The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#2This is gonna be a weird ruling if it goes in favor of the states. If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech, and if you do it to people you disagree with it becomes political speech. I can't imagine even this court ruling that the government is allowed to regulate political speech. That would kick the door open to an easily constitutional broadly applied national hate speech law, and reintroduction of the fairness doctrine.
So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#3This is gonna be a weird ruling if it goes in favor of the states. If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech, and if you do it to people you disagree with it becomes political speech. I can't imagine even this court ruling that the government is allowed to regulate political speech. That would kick the door open to an easily constitutional broadly applied national hate spee…
> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions.
That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It was especially egregious during COVID and the race riots because the platforms made certain that you could not so much as criticize the political zeitgeist even when it was deserved.
The law really should make it clear that, illegal activity excluded, if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections. Places like twitter are left-wing content curation websites. It's no problem to have these - except for the fact they are still given section 230 protections. Under no circumstance should social media, engaging in one-sided censorship, be given any protection under the law for their content they curate. This would go for a similarly censored right-wing content curation website. It just so happens those are extremely small in reach by comparison, and thus significantly less important.
As always, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The chronically offended, terminally online losers tend to get what they want.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#4This is gonna be a weird ruling if it goes in favor of the states. If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech, and if you do it to people you disagree with it becomes political speech. I can't imagine even this court ruling that the government is allowed to regulate political speech. That would kick the door open to an easily constitutional broadly applied national hate spee…
> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions. That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It…
> The law really should make it clear that, illegal activity excluded, if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections.
Say I run a forum for pet fish discussion. Would my removal of content derailing the discussion into a flatearther one constitute my loss of 230? What if only logged in members can see the content?
It seems odd that we don't let private property operate as it wants.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#5Ordering people to say things the government likes is compelled speech. The First Amendment broadly prohibits it and that broadly benefits us.
It's in our interest to safeguard and preserve rights that protect our speech.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#6This is gonna be a weird ruling if it goes in favor of the states. If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech, and if you do it to people you disagree with it becomes political speech. I can't imagine even this court ruling that the government is allowed to regulate political speech. That would kick the door open to an easily constitutional broadly applied national hate spee…
> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions. That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It…
> if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections.
I disagree that governments should punish people who fail to amplify the messages of powerful political parties.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#7This is gonna be a weird ruling if it goes in favor of the states. If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech, and if you do it to people you disagree with it becomes political speech. I can't imagine even this court ruling that the government is allowed to regulate political speech. That would kick the door open to an easily constitutional broadly applied national hate spee…
> If you run a public bulletin board tearing down fliers is absolutely a form of speech
I'd say where the protection starts is that the board is yours. You can make it as open or restricted or curated or nonsensical as you wish. Other individuals can put up their own boards and they can display whatever they wish.
This is what the 1A protects.
In a reality where an opinion can be displayed from millions of boards - I suggest that one individual removing it their own board is a fairly poor use of the term censorship.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#8If the States win this case, it will be amusing to watch social media sites try to comply with laws banning political censorship in USA also complying with laws in EU mandating political censorship.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions. That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It…
> The law really should make it clear that, illegal activity excluded, if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections. Say I run a forum for pet fish discussion. Would my removal of content derailing the discussion into a flatearther one constitute my loss of 230? What if only logged in members can see the content? It seems odd that we don't let private property operate as it wants.
Have a scale or a topic carveout. Your pet fish message board doesn't have the same social relevance as the twitters and facebooks of the world that are intended to be generic communications platforms. Despite what people like to claim, these sites are de facto public squares and should be treated as such. It's clear people resist this idea because they like the fact that these companies censor speech in the direction they prefer.
Re: The Supreme Court is about to decide the future of online speech
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions. That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It…
> if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections. I disagree that governments should punish people who fail to amplify the messages of powerful political parties.
Selective amplification is editorialization when the decisions are content sensitive. It being algorithmic doesn't change the substance of this.