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

reuters.com

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

#711

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.

You misunderstood. Don’t require users to build their bubbles, but have providers offer bubbles for a user to choose from. You could even have external bubble providers that offer different technologies and qualities of filters. Just don’t have one centralised overlord.

I can already imagine how these totally neutral "providers" like Google and Twitter would implement this, much like Microsoft abuses their OS monopoly to ensure 90% of non-tech-savvy users will eventually be using Edge.

Sign up for Twitter. Immediately you're greeted with a list of "suggested filters" that will pop up again and again, using dark patterns eventually, until you either give in or are tricked into adding Twitter's highly recommended "safe filter plus package" that uses the exact same shadow bans and biased algorithms used by default today.

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

#712

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…

The solution is an individual's freedom of association. Something more intuitive than the block function or setting account to private, would be nice though.

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

#714

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 can easily prevent that kind of oversized influence by throttling bots, either by volume or frequency of messaging.

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

#715
post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"diverse cost-of-living locations" is such a corporate way to call it

Is it really diverse if 99% of the population is dirt poor, 0.999% of the population is middle-class, and 0.001% of the population is ultra-rich?

Your numbers are off.

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

#716

Neat, so Stormfront loses the power to delete posts supporting Critical Race Theory?

I think the actual Texas law states that after your a certain size you’re considered the commons and then yes, you cannot ban people based on beliefs. That doesn’t mean you have to promote them, so you can probably create a “only see if you follow this person” or something.

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

#717

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…

Let each user block what they don’t want to see. With filters, ai, etc. Don’t have a centralized “overlord” decide what an individual is allowed to see. That should be obvious and not controversial.

This kind of thing wouls never be a problem in the first place if social network stopped shoving in your face content from people you dont follow.

The are de facto acting as publishers because of that.

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

#718
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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 Gmail regularly does both of these things to me despite explicit filter rules to the contrary.

And is that desirable?

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

#719
post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It goes into thorough analysis into why this is such a lazy, stupid decision. The author, Mike Masnick, is a tech blogger — not an attorney, as far as I've been able to determine. Even Eugene Volokh — who is both an actual attorney and uniquely qualified to weigh in here — didn't attempt to digest the 113 pages of the opinion, much less immediately produce a reasoned analysis. I'm sure one will be forthcoming. The…

Volokh is a conservative attorney who is intellectually aligned with the 5th circuit judges who wrote this opinion. A few other sources: - Lawrence Tribe, a very senior center-left constitutional lawyer and Harvard prof: https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1562951505451266050 "A disgraceful Fifth Circuit decision" - Reporters' Committee on Freedom of the Press (a deeply centrist/neutral organization) https://twitter.…

> Volokh is a conservative attorney who is intellectually aligned with the 5th circuit judges who wrote this opinion.

Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA, uniquely qualified to weigh in on first amendment law, wrote a column on first amendment and speech issues for the Washington Post for years, and frankly, I imagine would be pretty disappointed (but not surprised, in these illiberal times), to be written off as a “conservative attorney” when he’s consistently espoused libertarian views over the decades.

On top of which, he hasn’t actually weighed in on this ruling yet, and may very well take umbrage with the decision!

His blog at reason did, in fact, post a guest article arguing that the ruling falls afoul of the takings clause.

> Orin Kerr, a conservative attorney and notable Federalist Society backer

You just disqualified Volokh for being a “conservative attorney”.

Now you’re citing a conservative attorney whose opinion suits your argument?

That’s not arguing logically or in good faith, even putting aside the fact that your claims regarding Volokh are a fabrication.

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

#720
post #676

I don't get it. Restaurants can choose their customers based on how they behave or even how they are dressed. Why shouldn't online businesses be able to reject some of their customers?

The difference is that you can go to other restaurant, but social medias are so big that if you're not on twitter/facebook you might as well not exist in public view. Of course that does not apply to smaller forums and I think that if we had laws that force social companies to not censor people they don't like (let's face it, that's exactly what they want to do), it should be limited to anything that's actually big,…

"Social media companies are censoring people they don't like"

This is ridiculous. No one is banned for their opinions on tax policy. No one is banned for their opinions on abortion. People (including the former POTUS) were removed for inciting violence, for fomenting harassment campaigns, and for racism/transphobia/other forms of bigotry.

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