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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

#871

Post by awakeasleep »

It's really hard for people to put aside their personal political views and look at things from a legal point of view.

The issue here is whether these private companies are actually making rules within their own private domain, or if they control a public space.

If you feel like you intuitively know the answer to that question, take that as an indication that you haven't loaded enough of the prerequisites in your mind to actually understand what is at stake.

There are simple arguments for both sides of the equation, but the details become maddening before you even get to the complications of how it's all subservient to advertising, personal data tracking, and in a realm that is testing our current definition of monopoly.

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

#873

Post by yibg »

sizzle wrote: post #865
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…

Open source a transparent, government sponsored free-speech communication platform that clones Facebook functionality for organizing information in an intuitive way for the most tech unsaavy person. Outright ban all user tracking and profiling transparently with annual code audits and watchdog groups that can punish those in charge for not adhering to this, no advertisements, no selling data, and put 18f on the job o…

While the general idea might be ok, and there are certainly concerns with the ad driven business model of the current popular “free” platforms, I don’t see how this solve this particular problem.

Fundamentally you still have the choice of curating some content or not. On the extreme ends are things like hate speech and exploitive content. Then there are “false” or incorrect information. You either allow them unchecked or you don’t. This isn’t a technological problem.

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

#874

Post by triceratops »

randyrand wrote: post #844
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…

The fundamental question is, do people have a right to free speech on the web? The web is nearly entirely privately owned, which makes answering this question difficult. On one hand, the web is where we do 90% of our communication these days and losing that right seems like losing most of the first amendment. I’m convinceable either way. Did telephone companies have a right to censor land line speech? Should they? Sh…

ISPs and telco networks are on a different layer (physical, and transport layers) of the stack than social media (application layer). ISPs and telco networks can and do perform traffic routing shaping, and throttle or cut off abusive users who consume too much bandwidth, or run a high-traffic web server from their home network. Because these actions affect other users of their networks. But if someone uses Comcast to post a sweary rant on the interwebs - it makes no difference to other Comcast customers. So they don't (at present, though the repealing of net neutrality now allows it) and shouldn't moderate actions at the application layer.

Social media is the opposite. Abusive users of those networks operate at the application layer, and can spoil the experience of other users at the application layer but (likely) not at the network layer. So they moderate user activity at the application layer.

In each case it's about trying to ensure bad actors don't ruin other customers'/users' experience. It's just done in different ways depending on what part of the network stack the bad actors do their work in.

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

#875

Post by 2019-nCoV »

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…

Who fact checks the fact checkers?

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

#876

Post by thephyber »

There seem to be a lot of different threads of argument here and lots of the discussion seems to meander between them.

The way I see it:

  - The "town square" concept (and whether individual social media apps/websites constitute what is historically called that in the legal realm). Can a person say something which should get them banned from a town square? What if multiple town squares coordinate their actions against a single user/content?
  - Private party "censorship". Is what social media companies do "censoring"?
  - The role of 1st Amendment in "protecting speech" of private individuals against private companies (which historically is not covered by the 1st Amendment, but is covered by the principle of Free Speech)
  - The role of 1st Amendment in "protecting speech" of private companies against the president (which might be covered under the 1st Amendment, depending on other factors)
  - Whether the 1st Amendment protects from threats from government officials, as opposed to actions of officials
  - Private sector companies using their own moderation rules+workforce (including vague rule definitions and no ability to get a judgement about where "the line" is)
  - Brigades of political activists using the moderation systems against their adversaries
  - Whether the political tendencies of employees at the relevant social media companies have any significant bias for/against specific users/content
  - Whether a private sector company is allowed to curate content on its property (and the sub-arguments which revolve around ToS/EULA/contracts)
  - Legal responsibilities+liability of social media "platforms" under "Section 230" (and some people misunderstand this industry to be under Common Carrier laws, which regulates more commoditized telco systems)
  - Second-order effects of account bans, including loss of access and content under shared accounts (eg. getting banned from your Facebook account also leaves you locked out of any account you connected with Facebook Connect / OAuth)

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

#879

Post by ghostpepper »

awakeasleep wrote: post #871

It's really hard for people to put aside their personal political views and look at things from a legal point of view. The issue here is whether these private companies are actually making rules within their own private domain, or if they control a public space. If you feel like you intuitively know the answer to that question, take that as an indication that you haven't loaded enough of the prerequisites in your min…

If you have any resources you can point me toward, I would love to read the best arguments for each side.

The best I've found so far is a supreme court case called Marsh v Alabama which has nothing to do with the internet but does touch on the application of the first amendment to a private physical space.

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

#880

Post by gpm »

mc32 wrote: post #743
kgin wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Attaching a disclaimer to the speech of another though is not straightforward. Will they get into the business of fact checking everyone over certain number of followers? Will they do it impartially world-wide? How can they even be impartial world wide given the different contradictory points of view, valid from both sides? Cyprus? What’s the take there?

> Attaching a disclaimer to the speech of another though is not straightforward.

Yes it is, it just involves adding an html element below it

> Will they get into the business of fact checking everyone over certain number of followers

Their choice, because of the first amendment they can do it to anyone or noone at their leisure or based on whatever criteria they like and as arbitrarily as they like.

> Will they do it impartially world-wide

Their choice, because of the first amendment they can choose to be as impartial or as partial as they like as locally or globally as they like.

> How can they even be impartial world wide given the different contradictory points of view, valid from both sides

The simplest solution is to not be impartial, but that's a decision that is wholly up to them and whatever they decide is protected by the first amendment

See how simple it is? They do whatever they feel like and the government is obligated to not interfere. The end.

(Other governments might object to some of these decisions, the US government most certainly has no legal power to)

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