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Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

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Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#211

Post by abhorrence »

olivermarks wrote: post #141
ultrarunner wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you say more about how this violates 230? That wasn’t my understanding of how the law works, but I could be wrong.

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 'Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for wh…

Section 230 also says:

> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected

With that it seems reasonable to read Section 230 as "you don't have to proactively moderate, and any good faith moderation you do doesn't break that protection".

Regardless of whether or not this is the right thing for society, it seems that Facebook and Twitter are well within the bounds of section 230 to do some moderation without losing the protection of section 230.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#213

Post by La1n »

lucaspm98 wrote: post #148
raunakdag wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting that @ap is considered a leftward slant. I’m not sure if you’d consider Reuters the same at that point?

This site tends to have fairly reliable analysis of media biases, and AP falls questionably between center and leaning left. https://www.allsides.com/news-source/associated-press-media-...

>Because AP’s displays of Lean Left bias are quite infrequent, AP still warrants a Center rating.

They just rate it center. There is no single media source that will never have any bias at all. So that would mean there would never be an center.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#214

Post by jakelazaroff »

olivermarks wrote: post #188
dragonwriter wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Separately I view Twitter as breaking section 230 free speech regulatory agreements in meddling with what they 'publish' Section 230 was overtly adopted so that platforms would make efforts to censor content that they found to be objectionable; there are no "free speech regulatory agreements" associated with it. It is the only surviving part of a law whose sole and entire purpose was internet censorship, the rest o…

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 Twitter (and FB) have crossed the rubicon in editorializing other people's posts with 'fact checks' (sic), shadow bans and public bans. Practically the opposite of the free speech maxim 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' and alarmingly close to totalitarian use of their publishing power.

Your link supports GP's assertion. There is no rubicon to be crossed. Both the letter and the intent of Section 230 is to allow Twitter and Facebook to moderate however they wish. (Although the fact checks are authored by them, and therefore don't fall under Section 230; Twitter would be liable if they were shown to be defamatory).

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#215

Post by bodono »

repo001 wrote: post #126

Stoped reading after the author made an equivalent comparison between NYT and Brietbart...I mean, you're not fooling anyone with the "un-biased, unaffiliated voter just searching for the truth" shtick. It's 2020 buddy, we see what you're doing.

Thank goodness you didn't step out of your filter bubble. A close one!

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#216

Post by vaccinator »

slondr wrote: post #21
blhack wrote: post #19

To the people constantly saying that twitter is a private company and should be allowed to do whatever they want: Would you support the same idea around electrical power? If the power company providing the power to the office at the NyPost decided that they had a political disagreement with them, would it be okay to just cut off their power? NyPost could just make their own power, of course, by purchasing a generator…

Electrical power shouldn't be privately controlled.

in many places it is, but at the same time the government controls the price

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#217

Post by khawkins »

cortesoft wrote: post #160
khawkins wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mere act of making a message accessible from an internet connection is only 1% of what "publishing" is, and it's the only reason Google, Facebook, and Twitter make billions. Otherwise, the whole Geocities-type model where everyone has their own private website would be successful today. The reason these technologies are successful is that 99% of "publishing" is getting messages to the eyeballs that want to see th…

Wasn't this even MORE the case before things like Twitter and Facebook? Were people making arguments that Simon and Schuster were wrong and censoring if they decided not to publish a book? There are a LOT of books that have been written that no 'major' publisher would touch. Yeah, that means you have to go and publish the book yourself, and print your own copies. And it means that most bookstores probably won't carry…

You're suggesting that the message you just typed out has the same weight as printing a few thousand copies of a manifesto for someone and shipping that book across the country to be put in bookstores and eat the cost if it doesn't sell. In no reasonable way does the "book publisher model" resemble the "social media model".

The "social media model" is far closer to discussions you would have in a coffee shop or at a dinner party. Starbucks doesn't need to listen in on your conversations and kick you out if they're not disturbing anyone else.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#218

Post by zdragnar »

tathougies wrote: post #143
function_seven wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is not a utility. It is not common infrastructure. The Internet is, and I would not be okay with Internet access being terminated over political disagreements. But individual services? Sure, why not? For those who argue that Twitter is a de facto common platform, well these decisions are moving them away from that role. The more they exercise their own prerogatives in removing content, the more they're no lon…

> Twitter is not a utility. It is not common infrastructure. Great, then they should not be subject to section 230 protection, which protects them from liability from user-generated content. If they are a private publishing site, they should be entitled to all the privileges and responsibilities of such sites, as well established in the common law.

That makes zero sense; 230 wasn't written to be exclusive to utilities or common infrastructure. It has always applied to private publishing of third party content, so long as the content isn't editorialized by thr publisher.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#219

Post by hamsterOnWheel »

keiferski wrote: post #118

Honestly, I see this kind of action as good. The sooner the population at large realizes that Big Social aren't neutral players in the marketplace of ideas, the better. We need decentralized solutions, ASAP, and the only way that's going to happen is when normal people start caring.

The market-based solution depends on assumptions about people acting "rationally," which isn't possible with such asymmetry of information between the parties involved (media companies and individuals wanting information), and so much inertia to keep using services like Facebook long after the user even likes the service. Some kind of regulatory pressure will be absolutely necessary.

Re: Twitter still hasn't unlocked the New York Post's account

#220

Post by keiferski »

dragonwriter wrote: post #205
keiferski wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a quote from Fight Club and more of a joke than anything, IIRC.

Fight Club , though, was just fancying up and decontextualizing the first sentence of Milton (EDIT: John Maynard, nor Milton) Keynes famous quote: "In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if, in tempestuous seasons, they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again." I would be very surprised if a financial news outlet choosing the Fight Clu…

Well, if we're going to play the X is really just modified Y game, we might as well go back to the original.

One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

- Ecclesiastes, 300 B.C.E.

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