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ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

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Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#191

Post by yoav »

ergocoder wrote: post #169
yoav wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Twitter/Facebook is private property and has no obligation to provide a platform for someone to overthrow democracy and incite more violence.

I'm not familiar with the situation. That's why I ask for a due process like what we have with our justice system. You and I are free to criticize FB and Twitter. As I mention, now it depends on who screams the loudest. Let me get this right. You are against having a due process for banning elected leaders from a popular communication channel? You prefer we scream at each other until one wins? Really?

If a person has a blog and someone comments on a blog post the author’s address and encourages other readers to attack them, is your position that there needs to be due process for the author to remove the comment?

That’s not how freedom of speech works.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#192

Post by ergocoder »

yoav wrote: post #191
ergocoder wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the situation. That's why I ask for a due process like what we have with our justice system. You and I are free to criticize FB and Twitter. As I mention, now it depends on who screams the loudest. Let me get this right. You are against having a due process for banning elected leaders from a popular communication channel? You prefer we scream at each other until one wins? Really?

If a person has a blog and someone comments on a blog post the author’s address and encourages other readers to attack them, is your position that there needs to be due process for the author to remove the comment? That’s not how freedom of speech works.

> is your position that there needs to be due process for the author to remove the comment? > That’s not how freedom of speech works.

Judge can definitely order you to remove the comment.

Also, an author's blog is not a popular communication channel like Twitter.

Yes, I'm asking for a proper process of removing an elected leader from an important communication channel like Twitter.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#193

Post by ergocoder »

yoav wrote: post #188
ergocoder wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not familiar with the situation. That's why I ask for a due process like what we have with our justice system. You and I are free to criticize FB and Twitter. As I mention, now it depends on who screams the loudest. Let me get this right. You are against having a due process for banning elected leaders from a popular communication channel? You prefer we scream at each other until one wins? Really?

I don’t understand what you’re saying regarding due process or screaming until someone wins? Who’s screaming? A person was using a privately owned website to encourage people to go commit acts of violence against senators and congress representatives. That website did not want to be complicit in that violence so they removed access to those people. Eg. If you go into a coffee shop and start smashing windows and beati…

> Eg. If you go into a coffee shop and start smashing windows and beating people up and rallying for people to murder each other the coffee shop doesn’t need “due process” to kick you out and ban you.

Then, the leader of that riot should go to jail for 25 years for murder, not simply "banned from coffee shop".

Also, in a real situation, employees would first keep themselves safe and call police to handle the matter.

In your imaginary situation, would you ask your minimum-wage employees to handle violence in the store?

This is my point exactly. Twitter should just follow the law. If Trump breaks the law, then get a court order to remove him or call the police.

Dorsey and Zuck shouldn't play police.

Also, who's screaming? Just search on twitter. Dorsey and Zuck has been called Nazis, white supremacists, racists for not banning Trump.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#194

Post by ergocoder »

yoav wrote: post #189
ergocoder wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, your position is that a business can ban anyone. AT&T can ban you because you like candy. Yes, candy is evil and destroys millions of teeth. And if someone is not satisfied, we should just scream at Dorsey until he caves.

So your position is that you can walk into any private business that offers free cookies (eg. A car dealership or bank) and then hold a rally to incite violence in that establishment and you believe they’d have to go to court to have you removed from their private property? Your twitter account is not a product. The product is sold to advertisers. And even the ads they will or won’t show has guidelines they are not l…

In your imaginary scenario, the shop owner would get to safety and call police to handle the matter.

The shop owner wouldn't be the one who judge and come up with punishment. The justice system would do that.

That's my position. Twitter is an important communication platform. And there should be a due process for banning an elected leader.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#195

Post by ergocoder »

29athrowaway wrote: post #181
ergocoder wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sending a mob of radicalized people with mental issues to kidnap senators is a bad decision and he got rightfully punished for it. Yes! I'm not familiar with the situation. Can we have a due process like our justice system to assign blame? Should I just take your word (and the word of trump opposition)? Also, isn't it weird that, you claim, he is the leader of the riot into Capitol, and the punishment is being bann…

Sure, but if he was allowed to continue, there would be no justice system.

How do we handle a case where a mass shooter keep shooting people?

You get a police to arrest the aggressor first and get them to court.

We can simply get a police to issue an arrest, ban him from social network, get him to court later.

I don't think this problem is particularly hard. Not sure why a lot of people seem to think that this is impossible to resolve through legal system.

Trump is leading the riot/coup. He should be arrested immediately, no? (In some countries, that's a death sentence.)

It's either (1) Trump isn't really leading the riot/coup or (2) leading the riot/coup isn't unlawful.

I'm confused on this contradiction of reality. Somebody is lying here.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#196

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

neogodless wrote: post #142
ceilingcorner wrote: post #71

Every single one of these actions will have the opposite effect. You cannot ban people into submission. Instead, you’ll only get more extremists and more fracturing of culture. This seems like psychology 101 to me, but apparently the bright minds in Silicon Valley know what’s best for us more than we do. After all, they have been spying on us and collecting data for years. Maybe they do.

There are probably variances among polls, but this sample from 2000 shows 18% of Americans believed the election was stolen[0] (and it heavily leans Democratic). Before the 2020 election, we see "record low" confidence, particularly among Republicans[1]. After the election, this poll shows 34% believe the win was not legitimate[2], nearly double from 20 years earlier. There are several differences between 2000 and 20…

A growing number of people think that the election is illegitimate, and your solution is to suppress them? That's a really bad idea in a democracy like ours that lauds our history of overthrowing a tyrannical government, and it is very likely to trigger a violent response.

Voter ID laws, paper ballots, removal of voting machines, and a promise to audit the election would basically eliminate the risk of conflict. Why not do those instead? Our democracy needs to be perceived as legitimate to survive, doesn't it?

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#197

Post by neogodless »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #196
neogodless wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are probably variances among polls, but this sample from 2000 shows 18% of Americans believed the election was stolen[0] (and it heavily leans Democratic). Before the 2020 election, we see "record low" confidence, particularly among Republicans[1]. After the election, this poll shows 34% believe the win was not legitimate[2], nearly double from 20 years earlier. There are several differences between 2000 and 20…

A growing number of people think that the election is illegitimate, and your solution is to suppress them? That's a really bad idea in a democracy like ours that lauds our history of overthrowing a tyrannical government, and it is very likely to trigger a violent response. Voter ID laws, paper ballots, removal of voting machines, and a promise to audit the election would basically eliminate the risk of conflict. Why…

First, I don't think the 74 million Trump voters are being suppressed. The vast majority of them still have Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. The removal of extreme messages from these platforms should only be removing those condoning the extreme messages. Are you saying those extremists speak for all Trump voters?

And those extremists already committed and are planning further violence. There is no good reason to maintain support for their violent plans on popular platforms, and enable recruiting efforts.

A growing number of people believing something that Trump claims but has been disproven repeatedly isnot a desirable outcome. Rather let's reverse that trend.

They should figure out how evidence and proof works and start taking it seriously. Go read https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/12/18/this-migh... and realize things like the Navarro Report are not documents of proof but persuasive essays that fail the minimum standards of basic research. Like a conspiracy, he hand waves over his evidence which he claims is not publicly accessible, but only he has special access to. Then he just uses a lot of speculation about what's possible. This isn't grounds for an exhaustive, wasteful investigation, because we are not starting from a place of evidence and reason, but merely the propaganda of a Trump machine that wants to maintain his power.

Removing the most extreme views can only serve to reverse this troubling trend of citizens listening to Trump over hundreds of reputable news organizations. To think otherwise is conspiracy thinking!

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#198

Post by [deleted] »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #58
nostromo wrote: post #20

“Start your own Twitter then!” ... they do. “Google bans Parler, conservative Twitter. Apple gives them 24 hour notice to moderate more speech or be banned.”

That's the market at work, yes. Funny how quickly supposed free market advocates turn against it when it doesn't do what they want. "No, you were supposed to hurt the other side, not us!!"

[deleted]

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#199

Post by julianmarq »

epistasis wrote: post #123
ericmcer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is where I am at as well. People are celebrating this because the guy they banned is on the other team, but it is crazy how twitter/fb can cut the legs out from under the "leader of the free world" when needed (it was kinda justified in this case).

Nobody should be above reproach for their behavior. I would be (and was!) far more worried about our freedoms if the president inspired so much authoritarian fear that companies would not act according to the principles stated in their terms of service, that apply to everyone. We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long, violating their own standards to allow a powerful perso…

> We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long

Twitter has given and continues to give people just as or even more deranged than Trump free rides. They don't care, because either a) they agree with those people or b) censoring those people could give them bad publicity and could hurt their ad revenue.

Meanwhile, people like Trump get banned all the time because their politics are okay to ban according to the advertisers/investors/media/population Twitter wants to please. Trump himself stood this long because, even if the people twitter wants/needs to please hate him, his tweets made them money—even from the people who hate him, who nonetheless hang onto his every word—by virtue of being the president of the USA and thus having far more reach than the usual "right wing nutjob".

Twitter waited until now to ban him because in their calculations, I presume, losing less than two weeks of money that Trump's insane stream of thoughts might give them is compensated by the good publicity of this making them look righteous in front of everyone else.

Sadly it works, even here in HN everyone forgets the usual narrative of "these corporations are evil, let's break them down and/or regulate them more heavily, and, for the love of God, let's stop their sinister spying on us", and starts defending these monopolies like no tomorrow as soon as they censor/ban someone they don't like. Even if it's a completely meaningless gesture like this one.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#200

Post by DenisM »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #190
DenisM wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you keep saying, but I have to wonder what’s the total reach? If 20% are reading, are they then immediately retelling each to 2 more people? And what if every single news caster, PR agent, and manager is among the 20%? Also, how much is too much? Is 51% the red line? I think most fruitful approach is to borrow from the antitrust law - a business should be large enough to distort the entire market. Not quite certai…

I think that's a reasonable argument - it's just very different from the idea that someone literally cannot communicate their message if they're not allowed to do it on Twitter.

Would you agree that the market place of ideas is crippled by the presence of a “monopoly”?

Not destroyed as a government could do, but crippled.

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