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Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

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Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#151

Post by yamtaddle »

scarface74 wrote: post #114
yamtaddle wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A corporation is a creation of government. Why shouldn't they be able to regulate them any way they think best? Which isn't necessarily to say this is a good idea, but... of course government should be able to tell companies how to operate.

So in that case, why not let the government just take over any company it sees fit? If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?

> So in that case, why not let the government just take over any company it sees fit?

Well, seizing is rather different than regulating, for one thing, and for another, because most of the time I'd probably think it was a bad idea. I do think it's an option that should be on the table in some circumstances. Just that it's probably wises rarely to use it.

I didn't write that I thought the government ought to interfere with businesses constantly, to extremes, in all sorts of ways. I just think the justification for their ability to do so, if they want, falls out how incorporation works, and what a corporation is.

> If you’re okay with the government controlling any legal organization do yoh feel the same way about government controlling churches? Advocacy groups?

I'd rather they didn't take them over, if that's what your suggesting, but they in fact regulate tons of things about these organizations, including, specifically, speech.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#152

Post by mattnewton »

pessimizer wrote: post #145
paxys wrote: post #113

When a state is against net neutrality, pro super PACs, pro hobby lobby/religious tests in employment, pro book banning in libraries, but wants to regulate social networks because "political freedom", their motivations are a bit suspect.

[flagged]

I read the original poster as saying “we should look carefully here, because the law is written by people who I think do not appear to share our values, and may have different effects because of those differences” which is a fine position to have, and not incompatible with debate. I don’t think we need to immediately jump to civil war.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#153

Post by anon291 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #29
protomyth wrote: post #4

Welcome to the natural consequence of social networks becoming important to just do daily business. The phone companies, and other utilities, operate under strict rules. I do wonder how many and type of companies will become internet utilities?

99.5% of Americans could never log into Facebook, Twitter or anything ever again with no substantial impact on their daily lives. The remaining 0.5% have careers centered around social media and should probably find a real job. Honest to goodness, the hyperventilation about how "important" social media is just amazes me.

This is not true. You need a Facebook account to interact with a lot of businesses.

Many businesses don't have normal websites for better or worse.

Many government agencies announce things through Twitter and Facebook for better or worse (worse in my opinion).

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#154

Post by pessimizer »

brk wrote: post #96
pessimizer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO is the wrong motivation. Because political censorship is the worst censorship (you might argue that all censorship is political.) It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship. If the powerful are censoring the political process, there are no means to make any of the powerful less powerful. It becomes self-perpetuating.

But at the same time, politicians using social media to continuously publish blatant lies is also not a mechanism for stable government. In the past, this was regulated to a large degree by traditional media outlets being a filter of sorts and not just printing any random direct statement made by a politician. I think there is a balance between "social media must not interfere with blatantly false statements from pol…

> politicians using social media to continuously publish blatant lies is also not a mechanism for stable government.

The solution being proposed is to allow administrations to keep pushing narratives that support the regime. You can't consider yourself a defender of the population against politicians while also granting them the power to suppress speech through proxies. When you find yourself favorably referring to mainstream media in the past for their ability to control the speech of elected officials, you're spiraling towards Zimbabwe.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#155

Post by pessimizer »

marcosdumay wrote: post #61
pessimizer wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This seems to be centered on politics/candidates, which IMO is the wrong motivation. Because political censorship is the worst censorship (you might argue that all censorship is political.) It's like how political prisoners are the easiest sign a place is a dictatorship. If the powerful are censoring the political process, there are no means to make any of the powerful less powerful. It becomes self-perpetuating.

Political speech is not "speech made by politicians".

Who are you quoting, and why aren't you replying to them?

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#156

Post by kcplate »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #144
kcplate wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let's please not make the mistake of saying all issues that relate to freedom of speech are First Amendment issues. The problem is when government and social media actively collude to side step the government’s responsibility to the first amendment…the government has dragged the social media companies into first amendment territory. You have two ways of handling this: one…have the government police itself…which it…

> The problem is when government and social media actively collude to side step the government’s responsibility to the first amendment The government's responsibility to the First Amendment is "don't make laws that limit freedom of religion, speech or assembly". I don't know what it means for government to collude with a third party to side-step that responsibility.

Ahh so you think it’s ok for the government to encourage the censorship of speech it doesn’t like by companies it is actively investigating (threatening)…as long as they don’t make a law to that effect?

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#157

Post by anon291 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #47
Kerbonut wrote: post #9

I agree and we should classify the underlying Internet service providers, that social media providers depends on, as common carriers as well!

That's where the cognitive dissonance here kicks in: the case for ISPs to be common-carriers looks much stronger (from any principled perspective) than does the case for social media networks. And yet, because this is a party-political issue, you have the Republican Party swearing up and down that ISPs are not (presumably because common-carrier status implies net neutrality and this is unpopular with donors or someth…

I think you'll find that if you talk with technically literate Republicans you'll find a lot of support for net neutrality.

Unfortunately, my party's base is made up of people who are not super into tech unlike the Democratic party whose base is increasingly rich tech workers.

On the other hand, my fellow Republicans do jobs you may think unimportant,like farming, plumbing, construction, etc.

Perhaps, when you think about it, democrat regulations of these professions are equally ridiculous when you look at it from the perspective of someone in these professions.

Half our political discord would be solved if we just thought of ourselves in the other person's shoes and listened instead of chocking it up to stupidity or malice.

Half of my conservative friends have no idea how the internet works. They don't understand the wires behind it. When you explain to them what's going on, they become more sympathetic to net neutrality. Perhaps try explaining instead of dismissing?

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#158

Post by pessimizer »

triceratops wrote: post #75
pessimizer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe in natural property rights, because I don't know how to find them in nature. Property rights as assigned by law don't have to be believed in, just observed, because they are enforced. "Natural extensions" of property rights are religious beliefs. I believe they should be protected, but not indulged.

I didn't say anything about "natural" property rights. Property rights as assigned by law let you decide who to allow or disallow access to your property. If the property is open to the general public, there are some additional rules you have to follow. But you're free to ban activities from your property.

If we aren't discussing natural property rights, we aren't discussing anything. Of course there are property laws. They can be whatever we decide they are.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#159

Post by scarface74 »

_-david-_ wrote: post #147
scarface74 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is absolutely nothing stopping conservatives from establishing their own social media platform. Conservatives love “the free market” as long as it is working for them. Whose fault is it that Truth Social is an abysmal failure?

You mean like Parler? Oh wait, some of the biggest tech companies, for all intents and purposes, killed it. You can have a free market with monopolies/duopolies.

There is a monopoly/duopoly on collocation centers? According to the former CEO of AWS, only 5% of all IT spend is on any cloud provider. The other 95% self host.

It amazes me that people on HN of all places is saying that they can’t create anything without a dependency on cloud providers.

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