Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

701–710 of 1001 posts

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

#701

Post by tootie »

centimeter wrote: post #676
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…

I think the actual conservative pain point is that they (correctly) observe that freedom of association (i.e. businesses get to choose their customers) only seems to apply when it benefits progressives - contrast Google evicting milquetoast conservatives from Youtube with no legal repercussions versus that baker in Colorado getting sued a bunch of times for not wanting to bake gay, satanist, etc. themed cakes. There…

There's ample for why it's illegal to discriminate against classes of people. Imagine business in the 20s with signs saying "Irish need not apply" or "No dogs or Jews". The recent case with the baker was extending the protection of human rights to gay couples.

Any "conservative" content that has been kicked off of platforms like YouTube has been specifically targeted not for political reasons but because they were spreading hate speech and/or dangerous disinformation. Things like racism, sexism, religious intolerance, specific accusations (ie Joe Scarborough is a murderer) or dangerous disinformation (ie 5G causes Coronavirus) are not intrinsic to any group of people. There's still plenty of content around mainstream conservatism that can be viewed freely.

I think any attempt to argue a slippery slope isn't valid. People aren't computers and just because you can't apply a mathematically rigorous distinction between these kinds of speech doesn't mean that a reasonable person can't easily distinguish them.

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

#702

Post by oliveshell »

mamon wrote: post #620
mathdev wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fact check would be fine if it led to objective analyses of some sort, or even Wikipedia. But when I clicked it, it displayed some highly partisan sources, including a CNN article with its usual "Trump bad" vitriol. Maybe it was an algorithm's fault, but it didn't work at all.

In which alternative universe is Wikipedia objective? From my experience it is far-left, sometimes deliberately spreading fake news if it fits their narrative. This is especially visible in articles about politicians and historical events.

“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

–Stephen Colbert, at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner

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

#703

Post by prox »

kgin wrote: post #661
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…

I think it's even more concerning than that. Threatening to shut down private companies -- not for limiting speech, not for refusing to distribute speech -- but for exercising their own right to free speech alongside the free speech of others (in this case the president). There is no right to unchallenged or un-responded-to speech, regardless of how you interpret the right to free speech.

Because that would be the territory of authoritarian kings, the ideological reason the US was founded. Trump sees himself king, not president.

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

#704

Post by Consultant32452 »

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…

Of all the crazy shit Presidents say on the path to literally murdering hundreds of thousands of people in other countries, it amazes me that the thing that upsets people is Trump bloviating about doing something to a big evil capitalist mega-corp which he is clearly not going to do.

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

#705

Post by three_seagrass »

ethanbond wrote: post #609
Barrin92 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Free speech is not just an American constitutional right; many countries throughout the world consider free speech to be a human right. Although virtually none do so in unrestricted fashion. Hate speech, racism, genocide denial and so on aren't protected by free-speech in the overwhelming amount of legislations even in countries with a liberal tradition, and just like any other right free speech is subject to limita…

Just to be absolutely clear, the United States is one (yes, unique) case that does protect all of the types of speech you listed here.

Of those listed, yes, but SCOTUS has ruled that speech whose expression causes harm is not protected by the first amendment - i.e. your photos of children performing sexual acts are not protected by the first amendment.

The first amendment is not a blank check to express anything you want in the U.S.

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

#706

Post by ianleeclark »

kortex wrote: post #149
ianleeclark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed). Why is it bad that were refusing to let something like stormfront operate in polite society? Your free speech absolutism is dangerous. You can't debate an inherently b…

Such a tough subject. The problem is this tactic is consistently agaisnt many dissident publications, often on pro-democratic ones by autocratic countries. So what/where do you draw the line for "this speech is unacceptable so we won't propagate DNS entries for it", and who draws it? USA? ICANN? The host country? Each DNS gets to pick and choose? Going in the other direction, if this speech is so bad, why don't ISP's…

> Sounds like a beaurocratic nightmare

Okay, give me the keys and Ill do it.

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

#707

Post by Bombthecat »

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.

But isn't that what all the tweets under the tweet from president probably do? They correct him? What would be the difference?

The difference would be one is a company, the other a real person. No need for the company to get involved.

People who ignore the correctios and other tweets will ignore the company anyway.

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

#708

Post by AgentME »

kortex wrote: post #149
ianleeclark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed). Why is it bad that were refusing to let something like stormfront operate in polite society? Your free speech absolutism is dangerous. You can't debate an inherently b…

Such a tough subject. The problem is this tactic is consistently agaisnt many dissident publications, often on pro-democratic ones by autocratic countries. So what/where do you draw the line for "this speech is unacceptable so we won't propagate DNS entries for it", and who draws it? USA? ICANN? The host country? Each DNS gets to pick and choose? Going in the other direction, if this speech is so bad, why don't ISP's…

Domains do get taken down sometimes already without that international bureaucratic nightmare consortium that you're proposing. I'm not sure your solution sounds good.

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

#709

Post by ianleeclark »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #520
ianleeclark wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed). Why is it bad that were refusing to let something like stormfront operate in polite society? Your free speech absolutism is dangerous. You can't debate an inherently b…

You debate an inherently bad-faith interlocutor, not to win the debate with them, but to win the audience . The thing is, something like stormfront is out there, whether twitter or whoever carries them or not. I'd like their drivel to be clearly exposed as drivel, and clearly understood to be drivel by everyone, so that when they get exposed to it in some unexpected way (they follow an innocent-looking link or whatev…

I'm going to point you to the entire European history as a counter point. Take your pick of any pogrom, forced relocation, or whatever, and you'll always find people speaking out against it. It didn't do any good.

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

#710

Post by hadtodoit »

bredren wrote: post #686
hadtodoit wrote: post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Twitter has some automated method of determining whether a tweet is NSFW and it is very accurate to the point where I didn't even realize they allowed that content. They can figure out how to filter illegal content as well.
Post reply on HN