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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

#831

Post by vel0city »

kortilla wrote: post #741
hedora wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations are people. This clearly defines bots hired by any corporation that is in, does buisness with, or communicates with a person in Texas as a "user". Edit: Skipped a step: When spent by a corporation, the courts have ruled that money is speech. Therefore, the bot's output is clearly the speech of the corporation, which is definitely a person.

> Corporations are people. No they are not. They share some specific rights as people, but are not people. A corporation can’t be murdered, can’t vote, can’t be imprisoned, can’t marry another person, etc.

> can’t marry another person

Don't you dare dash my dreams of getting married to Costco.

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

#832

Post by themitigating »

thrown_22 wrote: post #692
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

>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.

So by your own opinion New York could ban all conservative speech?

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

#833

Post by robertwt7 »

I don’t really understand the law, and I agree that big tech shouldn’t be able to regulate online speech. However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Other than that, I agree that no one should be censored for any reason

I guess it is a hard topic to define which one is the limit of freedom of “speech”

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

#834

Post by themitigating »

starik36 wrote: post #816
plandis wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telephone companies are common carriers (AFAIK) and have additional rules they must follow. Twitter is not.

What about grocery stores? What if they declare that they won't sell you anything because your viewpoint is different from theirs? Surely groceries are not common carriers?

What if a baker doesn't like your view...oh

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

#835

Post by starik36 »

wrinklz wrote: post #775

I could get behind any law that results in more people seeking facts and less seeking (or reciting unrequested) opinion. This isn't it.

That's a good goal for sure. The problem is that a private company gets to decide what is fact and what isn't. To me that is a 100 times worse than the problem they are trying to prevent.

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

#836

Post by bheadmaster »

robertwt7 wrote: post #833

I don’t really understand the law, and I agree that big tech shouldn’t be able to regulate online speech. However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Other than that, I agree that no one should be censored for any reason I guess it is a hard topic to define which one is the limit of freedom of “speech”

> However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist?

It is questionable whether or not censoring such views actually brings any benefit at all. One counterargument would be that people who are censored actually feel empowered to pursue their ideals more strongly, since it reinforces their belief that there is some conspiracy that they're fighting against. I believe that a similar effect has happened during Covid censorship.

On the other hand, censoring everyone else has many negative consequences on a free society, making it less free. One example would be the skewed image of the public opinion. If you go on Reddit, a majority of all (US) political posts seem to be blues. I'm fairly sure that reds are not a minority in the US (since they managed to win the election 2017), yet their public image is being distorted. And Reddit is big enough to actually influence masses' opinions.

The question is just whether or not the global censorship is a reasonable tradeoff. To me, personally, it doesn't seem so.

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

#837

Post by raverbashing »

inetknght wrote: post #612
patmcc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> So can I hire someone from a low cost-of-living jurisdiction and get them to behave like a bot for me? For some definitions of low cost-of-living, sure. In this law specifically: Sec. 120.002. APPLICABILITY OF CHAPTER. (a) This chapter applies only to a user who: (1) resides in this state; (2) does business in this state; or (3) shares or receives content on a social media platform in this state. There are, of cour…

I'm sure nobody will fill their address as Texas and use a VPN (you might even not need both ways)

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

#838

Post by hackerlight »

bheadmaster wrote: post #836
robertwt7 wrote: post #833

I don’t really understand the law, and I agree that big tech shouldn’t be able to regulate online speech. However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Other than that, I agree that no one should be censored for any reason I guess it is a hard topic to define which one is the limit of freedom of “speech”

> However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? It is questionable whether or not censoring such views actually brings any benefit at all. One counterargument would be that people who are censored actually feel empowered to pursue their ideals more strongly, since it reinforces their belief that there is some conspiracy tha…

I think psychology and history is quite clear that sunlight isn't the best disinfectant. Ideas are like viruses, the more exposure they get the more they spread, irrespective of their truth value. Repetition and social proof directly cause idea contagion.

  "negative consequences on a free society, making it less free"
This is an overly myopic and ideological view of freedom, in many respects. It privileges negative freedoms (right to spew hatred) at the expense of positive freedoms (right to not be genocided when hate speech consumes a society). And it ignores that bandwidth is limited, so kicking off crackpots can actually improve the negative freedom of everyone else to communicate.

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

#839

Post by eh5q3y34t »

bheadmaster wrote: post #836
robertwt7 wrote: post #833

I don’t really understand the law, and I agree that big tech shouldn’t be able to regulate online speech. However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Other than that, I agree that no one should be censored for any reason I guess it is a hard topic to define which one is the limit of freedom of “speech”

> However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? It is questionable whether or not censoring such views actually brings any benefit at all. One counterargument would be that people who are censored actually feel empowered to pursue their ideals more strongly, since it reinforces their belief that there is some conspiracy tha…

I think the most reasonable argument against "What about radicalization?" is that we already allow radicalizing content. Both sides of the political spectrum, the lgbt communit, blm, everyone and their dog uses radicalizing content.

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

#840

Post by MandieD »

quantumwannabe wrote: post #764
MandieD wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why should you have the right to vote in a place where you don't live?

Because US citizens have the right to vote in federal elections, no matter where they live, and which set of federal officials (senators and US House district, and state electoral votes for President) you are voting for is chosen by your last US residence before moving, or if you’ve never lived in the US (like my child might), by where one of your US citizen parents last lived. It’s then up to that state whether you can also vote in state and local elections.

If you are a US citizen, even if you’ve never lived in the US (born to a US citizen parent), get on over to https://fvap.gov to get yourself registered and request your absentee ballot. Hurry up, because the deadline for most states is rather soon, and a lot of them still require the registration to happen via paper mail - plus, you need time for the ballot to get to you and for you to mail it back.

As long as the US is going to insist I report all my German income and accounts that I’ve already paid Germany’s well-collected taxes on, you’re darn right I should have the right to vote!

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