner they will find resolution to it. The same way they will get sued if they censor content that might be deemed socially important.

> What will happen to New York Times when its running sexually explicit, beheading, animal torture, etc? They will get sued. The NYT isn't a public utility nor a public broadcaster. I'm curious what you think would happen to the New York Times if they were to get sued in your imaginary hypothetical?

I'm curious what you think would happen to the New York Times if they were to get sued in your imaginary hypothetical?

Editors can and have been jailed. They are ultimately personally responsible for what the paper published.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#73

Post by eli » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:51 PM UTC

jon_akimbo wrote: post #66

It's hard to take this argument seriously when the only companies mentioned are left-leaning tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google. I suspect that the author's concern isn't censorship per se, but censorship of viewpoints he happens to uphold. If Twitter's suppression of conservative content is bad, then so is The Federalist's suppression of liberal content. You're about to argue that one of these is a…

What makes a company left-leaning?

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#74

Post by maratd » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

jon_akimbo wrote: post #66

It's hard to take this argument seriously when the only companies mentioned are left-leaning tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google. I suspect that the author's concern isn't censorship per se, but censorship of viewpoints he happens to uphold. If Twitter's suppression of conservative content is bad, then so is The Federalist's suppression of liberal content. You're about to argue that one of these is a…

I can argue that censorship isn't OK on either? Isn't that the appropriate position?

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#75

Post by bcrosby95 » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:55 PM UTC

gonational wrote: post #43

Miner49er wrote: post #7

So the author wants to protect "the marketplace of ideas" from monopolies caused by a different market. However, they don't want the government to do it. They also don't seem to think it's possible for smaller companies to challenge these monopolies. What then is the author's solution? One is never given.

In my opinion, the solution is simple: If any “platform” censors beyond removing illegal or copyrighted content or spam, they should have their “platform” status revoked, and they should be considered a publisher. This prevents such companies from using “platform” status as a cost saving mechanism to help them become large monopolies. Companies like Facebook would not have been able to take over so much of the market…

I agree with the spirit of the idea, even if it might not be realistically defined or enforced.

One thing that comes to mind is how do you define "illegal" content? A huge hangup here tends to be free speech - lots of legal free speech is not legal in places like Europe - e.g. there generally isn't a concept of hate speech in the US, and in the US inciting violence literally means "lets go over here and beat these people up right now" - anything less tends not to be inciting violence. Europe tends to be a lot more restrictive on these fronts.

And if you want the bar to be "illegal anywhere", then places like China would make a lot of things illegal that everyone in the west would be fine with. If you want to say that of course we wouldn't pay attention to China, now you're back to picking and choosing countries likely based upon arbitrary metrics.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#76

Post by llcoolv » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

How could a private company impose censhorship when none of them are allowed to use violence? They could only ban certain types of behaviour on their premises, right? Which is not really censorship as one could just go to someone else's premises or found their own.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#77

Post by buboard » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

jvickers wrote: post #50

I have a wide view of what 'censorship' is, and I include spam filtering in the definition. For example, a while ago I saw an advert for some kind of erection-causing pill on a forum discussing C++. If the forum moderators remove such a post, they make the forum more efficient by saving other users (who are looking for C++ content) from themselves having to filter out irrelevant information / a sales pitch. I also se…

there is an entire range of censorship, it's not black and white. The question is where to draw the line

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#78

Post by naravara » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #32

woopwoop wrote: post #28

Replace "censoring conservative viewpoints" with "censoring the nice people who tell me about how I can make $13,000 a week working from home". Which part of this argument changes? I can't find any part that does.

I can't speak for the article, but I can speak for myself. The difference is that I, personally, have control over the blocking of the "make money fast" communication. I think part of the right to free speech is the right to be able to choose what speech you consume, i.e., everyone has the right to free speech but nobody has the right to impose upon you. For me personally, since I run my own incoming mail server, the…

>I think part of the right to free speech is the right to be able to choose what speech you consume, i.e., everyone has the right to free speech but nobody has the right to impose upon you.

You can think this, but it's not borne out by legal precedent. Odious speech is protected in public spaces, so if the KKK wants to impose their speech on my by disrupting my morning commute they have that right as long as they get a permit.

And if an anti-abortion activist wants to shove gory images of fetuses in the face of everyone going into a Planned Parenthood to get their prescriptions refilled, nobody stops them from doing that either.

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#79

Post by buboard » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

JediWing wrote: post #63

Know what else distorts the marketplace of ideas? Money. Money allows for buying advertisements, essentially allowing you to buy a platform to spread your ideas. Having money typically has a pretty clear bias: protecting the money of those who have it. This comes at the expense, many times, of those who do not. That typically equates to conservative policies. I'm not convinced that the market distortion caused by sup…

You know what else distorts the marketplace of ideas? Guns. Monetary incentives are a lot more voluntary in comparison

Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies

#80

Post by adrianN » Wed, Nov 06, 2019, 2:59 PM UTC

There is outright censorship, or rather removing topics that the owner of the platform doesn't like, and then there is the much more serious problem of creating echo chambers for the users where dissenting opinions are not deleted, but hidden.