U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech • Hacker News Board

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#121

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

netheril96 wrote: post #70

Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the only reason. Without any moderation, sites would degenerate into cesspools that only cesspool dwellers would want to visit. Few site owners want their properties to be cesspools.

Why not give users the power of moderation? Currently the website owner makes the decision for me about what content I should not be seeing. I want instead all or at least almost all content preserved and the ability to create and subscribe to blocklists. The website can have a default blocklist active to make it palatable for the majority.

Why not just go to a different website that runst he way you want? Or revive NNTP and host community servers or something.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#122

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #109

bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a pretty abrupt turnaround from the same legal movement that brought us Citizens United . I’d be interested in a fair (i.e. not overly critical or fawning) book length history of the Federalist Society and how it’s evolved.

I'm not so sure, since section 230's safe harbor is involved. If section 230's protections were dropped for social media, I am sure that most courts would adopt the Citizens United standard. However, that would mean a ton of lawsuits for all the defamation and harassment that happens on those platforms.

Section 230 is a federal law, it cannot make a state law that would otherwise violate the First Amendment as incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment somehow okay. That’s not how the relationship between state, federal, and constitutional law works.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#123

Post by croes » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

evandale wrote: post #25

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. The internet has plenty of…

> So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook…

You can see the tweets and posts because a private company allows you to make an account, and even then you don't see all.

That's like walking into a Starbucks and reading the chalkboard. Everybody who can enter can read it.

Factual it's faster and easier to enter a Starbucks than creating an FB account.

And like we all know if FB decides to ban your account you can nothing do about it.

Doesn't sound like a public place to me

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#124

Post by jlawson » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

BrandonM wrote: post #103

belltaco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a Linux User Group cannot kick out someone that's espousing neo-nazi viewpoints during meetings because they're a facilitator of them speaking to you, and because neo-nazism is a political viewpoint?

Does the LUG have 50M MAU?

This is really the critical factor.

Anti-speech pro-corporate-authority advocates always try to put these monopolistic, unescapable megacorporations in the same category as some local mom-and-pop operation. It's a massive intentional category error; megacorps are not little companies you can just walk awawy from. There is a point where a corporation's influence becomes so unescapable and so capable of greatly degrading your life that it must be treated in some ways like a government, for the same reasons we treat government differently from just another company or citizen.

The same reason that the phone company or a company that owns all the local roads or water mains can't decide to "stop serving" you because they don't like your religion.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#125

Post by bradleyjg » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:04 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #98

bradleyjg wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a pretty abrupt turnaround from the same legal movement that brought us Citizens United . I’d be interested in a fair (i.e. not overly critical or fawning) book length history of the Federalist Society and how it’s evolved.

Sorry, can you explain the turnaround to me? What’s the relationship between Citizens United and this?

I think feigned confusion for the purpose of disagreement is rude.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#126

Post by unity1001 » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

sseagull wrote: post #13

swayvil wrote: post #4

The social media companies (Facebook, Google, Twitter) want legal permission to censor us based on our "viewpoint". Because if they can't do that, they warn, then "dangerous content" will grow out of control. This seems like a big nope to me.

The alternative is having the government decide whether or not a private company can block a particular person for a particular reason. Everyone is generally ok with companies blocking content that is irrelevant/off-topic, but there is a very, very large gray area. Do you want the government deciding what is acceptable?

> Do you want the government deciding what is acceptable?

Yes. Entire world except the US does. People elect parliaments, who make laws according to their voters' agendas. Then the laws are enforced. What's acceptable and what's not acceptable are decided in the same manner. Like how going out naked in any city in the civilized world constitutes an offense unless you have a mental disorder.

You already obey with a zillion of things in which 'the government' decides to be acceptable or not acceptable.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#127

Post by mikkergp » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

evandale wrote: post #25

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? Starbucks is a privately owned location and has the right to enforce behavioral standards or kick people out. Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. The internet has plenty of…

> So as a free-speech absolutist, would you let anyone walk into a Starbucks and start shouting about anything they wanted? Starbucks is on private property. > Would it be okay for them to write a manifesto on the chalkboard next to the barista? The Starbucks chalkboard is privately owned. >Social Media is the same. Privately owned and can set their own standards. No it isn't. Anyone can log into Twitter and Facebook…

> They're public squares that are closely related to a mall rather than a private Starbucks location.

Just reading a book on malls, in America, they are mostly privately owned and are absolutely famous for rigid policing.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#128

Post by galangalalgol » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #104

robust-cactus wrote: post #97

If this passes, basically what's going to happen is a lot of pre-filtering of people entering social networks akin to next doors strategy. I've worked at a civic tech social network that had no rules, and eventually the extremists pushed out all the normal folks - it's just stupid shouting matches. We tore it all down and made isolated communities. It's basically the only way to have real discourse.

It already passed, it's a law on the books in Texas. And now it's been upheld at by both trial and circuit courts. FWIW: there's one last chance at SCOTUS to undo this, but if that doesn't work out what we're almost certain to see instead of "pre-filtering" is just "No Tweeting from Texas".

No tweeting from Texas sounds like a great idea! We can expand it to no tweeting from anywhere after we see the effects on Texans. Then I bknow the popular nexts step would be to get rid of FB and Instagram, but I'm in favor of dissolving Pinterest first. It is like charlie and the football everytime I follow a link from an image search looking for something only to notice it was Pinterest right afterwards but before it loads, realizing I am about to be hounded to load an app, then log in, and then be shown that image is no longer part of Pinterest.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#129

Post by Aachen » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

evandale wrote: post #80

Aachen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how the heck my website is a public square but my home or café isn't, this argument sounds self-contradictory

Your website isn't a public square because you're the one publishing content to it. We're discussing the public platforms that Facebook, Twitter and Google run, and I don't consider those three companies as publishing the content they host.

Well it has input fields, like a contact form and comments.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#130

Post by encryptluks2 » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #82

bluejekyll wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term “conservative” means nothing if you apply it to a court which has overturned years of legal norm across various areas of law.

Yes, the correct term is reactionary, which many modern "conservatives" are - they don't want things to remain the same, they want a return to "the good old days".

They want the US to be like Saudi Arabia.