The article starts with an unsupported premise that the platforms these companies operate favor liberal over conservative speech so my natural inclination is just to dismiss the rest of it; however, even if true the solution to improving freedom of speech is not suppressing someone else's freedom of speech.
Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
131–140 of 261 posts
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion, the solution is simple: If any “platform” censors beyond removing illegal or copyrighted content or spam, they should have their “platform” status revoked, and they should be considered a publisher. This prevents such companies from using “platform” status as a cost saving mechanism to help them become large monopolies. Companies like Facebook would not have been able to take over so much of the market…
Hi, if you could stop spreading the lie that there is some magical distinction between a 'publisher' and a 'platform' that somehow limits what a business is legally allowed to do, I would really appreciate it, and I know a lot of other folks would too! Thanks! https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190613/03172142391/once-...
OK you can replace "platform" with "protected by CDA 230 ", the argument still stands as is.
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#133It's hard to take this argument seriously when the only companies mentioned are left-leaning tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google. I suspect that the author's concern isn't censorship per se, but censorship of viewpoints he happens to uphold. If Twitter's suppression of conservative content is bad, then so is The Federalist's suppression of liberal content. You're about to argue that one of these is a…
I think a lot of people do take issue with things that call themselves "news" promoting one side of the ideological spectrum. That being said, social media is just that: something users can post to. Twitter users were not hired to promote a particular point of view, they were invited to share their own point of view. To then go through and cull the people you invited to share based on ideology while still calling you…
It sounds like you're saying that what a company calls itself determines which ethical obligations apply to it. I can agree to an extent, but I suspect there's a different point here.
Twitter, per its own website, is "what’s happening in the world and what people are talking about right now." Is there any way to revise this sentence—or any other aspect of the Twitter brand—such that Twitter would no longer be subject to these complaints of censorship?
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#134Private companies should be able to censor political speech, period. If it's my desire to build a platform that is favorable to certain types of speech, that's my right and the government shouldn't be forcing me to modify my platform to rebroadcast speech I disagree with. In terms of conservative complaints about leftist censorship, I have to simply roll my eyes. The conservatives complaining about big tech don't car…
I think you are right.
But I would also argue that such censorship should be as transparent as possible.
Though the real question is, at a certain size of user base, does a private space not become a public one? Or rather, if there is no alternative of not having censorship, no place else to go, does the censorship not become a problem then?
I am not sure what the solution here would be, actually, but while I think if people don't like facebooks/twitters censorship they should just go somewhere else, I would not hold the same view for example on email providers.
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
reddit has already a "spam level" slider. They should allow subreddits to turn off spam filtering completely - although of course it doesnt make sense. But if they want to be classified as a simple carrier they would have to .
In your definition of censorship, would it be OK for Facebook to hide some political articles behind a "filter dishonest posts" setting that was on by default for users and groups? Is it OK to do that to a marketing post?
I think facebook should be required to have controls to turn off their various filterings. And they should be held liable if someone can prove they systematic hide certain views from searches. That would be enough for me (having them on by default is also OK).
(Incidentally i started using twitter in "view latest" mode and i prefer it - turns out their expensive algorithms were pretty useless for me)
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#136> For instance, if you’re a journalist and you want to promote your work, there is simply no viable alternative to Twitter at the moment. No other microblogging platform comes even close to having the number of users Twitter does, and most of the alternatives are hotbeds of extremism, so that anyone who joins them is thereby disqualified in polite company. IMO if you can't even try to use an alternative microblogging…
What right do journalists have to have a platform for promotion and advertising? Either before or after the Internet and Twitter.
We're not talking about inalienable rights. That's implied in the title of the linked post.
If you don't care about "good"/"bad" decisions and just care about the legal bounds, just say so and dismiss the article out of hand. Your roundabout question just drags discussion down.
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#137> For instance, if you’re a journalist and you want to promote your work, there is simply no viable alternative to Twitter at the moment. No other microblogging platform comes even close to having the number of users Twitter does, and most of the alternatives are hotbeds of extremism, so that anyone who joins them is thereby disqualified in polite company. IMO if you can't even try to use an alternative microblogging…
What right do journalists have to have a platform for promotion and advertising? Either before or after the Internet and Twitter.
it's a combination of the right to free expression and free association, not just for journalists, but for everyone. I should not be prevented from hearing things i might be interested to hear, or from hearing things from people i 've chosen to associate with because someone 3rd party thinks they re not nice.
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
What right do journalists have to have a platform for promotion and advertising? Either before or after the Internet and Twitter.
it's a combination of the right to free expression and free association, not just for journalists, but for everyone. I should not be prevented from hearing things i might be interested to hear, or from hearing things from people i 've chosen to associate with because someone 3rd party thinks they re not nice.
If I run a website, why doesn't my free association right extend to kicking people off it?
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#139I have a wide view of what 'censorship' is, and I include spam filtering in the definition. For example, a while ago I saw an advert for some kind of erection-causing pill on a forum discussing C++. If the forum moderators remove such a post, they make the forum more efficient by saving other users (who are looking for C++ content) from themselves having to filter out irrelevant information / a sales pitch. I also se…
Here’s the thing. On dedicated forums we know the protocol. We don’t want spam and we don’t want politics. If it’s a political forum we expect all civil exchanges to be treated equally. So a proponent for Owls and a proponent for sawmills both get their say and one doesn’t get “deranked” or de-monetized because it’s not the popular opinion or the au currant opinion. We don’t expect one political candidate to be artif…
> we expect all civil exchanges to be treated equally
Define civil :)
Take any hot button issue like guns, abortion, etc. where your stance on one side of the issue can be seen as immoral or life threatening to the other side. Take a passionate / borderline tweet from one side and you'll probably get a 50/50 disagreement on wether or not it's "civil". Now what? Block the tweet? Warn the user? How many people need to complain before it's considered a problem?
Now go a step further and look at the Westboro Baptist Church. They think that they're doing a public good by shaming those who have died (because they believe God punishes sinners and their families with death). They believe it's a sin not to tell the families that the recently deceased is a sinner. They believe they're communicating God's message. Now you'll probably get 99% agreement that it's uncivil. But now what do you do? Silence an unpopular opinion?
The problem is finding out where the line is for defining what's appropriate on a platform and what will be censored. Is it 50% + 1 consensus? 95% consensus? And who gets to decide? The users? The CEO? A board of censors?
These are tricky answers and different countries and companies draw the line in different places. But the devil is always in the details.
It would be nice if everyone agreed on what's civil and what's not, but unfortunately that's not the case.
Re: Censorship is bad even when it’s done by private companies
#140So the author wants to protect "the marketplace of ideas" from monopolies caused by a different market. However, they don't want the government to do it. They also don't seem to think it's possible for smaller companies to challenge these monopolies. What then is the author's solution? One is never given.
In my opinion, the solution is simple: If any “platform” censors beyond removing illegal or copyrighted content or spam, they should have their “platform” status revoked, and they should be considered a publisher. This prevents such companies from using “platform” status as a cost saving mechanism to help them become large monopolies. Companies like Facebook would not have been able to take over so much of the market…
Once you add spam to this list, it becomes super fuzzy. Unsolicited marketing is obviously spam and so are the Nigerian scams, but what about some cult manifesto or conspiracy theory or chain mail letter? Or possibly a crowdfunding link that some well meaning, but misguided people sent around a few thousand times? Or possibly a request for donations by some non-profit? Propaganda posts by a political party? Where is the line?