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The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

newyorker.com

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Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#91

Post by dragonwriter »

mullingitover wrote: post #37
cm2187 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Trump has become radioactive, even within the republican party. They may not want to impeach (and I am not sure what is the point of impeaching a president after he left office) but I doubt a come back is on anyone’s mind at this stage. But Trump’s electorate will remain however.

> I am not sure what is the point of impeaching a president after he left office If a military officer commits a felony offense the week before they're discharged, I don't think the military would/should say "well you're so close to leaving, so we'll still give you an honorary discharge and a pension." I feel like the same concept applies here, otherwise we're opening the door to the president being able to commit im…

> Also, not a lawyer, but I feel like conviction after impeachment would make conviction in subsequent civil suits a slam dunk.

No, unlike a criminal conviction, I don’t think it would.

OTOH, any evidence gathered and publicly presented against Trump in the impeachment trial could be a valuable gift to those with substantially-related civil claims.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#92

Post by Chris2048 »

theplague42 wrote: post #44
flyinglizard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do these newspapers provide thought provoking articles, or just fuel confirmation bias for their readers? I was a subscriber of NYT for a few years, and the one time there was a dissenting opinion - that of Tom Cotton - it led to editors being fired. WSJ seems better, maybe because business reporting tends to be somewhat less opinionated.

Was the editor fired because of a "dissenting opinion" or because Cotton was effectively calling for martial law against protestors? The NYTimes op-ed section has plenty of dissenting opinions and/or conservatives... just not ones calling for violence.

"martial law against protestors" suggests violence against protest. What was actually suggested:

  an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers
If lawbreaker = protestors in your book, then maybe we differ in what constitutes valid protest.

Also, Cotton pre-emptively disagrees with your characterisation also:

  This [law] doesn’t amount to “martial law” or the end of democracy, as some excitable critics, ignorant of both the law and our history, have comically suggested

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#93

Post by [deleted] »

cm2187 wrote: post #7
koolk3ychain wrote: post #2

Someone really needs to give the New Yorker some serious credit for publishing what can genuinely be described as a thoughtful, well written, and objective article on social media and big tech. Bravo. I'm honestly convinced that at some point this kind of big tech social media witch burning will eventually lead to private lawsuits aimed at non-combatants like Signal and Wickr. Please leave a comment if you disagree -…

Though the article doesn’t mention the coordinated and active censoring of the NY Post story, even in private conversations, which was already a heavy stroke of interference in the elections. It’s a lot of precedents. And there is nothing that suggests the temperature will cool down in the short term. I agree that big tech companies may do a lot more collateral damage but in my opinion they also already painted thems…

[deleted]

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

paganel wrote: post #11
cm2187 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though the article doesn’t mention the coordinated and active censoring of the NY Post story, even in private conversations, which was already a heavy stroke of interference in the elections. It’s a lot of precedents. And there is nothing that suggests the temperature will cool down in the short term. I agree that big tech companies may do a lot more collateral damage but in my opinion they also already painted thems…

> Republicans will get back to power sooner or later and I think we should expect a regulatory backlash. It depends which type of Republicans, right now it looks like the party is de facto split in two. Even though today's vote showed that they still think the Trump side will win out in the medium to long term, otherwise I can't explain why they chose to face the media storm directly and voted against impeachment.

> Even though today’s vote showed that they still think the Trump side will win out in the medium to long term, otherwise I can’t explain why they chose to face the media storm directly and voted against impeachment.

Personal fear of the people whose affection for Trump led them to erect a gallows and storm the Capitol with weapons, restraints, etc., screaming “Hang Mike Pence!” when Pence merely wouldn’t steal an election for him could also be a factor.

While I think it would be cowardly to withhold action on that basis, I don’t think anyone in their position could fail to have significant fear that betraying the GOP base by supporting impeachment would be painting a giant target on themselves for violent domestic extremists who are often more even more hostile to betrayal from “their side” than they are to the other side (to whom they are plenty hostile to start with.)

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#95

Post by ccortes »

imgabe wrote: post #50
ghaff wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One can simultaneously roll their eyes about slippery slopes, argue that this is simply banning obvious illegal activities, etc.--and be at least a little bit discomfited that a bunch of private companies can basically disappear someone from public discourse if they want to. Mind you. Historically most people didn't have access to a platform anyway. And the record from at least some players like AWS is that their ban…

Most people didn't use to have a platform like Twitter where you could instantaneously reach the whole world, no. But the argument was always "If you don't like it just build your own thing". So, sure, maybe the NYTimes didn't have to publish you, but you could go buy a mimeograph or a printing press and put out your own newsletter, even if you had to stand on the street corner and hand it out yourself. But now the c…

>For one thing, this requires us to trust that the gatekeepers who control access are always going to be fair and just and only shut out genuinely bad actors. There's needs to be a process where anyone who wants to can still see and inspect the banned speech to audit whether it was really worth banning or not.

How is this different from what we have today? Who decides what's really worth banning? Why should that person/entity and not another one?

There's no end to this, there's always going to be a something that is just completely arbitrary. IMO the only "solution" is to have a truly decentralized platform.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#96

Post by rdiddly »

dragonwriter wrote: post #89
rdiddly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it a bit rambly and got annoyed at the "wow these are tough questions no one can ever answer" sentiment. Glenn Greenwald a.k.a. "the guy who helped Snowden get the word out" and could be described as a disillusioned liberal, seems to have clearer principles and hence wrote a clearer article: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/how-silicon-valley-in-a-sho... One of the takeaways that nobody's really talking about…

> Glenn Greenwald a.k.a. “the guy who helped Snowden get the word out” and could be described as a disillusioned liberal, Greenwald might be a disillusioned Leftist ( not liberal), but then, so the original neoconservatives were disillusioned Trotskyites. Disillusionment is what spawns radical conversion and radical converts are often the least-open-minded, most most fact-averse, ideological crusaders. > if we’re goi…

Just as often, the disillusioned are perfectly open-minded. Especially in cases where the dissent from former colleagues centers around the very issue of open-mindedness, as it does with Greenwald. In general and in this case it behooves us to ask what caused the disillusionment. Sometimes the people on your side betray the principles you thought you all had in common, for example. Which is what happened with Greenwald's former colleagues at The Intercept (which ironically he founded) and I would say is happening with the Democratic party in big ways, ever since Bill Clinton's time. When the "left" started cozying up to big money and selling out poor working people, it ceased being on the "left," and you could have predicted today's political climate and events without much effort.

You're right about the scope of section 230, and given that Parler is not considered a publisher or speaker (which I think is appropriate), there is currently nothing else to consider holding them liable for, so I was using shorthand. I'm actually mostly talking about each person's individual opinion. Personally "holding them liable" for anything at this point depends on a guilt-by-association argument.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#97

Post by flyinglizard »

d1zzy wrote: post #83
flyinglizard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was absolutely nothing outrageous in Cotton's op-ed. Mind, the same National Guard that Cotton was calling for was now sent to the Capitol, and I don't think NYT was up in arms. That aside, he's a public representative of the highest order (a Senator). He needs to be heard whether we like it or not. I've not seen any public representative being censored in the country I'm from, that including opinion pieces fro…

> That aside, he's a public representative of the highest order (a Senator). He needs to be heard whether we like it or not. And to achieve that you're going to force businesses to host content that hurts their bottom line (the loss of income from the advertisers that will pull out from working with a company that hosts such content). > This is clearly a US thing. In the country where you live all news organizations…

>> And to achieve that you're going to force businesses to host content that hurts their bottom line (the loss of income from the advertisers that will pull out from working with a company that hosts such content).

NYT makes more money from subscriptions than from ads (60% vs 30%), and as a (formerly) paying subscriber I'd like to think it lends them some independence. That aside, many other news sources would find Sen. Cotton's opinions pretty mainstream (certainly these opinions may have even had majority across the general public) and publish such views just fine, without advertisers pulling out.

>> In the country where you live all news organizations are forced to publish everything a politician says?

Of course not. They publish on their own accord, and extremists get an outsized exposure because they are interesting to read (just like click baits, right?). It's how I'd have expected most news organizations to work, you know: reporting on the unusual and unexpected. For me, NYT stopped being a news organization the moment it decided some opinions are forbidden from being published: not because they are fringe (a significant part of the American public agreed with Cotton), not because they come from fringe sources (he's a Senator after all), but because they are contrarian.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

cm2187 wrote: post #15
paganel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Republicans will get back to power sooner or later and I think we should expect a regulatory backlash. It depends which type of Republicans, right now it looks like the party is de facto split in two. Even though today's vote showed that they still think the Trump side will win out in the medium to long term, otherwise I can't explain why they chose to face the media storm directly and voted against impeachment.

I think Trump has become radioactive, even within the republican party. They may not want to impeach (and I am not sure what is the point of impeaching a president after he left office) but I doubt a come back is on anyone’s mind at this stage. But Trump’s electorate will remain however.

> They may not want to impeach (and I am not sure what is the point of impeaching a president after he left office)

Trump has already been impeached the second time (it didn’t happen after he left office.)

Conviction after he left office would be limited to a lifetime bar on future office (assuming it is legal at all, but I suspect that were it challenged it would be found to be), but the main purpose would arguably not be the actual disability to Trump, but drawing a line of accountability for Presidents in general. (Politically, it would also be an opportunity for some Republicans to concretely distance themselves from Trump, which they may see as beneficial for future elections.)

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#99

Post by dragonwriter »

rdiddly wrote: post #96
dragonwriter wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Glenn Greenwald a.k.a. “the guy who helped Snowden get the word out” and could be described as a disillusioned liberal, Greenwald might be a disillusioned Leftist ( not liberal), but then, so the original neoconservatives were disillusioned Trotskyites. Disillusionment is what spawns radical conversion and radical converts are often the least-open-minded, most most fact-averse, ideological crusaders. > if we’re goi…

Just as often, the disillusioned are perfectly open-minded. Especially in cases where the dissent from former colleagues centers around the very issue of open-mindedness, as it does with Greenwald. In general and in this case it behooves us to ask what caused the disillusionment. Sometimes the people on your side betray the principles you thought you all had in common, for example. Which is what happened with Greenwa…

> You’re right about the scope of section 230, and given that Parler is not considered a publisher or speaker (which I think is appropriate), there is currently nothing else to consider holding them liable for,

Generally, relieving them of being found to be the “publisher or speaker” of content they distribute would leave them as a distributor, having civil liability for content where they have actual (or constructive) knowledge of unlawful content that they distribute, rather than liability independent of their knowledge of the content based on the presumption of control that goes with status as a publisher.

Re: The platforms have acted, raising hard questions about technology and democracy

#100

Post by mullingitover »

alasdair_ wrote: post #78
mullingitover wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am not sure what is the point of impeaching a president after he left office If a military officer commits a felony offense the week before they're discharged, I don't think the military would/should say "well you're so close to leaving, so we'll still give you an honorary discharge and a pension." I feel like the same concept applies here, otherwise we're opening the door to the president being able to commit im…

>Also, not a lawyer, but I feel like conviction after impeachment would make conviction in subsequent civil suits a slam dunk. I doubt it. Congress can impeach for almost anything - it doesn't have to be anything illegal - they just need to have enough votes for it.

> Congress can impeach for almost anything - it doesn't have to be anything illegal - they just need to have enough votes for it.

I know this part is true. However, and again I'm not a lawyer, but I think inciting an insurrection is actually illegal?

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