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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

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Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#681

Post by ibejoeb »

sparkie wrote: post #132
Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

> dangerously factually incorrect information Here's the problem. Who is doing the fact checking? Who fact checks the fact checkers? The world isn't black and white. State press releases are not facts. There is no authority that is the arbitrator of truth.

Moreover, twitter has demonstrated its inability to do this already. From their repudiation of the claims made about mail-in ballots:

>Trump falsely claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to "a Rigged Election.

We don't know if the claim is false; it hasn't happened yet. It could have said unlikely, improbable, whatever. Making this statement, however, is just as charged as the one it opposes.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#682

Post by tootie »

hadtodoit wrote: post #672
Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree with, you can do so for illegal content as well. If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premis…

Do they have protection right now? Platforms are already held responsible for illegal activities and are subject to requests by law enforcement and copyright holders. They're generally given a chance to respond to a request, challenge requests through channels and listen to appeals. But they would eventually be culpable if they weren't compliant.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#683

Post by azinman2 »

hadtodoit wrote: post #672
Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree with, you can do so for illegal content as well. If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premis…

Because the scale makes this nearly impossible. Or rather, extremely expensive to the point where only the biggest of companies can do so, and at the cost of real-time information.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#684

Post by hadtodoit »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #668

It really isn't about fact checking. No social media company is in position to do so, especially when dealing with unknown. It is about blocking the message, which IMHO is the same thing as tired old deplatforming. I am not taking sides here, but would it not be fair to have every journalist and politician who keeps tweeting about the Russian collision marked for fact checking or banned now that "official" sources di…

If companies want to allow user generated content they should be liable for moderating it. The legal protections that these companies have thrived on should be repealed. They don't seem to have trouble removing content they disagree with so illegal content shouldn't be any more difficult.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#685

Post by baq »

AzzieElbab wrote: post #668

It really isn't about fact checking. No social media company is in position to do so, especially when dealing with unknown. It is about blocking the message, which IMHO is the same thing as tired old deplatforming. I am not taking sides here, but would it not be fair to have every journalist and politician who keeps tweeting about the Russian collision marked for fact checking or banned now that "official" sources di…

nobody is in a position to declare any fact truth. it's impossible almost by definition.

that doesn't mean that it isn't possible for some facts. in fact, i believe social media are among the best positioned to do so for surprisingly many facts.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#686

Post by bredren »

hadtodoit wrote: post #672
Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

If companies are going to self-moderate their platforms then they should not receive any kind of legal protection from user-generated content. I wholly believe companies have every right to dictate what is on their platform but they cannot have it both ways. If you can afford to moderate content you disagree with, you can do so for illegal content as well. If I own a store and someone injures themselves on the premis…

This presumes equal weight of all content. Some content gets far more attention and thus must face a higher degree of scrutiny. This is the only way to curate at scale.

Apple does this with the App Store, where it is possible to get away with breaking app store rules if the app is not downloaded very often. It is not worth the time and energy for Apple to challenge apps that no one is downloading in the first place.

On twitter, with regard to illegal content it also has to matter the degree. How illegal / and reprehensible is it? How often is this tweet being requested?

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#687

Post by tathougies »

m-p-3 wrote: post #600
VBprogrammer wrote: post #101

Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show the content.

And if he decided to "close" Twitter, it would actually be a clear case of censorship from the government and a violation of free speech. Twitter is merely labelling a tweet as being factually incorrect, it's not hiding the content.

> Twitter is merely labelling a tweet as being factually incorrect, it's not hiding the content.

I think it really depends on what you view twitter as. If it's a communications platform, like your phone, then yes 'merely labelling a tweet' is as troubling as your phone company deciding to shut your call off when you mention to a friend that you're going to vote for Biden. If Twitter is a publishing platform, then it certainly can expose its editorial bias, but one must really consider whether or not it should have to pay its writers.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#688

Post by scythe »

Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

>private companies [...] free speech

One thing that seems relevant in the discussion about speech restrictions on social media is the fact that most if not all of the major websites are deliberately set up to maximize user engagement. The site is designed, measured and iterated on in order to induce users to comment as much as possible.

That practice seems to be incompatible with unrestricted speech. Eventually people run out of nice things to say. Facebook's policy is very obviously "if you don't have anything nice to say, say something anyway, we want money". Free speech has been sustainable historically because it's natural for people to think before they say something controversial, but now we have websites that actively undermine that built-in filter.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#689

Post by Mikeb85 »

Traster wrote: post #36

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway: There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-re…

And on the flipside, these companies have grown to the point they could be considered a public utility or even monopoly. There certainly is precedent for governments compelling utility providers to not restrict their services arbitrarily.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#690

Post by chowchowchow »

cheaprentalyeti wrote: post #671
danShumway wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only does it not seem to be a free speech issue to me, from my point of view this is basically the best-case scenario for avoiding censorship of contentious issues on dominant platforms like Facebook/Twitter. It's the obvious conclusion to arguments like, "the way to deal with bad speech is with more good speech." Twitter saw speech they disagreed with, and they fixed it with more speech. They haven't censored an…

And twitter doesn't do this with leftist speech that's wrong/inaccurate propaganda for the sake of propaganda, like (oh, for instance) today someone was posting a photoshopped picture of one of the recent reportedly abusive cops in a "Make America White Again" red hat. So wave the bloody shirt, that's AOK, but say that vote by mail facilitates fraud, and you get a personalized "We Don't Think So!" message from twitte…

so? you're free to not use the service; it still isn't a free speech issue in terms of limiting expression.
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