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

#321

Post by seydor » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

supernovae wrote: post #288

seydor wrote: post #211

It is weird that there is no country that allows such freedoms in the world. There is clearly a gap in regulation and constitutions when it comes to the internet because they could have never imagined it 400 years ago. But this needs to be settled in the positive direction and in an egalitarian way: speech that is legal should be free everywhere. and that's the basis upon which every tech business should be built . T…

Reddit is highly moderated and censored. You can't even post facts in /r/conservative without being banned. Reddit also has a Terms of Service and it has banned hate groups under such terms of service. With a large bias towards far right hate groups because there really is no existence of far left hate groups. So of course moderation seems biased when your views are hateful to begin with. Advertisers generally want n…

Moderated by unpaid users = shit moderation, you get what you pay for. Moderators get rewarded with the rush of 'power'

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

#322

Post by LinkLink » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

God forbid people have to think about whether the idea being communicated to them on the internet is true, after all, everything on the internet was true before this decision.

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

#323

Post by omgwtfbyobbq » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:11 PM UTC

patmcc wrote: post #297

Brybry wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a lawyer but I don't think this would apply to bots. The Texas law text[1] says it only protects 'users' which are defined as people. And even then the law only prohibits censorship for specific reasons. It doesn't say companies can't ban users for running bots. Even if the messages the bot is posting are protected the fact of running the bot itself should still be a bannable offense if it's not allowed in th…

So can I hire someone from a low cost-of-living jurisdiction and get them to behave like a bot for me?

Probably, but I don't they that should be allowed. I suppose someone with an applicable disability could also use software/automation to they point where they can post more than someone without that disability.

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

#324

Post by themitigating » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:11 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…

Anyone can walk into walmart , does that make it a public space not a private company?

"Starbucks is on private property." So are servers where data is stored

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

#325

Post by themitigating » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #28

sseagull wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They already are. It came out recently that the FBI leaned on Mark Zuckerberg to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Source?

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

#326

Post by mikkergp » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

LinkLink wrote: post #319

mikkergp wrote: post #117

Hacker News avoids political discussion, would this mean a site like hacker news(assuming it’s big enough) couldn’t moderate heated political discussion as off topic? Im curious how this would apply to Reddit, will there just be constant brigading of the political forums? Ironically as others have pointed out this will probably have a severe chilling effect on speech.

A bit of a stupid question, if political content isn't allowed then what content is there to discriminate on a political basis of?

But isn’t disallowing political content discrimination once the post is flagged and deleted? I guess what happens if we allow discussions of SOPA but not bit a gay marriage bill, again it may be relatively easily grockable to an HN user, but a court? What if HN had to go to court every time they flagged a political post.

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

#327

Post by oh_my_goodness » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

Transparently, part of the intent here is to expand protection for those who incite political violence in the USA. Among other things, increased political violence in the US will enable foreign states to more effectively intimidate US politicians and voters.

"Some conservatives have labeled the social media companies' practices abusive, pointing to Twitter's permanent suspension of Trump from the platform shortly after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Twitter had cited "the risk of further incitement of violence" as a reason."

If you don't like this logic, there are two ways to proceed: (1) Downvote this message, or (2) consider expressing your concern to the politicians and pundits who have publicly supported exactly this logic.

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

#328

Post by mikkergp » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

trimethylpurine wrote: post #257

lkrubner wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only research that has been done on this found that on Twitter the conservative voices were amplified more than progressive voices: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/27/twitter-am...

The opinion of three journalists working for the same retail tech conglomerate is hardly "research." WaPo has suffered a Pulitzer Prize revocation in 1981 for fabricating stories, has continuously circulated advertisements from China Watch (operated by the CCP), repeatedly settled on libelous claims made for profit, and on numerous occasions assisted in providing platforms for anti-Western and anti-Semitic groups sup…

Really you had to go back to 1981?

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

#329

Post by mijoharas » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #119

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?

By some readings of section 230, they may not be able to unless they want to be treated as a publisher of speech. However, almost nobody is going to actually argue that this is the case. Also, IIRC moderation rules are allowed, and if your rule is "no politics on the forum" and someone talks politics, they can be banned. Same with "no racism" or "no antisemitic comments."

Section 230 (c) 3. Seems pretty clear that they can moderate for anything the provider finds objectionable.

Do you think this is unclear?

> No provider or user of an interactive com- puter service shall be held liable on account of—

> (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, exces- sively violent, harassing, or otherwise objec- tionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;

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

#330

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 7:15 PM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #216

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.

I hope the internet returns to this model for like a dozen reasons. Insofar as we can be sure this kind of regulation gets there it should be celebrated imo.

The internet should be a common carrier. A private company that sits on top of the internet is not a common carrier. Why should the government be able to regulate what private companies publish?

I bet you dollars to doughnuts that neither RedState or Truth social would want to be under the same regulations. I’ve been banned from RedState twice.