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Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

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Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#181

Post by skissane »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #168
HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this ap…

> If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this apply? Must every company work with every potential customer? Who decides which companies must?

Regulated public utilities generally speaking can't just drop customers simply because they feel like it or don't like them or view them as a "threat". Thankfully the electricity company can't just disconnect you because they don't like you. So long as you pay the bills, they have to keep you on as customer. (I think they can disconnect you if you violate technical rules about electrical safety, such as trying to draw more power from the network than your connection is authorised – but they can't simply do it because they disagree with your politics, or because you are charged with a crime no matter how heinous, or because some third party is suing you, or so on.)

And there is an argument for regulating Twitter/Facebook/etc as public utilities.

A lot of people in Australia's conservative ruling party are pretty upset at Twitter. They were asking Twitter to take down a faked image of an Australian soldier slitting a child's throat which was posted by the Chinese government. Twitter refused. Then Twitter banned Donald Trump. Twitter will argue that the two situations were very different, but a number of conservative Australian politicians don't agree. They are calling for government regulations to control when Twitter can remove content or ban people [0]. Effectively, turning it into a regulated public utility, at least in Australia. (If the Australian government goes ahead with this, I can't see any way out of it for Twitter except to either comply or block everyone in Australia from accessing their service.)

[0] https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/threat-to-democracy-...

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#182

Post by dylan604 »

bob33212 wrote: post #136
jonplackett wrote: post #90

Meanwhile they’re still hosting all sorts of accounts of hackers, jail breakers and many people obviously breaking the law. It’s a slippery slope and they’ve started slipping. Now how do you stop?

You can't, someone will always be complaining about "X didn't get banned, buy Y did". The only solution is for Twitter to say "You all are right, our moderation policy isn't fair it leans to the left more than the right, but we think Twitter is a great product that provides a lot of value. If you disagree and want to leave, we understand"

Which is ironic since it is the right that always wants to shut down things like art/film/music/etc that they object. The gaslighting is ridiculous.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#183

Post by devwastaken »

happyopossum wrote: post #150
devwastaken wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't want to get to the point of a court order. Expecting twitter to defend you when you're committing copyright infringement is ridiculous. They don't have to do it only when the platform is used for direct infringement, they remove the account before they can do that and before the legal problems. This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement.

> This isn't about speech, it's copyright infringement. Are they committing copyright infringement on Twitter?

They're an organization who's purpose is to commit copyright infringement. They don't have to be doing the infringement on twitter itself for twitter to reasonably suspend them. Again, they suspend them to prevent the platform being inevitably used for direct infringement or to be used as a guide on where/how to participate in the infringement.

Twitter may not be responsible for user content as per section 230 but it's also not a good idea as a company to step on the toes of intellectual property holders without good reason.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#184

Post by vlmutolo »

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #179

Twitter is helping the argument that platforms are to be content moderators. This kills 230. This will entrench Twitter as one of the few social media services capable, due to the need to moderate at scale.

It’s funny — I found this link a few days ago and now it seems like it applies here.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

It’s a summary of how section 230 works and is worded. The tone of the piece is overly hash and critical of its readers (prompting me unnecessarily to write this paragraph), but it raises some good points, and I was surprised by more than one of the clarifications it made.

Basically, as it applies here, I don’t think Twitter moderating its content to remove SciHub goes against Section 230. My understanding is that it’s specifically covered by 230.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#185

Post by guerrilla »

brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #179

Twitter is helping the argument that platforms are to be content moderators. This kills 230. This will entrench Twitter as one of the few social media services capable, due to the need to moderate at scale.

Creating a giant barrier to entry for competition?

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#186

Post by rcoveson »

mrguyorama wrote: post #176
rcoveson wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't host it with Google or Amazon, though, as those companies are also willing to take you down before any injunction. DNS providers will also take you out if there's social pressure to do so; see the recent GoDaddy action against AR15.com. Not sure how you work around that. As for Internet connection, there was another recent action by an ISP which blocked access to Twitter. So you're not necessarily safe with you…

>It's kind of like living in a small town 150 years ago. The "people" of the town are the few giant service providers in the country. It doesn't really matter what the law says, if the town consensus is that you are not welcome, then they can make it very hard or impossible to live there. And yet an entire town ostracizing someone for a non-protected attribute is actually protected speech and behavior under the first…

Yes, this is true. I'd also point out that members of "polite society" may ostracize you for many reasons, including perceived sexual deviancy, punk rock music, dancing, any degree of alcohol or drug use, communist leanings, anarchist leanings, and more. We just have to trust that liberal culture will hold people morally accountable for the people they ostracize, and that those who are impacted have the means to migrate to more accepting towns.

Continuing our analogy, I hope that we use our power to ostracize "netizens" very sparingly. And I do mean our power, not that of the tech giants, who merely do what they believe will be best for their image as decided by us. I also hope that there continues to be a competitive landscape of online countries, each more liberal or authoritarian in its own unique ways, from where differing individuals and organizations can connect with the world.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#187

Post by lliamander »

roenxi wrote: post #173
davrosthedalek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this ap…

> a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? Although some people agree that is the question, it is not the fundamental one here. Most of the respectable arguments are that Twitter's bans are senselessly harming Twitter. They're building a gaping hole in their offering that a competitor can cover.

The thing is, few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. Parler was nuked. Gab was almost nuked, but they've managed to survive.

There's a huge demand for alternatives to Twitter, but other major tech companies, the corporate press, and many politicians are doing everything in their power to crush those alternatives and prevent them from springing up.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#188

Post by Karunamon »

mc32 wrote: post #109
insickness wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it." This from Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946), a case decided by the United States Supreme Court, in which it ruled that a state trespassing statute could not be…

Isn’t there precedent for people being able to speak in malls as part of freedom of speech in certain state constitutions as a consequence of Pruneyard vs Robbins?

There is, but that case only applies to California (where Twitter is HQ'd, fair enough), and I don't think it's ever been tested for an online service with a ToS.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#189

Post by devmunchies »

memer wrote: post #44
HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

It's Twitter's own servers and they can choose who can use them or not. Permitted speech on the legal scope does not matter when talking about businesses.

Twitter's freedom to boot anyone off their platform doesn't mean they are free from consequences.

Same argument used towards hate speech but this is more serious IMO because big tech is the new Standard Oil or Big Tobacco.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#190

Post by lliamander »

davrosthedalek wrote: post #168
HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

It all boils down to this: a) Should twitter be allowed to cancel accounts who harm twitter? If yes: b) Who decides which accounts harm twitter? If the answer is "twitter", then they have effectively the right to terminate any account at their will. I don't know what other answer is possible for b) except maybe "the courts", and I'm not sure I like that one. If the answer to a) is no, for which companies does this ap…

> twitter can ban whomever they like, for whatever reason, except for the usual exceptions (religion, race etc).

I think we either need to get rid of those exceptions or add more. I'm not sure which.

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