Gab.com’s Response to Congress • Hacker News Board

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#161

Post by tptacek » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #116

criley2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terribly put. The American concept of freedom of speech has nothing to do with access to public forums but rather is a limit on government action against your ability to run your own forum (newspaper, etc), and if you consider that when the Constitution and Bill of Rights were actually written, most Americans had significantly less forums. A few newspapers made up almost the entirety of public forums when the ri…

> I maintain that until Fox News or conservative talk radio is mandated by the government to stop suppressing my free speech rights to have access to the network to say whatever I want, that Facebook and Twitter should not be forced to support insurrection and violence masquerading as free speech. You don't think there should be a difference between platforms and publishers?

Whatever you may think about this, in the law, the distinction does not exist. The idea that there are special rules for "publishers" is a Twitter meme.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#162

Post by eli » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #74

eli wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That quote is at least a 100 years old, but it's pretty hard to follow in practice. Especially at a digital communications company!

If you know the original source I'd be curious to hear it.

Allegedly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Lomasney

Eliot Spitzer (!) infamously added the addendum "And never put anything in email"

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#163

Post by sparrish » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:34 PM UTC

tyree731 wrote: post #85

mountainb wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? Not the end of the world. The government's not that good at its job. You don't have to be that afraid of it.

The government has a monopoly on force. There are plenty of reasons to be afraid of it.

No, my friend. It does not.

The citizens have gun rights and we have a LOT of guns.

And if you think millions with rifles and handguns can't stop the US government, you've not been paying attention to what happened in Afghanistan.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#164

Post by otterley » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

natural219 wrote: post #151

otterley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it depends on whether your point of view is pre- or post-Internet. If you take the longer view, it is an incontrovertible fact that there are more forums for discussion than in the pre-Internet age; and nobody back then was complaining that there was a lack of fora for their views. And even if you take the shorter view, there are still more places for people to discuss them. Facebook and Twitter didn’t even e…

right. my view is post-internet, since i grew up in a time when the internet already existed and already had long-evolved and widely-understood cultural patterns around its use and misuse as a very slight alteration of a substrate in which to carry out ordinary public speech (every kid and grownup I knew when I was 10 understood the root guidance of "don't believe anything you read on the internet", for instance). to…

Interesting. To me, Facebook and other social media sites are most definitely not the Internet and don't really prevent anyone from being able to conduct free speech, since you can always go outside these places. (This very conversation is happening outside them!) Facebook is a for-profit business and we've seen these come and go over the years. Yahoo was ubiquitous once; now it's in some hedge fund's portfolio.

There will always be a place for people to express themselves, but it may not always be as convenient as some would like. But the Constitution does not require convenience or free amplification services.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#165

Post by josephcsible » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:43 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #161

josephcsible wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I maintain that until Fox News or conservative talk radio is mandated by the government to stop suppressing my free speech rights to have access to the network to say whatever I want, that Facebook and Twitter should not be forced to support insurrection and violence masquerading as free speech. You don't think there should be a difference between platforms and publishers?

Whatever you may think about this, in the law, the distinction does not exist. The idea that there are special rules for "publishers" is a Twitter meme.

Note I said "should be". I know there's no legal distinction today. I'm saying that that's bad, and I want there to be one.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#166

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:46 PM UTC

CrazyPyroLinux wrote: post #156

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we should prosecute people for having attended an event that got co-opted and where they had no intent on participating in an insurrection or burning police stations Totally agreed. Notably, nobody has suggested this. And nobody has, at least so far, been prosecuted for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"wrong place" meaning "inside the capitol at all" but certainly non-violent: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2021/06/23/capitol...

“Wrong place” in my comment meant you were at the rally and went along with it. At the point you’re storming a federal building, you should know you’re breaking all manner of laws.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#167

Post by vanattab » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #154

aww_dang wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When in our history... Before the masses were corralled into walled gardens. If a free and open Internet was a threat to gatekeepers, walled gardens are the solution. You can say anything you want on their platforms, as long as it adheres to the party's content guidelines. The gate-kept illusion of freedom is arguably more toxic, because it normalizes the curated garden of propagandized views. Yes, you have more opt…

Anyone can easily obtain various forms of anonymous free hosting at the present. What some people don’t seem to understand about the first amendment is that while the government is obligated to not stop you from publishing, no private party is obligated to assist you.

> What some people don’t seem to understand about the first amendment is that while the government is obligated to not stop you from publishing, no private party is obligated to assist you.

What some people don't understand about freespeech is that it's a bigger principle then just the 1st amendment protections. Most of us are not arguing that companies ARE violating the law/first amendment. only that political/religious speech restrictions by large gate keeping institutions can have similar negative effects on society. We are arguing for ether more protections to be put in place or even for social change where instead of demanding companies censor these who disagree with us we demand they allow them to speak, EVENTHOUGH we disagree with them.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#168

Post by tptacek » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #155

jcranmer wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... how do you distinguish between a platform and a publisher?

I don't know of a perfect formal definition, but this kind of gives a rule of thumb: is the content considered their own voice? For example, The New York Times is a publisher, because if an article on their website says X, then saying "The New York Times says X" would be reasonable, but Facebook is a platform, because saying "Facebook says X" just because a post on their website says X would not be reasonable.

Whether you say "The New York Times says X" or "Astead Herndon said this" is entirely subjective, and has more to do with what culture currents you pay attention to than with anything particular about the NYT. Illuminating counterexample: a pretty good chunk of nerd Twitter routinely refers to "what HN has said".

So no, that won't work. Try again.

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#169

Post by tptacek » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

josephcsible wrote: post #165

tptacek wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatever you may think about this, in the law, the distinction does not exist. The idea that there are special rules for "publishers" is a Twitter meme.

Note I said "should be". I know there's no legal distinction today. I'm saying that that's bad, and I want there to be one.

Sounds mostly like a way for people to limit the speech and association rights of others by threatening to declare them "publishers".

Re: Gab.com’s Response to Congress

#170

Post by vayeate » Thu, Sep 02, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

eli wrote: post #40

commandlinefan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work for a former U.S. Marine who had a good quote - "don't write when you can speak, don't speak when you can nod, and don't nod when you can wink".

That quote is at least a 100 years old, but it's pretty hard to follow in practice. Especially at a digital communications company!

Modern equivalent: don't text or email when you can call, don't call when you can speak face to face, don't speak face to face if you can wink

you see powerful people following this advice all the time, like with Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting. He flew in a plane to talk face to face just to ensure it wouldn't get recorded.