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

#601

Post by mpalmer » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

wernercd wrote: post #527

galaxyLogic wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech .. That is clearly not based on facts. Corporations simply have a right to choose which speech they will AMPLIFY. That is not the same as muzzling anybody. They don't knock on your door and say you better stop expressing these views or we will harm you. They don't even harass people online. They just simply choose which speech they will pass on and which not. If y…

"that is not the same as muzzling" They are actively blocking stories about Biden. Actively filtering stories about negative aspects of COVID vaccines. They are actively filtering stories about inconsistencies in the 2020 election - "The most secure ever". They are amplifying stuff - absolutely... but they are also censoring free speech because "corporations are allowed too". "If you tell me something and I don't tel…

Using "actively" as emphasis is so, so tired. You're implying without evidence that they're doing it as part of some pro-Biden strategy. Why?

Also, corporations either have personhood or they don't. Do you support the Citizens United decision?

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

#602

Post by jagged-chisel » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:06 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #591

mustache_kimono wrote: post #5

Important to note that this 5th Circuit ruling conflicts with the 11th Circuit's ruling. And SCOTUS had previously reinstated an injunction against this very same law. And this 5th Circuit opinion has very idiosyncratic reasoning [0, just the first few pages will blow your hair back]. A sample: "In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of cours…

The distinction the court is drawing isn’t about corporations versus non-corporations, but speech versus moderation. You say moderation is about “editorial control” but that’s exactly the debate. Is Facebook moderation equivalent to the NYT deciding what to publish and not publish? When someone reads a Facebook post, does anyone think that Facebook is the speaker? That legal fiction is attractive for various reasons,…

The NYT doesn’t write content. They hire writers. Is that the difference? NYT publishes content for which they pay? What happens when writers start getting paid ad revenue through Facebook or Twitter, etc?

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

#603

Post by rainsford » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #591

mustache_kimono wrote: post #5

Important to note that this 5th Circuit ruling conflicts with the 11th Circuit's ruling. And SCOTUS had previously reinstated an injunction against this very same law. And this 5th Circuit opinion has very idiosyncratic reasoning [0, just the first few pages will blow your hair back]. A sample: "In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of cours…

The distinction the court is drawing isn’t about corporations versus non-corporations, but speech versus moderation. You say moderation is about “editorial control” but that’s exactly the debate. Is Facebook moderation equivalent to the NYT deciding what to publish and not publish? When someone reads a Facebook post, does anyone think that Facebook is the speaker? That legal fiction is attractive for various reasons,…

Even if you subscribe to the viewpoint that Facebook is a "pipe" rather than the speaker, it seems hard to avoid the idea that Facebook's choice of which speech it is a pipe for constitutes free speech by Facebook. Nobody should be confused as to whether a newspaper is the author of letters to the editor, but it has a 1st amendment right to choose which letters to publish.

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

#604

Post by mikeyouse » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:07 PM UTC

saurik wrote: post #419

ViViDboarder wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure it is. You certainly don’t have a right to listen to every conversation that every person has. Where would this basis come from?

You are reading something very weird into it, but the idea is that if I want to hear what you want to tell me it shouldn't be someone else's decision to prevent us both from doing that.

If you want to hear his opinion, he can email you… I can’t believe so many people are in favor of compelled speech here.

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

#605

Post by diydsp » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

dionian wrote: post #317

themitigating wrote: post #312

Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say," Judge Andrew Oldham, 1st amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, ... This doesn't apply to people or busineeses making their own rules

so is it ok for a telephone company to cut your line if you support the resistance?

Social media are broadcasters and publishers. Phone companies are 1 to 1.

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

#606

Post by hsn915 » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #163

Will this apply to bots? What if I have a big list of a complaints about a certain politician (use your imagination, there's more than one politician to complain about), but the "other party" doesn't follow me, in fact, I have very few followers overall. So I create a bot that spreads my opinions by replying to millions of other Tweets. Anyone who mentions the politician of interest will receive a reply from "me" (my…

You are conflating two things:

1) The right to publish content that is not in line with mainstream politics

2) The right to spam replies against tweets of people you don't follow (directly or indirectly) for the purpsoe of marketing

These two things are largely orthogonal.

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

#607

Post by IntelMiner » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:10 PM UTC

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #513

IntelMiner wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to click a spam folder . You have to make a conscious effort to interact with the free speech being sent to you. Therefore it's not free

We have different definitions of censorship. To me that is not censorship. Censorship is making information functionality unavailable or altering it. Delete it or deliberately make it very hard to access or change it’s contents. If you click a button or even add a message ( apart from the content ) that is not censorship. That’s why for example I don’t consider it censorship when youtube added covid messages to certa…

Sounds like some mental gymnastics to me

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

#608

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:11 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #591

mustache_kimono wrote: post #5

Important to note that this 5th Circuit ruling conflicts with the 11th Circuit's ruling. And SCOTUS had previously reinstated an injunction against this very same law. And this 5th Circuit opinion has very idiosyncratic reasoning [0, just the first few pages will blow your hair back]. A sample: "In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of cours…

The distinction the court is drawing isn’t about corporations versus non-corporations, but speech versus moderation. You say moderation is about “editorial control” but that’s exactly the debate. Is Facebook moderation equivalent to the NYT deciding what to publish and not publish? When someone reads a Facebook post, does anyone think that Facebook is the speaker? That legal fiction is attractive for various reasons,…

[deleted]

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

#609

Post by catiopatio » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:14 PM UTC

rainsford wrote: post #603

rayiner wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The distinction the court is drawing isn’t about corporations versus non-corporations, but speech versus moderation. You say moderation is about “editorial control” but that’s exactly the debate. Is Facebook moderation equivalent to the NYT deciding what to publish and not publish? When someone reads a Facebook post, does anyone think that Facebook is the speaker? That legal fiction is attractive for various reasons,…

Even if you subscribe to the viewpoint that Facebook is a "pipe" rather than the speaker, it seems hard to avoid the idea that Facebook's choice of which speech it is a pipe for constitutes free speech by Facebook. Nobody should be confused as to whether a newspaper is the author of letters to the editor, but it has a 1st amendment right to choose which letters to publish.

If it is Facebook's speech, and this is equivalent to a newspaper, then why shouldn't we hold Facebook liable for the speech they do choose to publish — just like a newspaper?

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

#610

Post by MandieD » Sat, Sep 17, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

concinds wrote: post #541

CJefferson wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having run a mail server, I don't think it's reasonable to expect most people to contain the deluge of spam and phishing attacks they would get if just told them to "sort it out" themselves.

A better comparison would be if Gmail placed emails you really want to receive in the spam for you. Actually, they wouldn't even put it in the spam folder; they'd just delete it permanently before you can read it, "for your safety". With email, if you don't want to receive someone's emails anymore, you unsubscribe. Or put it in spam (equivalent to social media block) and you won't see those emails anymore. "Platforms…

GMail does this with my absentee ballots if I don't get lucky and see them go to Spam instead, because the State of Texas gives counties that really don't care about citizens who live overseas a system for generating ballots that is so slapdash that emails are from a domain that doesn't have DKIM or SPF, and the link to click is HTTP and not even an FQDN, but an IP address.