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EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

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Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#41

Post by dbsmith83 »

mc32 wrote: post #22
RobLach wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech for a corporation is allowing them to ban whatever they want that's effecting their bottom line. Hosting and publishing certain speech is a liability. Why should the state dictate what a corporation must allow on their own servers facilitated by the services they created? Should the state force YouTube to include videos no advertiser wants to be associated with? EFF's statement is consistent with protecti…

I'm sorry but it's not consistent with protecting digital rights. This is not the same EFF that supported the Freedom of Speech stance by Apple against the FBI when terrorists killed 16 people in San Bernardino. Below a poster liked a response by the ACLU which is a much better response to Freedom of Speech than that by the EFF. The EFF caved. They abandoned their one and only mission to promote freedom of speech.

The fact is that a company has the right to moderate their own content because that in and of itself is free speech. There is a difference between the government not allowing you to have a say vs. a company moderating their own platform that they own

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#43

Post by mumblemumble »

samatman wrote: post #26

> A platform should not apply one set of rules to most of its users, and then apply a more permissive set of rules to politicians and world leaders who are already immensely powerful. Ok... why not? A government is an unavoidably violent institution, and what's more, one which assumes the right and responsibility to use violence. In a free nation, it derives that right through various rituals from the consent of the…

In a nutshell, one of the bedrock ideas of liberal society is that government officials and governments are not the same thing. We permit the government to do some things that individuals are not permitted to do, out of necessity, because we have yet to construct a society that eliminates the need for certain ostensibly necessary evils. We find that delegating those responsibilities to a corporate body that is largely (if imperfectly) answerable to the population as a whole for its actions tends to result in better outcomes than any other alternative that's been tried. The actual execution of those responsibilities then gets sub-delegated out to individuals, but they are supposed to only be permitted to do so when lawfully acting on behalf of the government. Again, out of necessity. While it's not awesome, anything else anyone has tried so far has ended up working out even worse.

As individuals acting on their own behalf, though, nobody should be considered above the norms of civil society. By definition - if it didn't work that way, society would not be civil.

(I'd highly recommend reading both A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick for two different but equally thoughtful treatments of this sort of thing.)

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#44

Post by jelliclesfarm »

question: the whole thing is a blur. i think the last tweet by the POTUS was that he wont be attending the inauguration. was the decision at twitter made by jack & co before the last tweet or after it?

jack was vacationing on an island in the french polynesia while he and his executives made the decision. maybe it's a time zone thing? because the timeline doesnt make sense to me. after the temporary ban, what happened that it became a permanent ban? what did the potus say that violence was glorified?

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#45

Post by xpe »

There is a large difference between the EFF (a) promoting privacy protections on social media versus (b) advocating for free speech on social media platforms.[1] I want to emphasize that (b) (free speech on social media) is not protected by the First Amendment.

The First Amendment begins with:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The First Amendment is about what Congress cannot do. One has to look elsewhere to understand free speech protections (if any) in other contexts.

[1] I have not reviewed the EFF's complete history regarding free speech on social media. Of course, the EFF tends to opposes censorship, but I would also expect they have a history of taking more nuanced and calibrated stances on free speech outside the scope of the First Amendment.

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#46

Post by marcinzm »

mc32 wrote: post #35
mumblemumble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is not just the freedom to say what you want to say. It is also the freedom not to be compelled to say what you don't want to say. That includes the right not to be compelled to let others use you to broadcast messages you disagree with. Furthermore, freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences.

Wait... so Zuckerberg is totally cool if he goes and censors anything and everything that speaks ill of him or Facebook? Cool if he censors anyone who sues FB or him? Is that your position on a medium that is built for people to post diverse opinions? What if he suffers a stroke and suddenly becomes a religious nut, cool if he only allows promotion of his religion on his medium and bans all others? Good god, we’re ef…

Zuckerberg is free to do what he wants on the platform he owns. Just like you're free to do what you want on a platform you own. Or are you saying that if you publish a webpage on your own server promoting your religion I can force you to also post my religion on the same page?

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#47

Post by throwaway201103 »

olliej wrote: post #34
jtbayly wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech like the response to this week by the Cincinnati Mayor? > "These are traitors," Cranley said, mentioning a pro-Trump supporter, Ashli Babbitt, a California resident who was shot and killed by Capitol police and a history of supporting unfounded conspiracy theories. "Traitors get shot. That's what happened." [0] Is that the sort of inciting violence that should get you banned on Twitter? [0]: https://www.b…

You look at the context, he’s saying a person in the act of a violent insurrection should expect lethal force in response. He’s not inciting violence, he’s stating why the violence occurred. He could also be simply saying treason carries the potential for the death penalty. Either way not inciting violence. He isn’t saying go use force against all the insurrectionists, unlike some politicians who were actively saying…

"use force to overthrow the election"

Which politicians said that?

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#48

Post by mumblemumble »

mc32 wrote: post #35
mumblemumble wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is not just the freedom to say what you want to say. It is also the freedom not to be compelled to say what you don't want to say. That includes the right not to be compelled to let others use you to broadcast messages you disagree with. Furthermore, freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences.

Wait... so Zuckerberg is totally cool if he goes and censors anything and everything that speaks ill of him or Facebook? Cool if he censors anyone who sues FB or him? Is that your position on a medium that is built for people to post diverse opinions? What if he suffers a stroke and suddenly becomes a religious nut, cool if he only allows promotion of his religion on his medium and bans all others? Good god, we’re ef…

> so Zuckerberg is totally cool

That is very nearly the opposite of what I said. Freedom of speech is not the freedom from consequences. It may be perfectly legal for Zuckerberg to do something like that, but it would most certainly not be cool. He'd rightfully be considered an asshole, and his advertising revenue would probably take a large hit as a result of everyone else exercising their own rights of free speech and free association. As well they should.

However, that hypothetical isn't a great analogy for the reality that we're talking about here. It's a decent enough parallel in a strictly legal sense. But let's keep it real: one isn't making nearly as much of an asshole of oneself by refusing to help someone undermine democracy. Nor is one making much of an asshole of oneself by refusing to support the activities of white supremacists.

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#49

Post by mc32 »

marcinzm wrote: post #46
mc32 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait... so Zuckerberg is totally cool if he goes and censors anything and everything that speaks ill of him or Facebook? Cool if he censors anyone who sues FB or him? Is that your position on a medium that is built for people to post diverse opinions? What if he suffers a stroke and suddenly becomes a religious nut, cool if he only allows promotion of his religion on his medium and bans all others? Good god, we’re ef…

Zuckerberg is free to do what he wants on the platform he owns. Just like you're free to do what you want on a platform you own. Or are you saying that if you publish a webpage on your own server promoting your religion I can force you to also post my religion on the same page?

He built a _social_ network with 4 billion users, he didn't build "my blog of religious musings"

Re: EFF's response to social media companies' decisions to block Trump’s accounts

#50

Post by marcinzm »

mc32 wrote: post #49
marcinzm wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zuckerberg is free to do what he wants on the platform he owns. Just like you're free to do what you want on a platform you own. Or are you saying that if you publish a webpage on your own server promoting your religion I can force you to also post my religion on the same page?

He built a _social_ network with 4 billion users, he didn't build "my blog of religious musings"

So what is the line at which you're not longer able to run a platform you built the way you want? 10 users? 100? 1 million? 1 billion? Or is it just whatever you personally feel qualifies?
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