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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

#951

Post by BlueTemplar »

xyzzyz wrote: post #275
woodruffw wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Corporation is, after all, just a form of organization of natural persons, and cannot do anything on its own. A corporation is a synthetic legal object: beyond basic restrictions on its form, it's allowed to legislate itself internally according to whatever bylaws and structure it pleases. There is no requirement (and no particular precedent) for them having a democratic structure. This produces a fundamental tensi…

> This produces a fundamental tension between the people who comprise the corporation and the decisions that the corporation makes: the corporation can choose to do things that are overwhelmingly unpopular with its employees without significant recourse, since the corporation does not operate according to the will of its members. Sure, but it’s still natural persons who are actually making those decisions, no? After…

Are you suggesting that you cannot actually make any decision, only your decision-making part of your brain can ? ;)

Also, I think that one of our mistakes was to not require limits on the duration of a company (because they used to be shut down once their goal was accomplished?). In comparison, even the richest human has a well-limited lifespan...

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

#952

Post by fallingknife »

themitigating wrote: post #325
fallingknife wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Source?

Zuckerberg said so in an interview. Google it and you can see the video. The FBI did not deny it, so safe to say it's true.

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

#953

Post by caeril »

CJefferson wrote: post #240
coffeeblack wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Fair point, but if all accounts were given a standard default policy modeled around current moderation rules, and users were permitted to edit the policy from that initial point, this would be an effective solution.

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

#954

Post by caeril »

ekianjo wrote: post #721
hailwren wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Reamde, Neal Stephenson posits a future where we pay individuals/services to filter and prioritize the unordered deluge of data from the web. It seems like this ruling pushes us along that path.

You mean like youtube making it premium not to see ads?

Not the same. I pay for YouTube premium but the algorithm continues to push:

1. Political content that is not only unaligned, but diametrically opposed to political content I've previously consumed. 2. Random "Free" movie and youtube original content suggestions (effectively ads, on a supposedly ad-free account).

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

#955

Post by wvenable »

NeverFade wrote: post #844
wvenable wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Let's start by defining what Free Speech isn't. There is no Free Speech if you can't speak freely where speech is actually happening. So if nearly all speech is moving online to massive social media sites, and you can't speak there freely, but instead your speech is subject to the whims of random employees - there is no Free Speech in this situation. > It certainly doesn't mean speech without consequences of any sort…

Before the Internet, where was nearly all speech actually happening?

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

#956

Post by starik36 »

philjohn wrote: post #868
starik36 wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That company is a de-facto monopoly on political discourse in the world. It should be treated as such.

It really isn't - far more political discourse occurs on Twitter.

I was referring to Twitter.

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

#957

Post by starik36 »

scarface74 wrote: post #881
starik36 wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if the company is the de-facto monopoly in the political discourse, like Twitter is, then it should be treated as a common carrier/utility/etc...

How is Twitter a de facto monopoly? They have a monopoly on what exactly - communication forums on the Internet? Why is it that conservatives are unable to create an alternative?

They have a monopoly on political discourse. Why isn’t there an alternative? Network effect.

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

#958

Post by inkblotuniverse »

anigbrowl wrote: post #191
netheril96 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can ban speech based on non-content criteria such as the volume of sound, but when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech. Whether private companies should not be able to discriminate speech based on content is still up to debate, but don’t compare this to shouting.

> when you ban speech based on the content, it is a violation of the principle of free speech This is the sealion's argument, that you have to be willing to engage with them at all times in all contexts. It implicitly denies freedom of association. For example, if I am running doomermetalchats.com do I have to tolerate K-pop fanatics with their relentless positivity and sunny optimism?

Run a decentralized system akin to a modernized mailing list with a nice UI, where every person accessing the list gets to pick how their view of the list is filtered, choosing from competing filters or creating their own. Filters could be machine-based, competing human-moderator based, whatever.

The doomers and the stans can be talking right alongside each other and never see each other; effectively, the doomer 'site' only exists virtually, as a mutually visible consensus among a subset of the network.

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

#959

Post by adrr »

wrinklz wrote: post #706
adrr wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controlling what content is rendered on a site is speech itself. Government making rules infringes on my right what my software can and can’t display. It would be like the government telling Wikipedia can’t edit their articles.

Doesn't Wikipedia fall under the definition of a social media site with over 50M monthly users?

It does. This decision means other people “can’t censor” by reverting changes or overwriting.

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

#960

Post by [deleted] »

leereeves wrote: post #898
mhneu wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> - Lawrence Tribe, a very senior center-left constitutional lawyer and Harvard prof: https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1562951505451266050 That tweet isn't even about this case, it's about voting rights for felons.

[deleted]
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