One part I agree with is that Twitter marketed itself as free speech, only to change tune when it became market dominant.
That’s false advertising, or at least bait and switch.
U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
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Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#802Important 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,…
How is Facebook different from a book store and posts different from books? Or a newspaper and the letters to the editor? When somebody buys a book, do they think the bookstore is the speaker? Now should that bookstore be compelled to sell every book just because someone puts it there?
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#803Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have social anxiety because they never went outside. “Outside” and “with other people” are our ancestral environment. Social media is abnormal and makes abnormal people.
I have social anxiety because of a lifetime of psychological and physical abuse from everyone I have ever considered “family”, with only two exceptions. It has nothing to do with “outside”, and your idiotic hot take discounts the lives and experiences of thousands who have been through similar situations and worse.
It discounts no such thing. Your unfortunate experience (for which I truly feel sympathy) has nothing to do with how evolution or socio-biology work or the significance of our ancestral environments or the statistically significant fact that even you, with your unique and very real burdens, if you went outside and met with other people would probably feel less anxiety.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#804Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
If you're not protecting free speech in the places where free speech actually happens, then you are not protecting free speech at all. If speech has shifted online, to massive social media websites like Twitter, and you don't protect it there, then you have no free speech in your country.
Perhaps the problem is the definition of free speech. Free speech is you can't go to jail for what you say. It certainly doesn't mean speech without consequences of any sort nor does it mean that you automatically get an audience for it.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#805Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because there needs to be a cutoff in determining when it becomes a "public" square.
I just googled it and found that "With so many “small towns,” the average local jurisdiction population in the United States is 6,200." why not use that as the limit?
I'm not really interested in what the number is, there are going to be an infinite number of opinions on that but regardless there has to be some number defined.
In this case, these are platforms that don't target a local community specifically, so it does make some amount of sense that the number is based on the population as a whole.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#806Today 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
>This doesn't apply to people or busineeses making their own rules It didn't apply to states either. Yet it now does. When something gets large and powerful enough it becomes a government regardless of how you try and spin it.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#807Earlier quoted context omitted.
This analogy doesn't work. Social Media is not newspaper, they're a printing machine letting you publish your own newspaper. You can't just register with a newspaper and post opinions for free. Social Media websites and platforms are acting as common carriers. They provide you an audience, without upfront cost. If they discriminate against you for an opinion their 'experts' do not like, they should suffer the consequ…
Exactly. People keep ginning up false analogies to justify censorship. If you create a service deliberately designed so that anyone can sign up and start posting things without so much as an employee approving their registration, then you've deliberately created what amounts to a public square. To then selectively censor people on such a platform is tantamount to a bait & switch. You promised people a public square,…
> If you create a service deliberately designed so that anyone can sign up and start posting things without so much as an employee approving their registration, then you've deliberately created what amounts to a public square.
That makes no sense. You can literally build something identical to a literal physical public square in the real world and still kick people out because it's private property. This is no different than that.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It is unnatural for an entity to not be liable for what they publish Since when have paper boys been held liable for what's in the newspapers? Social media is distributing someone else's opinions. The very forum you're posting in will cease to exist.
The paper boy isnt knowingly distributing, say, child porn magazine. If he were, the. he'd be an accessory. Big Tech does knowingly transport illegal things. If the paper that the paper boy distributing has the occasional libel, then the paper boy is not liable because he cannot have a criminal state of mind for something he doesn't know is in contained within his cargo. Finally, the paper boy is a boy, that is a chi…
Your analogy doesn't work because social media companies are liable for hosting illegal things just like your paper boy.
Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#809Earlier quoted context omitted.
>This doesn't apply to people or busineeses making their own rules It didn't apply to states either. Yet it now does. When something gets large and powerful enough it becomes a government regardless of how you try and spin it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause ?
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Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech
#810Companies web sites are private property, they should be able to do as they please as long as their policies are consistent.
At some point, some services cross into the threshold of 'public good' - in which case probably a hint more regulation should apply.
But otherwise, the '1st Amendment' which basically indicates the government should 'stay out of it' is on the side of Big Corp. not government.