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Every time this subject comes up, someone inevitably says something like "Facebook is a private corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government, and if you want to use Facebook you have to play by their rules. No one is owed a platform." Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies. They are the only services in their class to take seriously if you're looking to gain a follow…
Every time this subject comes up, someone inevitably says something like "Facebook is a private corporation, the first amendment only applies to the government, and if you want to use Facebook you have to play by their rules. No one is owed a platform." Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are basically monopolies. They are the only services in their class to take seriously if you're looking to gain a follow…
Let's not forget that the SCOTUS has ruled Twitter is an official communications platform of the White House. Therefore Trump is not able to block people. It's a weird legal ruling, and it's hard to imagine this doesn't have implications for the rest of us. Can Twitter block you from participating in official White House communications?
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Let's not forget that the SCOTUS has ruled Twitter is an official communications platform of the White House. Therefore Trump is not able to block people. It's a weird legal ruling, and it's hard to imagine this doesn't have implications for the rest of us. Can Twitter block you from participating in official White House communications?
I think the difference is that you can still read Trump's tweets if you're banned from Twitter, but you cannot read Trump's tweets if you're blocked by Trump on Twitter. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCNIGiUUIAALZrR.jpg
It’s only unfortunate that it took social networks this long to ban their toxic behavior and talk. These people did a lot of damage. A lot. All in the name of free speech. And to those saying, just because Facebook can, doesn’t mean they should. These people had the same freedom. Just because they can, they shouldn’t. But they chose hatred. And here we are. You reap what you sow. Facebook doesn’t owe them anything. E…
> These people did a lot of damage. A lot. Like what? If this damage is so prevalent then it should be easy to cite something specific.
Gene Rosen, a Newtown resident who was reported to have sheltered six Sandy Hook students and a bus driver in his home during the shooting, has been subject to harassment online alleging he was complicit in a government coverup,[58] among other things.[59] Some journalists have cited such incidents as part of a "Sandy Hook Truther Movement" analogous to the 9/11 Truth movement.[47][60][49] A writer for the Calgary Herald reported that the movement self-identifies as "Operation Terror."[55]
In May 2014, Andrew David Truelove stole a memorial sign from playgrounds dedicated to victims Grace McDonnell and Chase Kowalski.[61] He then went on to call the parents of Grace McDonnell, proclaiming that he stole the sign and that he believed their deaths were a "hoax".[62] He was arrested on May 30, and the signs were found in his home.[63] Truelove was convicted of the theft and sentenced to one year in prison.[64]
Robbie Parker, the father of victim Emilie Parker – after doing a CNN interview on the day after the shooting – became the target of conspiracy theorists, who claimed the interview was staged.[65] Parker has been attacked by theorists who believe he is a "crisis actor" and was "getting into character" before going on CNN to grieve over the loss of his child.[65]
In April 2016, Matthew Mills, a man from Brooklyn, accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors on one count of interfering with police arising from an incident in November 2015, when Mills angrily approached the sister of murdered teacher Victoria Soto—who is regarded as a heroine for her attempt to protect her students from the shooter in the Sandy Hook attack—shoved a photograph in her face, "and began angrily charging that not only did the Sandy Hook tragedy not take place, but that Victoria Soto never existed."[66][67] Mills entered an Alford plea and was thus found guilty; he was given a suspended sentence of one year in jail and two years' probation.[66]
In December 2016, Lucy Richards, a woman from Tampa, was charged with four counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce for sending death threats to Lenny Pozner, whose son Noah was the youngest of 20 children murdered.[68][69] Pozner has been particularly targeted by Internet trolls and conspiracy theorists because he has vocally fought back against them.[70] Richards had been expected to plead guilty to one count of transmitting threats, with both the prosecution and defense to recommend a sentence of probation and house arrest. However, in March 2017, Richards—who was free on bond—failed to show up to court for a change-of-plea hearing and sentencing. An arrest warrant was issued, Richards' bond was revoked, and she was soon apprehended.[71] On June 7, 2017, Richards was sentenced to five months' imprisonment.[72]
Also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory#Ha...
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john...
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Let's take your argument that these corporations are monopoly as truth for a moment, there are still rules. In the USA, just because we have the first amendment doesn't mean you're not responsible for your words. Fighting words is a thing (it's actually a term), verbal harassment is a thing, etc... Alex Jones from InfoWar sic his followers to harass the Sandy Hook victims' parents. He was free to say what he wants an…
that was ages ago. he has apologised for questioning sandy hook and talked about it many times, including the recent joe rogan talk. can people not make mistakes? once we're wrong, are we always wrong?
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This is not relevant. Some people get the right to internet access. They don't get the right to say what they want where they want without moderation.
Not irrelevant. The OP said that "no one is entitled to online speech". That's an unqualified statement which my link disproves. If they had instead qualified it as, "no one has a right to speech on Facebook", that's a different claim (arguably also false depending on the circumstances).
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There is the legal idea of free speech, which constrains Congress, but also the moral idea of free speech which says you should let people with different opinions talk to each other and work out their disagreements verbally. Facebook is, of course, not violating the legal principle of free speech. They are absolutely violating the moral principle. In the same way, if someone came over to your house and made some poli…
Someone comes to your house. Your private property. They proceed to call your daughter a whore. Do you and your daughter kick them out? Or Do you and your daughter try to explain to them why your daughter's not a whore while you all sit in your living room? It's a personal dilemma. I'll admit it. But for my part, the guy's getting thrown out on his rear if he insults my daughters, significant other, or my mother or g…
As I've mentioned the purpose of free speech is not to allow any person to deliver any collection of words. The purpose of free speech is to allow people to discuss different ideas. When, and to the extent that, you prevent discussion of ideas, you are opposing the moral principle of free speech.
If someone were to insult my daughter they'd be communicating the idea "Let's fight". If someone were to tell me that they discovered my daughter were engaging in prostitution, not as an insult, but to talk about it with me, of course that would be very different. I'd want to know so I could talk to her about it and find out what was going in her life. The issue is not the words, but the intent. Insults aren't welcome in my home. Sharing important information certainly is.
I would have no complaint if insults were banned on Facebook, or people were prevented from being mean to one another. I would also have no complaint if larger accounts were subjected to harsher scrutiny than smaller ones. That's not what's happening though. Some people, with certain political ideas, are punished for nominally violating rules. This is an effort to prevent discussing these ideas and is, as I mentioned, absolutely a violation of free speech.
Facebook is, of course, legally free to violate free speech. That's their choice. Likewise, it's my choice to criticize it and point out hypocrisy to the extent that they claim to support the free exchange of ideas.
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I'm not fully thought out on this, but I think a decent starting analogy would be to a public square or space in a city. These companies hold a monopoly on the online equivalent of that because of the way network effects work.
USENET was the equivalent of a public square on the Internet. It was overwhelmed by spam. These networks have been curated from the get-go, for no reason other than to control spam. Then, to keep people hooked, they emphasized virality and controversy. These aspects make them quite unlike a town square.
Even worse.
It's always funny when these threads come up and people who ostensibly hold the progressive viewpoint that corporations have an inordinate amount of power and influence suddenly pull out their Ayn Rand books and Gadsden flags and argue that corporations should be able to do anything they want because they are a private entity.
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> These people did a lot of damage. A lot. Like what? If this damage is so prevalent then it should be easy to cite something specific.
Alex Jones popularized a propagated the myth of "Crisis Actors" and that Sandy Hook was a hoax. Trolls on the internet telling parents that their children aren't really dead, that they should exhume their bodies to prove that they really died, that they are being paid by the shadow government, that their grief looked too fake - all of this is real harm. We can talk about the doxing and the stalking and the harassment…
