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ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

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Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#201

Post by sokoloff »

ergocoder wrote: post #194
yoav wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So your position is that you can walk into any private business that offers free cookies (eg. A car dealership or bank) and then hold a rally to incite violence in that establishment and you believe they’d have to go to court to have you removed from their private property? Your twitter account is not a product. The product is sold to advertisers. And even the ads they will or won’t show has guidelines they are not l…

In your imaginary scenario, the shop owner would get to safety and call police to handle the matter. The shop owner wouldn't be the one who judge and come up with punishment. The justice system would do that. That's my position. Twitter is an important communication platform. And there should be a due process for banning an elected leader.

Should Twitter have to go to court to ban an account because it happens to belong to some [elected] school committee member in some small town somewhere? If not, where do you draw the line? State governors? Town Mayors? Town School Committee Members?

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#202

Post by ergocoder »

sokoloff wrote: post #201
ergocoder wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your imaginary scenario, the shop owner would get to safety and call police to handle the matter. The shop owner wouldn't be the one who judge and come up with punishment. The justice system would do that. That's my position. Twitter is an important communication platform. And there should be a due process for banning an elected leader.

Should Twitter have to go to court to ban an account because it happens to belong to some [elected] school committee member in some small town somewhere? If not, where do you draw the line? State governors? Town Mayors? Town School Committee Members?

It doesnt sound hard to figure it out.

Let's go with the president/senates of the most powerful country on the planet first.

Ultimately, we should apply to every official leader of every country. But that can come later.

Yes, we can get the court order (or whatever it is, I'm not familiar with the name) to forbid Trump from using Twitter.

We do this all the time while performing investigation (e.g. forbidding a person to travel after making bail).

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#203

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

DenisM wrote: post #200
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's a reasonable argument - it's just very different from the idea that someone literally cannot communicate their message if they're not allowed to do it on Twitter.

Would you agree that the market place of ideas is crippled by the presence of a “monopoly”? Not destroyed as a government could do, but crippled.

I don't think it is. There was a time in the 90s when AOL was in a similarly dominant position with much stricter moderation policies, but the marketplace of ideas never felt crippled. Everyone just understood that the AOL sandbox was a sanitized common ground, and if you wanted frank discussions on complex or controversial topics you needed to go elsewhere. (And I don't know of any topic, no matter how controversial or offensive, that doesn't have some active forum where it's regularly discussed.)

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#204

Post by sokoloff »

ergocoder wrote: post #202
sokoloff wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should Twitter have to go to court to ban an account because it happens to belong to some [elected] school committee member in some small town somewhere? If not, where do you draw the line? State governors? Town Mayors? Town School Committee Members?

It doesnt sound hard to figure it out. Let's go with the president/senates of the most powerful country on the planet first. Ultimately, we should apply to every official leader of every country. But that can come later. Yes, we can get the court order (or whatever it is, I'm not familiar with the name) to forbid Trump from using Twitter. We do this all the time while performing investigation (e.g. forbidding a perso…

The devil is in the details, as usual.

http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... (skip to "credit card buckets")

When twitter was launched, would George W Bush have been granted a non-suspendable account on day 1?

Should Biden get a non-suspendable Parler account on Jan 21?

Would the members of the House of Representatives also be non-suspendable or is that for Senators only?

California is larger than many countries by many measures. Should California's elected leaders have the same privileges as Italy's or the Netherlands'?

"It doesn't sound hard to figure it out" hides a lot of complexity which needs to be dealt with. To me, it actually does sound fairly hard (or labor-intensive at a minimum) to figure it out to a level of detail required to pass a law.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#206

Post by buckybuck »

Especially the combined ban on Parler, Apple, Google, and Amazon together just destroyed that company. In that same tune its like twitter being blamed for any crime committed or planned on facebook and the ISP just dropping twitter. It is insane, Google, Twitter, Facebook pretty much control most of the information that is on the www. Furthermore, the have AI designed to get the most reactions out of people. "Reactions" in the case of the last few years has been anger and hatered on both sides.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#207

Post by yuliyp »

miles wrote: post #28
yuliyp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding the ACLU's arguments here. They're fairly consistently pro free-speech, mostly regardless of what that means. There's not much handwringing from them about "bad" speech because they're OK with bad speech being out there. I don't think they're fans of Trump, as their statement makes clear, but they're worried about the precedent that banning him sets.

> they're OK with bad speech being out there Might be time for a bit more nuanced view: Facebook admits it was used to 'incite offline violence' in Myanmar https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46105934 Four dead in Bangladesh riot over offensive Facebook post https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/21/asia/riot-deaths-facebook-pos... A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military https://www.nytimes.com/2018/1…

> Might be time for a bit more nuanced view

That's a valid view for you to hold. I was just pointing out that the ACLU does not hold the same view. Their arguments in this case feel consistent with their own previous views, even while it's at odds with your views.

Re: ACLU Counsel Warns of 'Unchecked Power' of Twitter, Facebook

#208

Post by ergocoder »

sokoloff wrote: post #204
ergocoder wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesnt sound hard to figure it out. Let's go with the president/senates of the most powerful country on the planet first. Ultimately, we should apply to every official leader of every country. But that can come later. Yes, we can get the court order (or whatever it is, I'm not familiar with the name) to forbid Trump from using Twitter. We do this all the time while performing investigation (e.g. forbidding a perso…

The devil is in the details, as usual. http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-legali... (skip to "credit card buckets") When twitter was launched, would George W Bush have been granted a non-suspendable account on day 1? Should Biden get a non-suspendable Parler account on Jan 21? Would the members of the House of Representatives also be non-suspendable or is that for Senators only? California is large…

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Let's just start with the most powerful person on the planet first, which POTUS, on the most popular social networks, which are FB and Twitter.

We don't need to figure now what to do with, for example, a senate from Namibia.

My position is that, if we are gonna ban an elected leader, let's get a judge to issue a court order.

It's the same thing with search warrant or the arrest, and we can do that in a timely manner.

The problem that I see is that nobody is pushing for having a proper process at all.

Also, our tax law is like 100x more complex than this. So, yeah, it doesn't sound hard.

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