Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers • Hacker News Board

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#511

Post by viridian » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:53 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #450

RobotToaster wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I'm sure Florida's motivation was entirely reactionary, the fact that disney has self proclaimed "leftists" defending a literal company town shows how great their propaganda is.

We could say the same about any small town local government in the Bible Belt. Not to mention all of the people running for office who said the election was stolen or Florida that literally passed a law called “the Stop Woke Act” that forbids companies from teaching DI&E. Do you want the government to control the propaganda?

> We could say the same about any small town local government in the Bible Belt.

This isn't remotely true. Your rural local government -

a) generally has to serve the interests of its constituents, ie the fuckup mayor or do nothing member of the county commissioners board will eventually be called out, shamed in public, and lose reelection.

b) unlike Disney, does not move in lock step chasing quarterly profit - which is a very good thing, as it allows for long term cooperative efforts, like bringing a sanitation system to a small town of 800 people.

c) Are by-and-large the most useful people when it comes to pushing back against encroachment by companies who would prefer a company town. Your county commissioner, county seat mayor, etc, almost always have interests that run counter to the largest factory in the area, which is a blessing. That's not to say corruption doesn't happen, but most people are honest, and try to help the folks they represent as best they can.

Disney is far closer to the factories that try to bully, cajole, and coerce their way to a better bottom line, than it is the elected body of a rural area.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#512

Post by aw1621107 » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 2:57 PM UTC

0x445442 wrote: post #497

aw1621107 wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly. The judge tossed all of Berenson's claims that relate to government coercion [0]. The only claims that survived are those for breach of contract and promissory estoppel, which didn't have to do with alleged government coercion. > In sum, plaintiff’s breach of contract and promissory estoppel claims survive for now. Plaintiff’s other claims are futile and are DISMISSED WITHOUT LEAVE TO AMEND. [0]: https://stor…

Twitter reinstated him because he has internal communications showing Twitter colluded with the Biden administration to silence him for publishing information that went against the administration’s narrative.

That doesn't change the analysis with respect to jcranmer's comment, though, since those were not alleged in a court case, let alone a case where government coercion was deemed plausible.

Now, if Berenson sues Twitter again (and/or Biden, presumably) and the judge finds those communications (and other facts) sufficient to establish state action (i.e., the claims survive a motion to dismiss), then that may be sufficient to be a counterexample to the original comment.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#513

Post by ladyattis » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

These laws just make no sense to me. First, a website is a website is a website. Whether it's Google, Facebook, or your granny's knitting blog. You can't just say because one website has X features of interaction and Y number of unique users that it must be handled differently than others as it makes the delineation arbitrary and flimsy. There has to be a basis to say Facebook must be given extra supervision by the state that makes it clear that Facebook is not alone in its own functionality. If Facebook were made the special case then it leads to making convoluted laws that are hard to decide on.

Second, as some have already said, this is the wrong level of the Internet to manage such a concept of common carrier. Facebook isn't in the business of actually routing data between two points on the internet. Facebook handles internal data on its own internal networks that connect up to the core of the internet which then that core connects to all the edge networks (consumer facing ISPs). This approach is better as it means there's no arbitrary singling out of one provider over another (Comcast vs some random rural co-op) due to political climate. Everyone gets the same process, everyone has the same burden or benefit.

Third, this is all political theater in an age that frankly doesn't really make sense to me. How is this exactly going to get the core voters of Republicans out to the ballot box? I just see this as over the top nonsense.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#514

Post by ladyattis » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

smaryjerry wrote: post #88

sixstringtheory wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't usually get banned for their opinions. They get banned for being jerks. Try enabling showdead. There are some accounts marked as [dead] that I don't get, but the vast, vast majority of flagkilled posts and banned accounts I've seen don't deserve the product of someone else's labor to propagate their speech.

This is idealistic thinking however there are countless cases where a ban was done by a bad actor or bad algorithm, with the only recourse being a user taking their ban to another platform to complain, and if they gain enough traction on another platform then they get the ban reversed. Unfortunately that only works for large creators while small creators have zero recourse for unjust bans.

So you believe that a website should be regulated in how it manages user access? So if I have a forum for betta fish owners and I don't want spammers or trolls then I must justify my bans to some bureaucrat in DC or the state capital? Seriously, this is why I don't buy there's any good faith behind these laws.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#515

Post by ladyattis » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

honkler wrote: post #200

nrb wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares that it’s legal though? You’re on their property, committed to abiding by their terms of service even. If you’re hosting a garden party and one of the guests has become disruptive to everyone else, are you not allowed to demand they cease their behavior or leave your property just because their angry ranting is not illegal speech? You’re totally within your right to say “I’m out, this party sucks anyway, yo…

Quoted post unavailable.

Actually, Florida doesn't own the property of the private citizens whether its the network fiber, routers, or buildings which contain these items. If you can't justify such a capricious law then maybe your intention is malicious?

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#516

Post by foldr » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #505

foldr wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say, the points made in the first few paragraphs of the relevant Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States Nothing controversial, just the normally accepted historical reality.

OK, that doesn't seem to run counter to the grandparents comments?

I’m talking about this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32948728

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#517

Post by viridian » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

elil17 wrote: post #41

layer8 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also services like Cloudflare, and email providers like GMail.

It's unclear to me that email and CDNs are the kinds of natural monopolies that need to be regulated as common carriers

I disagree, especially in the case of email, as someone who has done the onerous work of running a mail server. You are at a huge market disadvantage, both as a provider, and as a client, if you are not on gmail. Google preferences gmail hosted domains when it comes to spam filtering for email, and it makes a big difference as to whether or not an email can actually land in your inbox.

The way things are now, I can't ever in good conscious recommend any small or medium sized business own any part of the email infrastructure except the MX record, I've simply seen too many cases of the financial damage caused by not using gmail as a host.

Requiring all hosts to operate on a single, fair, well defined standard would be to the benefit of the people of the United States.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#518

Post by kadoban » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:17 PM UTC

parkingrift wrote: post #464

kadoban wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The media-dubbed “don’t say gay” bill forbids kindergarten to second grade teachers from discussing sexual orientation or sexual identity. Oh, the humanity. And if that's _all_ it said you'd be exactly right. What's the rest of the text?

Don’t talk about sexual topics in a manner that is not age appropriate?

What does "not age appropriate" mean? Who gets to pick? Are they likely to pick largely based on if the person talking is gay?

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#519

Post by smaryjerry » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:22 PM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #452

smaryjerry wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There is much lower hanging fruit but if you ask someone what is more valuable to their business, phone service or social media, many would choose social media.

So these same companies are complaining that it is harder to target people because Apple has instituted the ability for people to say no to targeting. Should the government come in there? Would Truth Social like the Biden administration coming in and telling them what they can post?

I don’t think that is a common carrier issue. I’m just saying the impact of bans from social media companies, often coordinated among several at once, are more impactful than other companies already listed as common carriers. It’s not like social media is created by these companies, every piece of content shown on the websites was user created and the users deserve protection from malicious and biased actors within the companies.

Re: Florida to Supreme Court: Let us regulate social networks as common carriers

#520

Post by UncleMeat » Fri, Sep 23, 2022, 3:27 PM UTC

Consultant32452 wrote: post #510

UncleMeat wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when I was in first grade my teacher got married, showed us pictures of the wedding, and changed her last name.

Teachers are service providers. They should have no deeper emotional bond with their students than the cashier at McDonald's has with their regular customers. Students are not friends. While the isolated story of your teacher sharing her wedding pictures is not a big ordeal, it shows an underlying problem of poor boundaries. We have a pervasive problem, at least in the US, of teacher with poor mental health and poor…

I find this approach so sad. We've let the corporatization of everything build such huge walls between us as humans. Seeing every interaction as transactional and emotionless just feels like death to me.