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Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

sciencemag.org

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Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#231

Post by edmundsauto »

MikeUt wrote: post #143
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy isn't it? This community thinks Apple and Google are monopolies despite being competitors, ditto Twitter and Facebook. Microsoft isn't though. Not because they don't completely own the Desktop PC market just as they ever did, but because that market is less relevant than it used to be for web devs. I live in a strange time.

You live in a town with no fresh water, and the only drinks available are sold by the local store. This store does not sell bottled water, wine, orange juice, milk, or tea. The only drinks it sells are Coca-Cola and Pepsi. But if you don't like Coca-Cola, just buy Pepsi - how silly it would be to complain of monopoly when you still have a choice!

To extend the analogy so it's more accurate: or you could go to the local stream and drink some water (host your own speech).

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#232

Post by thordenmark »

Due to Twitter's impact on society, not just the US but the world, they are de facto the public square.

Not unlike the Gutenberg Press - and when you read about the impact that had at first on society the parallels are remarkable.

The defense of "they're a private company and can ban who they want" becomes less and less convincing.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#233

Post by tptacek »

splistud wrote: post #222
tptacek wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you'll find a lot of lawyers who specialize in speech and 230 that agree with this interpretation either, and it would have extremely wide-ranging consequences for the entire Internet that the fiercest advocates of this position would not like at all.

I expect that you are correct. However, allowing an org to act as a publisher by heavily curating who is allowed to use their 'forum' is having wide-ranging consequences for our society. As they are occupying a spot in the regulatory scheme that they no longer deserve, redressing this with regulation is necessary.

I don't think anyone wants another long thread recapitulating the whole debate about Twitter's obligations to to society; they can just read the thousands of HN comments that have been written in the last week about it.

What I will say is, however you hope to resolve this problem, eliminating the 230 protections is probably not the right way to go about it if you want providers like Twitter to be less intrusive, or for alternative venues to be viable at all. I think the only coherent "free speech" strategy that involves attacking 230 is accelerationism; that maybe by blowing up the US commercial Internet we'll somehow all migrate to a completely free blockchain Internet run out of the Azores or something.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#234

Post by Triv888 »

49531 wrote: post #199

I think the general discourse around high profile account banning raises some interesting questions. I've seen a lot of people in my (generally liberal) social bubble carry the line that Twitter, as a private corporation, has the right to ban accounts for whatever reason they see fit. While technically this is true, should it be? Is there a threshold where a service becomes more of a public good than a private enterp…

They should start with nationalizing the ISPs?

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#236

Post by dragonwriter »

thordenmark wrote: post #232

Due to Twitter's impact on society, not just the US but the world, they are de facto the public square. Not unlike the Gutenberg Press - and when you read about the impact that had at first on society the parallels are remarkable. The defense of "they're a private company and can ban who they want" becomes less and less convincing.

> Due to Twitter’s impact on society, not just the US but the world, they are de facto the public square.

I disagree, they are more like an automatically customized newspaper.

> Not unlike the Gutenberg Press

Agreed, not unlike the Gutenberg Press. Books and newspapers also are not “the public square”, and we don’t allow people to commandeer presses to get their message out against the will of the onwers of presses.

We did something loosely like that with the public airwaves, via the Fairness Doctrine, but its worth noting that the same ideological faction who not only objected to that as a totalitarian infringement of the First Amendment at the time, but who used the spector that kind of thing on the Internet (even though the actual rules they were opposing proposed nothing of the kind) as an argument against Open Internet regulations up through, well, the debate over the desirability of Net Neutrality that is still active, are exactly the faction—often the same individuals—complaining that private actors are choosing not to relay their speech today.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#237

Post by unityByFreedom »

apple_innocent wrote: post #223
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.

These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. They have to pick one or the other. The arguments I am seeing online are folks who have chosen one or the other and are arguing from their…

> These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website.

It's never been proposed that platforms like Twitter become common carriers. That designation was intended for the layer beneath them, ISPs.

I agree that allowing that layer, ISPs, to effectively monopolize content via regional monopolies and ever-growing media conglomerates is problematic. Now they're implementing zero rating in broadband and that means there's a high bar for starting the next Netflix, Twitter etc. If you're not already part of that club you'll have to be super wealthy or take on huge debt from existing tech/wealth dominance just to get your foot in the door.

We really need to encourage competition at the ISP level in order to allow for competition among services like Twitter.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#239

Post by LevGoldstein »

jjk166 wrote: post #180
sitzkrieg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at the end of the day twitter has the right to close whatever account they so choose

They also have the legal right to modify everyone's tweets to be quotes from mein kampf. That they have the right to do something doesn't mean they should do it nor that they should be immune to criticism for doing it.

That would be pretty easily proven as defamation/libel, and thus not legal.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#240

Post by wittyreference »

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?

Yes. The featured article notes that they were providing links on their Twitter account. Their quoted defense includes, to paraphrase, the account was /mostly/ discussing open access issues, it wasn’t /primarily/ for sharing pirated materials.
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