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U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#981

Post by dane-pgp »

bheadmaster wrote: post #836
robertwt7 wrote: post #833

I don’t really understand the law, and I agree that big tech shouldn’t be able to regulate online speech. However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Other than that, I agree that no one should be censored for any reason I guess it is a hard topic to define which one is the limit of freedom of “speech”

> However one thing that I’m confused is, what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? It is questionable whether or not censoring such views actually brings any benefit at all. One counterargument would be that people who are censored actually feel empowered to pursue their ideals more strongly, since it reinforces their belief that there is some conspiracy tha…

> I'm fairly sure that reds are not a minority in the US (since they managed to win the election 2017)

The election in 2017 tells us almost nothing about whether reds are a minority in the US, since that year only saw the counting of electoral votes, which it was possible to win with 27% of the popular vote, or 23% in 2012 (assuming we're talking about the presidential vote).[0]

If you mean the presidential (non-binding) popular vote in 2016, then the blues won by 66 million to 63 million.[1] That may not be a big enough difference to explain the bias you think you're seeing on Reddit, but it's worth considering that there was less than 56% turnout in that election, and it's possible that non-voters are over-represented on Reddit (not least because Reddit users may not be old enough to vote).

[0] https://www.npr.org/2016/11/02/500112248/how-to-win-the-pres...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#983

Post by philjohn »

thrown_22 wrote: post #975
philjohn wrote: post #864

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So a theatre can't evict someone for ruining the performance for everyone? A concert venue can't evict someone for smuggling in alcohol?

what theatre can hold a million people?

You said more than two dozen and it becomes a defacto public square.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#984

Post by dane-pgp »

adrr wrote: post #959
wrinklz wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't Wikipedia fall under the definition of a social media site with over 50M monthly users?

It does. This decision means other people “can’t censor” by reverting changes or overwriting.

No, it means that Wikipedia admins can't ban someone's account just because they disagree with that person's opinions. Wikipedia articles aren't supposed to contain (their user's) opinions anyway, so the admins should have no reason to base a moderation decision on such a criterion.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#985

Post by BlueTemplar »

ddevault wrote: post #895
kybernetyk wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>what about some dangerous stuff like radicalisation which then will produce terrorists or extremist? Is this the millennial version of boomers' "3d shooter games create school shooters"? "Tweets with bad words create terrorists"? I thought this BS (both versions) has been disproved countless times. But here we are and the nu-conservatives (who call themselves liberals) are at it again.

Games let you pretend to do a terrorist attack. Twitter lets you plan to do one.

And Parler let you prepare January 6th. But also let the FBI to know weeks in advance what was planned. And supposedly let them convince some of the most radical people to not participate after all. (I'm still baffled though why the police was so unprepared, it should have been a fort of police shields and water cannons...)

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#986

Post by snehk »

joe_the_user wrote: post #962
xwowsersx wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. That's my point. It is true that sometimes an idea is too stupid to even deserve a reply. But simply stating here that 'this is so dumb, I'm not going to respond to it' doesn't contribute anything nor is it in line with the spirit of HN, per https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The problem with what you're advocating every idea or comment either have a reasonably in-depth response or none at all. That reduces the poster's toolbox and lets the naive observer think the fundamentally unsupportable ideas might not be being noticed. A reply that says "this is obviously wrong" may seem contentless but it's just "minimal content". You should be able to respond like this for the same reason you sho…

What you just wrote is just so wrong that only a complete fool would waste their time engaging with you. Do you really believe that the previous sentence is a worthwhile contribution?

There was literally zero argument in the original post. You don't have to write a full analysis of everything that was said, you can just pick the parts you're willing to discuss and focus your attention on that or don't engage at all.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#987

Post by matthewdgreen »

catiopatio wrote: post #546
kelnos wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And suddenly you no longer live in a country that has a meaningful First Amendment. The overarching issue is that I don't see what the first amendment has to do with this at all. Corporations have zero obligations to anyone under the first amendment, which only applies to the government.

The intent of the first amendment was to preserve free speech in the public square; "what the first amendment has to do with this at all" is a desire to preserve that underlying societal principle. Section 230 was a give-away to corporations that allowed them to privatize and co-opt the public square; they reap the economic benefit of being shielded from liability for what people post, but none of the responsibility…

> platforms of a size large enough to justify treating them as a "public square" must meet common-carrier-like requirements that prevent them from discriminating based on viewpoint.

This sounds so reasonable and nuanced until you reach this final phrase: "prevent them from discriminating based on viewpoint." Doing that requires the state to determine what speech is "un-biased, politically neutral speech" and which speech has a political "viewpoint." And under this law a government will determine this at the point of a gun, not the people operating individual websites.

(Because obviously if you implemented this in a truly content-neutral way along the lines that you suggest for a common carrier, every platform would be overrun by spam. So there has to be a decision about what constitutes biased speech, and that means political figures will be making determinations.)

This isn't theoretical. Nobody in this country even agrees on what "political/biased" speech is. Things that used to be broadly accepted by our whole society no longer are. I'm not going to go into examples, but you know exactly what they are. And you probably disagree with half of them. This law means that you won't get to decide, the state and the courts will.

If your problem is the over-concentration of social networking companies, I'm happy to agree. I urge you to support laws that reduce the power and userbase of these firms in a content-neutral way -- without placing the government in charge of what speech is "ok".

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#989

Post by jfengel »

dang wrote: post #420
jfengel wrote: post #6

Seeing as the tech companies have no interest in censoring based on "viewpoint" I don't see what difference this makes. Their entire existence relies on being the single point where everyone goes. No Republicans have ever been removed solely for being Republican. People are removed for promoting violence and harassing other users. The fact that Republicans consider violence to be a "viewpoint", and their viewpoint ra…

Please don't take HN threads into political flamewar. Even by the (low) standard of the current thread, your comments here are standing out in a flamey way. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I apologize. I was expressing my opinion on politics that seemed inherent in the article itself, but I certainly should not have replied in a hot-take way to an offensive reply, and I should have bowed out before I started.

Thank you for your work in moderating this site.

Re: U.S. appeals court rejects big tech’s right to regulate online speech

#990

Post by 0xBDB »

axpy906 wrote: post #508
bradleyjg wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 230 is a federal law, it cannot make a state law that would otherwise violate the First Amendment as incorporated into the Fourteenth Amendment somehow okay. That’s not how the relationship between state, federal, and constitutional law works.

Can someone explain to me how corporations are protected by the first in America? I’ve never understood this.

No one is protected by the First Amendment. The government is forbidden to do things. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of..." several things, including freedom of speech.

The idea that corporations were given First Amendment rights by a recent Supreme Court decision that made them people is very frustrating to me. Corporations were deemed "people" in 1882, in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road, but it doesn't matter even slightly what they are with regards to the First Amendment, which doesn't specify who is speaking. Whether you're a citizen, noncitizen, undocumented immigrant, visitor, or soulless capitalist entity, if you can speak, Congress shall make no law.

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