61–70 of 112 posts
Having the government govern free speech doesn't get you free speech. If the problem is social media companies that are so large they suck up all the air in the room then solve THAT problem and enforce existing anti-monopoly laws.
One could argue that it was unreasonable for Twitter to give him special extra leeway compared to other users, up until it finally decided it did not have to continue making special concessions for him.
Of course the tech companies which provide platforms must do some enforcement of the content being presented by its users. If that content is illegal in a given jurisdiction, then the tech company can face penalties or complete shutdown if it does not make an effort to police its users.
The difficulty comes in deciding what speech should be allowed and which should be suppressed. Even without the governmental legal jeopardy the companies face, the US is a very litigious land. Anyone with a motivated lawyer or enough money can sue the platform for enabling speech that they find personally damaging. And of course with content "owned" by an entity, that entity can sue the platform for allowing their content to be distributed illegally.
If [edit typo carification: if you] setup an account on xing.com (German LinkedIn-like service) and put as your profile description that the Holocaust never happened, you can be sure the platform will suppress your speech or kick you off completely. It is hypocritical for Merkel to point at Twitter when she surely supports similar tech powers locally.
The fact that Europeans are standing up for free speech while the United States is not speaks volumes to how things have changed in the US over the last few decades. Have our politics really gone so far down the "Win at all costs! Censor all other opinions!" rabbit hole that speech here is now less free than Europe? Before you parrot the "but.. but... inciting violence" talking point in reply, try to find an actual s…
The first amendment never anticipated the public square to be privately owned. Unfortunately I feel things will have to get much worse before people start listening to the adults in the room again, and enact sensible reforms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not only that, Merkel's party is a significant driver in laws and regulations that reduce user internet anonymity. Considering that multiple politicians voiced this opinion at surprisingly similar time this seems like some coordinated PR thing. They probably just realised that the same could happen to them and that they might have their communication channels cut off when they inevitably try to break up the big US te…
> "multiple politicians voiced this opinion at surprisingly similar time this seems like some coordinated PR thing" It's not "surprisingly similar" when a lot of people start putting on jackets when it gets cold. Reactions to a common cause does not require coordinated action.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies. This is about who gets to make the decisions, not what the decisions are.
I'd be much more worried about governments telling me what I can/can't say, rather than private companies not letting me use their platforms to say it.
Having the government govern free speech doesn't get you free speech. If the problem is social media companies that are so large they suck up all the air in the room then solve THAT problem and enforce existing anti-monopoly laws.
Unfortunately, I think even outside the oligopolies of tech, we have another underlying issue where even in a competitive market, market consensus can arrive that runs counter to democratic ideals.
I'd be surprised if all the tech providers actively coordinated on this. I'd be more willing to believe they all saw Trump as a threat to business and an overhanging risk for their business they tackled at an opportune time. One or two set the stage for the market (Twitter and Facebook) and then the rest followed through based on observed market feedback from Twitter/Facebook's actions, arriving at a concensus to censor Trump.
To be very clear, I don’t like Trump whatsoever and think he has clearly manipulated masses of people for years. At the same time, I don't think Trump directly violated policies. He's largely acted in the questionable grey areas of culture and society to push his will and has been quite effective at it.
This really brings into question underlying foundational principles surrounding free speech limitations and free speech protections, privatized communications' role in modern political discussions (essential to democracy), how we protect against oligopies or natural market consensus that may be harmful to underlying foundations to democracy, and so forth.
In this case I think we saw the oligopies and market concensus actually help democracy by protecting against a ridiculous yet growing insurrection attempt. What happens if that control or market consensus shifts to help businesses over consumers or general citizens of the US? There's clearly a lot of unchecked power here that needs to be corralled.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly, the comment meant baseless violence. Violence to protect the helpless from violence is acceptable.
They asked for an example of Trump "calling for violence" on Twitter, which I provided. Your response: That's calling for violence but the GOOD kind. It isn't up to Twitter to decide if an individual's brand of violence calling is the good or bad kind, it violates their policies.
Trumps calls for Law and Order, to use legal remedies to clamp down on disorder in society, ethical or not, would not be considered by most a "Call for Violence"
However calls for protestors to "burn it all down" would be a "call for violence"
//for the record I do not think either should be censored, but I am a free speech absolutist so...
Not an expert on freedom of online speech by any means, but how come private companies saying what the US president does is violation of their policy is a freedom of speech issue? When this happens to an ordinary user of the platform, is it freedom of speech issue as well? You accept terms and conditions when you signup, it's as simple as that. Why being the US president should give you right to be exempt from that policy?
If US president wants to talk, it has its official channels, he can organize meeting every day that they can host 100s of journalists. If US president wants he can write whatever he wants at his website. I really don't understand why political leaders continuously picture things like social media websites are the only medium the president can talk at?
I have criticism for the social media sites tho, if the president of where I'm from was doing what Trump has been doing I'm pretty sure they wouldn't give a damn and wouldn't take any actions. If social media companies want people to believe to their policies, they must apply them to everyone.