Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#481

Post by asdgopiahsogfi » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

partyboat1586 wrote: post #457

asdgopiahsogfi wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's simple fact check. Twitter is not _the_ place where political discourse happens. You're discussing politics on HN right now.

It's the place that regularly gets quoted on major networks and newspapers. This is a minority website with nowhere near as much impact.

That still doesn't make it _the_ place for political discourse. Reddit gets quoted quite often. Tons of politicians do AMA on Reddit and Facebook. Just because Trump is on Twitter doesn't make it special.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#482

Post by gamblor956 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

MrJagil wrote: post #143

krapp wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It really is a public web space that is operated by a private company No, it isn't, any more than a store is a public space because it has windows the public can see into. You have to sign up for a Twitter account and accept their terms of service to post on the site. It's a private platform run by a private company for its own private business interests.

I think that’s a simplistic view. No one is arguing Twitter is comparable to a store with a display window. The reality is that Tweets are broadcasted to billions of people. It’s a new reality. It’s a newspaper where anyone and everyone is authoring anything, including presidents, and with the roll of a die, the message is amplified to a multiple of the expected audience. Twitter may technically be a private platform…

The reality is that Tweets are broadcasted to billions of people.

No, they're not. You have to visit the Twitter website or otherwise pull the data from some source to get tweets.

it’s about ethics and morals and how we compose a society with mighty power imbalances, fortified by new tech.

It's technically trivial to create your own Twitter. There are indeed plenty of competitors to Twitter. Twitter has no moral or ethical obligation to carry lies. Indeed, the opposite is true: because of their market position, they should be ethically and morally obligated to prevent lies from being spread through their platform because they have the greatest reach.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#483

Post by Vinnl » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

JacobGoodson wrote: post #340

Regardless of ones views pertaining to the current president, does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? I do not like anyone acting as the sole arbiter of truth, whether it be the president, the pope, or the random fellow screaming in the park. I prefer that corporations trust their users to make their own choices about what people say instead of making edits or including addendum's to peoples post…

We've always had these "arbiters of truth", and I don't know of a good way around it. As long as someone's filtering what you see (be it journalists, or recommendation algorithms on social media platforms), they're influencing what gets presented to you and how - and if you don't do filtering, there's simply too much for you to get any useful information.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#484

Post by thewindowmovie2 » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

Is it not the case that the fact checking is not going to change any of Trump's followers? If all the bullshit that he has been spewing over all these years has not deterred his followers, showing facts will not. It is been clear that Trump's only agenda is to make people turn against each other and profit from it and he will keep using any chance he gets to do that.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#485

Post by SauciestGNU » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

partyboat1586 wrote: post #328

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it happens to be a private company with a bias Political speech in public squares are what the First Amendment was written to protect. “Bias” isn’t an exception.

Twitter is now that public square.

Not in any way that matters, and certainly not in the legal sense. In a legal sense, Twitter is your neighbor's backyard, and your neighbor is telling you to stop lying about sleeping with his wife or get the fuck out of his yard.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#486

Post by smeeth » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #378

smeeth wrote: post #326

Of course this is being handled ham-handedly, but it seems to me that section 230 is a ludicrous piece of legislative malfeasance that allows content publishers to duck the legal responsibilities of publishing while profiting from behavior that is obviously publishing. I can't see how a Twitter/FB feed is substantively different from a curated "letters to the editor" section in a newspaper and I cannot for the life o…

Without S230, Twitter and Facebook would not curate or moderate any content - you'd be constantly bombarded by a torrent of spam, vitriol and disinformation. With S230, companies can remove the worst, most obvious ofenses without fearing being held accountable by the things they didn't find.

That sounds to me like the outcome of both options are:

1) Toxic, awful to use sites with no personalization (custom recommendations, curation, etc)

2) Sites get more careful (and expensive to operate) because they don't want to get sued.

I really doubt #1 is even a tenable business. Who uses a site like that? On the other hand I really like the idea of more careful social media sites.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#487

Post by kanox » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #146

TheColorYellow wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its an interesting thought experiment to assess in what ways Twitter is a "private website". It really is a public web space that is operated by a private company, but I can't help but feel that the nuances and similarities of what Twitter really is and what responsibility they truly hold in society is above the courts comprehension.

Twitter is not a monopoly therefore every web site would be considered a public web space. And so if I run a knitting forum I am not allowed to restrict people who want to turn it into a pornography one. And how would it work for spam. This could end up in a situation where a large spammer could force websites to not remove spam. It sounds unworkable and over the top just to protect some people who aren't even having…

> It sounds unworkable and over the top

It easy to make it workable, just claim that general-purpose platforms beyond a certain use size become public forums where freedom of speech must be protected.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#488

Post by majormajor » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

partyboat1586 wrote: post #416

majormajor wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you suggest the government gets to decide, through your proposed regulatory agency. Looking forward to an army of bureaucrats making sure every tweet is kosher, then? An agency will last longer, with staff that lasts longer, than any single presidency. Sounds like a nightmare scenario for an "un-PC" asshole like Trump.

I'm suggesting it has the same rules as a public square, which is what Twitter is. No incitement to violence, no obscenity etc but otherwise free.

You should realize those restrictions you suggest are regulated and enforced by the government and are applied inconsistently all the fucking time. Just look at how various different demonstrations in the last 5 years have been treated, and how some of them have ended in violence.

I really don't think you, or Trump, understand the ramifications of what you're asking for. You have this ideal, naive view of what's allowed in "public squares" that doesn't seem to match what happens.

See: Trumps belief he was persecuted by other government agencies. Which he complains about on Twitter. Which would now be answering to a... government agency...

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#489

Post by superfrank » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

JacobGoodson wrote: post #340

Regardless of ones views pertaining to the current president, does anyone feel comfortable with so called "fact checking"? I do not like anyone acting as the sole arbiter of truth, whether it be the president, the pope, or the random fellow screaming in the park. I prefer that corporations trust their users to make their own choices about what people say instead of making edits or including addendum's to peoples post…

According to Twitter, the reasons they added the warning to Trump's tweet as as follows:

- Trump claimed that mail-in ballots would lead to "a Rigged Election." However, fact-checkers say there is no evidence that mail-in ballots are linked to voter fraud.

- Trump falsely claimed that California will send mail-in ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there." In fact, only registered voters will receive ballots.

- Five states already vote entirely by mail and all states offer some form of mail-in absentee voting, according to NBC News.

Also, keep in mind that Twitter did not add the warning just because they thought the information was incorrect. They added the warning because they believe it was incorrect AND because they felt it's purpose was "manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes" (https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/election-inte...).

I'm not sure how I feel about points 1 and 3, but point number 2 seems like a pretty fair reason to label the tweet with the warning, IMO. Trump provided factually incorrect information about voter registration to his millions of followers.

I agree I don't want them to decided what is right and wrong, but if they hold themselves to the rules of only labeling confirmed incorrect information about civic processes. I have no problem with what they are doing.

> The people made the platform successful, let the people decide what is wrong and what is right, what is true and what is false, what is fact is and what is fiction.

That's not what is happening anymore though. Large chunks of Twitter are not run by "the people" anymore. Twitter is in an endless battle with large groups of bots designed to present carefully curated misinformation as organic.

It's easy to say Twitter should just be hands-off and let the people decide, but that isn't an option unless your definition of "the people" is small special interest groups who have paid bot farms to push their message.

Re: Trump signs executive order targeting protections for social media companies

#490

Post by beefok » Thu, May 28, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

suyash wrote: post #368

chrisco255 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry big tech is subject to antitrust laws that have been on the books for 120+ years. The Federal Government could break Twitter up into 10 different pieces if it deemed the service a monopoly. That's not totalitarian, that's clearly justified. These platforms claim all the immunity of a utility while actively engaging in algorithmic and human-induced bias that completely slants the platform. In some cases the plat…

Great move by President Trump, social media companies think they can ban/shadow ban anyone for anything that they don't like, it's time for some reality check.

I disagree wholeheartedly with this mindset.

It comes back to the question of whether a company should be able to deny the service of a customer based on its own internal decision making. So lets use a real world example, how about a baker denying service to a person based on sexual orientation. Should the company be forced to provide a service if it goes against their conscience? I believe the answer should and always will be: No. However, the economic and social ramifications of that company denying service is at their own risk and demise. Furthermore, any company should be allowed to modify, terminate, and/or otherwise control whatever service they provide. Which is the agreed upon User Agreement Terms that all people must agree to when they sign up for a social media service. This agreement means that you acknowledge that you will play by their rules, and that you forego your First Amendment rights absolutely, at the mercy and whims of the social media company.

That is the fucking point.

Whatever users write on social media is at the complete control via the User Agreement Terms unless otherwise stated. So yes, users have full control of what they write on social media and a company has zero reason to maintain, distribute, or display any information that users create for any reason whatsoever.

Social media companies CAN ban/shadow ban anyone for anything that they don't like. You are forever at the mercy of a private company and you did so freely by agreeing to their terms. If you don't like this approach, don't use social media. Economics. I do not want an internet where a private company is forced to be the voice box of any particular political philosophy that they did not choose, let alone ANY agenda that they do not choose or agree with.

That is the danger of insisting that social media should be at the behest of the First Amendment. If a person is ignorant of this fact, they need a REAL reality check.