Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers • Hacker News Board

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

#531

Post by triceratops » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:49 PM UTC

rufus_foreman wrote: post #241

triceratops wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you believe that any and all content moderation is an unambiguous good? Yes. Because it's a natural extension of property rights. Do you not believe in property rights?

Do you believe the electric company should be able to choose not to provide you with electricity if you express an opinion with which the owners of that company disagree? That would be an example of the owners of the electric company asserting their property rights. Might there be situations where property rights need to be weighed against other considerations?

This debate is pretty old already. The analogue to electric companies is ISPs, not social media companies. Social media companies are analogous to appliance companies. GE or Whirlpool are within their rights to stop selling you fridges because they disagree with you politically.

ISPs aren't treated as common carriers at the moment, and these laws were enacted by the same political party that treats this as a free speech issue. So I have trouble taking seriously any politician who supports such laws. They're hypocrites; pure and simple.

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

#532

Post by seadan83 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:50 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #230

seadan83 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. The 1st amendment protects free speech from the government. If you're in a bar, and they don't like what you're saying, they can ask you to leave. Then it all boils down to whether things like Twitter and Facebook are akin to the public square, a public street. That is hard to fathom given you are using their servers, their software, which they pay for and provide as a service (in something of a quid-pro-q…

But is Facebook like a bar? Or is it a pipe for user generated content?

One other thought I had regarding this - how about sites like 'github'? It's not that much different to be able to create a public repositories with blog-like content. Is github a pipe? If github were a pipe, then they couldn't moderate illegal content based on the point of view that "all software should be free" or the point of view that "viruses are useful and necessary to find and exploit security holes, otherwise those security holes do not get found nor fixed." Both of those points of view are, points of view (perhaps with some flaws, but nonetheless, they are points of view). Then.. if github were forced to host almost whatever content, they seemingly could become another 'pirate-bay'.

I suspect the 'is it a pipe' or 'is it a bar' question is perhaps easier to look at via 'proof-by-contradiction' when examining other large websites and services that are not so dissimilar.

Another thought, what if a private company wanted to not be a pipe, or what if they actually wanted to be a pipe. Let's say someone had a product launch that was intended and was for all purposes a pipe - though they "couldn't" be because of a user requirement. That seems odd, seems like whether you are a 'pipe' or a 'bar' could be stated in a prospectus and would not need to be a function at all of user count (but instead a function of services provided and how they are provided). In another example, a new phone carrier, just because they are small, would still be a pipe.

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

#533

Post by seadan83 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

trafficante wrote: post #435

seadan83 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if I'm saying, just "build your own if you don't like it". More, if you don't like it, don't use it (eg: if you don't like Arby's, don't go there). Though, I do concede that these platforms/apps/companies are very monopoly-like and that certainly creates its own gravitational pull and challenges to competitors. Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook…

>Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook? If Facebook received some support from the government, does that make their platform a public square? What would that threshold be? Some of what I mentioned is covered in a very roundabout way in this Vice article [1] while the Palantir/Thiel connections (as well as info on early FB executives being “former” CIA employees…

Thank you for following up with links - I'll check them out!

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

#534

Post by triceratops » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:51 PM UTC

Const-me wrote: post #191

triceratops wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I only have one or 2 choices of phone carriers with a high cost to switch. I have a multitude of alternatives to FB Messenger (which I don't even use) with very low cost to switch.

You can use any phone carrier you want, one of these two real ones, or one of the hundreds of VoIP providers. Regardless on your choice, you can still call the people you want, regardless on their carrier. The only difference is cost per minute, which is typically low cost to switch. It's impossible to use an alternative messenger to communicate with people who use FB messenger. Unlike e-mail providers or phone opera…

Why? You can't call them on the phone, or text them? Or email them? There's plenty of other open systems around.

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

#535

Post by scarface74 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #380

tsimionescu wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should it be more acceptable, exactly? This is not even about sexual education, it is literally illegal to explain to those kids that sometimes a man and a woman love each other, and sometimes two men or two women do the same. Of course, the first part will never be enforced, but the second and third clearly will. There is no age at which it is inappropriate to listen about these extremely basic facts of the worl…

When I was in kindergarten I didn't even know my teachers had first names, much less spouses. A kindergartener is not your friend to share your life with. People have terrible boundaries. This is why public schooling must be destroyed.

Well, when I was in kindergarten, I very much knew my teacher had a spouse, had twins, and she was pregnant at the time.

Would it have been inappropriate if she said her and her husband was having a baby? In todays society would it have been in appropriate if she said her and her wife? How do you think these same conservatives would have felt if little Johnny came home and mentioned to their parents that their teacher spoke about her wife?

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

#536

Post by triceratops » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #163

triceratops wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoy the deluge of spam

As a post-social media accelerationalist, the utter chaos that would result in social media platforms' inability to combat spam would devolve into the inability to exist at all and should be welcomed. Social media's negative externality is our individual mental health. One of the greatest things we could do for our mental health would be a complete and utter implosion of uncensorable social media. It cannot come soon…

I mostly hate social media. But we'd also lose useful things. Such as the discussion board we're currently on. Or the treasure trove of educational and funny content on YouTube. Watching puppy videos is amazing for my mental health. It would be a shame for it to be drowned in spam.

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

#537

Post by klyrs » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 5:05 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #462

klyrs wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But kindergarten classes talk about families. And many families have zero, one or two moms; zero, one or two dads. I'm one of two moms and other kids started asking questions about that when our kid was in kindergarten. The Florida law is meant to make kids like mine feel othered and isolated. It isn't about protecting innocence, it's about punishing deviance.

No one is prohibited from having those discussions in an age appropriate manner.

The "fun" of a vaguely-written law is that there isn't actually a prescription for what an "age-appropriate manner" is. And according to the verbal statements of a lot of the people pushing for these laws, any mention of sexuality is age inappropriate. This sets up a chilling effect where teachers do not have the liberty to teach effectively because they're concerned about blowback: even if they do everything right, a child can mention what happened into class to a parent, which can result in a mis-interpretation being reported to school administration, which comes down on the teacher.

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

#538

Post by klyrs » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

honkdaddy wrote: post #431

klyrs wrote: post #53

Meanwhile, Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political opinions. This is not about a principled approach to free speech. It's about protecting the right to enforce religious-inspired bigotry, tearing down the separation of church and state even as that bigotry becomes "unpopular."

> Florida is purging libraries of unpopular political opinions I think the fact that you deliberately expressed what's been a complicated, and almost exclusively school-board driven, phenomenon in such a simple way shows you either haven't read much outside the headlines, or are just hoping to pull people to your side while discouraging them to do any actual research. Either way, your comment comes across as just as…

> If you don't like DeSantis and want him voted out, please just say that

No, I want him voted out because of specific actions and I also want every politician inclined to take those specific actions voted out. I don't hate him because he's a Republican, I don't hate him because he's a straight white Christian man, I don't hate him because he's from Florida, I don't hate him. I hate the actions that he's performed (funny thing about that MLK quote; some people just cannot tolerate being judged by the contents of their character).

To pretend that the people behind these "school-board driven" actions are not motivated by, encouraged by, and supportive of DeSantis is completely ludicrous. Anti-LGBT activists are clamoring to join school boards around the country, looking to effect the same policies.

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

#539

Post by trafficante » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 5:18 PM UTC

seadan83 wrote: post #360

trafficante wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument, much like the “just make your own x” meme, is one of the many hypotheticals that actually saw real world testing in the past two years. These days, the ”private company so this isn’t 1A” argument oddly reminds me of the omnipresent 200x-era GOP claim that running a federal budget is akin to balancing a household checkbook. Designed to be convincingly simple to state and yet extremely obnoxious to refut…

I don't know if I'm saying, just "build your own if you don't like it". More, if you don't like it, don't use it (eg: if you don't like Arby's, don't go there). Though, I do concede that these platforms/apps/companies are very monopoly-like and that certainly creates its own gravitational pull and challenges to competitors. Do you have any references for further information about how the government supported Facebook…

Can’t reply to your latest so piggybacking here to add a note that searching for info on this stuff will surface a whole mess of recent Q Anon style sites if you don’t carefully craft your search queries.

Most mainstream coverage on domestic intelligence overreach is from the 2005-2012 era; there’s almost a tangible brick wall in the middle of the Obama years where mainstream coverage of this sort of thing switches from being critical-by-default to being just shy of a press release (a good example is the SAFE HOME link in my other comment).

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

#540

Post by kelseyfrog » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 5:24 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #536

kelseyfrog wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a post-social media accelerationalist, the utter chaos that would result in social media platforms' inability to combat spam would devolve into the inability to exist at all and should be welcomed. Social media's negative externality is our individual mental health. One of the greatest things we could do for our mental health would be a complete and utter implosion of uncensorable social media. It cannot come soon…

I mostly hate social media. But we'd also lose useful things. Such as the discussion board we're currently on. Or the treasure trove of educational and funny content on YouTube. Watching puppy videos is amazing for my mental health. It would be a shame for it to be drowned in spam.

It would honestly be better for me if social media categorically ceased to exist. Before anyone responds with, "You could choose not to participate," what I mean is that if they ceased to exist it would increase the supply of the attention and time of others. When I'm competing in time and attention for others with the likes FB/IG/TT I'm simply at the loosing end. I don't have a team of PhDs whose goal it is to increase people's engagement with me - they do. If I have to compete at all, I'd much rather compete with other people - not against professionals.