Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

sciencemag.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 335 posts

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#241

Post by zarkov99 »

beowulfey wrote: post #216
lliamander wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, few other companies will do business with anyone trying to compete with Twitter. Parler was nuked. Gab was almost nuked, but they've managed to survive. There's a huge demand for alternatives to Twitter, but other major tech companies, the corporate press, and many politicians are doing everything in their power to crush those alternatives and prevent them from springing up.

Huge demand is maybe an overstatement. A quick google search shows me that Parler had ~4 million active users a couple weeks ago. Twitter has >300 million. That’s about 1-2%. I don’t think that qualifies as huge.

Parler had 12 million users at the time it was executed by Amazon.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#242

Post by dragonwriter »

mc32 wrote: post #128
sitzkrieg wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at the end of the day twitter has the right to close whatever account they so choose

Legally, yes. But given the prominence and importance it has with regards to disseminating news and opinion, I think it’s their responsibility to take their obligation seriously. The phones at one time we’re not “utilities”. Social media may become the next regulated utility given its importance.

Phones aren’t a utility merely because of their general importance, but because of the specific importance to the public interest of having a single, universal telephone network.

I don’t think there is a great public interest in a single curated (algorithmically and/or manually) user-generated-content newsfeed system. In fact, insofar as such a category of product is desirable, I think that the public interest is in competition and freedom to differentiate, including in terms of content focus and preferences within the bounds of the law, just as is the case with, say, news outlets that aren’t driven by UGC.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#243

Post by Karunamon »

beebmam wrote: post #203
HarryHirsch wrote: post #11

Twitter has no business inserting itself into a dispute between Elbakyan and Elsevier et al. Few people would have issues if Twitter shut down the Sci-Hub account after they received a valid court order, but a private monopolist cannot be trusted to be the arbiter of what is permitted speech.

Why should we FORCE twitter to publish the speech of someone they don't want to publish? Doesn't that itself infringe on free speech?

As I've heard so often in the last few months, "freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences". If they intend to hide behind legal minimums, that is their right, but society is free to retaliate in other ways.

For instance, their (and all other social network) S230 liability protection could be tied to specific conduct, such as no arbitrary bans.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#244

Post by paul_f »

dickbar wrote: post #22

This move is bold and refreshing. I think Facebook and Amazon should also be taking action (assuming sci hub is using AWS and people are posting links to it on FB and organizing groups). It’s only fair that, in case of breach of any law, regardless of where it comes from, that same measures be applied in each and every case. I’m sure HN would agree given what has transpired over the last week. Edit: I missed to inclu…

I wish Facebook and Twitter would ban everything I don't like. That seems healthy.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#246

Post by carapeco »

bob1029 wrote: post #208
specktr wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your alternative method to reach a mass audience?

Produce something of actual intrinsic value and the word usually gets out on its own. Find smaller communities that are more focused on what you actually care about. Targeting the entire internet as your desired audience is the root cause of most of our troubles today.

That's a lot of wishful thinking

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#247

Post by brutal_chaos_ »

guerrilla wrote: post #185
brutal_chaos_ wrote: post #179

Twitter is helping the argument that platforms are to be content moderators. This kills 230. This will entrench Twitter as one of the few social media services capable, due to the need to moderate at scale.

Creating a giant barrier to entry for competition?

Yes, because of the tooling that will be an upfront requirement and cost.

However, as pointed out elsewhere, much litigation is still needed to really understand the extent of 230 and thus, "this is like my own opinion, man."

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#248

Post by throwaway0a5e »

Fnoord wrote: post #213
skissane wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even more messed up is the fact that some jurisdictions will criminally prosecute 14 year olds for sending nude pictures of themselves. (I do think 14 year olds should be discouraged from taking and sending nude pictures of themselves – it is the sort of thing they could easily come to regret in a few more years – but I don't think criminal prosecution is an ethical way of providing that discouragement.)

I don't know. Receiver could delete picture ASAP, and discourage behavior. If they keep, spread, or encourage they're complicit. Of course, there's a difference in severity between 1 nude of 1 person, or a myriad, or being an adult with a myriad. Sender getting prosecuted for spreading their own nude as minor might be weird, but also makes sense. Its not as if they'd be a registered sex offender as a minor. Put this…

>Put this way: what if it was an illegal firearm? We can't just turn a blind eye to youth breaking law, but

I don't think you realize just how common this is. There are very few people managing high school and college machine shops who haven't helped cover up an NFA violation. Even outside that making oil filter silencers for .22 rifles (or other cheap guns high schoolers have access to) is not at all uncommon. Eventually most grow out of it (i.e. they have a real life and the risk reward calculus changes).

Likewise teenagers routinely get exposed to hard drugs and "the system" is the last thing that helps that.

Damn near every adult has a bunch of "I'd be in prison if the caught me" stories from high school.

So yeah, I think we should handle both with a stern talking too about federal prison and not much else. Most kids will mature out of this behavior and it's not worth risking screwing all of them to try and pre-emptively save the few that won't grow out of it.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#249

Post by Karunamon »

tptacek wrote: post #233
splistud wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I expect that you are correct. However, allowing an org to act as a publisher by heavily curating who is allowed to use their 'forum' is having wide-ranging consequences for our society. As they are occupying a spot in the regulatory scheme that they no longer deserve, redressing this with regulation is necessary.

I don't think anyone wants another long thread recapitulating the whole debate about Twitter's obligations to to society; they can just read the thousands of HN comments that have been written in the last week about it. What I will say is, however you hope to resolve this problem, eliminating the 230 protections is probably not the right way to go about it if you want providers like Twitter to be less intrusive, or f…

What do you think about not nuking 230, but making its protections reliant on specific conduct? We can sidestep the 1A issue altogether since these companies would do anything to avoid being held responsible for the libelous, harassing, defamatory, threatening and sometimes terroristic content that their users post every day. That is nothing short of a gift given by the government, and it can be modified or restricted.

Moderation doesn't scale, so I think this is a case of either do what 230 requires or cease existing as a going concern - either of these would be good outcomes, so this is a powerful lever.

Some ideas in no particular order; a platform owner is only shielded from liability inasmuch as they (choose as many as applicable):

1. Provide a forthright accounting of any negative actions taken against an account (no shadowbans, no silent editing or hiding of content from discovery) at the time the action is taken with a forthright explanation of how the conduct broke the stated rules.

2. Provide an appeals process for bans/negative actions run by a neutral third party, with any ambiguity resolved in favor of the appellant.

3. Do not make or enforce ex-post-facto rule changes

4. Demonstrate no pattern of unfair or unequal application of the stated rules

5. If a ban is issued, a "wind-down" period must be granted to allow the banned user time to move what they can of their social network somewhere else.

6. Upon request, your own account's data must be provided in full.

OR

7. Remain completely hands-off from a content removal standpoint. Content is removed if it is either literally illegal or breaks the service and under no other circumstance.

This last one would still allow for spam filtering and content categorization, which would allow the user experience to change little from today, and puts the most control in the hands of individual users.

Re: Twitter shuts down account of Sci-Hub

#250

Post by konjin »

unityByFreedom wrote: post #237
apple_innocent wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. They have to pick one or the other. The arguments I am seeing online are folks who have chosen one or the other and are arguing from their…

> These massive websites/broadcast SMS cannot have it both ways. They cannot seek the protections of being "critical infrastructure" of any sort, common carrier, public forum, etc. and then, at the same time, disable user accounts for any reason just like any other private website. It's never been proposed that platforms like Twitter become common carriers. That designation was intended for the layer beneath them, IS…

And ISPs were not common carriers until they were. It was only meant for the layer underneath them: telcos. The world changes and we should not be stuck with the technology of the 80s until the end of time.
Post reply on HN