Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#141

Post by kube-system » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 7:40 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #123

kube-system wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't have to be a first-party statement to be considered "compelled speech". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v.... It is pretty reasonable for conversations to have moderation, just as private groups can do in person, and as publications have editors. It is not yet clear how social media fits into the platform/publisher/utility/whatever debate, but I'm just saying that we should be car…

To me, there are two aspects of that ruling you cited which make it entirely different from social media: 1. "newspapers are economically finite enterprises" - There is a very real cost involved with printing newspapers, while the cost of hosting a social media post is so small it's not even worth mentioning. 2. "the exercise of editorial judgment is a protected First Amendment activity" - Everything that goes into a…

The cost of an online news publication is even smaller than a social media site, but we don't limit their speech further.

The editorial power of social media sites is kind of nebulous, I guess we'll have a court case that settles this at some point, but I'm not so sure it's clear now.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#142

Post by nonameiguess » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

mullen wrote: post #10

vowelless wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit is complying with local laws. Not all countries have “first amendment style free speech”. Note the speech restrictions in the Indian constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_expression_in_India The farmers protests were allegedly detrimental to the sovereignty and security of India and so it makes sense to ban those kinds of hastags. FWIW, the American government also requests removals from…

> FWIW, the American government also requests removals from social media sites. No, they don't. Any American Government official requesting a removal of anything from social media sites would probably lose their job. That's saying a lot because American Government officials rarely ever lose their jobs.

Everybody answering this with examples of Congresspeople is clearly missing that elected officials can't lose their jobs. You have to vote them out of office. It's why politicians can get away with saying and doing way more outrageous things than any ordinary employee, and arguably can just flat-out break the law in many cases if the rest of the government refuses to enforce laws against their own party members, claiming all attempts at enforcement action to be politically motivated from the other side.

An actual civil servant enjoys no such impunity from normal rules of conduct.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#143

Post by jaywalk » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 7:49 PM UTC

OzyM wrote: post #132

jaywalk wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why? That's not quite what I said, but yes, kind of. No phone company is allowed to moderate the speech that goes over their network, for example.

Do you have an answer for my political-platform question? I feel like that'd help me understand where you're drawing the line here. As far as phone companies, my current understanding is that in the U.S., the government is involved in building and maintaining telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore it falls under the First Amendment. If you run your own wires between a lot of houses to let people talk to each ot…

My line is pretty simple: if there's a clear purpose for the platform or even a part of it, then you have every right to remove content that deviates from that purpose. So I would say that your political platform should not be forced to host content supporting any other party. Of course it would still have to follow campaign finance laws and things like that, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

Social media platforms are content-neutral. They want to be treated like the "public square" because a lot of benefits come along with that. But then at the same time, they censor content that they disagree with. That's where it crosses the line. If Twitter came out tomorrow and declared that they are officially a left-wing social network and updated their rules to reflect that, then I'd have no problem with them kicking every Republican off the platform and banning every person who complained about taxes being too high. But Twitter won't do that.

I don't want to get further off on the tangent about telecommunications infrastructure, so I'll just leave that alone.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#144

Post by OzyM » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #140

OzyM wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why? If I operate the world's biggest single-political-party discussion forum, is there a point where the forum is now legally compelled to host the other political party's opinions? (To be clear: I'm not saying that example is exactly analogous to Twitter, but I don…

> So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why? Yes, such a point exists. If you have a monopoly, for instance, then you should be subject to very different considerations. If you possess a monopoly on a discussion/communication platform so massive that it has become very important to societal communication…

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

I agree that if one company is the only feasible option - a true monopoly - there should be controls on their power.

However, I'm not convinced why any social media would fall under this umbrella at the moment. Facebook(& related) hardly have a stranglehold on the market, at least from the point of view of it being in competition with other social media platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, etc. All of their products are slightly different, but generally are grouped under the same niche. If Facebook decided tomorrow that half of the political spectrum was completely barred from discussion, I assume people would just successfully migrate off Facebook (in a way they could not do if their government banned their opinion, or if the only place they could discuss on the internet banned their opinion).

Afaik phone numbers are a completely different discussion, as I believe the government is involved in creating and maintaining phone networks (placing it under the First Amendement).

You make a good point about something like YouTube, though. YouTube is the one on your list which most clearly has control over its market, so I could see the argument for oversight there.

This is a great comment, and definitely food for thought. I'll use this to examine my own beliefs — much appreciated.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#145

Post by gremloni » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

OzyM wrote: post #2

"The IT rules, which became effective end-May, are aimed at regulating content on social media and making firms act more swiftly on legal requests to remove posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. They also require the appointment of certain new executives." The article makes this sound like a massive detriment to free speech. Companies removing content on their own platforms makes sense. However, g…

I wish the far right hadn’t poisoned the free speech well. I genuinely blame them for people being mostly okay with censorship on this scale.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#146

Post by OzyM » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

jaywalk wrote: post #143

OzyM wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have an answer for my political-platform question? I feel like that'd help me understand where you're drawing the line here. As far as phone companies, my current understanding is that in the U.S., the government is involved in building and maintaining telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore it falls under the First Amendment. If you run your own wires between a lot of houses to let people talk to each ot…

My line is pretty simple: if there's a clear purpose for the platform or even a part of it, then you have every right to remove content that deviates from that purpose. So I would say that your political platform should not be forced to host content supporting any other party. Of course it would still have to follow campaign finance laws and things like that, but that's a whole different ball of wax. Social media pla…

I disagree, in that I think any privately-owned platform that people voluntarily use, have easy alternatives to, and can leave without consequence has the right to moderate the content on their platform as they see fit.

That being said, after having a political/ideological group I really liked removed off a major platform (that it followed the ToS of) without analogous opposite-side groups being removed, I'm at least very sympathetic to your position. I thing we both agree that harmless differences of opinion shouldn't be removed, but I'll agree to disagree on whether the law should be involved.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#147

Post by penultimatename » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #127

penultimatename wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compelling counter argument. Why would the First Amendment's freedom of association change because a group is too large or loud in the public sphere?

The First Amendment explicitly differentiates on scale, as in "the people" versus "the government". When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.

I've never heard of a court ruling that construed "the government" in the Constitution, an amendment, or a law as synonymous with a private company based on size or power.

That's a massive leap that isn't codified in law and the consequences of intermingling the two concepts has massive implications.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#148

Post by hooplah » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

pcmoney wrote: post #101

portpecos wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you're confused, but the rest of Europe isn't confused at how Twitter has a lot of power: German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions [of banning Trump], saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private technology companies. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-11/merkel-se... Emmanuel Macron blasts social media platforms for banning Trump htt…

I don't think you understand free speech in the US context, Twitter is protected by the first amendment, it itself has freedom of speech and of association. It does not have to allow anything it doesn't want on its platform. It could ban everyone wearing blue in their profile photo, it is THEIR platform. If Twitter COULDN'T ban anyone they wanted under US law THEN it would be a violation of free speech.

Except the ruling that Trump could not ban people from his feed because it was considered an official government medium.

I believe that's the core case that Trump's lawyers are making in their class action lawsuit.

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/739906562/u-s-appeals-court-r...

Also, laws can change, the government should not and can not delegate things to businesses things that they cannot do themselves.

If Twitter can legally do it is one thing, should they morally do it?

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#149

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

natoliniak wrote: post #37

pjc50 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is darkly funny; of course their loyalty is to money rather than any ideology. They'll be Communists if there's money in it. After all, this enhances shareholder value for the shareholders in the US, and isn't that the one and only thing that matters to a modern company? There's no risk to the bosses and shareholders of being expropriated. Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized ..

> Well, unless Dow's local operations get seized I think Lenin once said: The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them. yep.

Not actually Lenin, but yes that's a common motif in Leninist thought : https://quoteinvestigator.com/2018/02/22/rope/

Lenin is the one that pioneered the hybrid authoritarian capitalist system that China is using right now too, so the feeling is very appropriate.

Re: Twitter begins hiring to comply with India’s new rules

#150

Post by sudosysgen » Thu, Jul 08, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

alex_smart wrote: post #90

alfalfasprout wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? I don't know the particulars of India's constitution but suppressing speech like this is generally frowned upon by democracies.

Both Japan and South Korea made more legal demands for takedown of tweets than India (with Japan making 8 times more takedown requests than India). Are they also not democracies? Source: https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/removal-requests...

Given the fact that the LDP has been ruling Japan nationally for essentially 50 years uninterrupted and every single South Korean president resigned in disgrace, it's a better question that one would think.