Facebook's Ex Security Boss: Asking Big Tech To Police Hate Speech is 'a Dangerous Path' (technologyreview.com) 223
Like many people, Alex Stamos, former Facebook chief security officer, thinks tech platforms like Facebook and Google have too much power. But he doesn't agree with the calls to break them up. And he argues that the very people who say Facebook and Google are too powerful are giving them more power by insisting they do more to control hate speech and propaganda. From a report: "That's a dangerous path," he warns. If democratic countries make tech firms impose limits on free speech, so will autocratic ones. Before long, the technology will enable "machine-speed, real-time moderation of everything we say online." In attempting to rein in Big Tech, we risk creating Big Brother. So what's the solution? I spoke to Stamos at his Stanford office to find out.
Technology Review: So is the disinformation/propaganda problem mostly solved?
Stamos: In a free society, you will never eliminate that problem. I think the most important thing [in the US] is the advertising transparency. With or without any foreign interference, the parties, the campaigns, the PACs [political action committees] here in the US are divvying up the electorate into tiny little buckets, and that is a bad thing. Transparency is a good start. The next step we need is federal legislation to put a limit on ad targeting. There are thousands of companies in the internet advertising ecosystem. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are the only ones that have done anything, because they have gotten the most press coverage and the most pressure from politicians. So without legislation we're just going to push all of the attackers into the long tail of advertising, to companies that don't have dedicated teams looking for Russian disinformation groups.
Technology Review: Facebook has been criticized over Russian political interference both in the US and in other countries, the genocide in Myanmar, and a lot of other things. Do you feel Facebook has fully grasped the extent of its influence and its responsibility?
Stamos: I think the company certainly understands its impact. The hard part is solving it. Ninety percent of Facebook users live outside the United States. Well over half live in either non-free countries or democracies without protection for speech. One of the problems is coming up with solutions in these countries that don't immediately go to a very dark place [i.e., censorship]. Another is figuring out what issues to put engineering resources behind. No matter how big a company is, there are only a certain number of problems you [can tackle]. One of the problems that companies have had is that they're in a firefighting mode where they jump from emergency to emergency. So as they staff up that gets better, but we also need a more informed external discussion about the things we want the companies to focus on -- what are the problems that absolutely have to be solved, and what aren't. You mentioned a bunch of a problems that are actually very different, but people blur them all together.
Technology Review: How do you regulate in a world in which tech is advancing so fast while regulation moves so slowly? How should a society set sensible limits on what tech companies do?
Stamos: But right now, society is not asking for limits on what they do. It's asking that tech companies do more. And I think that's a dangerous path. In all of the problems you mentioned -- Russian disinformation, Myanmar -- what you're telling these companies is, "We want you to have more power to control what other people say and do." That's very dangerous, especially with the rise of machine learning. Five or ten years from now, there could be machine-learning systems that understand human languages as well as humans. We could end up with machine-speed, real-time moderation of everything we say online. So the powers we grant the tech companies right now are the powers those machines are going to have in five years.
Technology Review: So is the disinformation/propaganda problem mostly solved?
Stamos: In a free society, you will never eliminate that problem. I think the most important thing [in the US] is the advertising transparency. With or without any foreign interference, the parties, the campaigns, the PACs [political action committees] here in the US are divvying up the electorate into tiny little buckets, and that is a bad thing. Transparency is a good start. The next step we need is federal legislation to put a limit on ad targeting. There are thousands of companies in the internet advertising ecosystem. Facebook, Google, and Twitter are the only ones that have done anything, because they have gotten the most press coverage and the most pressure from politicians. So without legislation we're just going to push all of the attackers into the long tail of advertising, to companies that don't have dedicated teams looking for Russian disinformation groups.
Technology Review: Facebook has been criticized over Russian political interference both in the US and in other countries, the genocide in Myanmar, and a lot of other things. Do you feel Facebook has fully grasped the extent of its influence and its responsibility?
Stamos: I think the company certainly understands its impact. The hard part is solving it. Ninety percent of Facebook users live outside the United States. Well over half live in either non-free countries or democracies without protection for speech. One of the problems is coming up with solutions in these countries that don't immediately go to a very dark place [i.e., censorship]. Another is figuring out what issues to put engineering resources behind. No matter how big a company is, there are only a certain number of problems you [can tackle]. One of the problems that companies have had is that they're in a firefighting mode where they jump from emergency to emergency. So as they staff up that gets better, but we also need a more informed external discussion about the things we want the companies to focus on -- what are the problems that absolutely have to be solved, and what aren't. You mentioned a bunch of a problems that are actually very different, but people blur them all together.
Technology Review: How do you regulate in a world in which tech is advancing so fast while regulation moves so slowly? How should a society set sensible limits on what tech companies do?
Stamos: But right now, society is not asking for limits on what they do. It's asking that tech companies do more. And I think that's a dangerous path. In all of the problems you mentioned -- Russian disinformation, Myanmar -- what you're telling these companies is, "We want you to have more power to control what other people say and do." That's very dangerous, especially with the rise of machine learning. Five or ten years from now, there could be machine-learning systems that understand human languages as well as humans. We could end up with machine-speed, real-time moderation of everything we say online. So the powers we grant the tech companies right now are the powers those machines are going to have in five years.
DMCA? (Score:1)
Re:DMCA? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: DMCA? (Score:3)
You're supposed to be a responsible, intelligent human being, who understands that every source will have some bias. You're supposed to be capable of, and interested in, checking multiple sources in order to try and get a balanced perspective which can better inform your opinion and lead to a more nuanced understanding of the subject.
That's not easy, though, so most people just end up isolating themselves in an ideological bubble which reinforces what they want to believe.
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It's a path they've been going down anyway for lots of reasons - revenue protection, corporate culture, the ideology(ies) of the majority of their moderators, engineers, etc. ... They'd just prefer to not have (the US) government pitch in and help tell them what to handle or reject.
Overall, the tech companies are correct in one regard, that being government not having a place in determining what should and should not be said on privately-owned platforms (no matter *what* is allowed within the bounds of curr
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considering their caving-in to demands of governments in China, India, various other EMEA nations, etc... each with their differing ideas of what free speech is or is not.
So you are saying that since China, and Saudi Arabia force companies to censor content, then it is okay for America's government to do the same? If not, then what are you trying to say?
Companies are obligated to obey the law. This is not a debate about what companies should do, but about what governments should do. Governments have an extremely poor track record of benignly controlling what people hear and read.
Translation: we make $ off of h8 (Score:1)
Look, they already do it in Germany, it's required.
They make money in Germany, too.
They just don't make as much.
Re:Translation: we make $ off of h8 (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom is tolerating people (and groups of people) you don't like. If you don't believe in freedom for your most hated, ultimately you don't believe in freedom for yourself.
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Classical naivete. If you give government the power to determine what is acceptable and unacceptable speech, then you're screwed as soon as the other side wins an election.
Re:Translation: we make $ off of h8 (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't provide a solid rebuttal counterargument to the position of "pedos, nazis, or communists" without resorting to censorship, then maybe your position isn't as valid as you think it is. Fix that first.
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Too Narrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate is newspeak for "right wing opinions," and when people call for censorship of 'hate' they basically want all right wing opinions to be censored. By labelling it 'hate' they can claim to be doing good, when in actual fact these pro-censorship individuals are the most dangerous and evil people in society.
Hate speech is anything that someone with pull doesn't want other people to think about.
It's not just right wing opinions, it's incorrect opinions of any kind or actual history.
Remember when Russia with Putin was going to be our besty ? When Hillary proclaimed the reset, and Obama told Medvedev he would have more room after the elections ?
Boom now it's back to Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia
Obligatory XKCD (Score:3)
the technology will enable "machine-speed, real-time moderation of everything we say online."
XKCD #2015 [xkcd.com]
I prefer #1357 (Score:2)
I don't think anyone is asking for the government to step in and police hate speech. Certainly nobody who has any pull. But for the same reason you don't see Alex Jones on Fox News you're not seeing him on Twitter and Facebook anymore: Advertisers.
Heck, guys doing silly videos about big chested anime girls are getting banned on Youtube left and right (eh hem... or so I've heard) because they're not advertiser friendly. Bloody Call of Duty streamers are having a tough time. A guy like Alex J
Re:I prefer #1357 (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think anyone is asking for the government to step in and police hate speech.
Plenty of people are asking for this. In fact, this is exactly what TFA is talking about.
If YouTube or any other private entity wants to set their own standards, or ban people at the request of advertisers, that is their right. But when the government steps in and sets the standards, that is dangerous, and is the direction we are headed.
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If YouTube or any other private entity wants to set their own standards, or ban people at the request of advertisers, that is their right.
I agree that that is their right. It is also our right to criticize YouTube and every other private entity for their actions.
Remember, free speech goes all ways. It is not a unidirectional I-can-say-things-but-if-you-say-things-back-you-are-violating-my-rights thing.
Who? (Score:3)
Now, there are Senators who want to regulate Disclosure, but that's not speech. If the Russians want to run pro-Trump adverts let them. But they need to register as foreign agents.
So by all means, show me somebody more credible than a
Re:Who? (Score:5, Informative)
specifically who is asking the US Government to regulate speech on Facebook?
40% of Americans [theatlantic.com] want more government regulation of speech.
But they need to register as foreign agents.
Here is the first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Please note that it says "no law". It doesn't say "no law except for unregistered foreigners".
show me somebody more credible than a /. poster who is asking the government to regulate speech on Facebook.
You are moving the goalposts. Why does someone have to be "credible" to favor restrictions on speech? The vote of a non-credible person counts the same as yours.
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What was the justification used for laws regulating speech on radio and TV? Clearly they found some way around the 1st Amendment rule.
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What was the justification used for laws regulating speech on radio and TV? Clearly they found some way around the 1st Amendment rule.
The justification was that the airwaves are a limited resource, owned by the government, and licensed to operators based on them providing a "public service". Since obscenity is not a public service, it was banned by regulation.
Many people believe that these regulations are unconstitutional, and the courts have repeatedly trimmed them back.
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Interesting. So how about regulations on the use of the phone network? It's privately owned by heavily regulated, e.g. universal service requirements and the Do Not Call list. That would seem to be more relevant to regulating platforms like Facebook.
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Please note that it says "no law". It doesn't say "no law except for unregistered foreigners".
And yet one cannot make death threats to others. The reason is that it infringes upon my rights. The same can be said for unregistered foreign agents.
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The same can be said for unregistered foreign agents.
How do the words of an unregistered foreigner infringe on your rights?
How would your rights be infringed differently if they were "registered"?
Why would the same words not infringe your rights if they were spoken by an American citizen?
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How do the words of an unregistered foreigner infringe on your rights?
I have the right to be protected from the subversive force of foreign governments. One of the central roles of government is to protect it's people.
How would your rights be infringed differently if they were "registered"?
There are multiple ways but just knowing someone is working on behalf of a foreign government is enough to make it worthwhile.
Why would the same words not infringe your rights if they were spoken by an American citizen?
If the words were their own then it would be their own motives at play, not those of a foreign government. It should be needless to say but foreign agents are not looking out for the good of the American people, so they are going to say
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I have the right to be protected from the subversive force of foreign governments.
Perhaps you should learn to be a discerning listener. If what they say makes sense, and is supported by evidence, then perhaps you could learn something. If not, then you should learn to discount what they say regardless of their citizenship.
Hillary's collusion with the DNC to undermine Bernie's campaign was first disclosed by foreigners. The Iran-Contra scandal was also first disclosed by foreigners. Do you really believe that Americans should have been "protected" from those facts?
One of the central roles of government is to protect it's people.
One of the central t
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Perhaps you should learn to be a discerning listener. If what they say makes sense, and is supported by evidence
You misunderstand because it's to protect us all. That means protecting the discerning listeners from the fools who will believe anything. Facts don't worry me, it's the fools who swallow lies whole and then regurgitate them regularly that worry me.
One of the central tendencies of government is to concentrate, hoard, and abuse power. You should think carefully about giving them the power to "protect" you from listening to "bad people".
Absolutely, which is why we the who is very specific and encoded in law.
Re: Who? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have the right to be protected from the subversive force of foreign governments. One of the central roles of government is to protect it's people.
So you think that, say, Mao's little red book should be banned in the USA?
If you honestly believe that it is the role of government to protect you from the thoughts and opinions of people in other nations ... you may as well see if North Korea is accepting immigration applications.
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So you think that, say, Mao's little red book should be banned in the USA?
No, why would it be?
If you honestly believe that it is the role of government to protect you from the thoughts and opinions of people in other nations
Not at all. You seem to misunderstand what a foreign agent is.
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There are plenty of restrictions on speech though. Incitement to violence, fraud, defamation, false advertising. Free speech has never been absolute in the US, despite the wording of the first amendment. You may disagree with it, but that's how it is.
Re:I don't want a survey (Score:5, Insightful)
I want names.
Stop the goalpost shifting. You said that NOBODY wanted speech regulated. I provided a survey with evidence that over A HUNDRED MILLION Americans think it should be. The specific names of those millions is irrelevant, and you know it.
Your own article says:
Keep reading. They think it will be hard to do, but a sizable minority think it should be done anyway. 40% think the government should have the power to silence people saying "Men are better at math than women".
Show me somebody who matters that wants to regulate hate speech through the government.
More goalpost shifting. First it was "nobody", then it was "nobody credible", then it was "nobody that can't be specifically named", now it is "nobody that matters".
Preferably someone on the left.
Why does that matter? Some progressives want to ban "hate speech". Even more conservatives want to ban disrespect to the flag. It is an infringement on free speech either way.
Anyway, since you asked, here are a few specific people that have advocated government regulation of online speech:
1. Larry Kudlow, advisor to Donald Trump
2. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
3. Kevin Knight [cnbc.com], former Facebook executive
4. Ro Khanna, California congressional representative
I now await your objection that these people "don't matter" or that I didn't list all 120 million.
Re:I prefer #1357 (Score:4, Insightful)
YouTube enjoys protections under the communications decency act, on the basis they are a neutral conveyance for others.
Well they sure as hell aren't. Same goes Facebook. If they want to keep their privileged status they should actually have to be neutral, only censoring illegal content.
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I don't think anyone is asking for the government to step in and police hate speech.
Uhhh, government regulation is exactly that.
If you want a free and open platform for video discourse there's an easy solution: National Public Access. Make a national Youtube. You'll have to pay for it though, and that means taxes.
You want a government-censored "open" platform for discourse? You think a taxpayer-funded platform would be exempt from government regulation of content? What planet do you live on? Here on Earth you don't get freedom from government intervention by asking them to run the services.
Otherwise the price you pay is your watered down, advertiser friendly content.
Better an advertiser friendly pipeline than a government friendly one. It's easy to build a new pipeline with different advertisers, compared to building a new government.
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Just by trying to institutionalize "hate speech" and "hate crimes", it's exactly what people are asking for. By putting such arbitrary concepts in to the legal framework, you're in effect calling for such acts. And it gets worse when anyone that's offended by something someone else says starts labeling it as "hate speech".
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...getting banned on Youtube left and right.
Mostly right, apparently.
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The German government has already stepped in and compelled facebook to police hate speech, and facebook is complying: https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-weve-removed-hundreds-of-posts-under-german-hate-speech-law/ [cnet.com]
But you're probably focused on the USA. Facebook's CEO was recently on capital hill though, so we've got some scary quotes:
"Feinstein raised that threat explicitly after complaining about the industry's inability to thwart Russia's effort to influence the 2016 election, saying, “You bear this
Take the bad with the good (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the internet you have to accept the bad stuff with the good if you want freedom. Yes, personal attacks should be addressed but only if the attacked request it. I don't think we need social networks policing for us because this makes a group of people in charge of deciding what should and should not be published. The Alex Jones example is paramount in silencing people just because we do not like their message. Also many examples of others being given a pass while a Jones gets systematically erased. If your going to create a social podium for people, you have to allow to good and bad to come out. It should be expected and the users should decide whether it has any value, or simply ignore it as noise.
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>So is the disinformation/propaganda problem mostly solved?
Take the good with the bad. Those are evilbadwords that are bundled into free speech, tech or not. The only difference is the number of flyers.
Yes, we should continue to impose some restrictions near speech. Like endangering life. Precluding shouts of Fire in a theater.
Anyway, I think the whole point of the discussion is Do you actually want bigtech doing the solving? in the first place.
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Re:Take the bad with the good (Score:5, Insightful)
The Alex Jones example is paramount in silencing people just because we do not like their message.
Yes, that's exactly what happened. Why would you think that a social media company would be obliged to carry content that hurts their bottom line? When it comes to private companies, there's no free speech.
AJ hasn't been silenced. He is free to take his idea to any platform that'll have him, or to create his own platform (at his own expense).
If your going to create a social podium for people
The podium is for advertisers, not the people.
So should we end the mod system on /.? (Score:2)
If your complaint is government enforced censorship I don't know of anyone, left or right, advocating for that (maybe a few AC trolls on
I keep saying this, but if we want a free platform nobody can get banned from the solution is easy:
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Since "deceptive" has been defined as "anything that I disagree with."
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Since when is deceptive advertising free speech?
Since "deceptive" has been defined as "anything that I disagree with."
Now now, I think most people would agree that there truly is "deceptive" that is not simply stuff you don't agree with. Things like the cell phone ad I saw last night and had to rewind on the DVR and pause to read the fine print. Big print: "Five lines for $25 each". Small print: "good until 1/1/2020. First line $60, second line $40, and $20/each for 3, 4, and 5 thereafter." That's deceptive when you consider the font size of the disclaimer (unreadable on regular NTSC TV.)
There are a lot of other companies
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But the purge of media has gone much further than veggie snacks and advertising. It is censoring opinions. I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. Too bad nobody in the tech industry agrees with me. If you can somehow tag it (even wrongly) as "hate" or "racist" then you can censor speech without anything bothering what is left of your conscience.
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Since when is deceptive advertising free speech?
Advertising Is Protected by the First Amendment. ... However, advertising or "commercial speech" enjoys somewhat less First Amendment protection from governmental encroachment than other types of speech. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, may regulate speech that is found to be "deceptive." [lawpublish.com]
For commercial speech. That is not, however, other speech, and political speech is the most protected of all, even lying, lest the government become the arbiter of truth in politics.
Even commercial speech is butting agajnst the First Amendment, with cases being thrown out where government attempts to silence people who don't have a license in this or that industry, like the non-P.E. engineer commenting online about some crappy bridge or something, or someone giving vaguely medical advice in a discussion fo
Whoever owns the server, owns the speech (Score:1)
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If FaceBook has hate speech on it, then why not raid the offices where the servers are hosted?
Or we could keep the Constitution, and people could, you know, grow some thicker skin.
Your desire to be protected from offense does not trump the right of others to speak.
As a private entity, Facebook has a right to police hate speech as they see fit. The government has no right to force them to do so, by "raiding offices" or otherwise.
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The government absolutely has a right to raid or detain if probable cause of a crime is shown to a judge.
Speaking is not a crime.
Here is the 1st amendment of the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Pay particular attention to the phrase "no law".
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And you have misunderstood my point. I don't think that anyone's offices should be raided because of free speech, but I do find it odd that if you're a huge empire, you won't get raided, regardless of what your servers allow/disallow. And this is because the government is more or less allowing these empires to self-regulate free speech.
banning The Daily Stormer is bad as they are polit (Score:1)
banning The Daily Stormer is bad as they are political group. They are extreme but starting there is a nice way to make the 1st amendment go away
and after the 1st is gone the 2st will be as well.
Re: banning The Daily Stormer is bad as they are p (Score:2)
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Second, people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis. It's an immutable truth.
No, the immutable truth is that the ends do not justify the means.
If you are a "political group" that promotes genocide,
Last I knew, having an unpopular opinion was not quite as bad as someone killing a person who has an unpopular opinion. Maybe you live in a different universe than those of us in the US do.
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Now hold on. Who is proposing killing people with unpopular opinions?
You might not like it but "People advocating Genocide" are way worse, like, by a million orders of magnitude, than "People advocating privately owned public forums ban people who advocate genocide."
The statement made was not that "people advocating bans are never worse than nazis", it was "Second, people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis. It's an immutable truth." "Never" and "immutable" are very strong words.
That is a statement that the ends justify the means. Pope's "Bear Jew" tr
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Promoting genocide is a little more than an "unpopular opinion".
Society gets to defend itself from monsters. We have experience with this, you know. Ask your parents.
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Promoting genocide is a little more than an "unpopular opinion".
Being a nazi doesn't mean you take actions to do illegal things. It means you have a political belief system that is unpopular in today's world, in most places. "Stopping nazis" doesn't limit itself to stopping illegal actions, it talks about that political belief system.
Society gets to defend itself from monsters.
Not by having "Bear Jew" go out and kill anyone he doesn't like.
Ask your parents.
I understand why you might want to use that ad hominem at this point, since you probably do ask your parents about all kinds of things. It is, after all, as simple for you as y
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Re:banning The Daily Stormer is bad as they are po (Score:5, Insightful)
First, Joe, Facebook banning The Daily Stormer has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment. Not even in the most remote, tangential way. Nothing at all.
The SCOTUS has previously ruled that First Amendment protections apply to company property if access to that company property is needed to reach people. Company towns can't block access to people with a religious or political message to distribute.
Second, people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis. It's an immutable truth.
The Communists killed 20x as many people as the Nazis. Objectively, Stalin was roughly 8 times as bad as the Nazis.
Also, there's something wrong with saying "We can do anything to $GROUP because nothing can be as bad as $GROUP". After all, that's exactly what Hitler said about the Jews.
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Not if there are other alternatives. I cannot force Breitbart to publish my 4,000 word essay praising Fidel Castro.
Let me type this slowly for you, lgw: Facebook banning The Daily Stormer has absolutely nothing - at all - to do with the First Amendment
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Not if there are other alternatives.
Indeed, but Breitbart has a far smaller reach than Facebook. I'm not sure Facebook has a de-facto monopoly over its space, with Snapchat being popular with the kids these days, but it's pretty big. At some point, it becomes quite a bit like a company town. I'd say YouTube is already there for random people sharing videos. Anyway, I think you see my point: it's not entirely isolated from the First Amendment.
The people living in that company town did leave from time to time, after all, but the dominant w
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Why should that matter? If your theory about commercial properties and the First Amendment are true, does it matter how big a "reach" the company has?
Ah, when you refer to Facebook's "space", you build a trap for yourself. What exactly is Facebook's space? Are there other alternatives for reaching this space? Of course there are. They might not all be as convenient, or as easy to use,
Re:banning The Daily Stormer is bad as they are po (Score:5, Informative)
Justice Black explained it better than I do. The key reason the SCOTUS ruled that First Amendment protection extended to forcing a company to provide access (in Marsh v Alabama) was:
It is clear that, had the people of Chickasaw owned all the homes, and all the stores, and all the streets, and all the sidewalks, all those owners together could not have set up a municipal government with sufficient power to pass an ordinance completely barring the distribution of religious literature. Our question then narrows down to this: can those people who live in or come to Chickasaw be denied freedom of press and religion simply because a single company has legal title to all the town? For it is the State's contention that the mere fact that all the property interests in the town are held by a single company is enough to give that company power, enforceable by a state statute, to abridge these freedoms.
We do not agree that the corporation's property interests settle the question. ...
Ownership does not always mean absolute dominion. The more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it. ... thus, the owners of privately held bridges, ferries, turnpikes and railroads may not operate them as freely as a farmer does his farm. Since these facilities are built and operated primarily to benefit the public, and since their operation is essentially a public function, it is subject to state regulation. And, though the issue is not directly analogous to the one before us, we do want to point out by way of illustration that such regulation may not result in an operation of these facilities, even by privately owned companies, which unconstitutionally interferes with and discriminates against interstate commerce.
Do you see the point the Justice is making in his opinion? If your business profits from public use of your property, you lose some control of that property. There's tons of precedent for this.
Because Facebook makes its money through providing a platform for members of the public to communicate with one another, it's a very close analogy. That's different from e.g. Amazon, which primarily provides access to buy from Amazon (a shopping mall is not bound by this ruling, see Lloyd Corp. v. Tanner, because of this distinction)
Breitbart is fundamentally different because it's a publisher not a platform, that is, it's not a venue by which members of the public reach other members of the public, to a meaningful degree (it does have a comments section, but that's obviously not the primary use of the site).
If you build a bridge on your land, but allow the public to use it (perhaps for a toll), you can't ban people form the bridge for constitutionally-protected reasons, even though it's your bridge on your land.
The justice concluded:
When we balance the Constitutional rights of owners of property against those of the people to enjoy freedom of press and religion, as we must here, we remain mindful of the fact that the latter occupy a preferred position. As we have stated before, the right to exercise the liberties safeguarded by the First Amendment "lies at the foundation of free government by free men," and we must in all cases "weigh the circumstances and . . . appraise the . . . reasons . . . in support of the regulation . . . of the rights."
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It is clear that, had the people of Chickasaw owned all the homes, and all the stores, and all the streets, and all the sidewalks, all those owners together could not have set up a municipal government with sufficient power to pass an ordinance completely barring the distribution of religious literature.
If the owners of all the homes, stores, streets, and sidewalks were unanimous in their opposition to the distribution of religious literature, they could each ban the distribution of such literature on their own property, which the effect that such literature could not be distributed anywhere inside the town. Anyone who violated that rule would be trespassing on someone's private property. This talk of forming a government and passing ordinances is nothing but a distraction—a municipal government does
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If the owners of all the homes, stores, streets, and sidewalks were unanimous in their opposition to the distribution of religious literature, they could each ban the distribution of such literature on their own property, which the effect that such literature could not be distributed anywhere inside the town.
No: they couldn't ban it on the road (or sidewalk in most states), or public areas like in front of the post office. That's government land, in this example.
And that's the point: a street used just to get to your house, and your house alone, has different rules than a street used by the public, even if that "public" is just the neighborhood. You'll find quite a few laws treat the two differently.
If you build a road on your property, but it's open for people moving between two public roads (e.g., lots of
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It's not. People on Facebook are not "the public" who are just happening through. Each of them has had to register for an account and agree to Terms of Service, and every time they visit they must log in with credentials. It's much more of a private club (albeit a large one) than a public square.
Nah, that doesn't fly at all. Facebook could not ban black people from using its service. It's open to any member of the public who cares to sign up, even though there are some rule, no different from the toll bridge example from the case. "Private club" is very narrowly construed when it comes to protecting constitutional rights, as it should be.
Spam is not (generally) political or religious speech, which is a relevant here.
A key point in Cyber Promotions v. America Online was that AOL wasn't any sort o
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And neither could any private club. But a private club can require that everyone show ID and agree to a list of house rules. And, they can decide when you have violated their terms of service and kick you the fuck out.
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And neither could any private club.
I think we're talking about different things here. You seem to be talking about a nightclub, a "private club" as distinct from a "public house". That distinction isn't important in most states (I think there's a few where you can stills serve alcohol to 18-year-olds if it's a "private club".)
You can form a club that excludes any protected class you like. You can form a club open only to members of your own family, or just the 6 guys you went to high school with, or just your friends from church, or anyth
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people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis
Are you sure - Stalinist Russia was at one point trying to stop the Nazi's those in power in that era did some pretty; dare I say equally awful things to groups like Roma, homosexuals, various Protestant sects, Polish people...
No I think its very possible to be anti-Nazi and no better than a Nazi..
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True, but we had to take the worse one (Stalin) on second.
The GP is right but doesn't take it far enough, it is possible to be anti-Nazi and be _worse_ than a Nazi.
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Now wait a minute there. We had to take on the more immediate threat first. Stalin was bad, but he hadn't exactly embarked on an active program of world domination at the time of WWII. Stalin wasn't invading our allies in Western Europe. You've got to take them as they come, thus, Fascists first.
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Facebook banning The Daily Stormer has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment. Not even in the most remote, tangential way. Nothing at all.
Both are free speech issues. The first amendment legally protects you from the US government silencing you. (They can still silence you, but you can, in theory, sue them afterwards). The ideals of free speech are supposed to protect you from others silencing you. The ideals are a moral issue rather than a legal one, but the two are related.
people who are trying to stop nazis will never be as bad as the nazis.
uuuuuhhhhh.... Stalin and Mao? Like... did you just pull a brain-fart on all history past operation barbossa when Hitler attacked Russia in June 1941?
Regardless of histor
Re:Nazi faggots will be brutally murdered (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you not get it?
Sure, when they come for your enemies, you cheer. Or just sit still and let them crush your enemies,
And then they come for you. Because they come for everyone, sooner or later.
No, no, no, in the US at least we do not want the government to either decide what is hate speech and shut down those who they claim spew it, nor do we want the government to charge corporations with the responsibility and authority to do so. We're stuck with corporations deciding what they will or will not publish or permit, but if they exercise that control they are, perhaps, taking responsibility, and we can expect them to be responsible. Perhaps.
Ads are not the issue. Content, speech is the issue. Whatever the Daily Stormer is, or Infowars, or the others, they are being censored. If that's OK with you, do let us know which of your favorite sources would similarly be no great loss to you if it were silenced. Sooner or later, one will, if you will not defend the right.
He gets it, he's just a troll (Score:2)
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Project Choke Point is the model. We do need for government to stop talking like this, and then to start talking to corporations like they also need to stop being so evil.
The reality is that while governments are monopolies of their own making, more or less, and we can vote and vote and maybe get what we want, but corporations serve their profits, and can be even more entrenched. Competition is the answer, maybe.
It's best to keep government out of this though, as they will change the rules and own this.
Sounds to me like... (Score:3)
Re:Sounds to me like... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just users that want it both ways, if companies censor posts, which is their right, then they should become responsible for the content in all posts, effectively they are condoning the message in posts they don't censor.
Well, that's a big nothing burger. (Score:3)
We shouldn't break them up no matter how big they get, but we shouldn't ask they do anything about misinformation that spreads through their vast information distribution monopolies.
Well, I can think of a way of fixing this: make them charge subscription fees.
Facebook has just over 2 billion users; it's important to realize users are not customers, they're the product being sold to advertisers. The net operating profit generated by selling those users is just under 16 billion. So conservatively, each subscribers is worth about $8/year in profit.
Suppose we say that social media companies have to charge users $1/month. Then each user is worth 50% more as a customer than he is as a product. Then, if you're not happy with the job Facebook does about keeping fake news down, even fake news delivered to your conspiracy nut uncle or SJW sister-in-law, you can vote with your pocketbook. This would require Facebook to figure out a way of managing information that was broadly acceptable to the majority of its users. No government monitoring of content would be required.
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It would weaken the incentive. The majority of its revenue would come from your wanting to have access to it, not how much time you spent on it.
It's simple (Score:3)
The problem is not that these sites should be policing hate speech. The problem is that they're a mass media platform where the people who use the platform are not the customers. As long as social media focuses on this business model, it will be a conduit for the worst people in society, because the only measure of success is clicks and eyeballs. Nobody is accountable for what is said. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsibility or consequences.
You can fix this a couple of ways: First, you could actually charge the users of the platform instead of the advertisers. Second, you could require a real identity to participate. You'd be surprised how people all of a sudden start behaving like human beings when they know other people will be able to recognize them doing so. Finally, you could absolutely ban bots. All bots. You want to participate in this social media platform? Then prove you're human. This isn't because bots are responsible for hate speech, but because they amplify it, to the gratification of the person (or group) who originally posted.
Re: It's simple (Score:1)
Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from responsibility or consequences.
Presumably, that includes a trip to the gulag.
If freedom of speech doesnâ(TM)t mean freedom from consequences, what the fuck does it mean?
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You nailed it. Accountability would be a great start.
It seems rather hysterical when all these folks are screaming about their freedom of thought, yet won't put their name on it. People are not being jailed for their political rants in the U.S. It appears the only thing they fear, is themselves and their words. By putting people's real names on it, one would hope that the conversation is tempered more towards reality instead of the ether of internet discussion boards.
--
A friend is someone that gives
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It seems rather hysterical when all these folks are screaming about their freedom of thought, yet won't put their name on it.
You cannot have true freedom of speech without anonymous speech. Otherwise you get Pope's "Bear Jew with a baseball bat" policing the speech by killing anyone he doesn't agree with.
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As long as you have access to anonymous speech elsewhere, there is no property of freedom that is infringed if you require real identity on a commercial website.
You can always print pamphlets in the basement and anonymously distribute them, you just don't get to be anonymous in the public square. That's always been the case.
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As long as you have access to anonymous speech elsewhere, there is no property of freedom that is infringed if you require real identity on a commercial website.
The comment I replied to was not about a commercial website requiring names, it was insulting the people speaking who don't want to put their names on their speech. Typical nonsequitor.
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If you don't want to put your name on your speech, be my guest. There's just no requirement that a commercial social media site has to allow you to do so. Go scrawl your message in chalk on the sidewalk or whatever.
At the time the First Amendment was written, anonymous speech meant either a) word of mouth, in which case you still knew who was spreading the speech, or b) printing pamphlets. So go print your nazi propag
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Now wait a minute. This is what you said, and I quote:
And my response is that if a social media site requires real identity, that does not affect your ability to have anonymous speech one bit.
This is your move, Obfuscant. You say something and then when someone challenges you, your response is always, "You're putting words in my mouth". The words you put in your ow
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And my response is that if a social media site requires real identity,
"True freedom of speech" has NOTHING to do with social media sites and their right to control their own hardware. You are arguing with me over something I DID NOT SAY, and your quote proves that. It was a response to the statement: "It seems rather hysterical when all these folks are screaming about their freedom of thought, yet won't put their name on it." That's an insult referring to the AUTHORS not wanting to put their names on what they say, and has nothing to do with what social media sites do or do
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So let them. This discussion pertains specifically to these social media sites. Let the dirtbags spread their misinformation and hate speech via mimeographed flyers printed in their basements. Who cares?
Psychopathy is Not A Right (Score:2)
Disinformation isn't the problem (Score:2)
The fact is there are political movements on both sides the liberal / conservative aisle in American that actively target, and encourage low information voters.
Few things make me as angry as hearing people say how important it is to exercise your right to vote! No! that is not important and it might not even be desirable. Voter turnout for its own sake is stupid. That you have the right to vote is important; your exercise of it is only important if its important to you.
If an issue is on that ballot that
agree but ... (Score:1)
logic miss (Score:1)
I'm a firm believer that there's a solution here. We can design something that allows individual free speech but shuts down the nation-state-sponsored tech-based misinformation campaigns eg Russia. Myanmar-
Want to cut propaganda AND Facebook's power? Easy. (Score:2)
Great! There's a simple solution:
Facebook can stop *selling their user data to hate and propaganda groups*, and "stop accepting ads* from hate speech and propaganda groups.
This way:
1. Facebook is being a vector for less bullshit
2. Facebook is *lessening* it's power
3. Hate groups and propagandists can still spread their vile bu
Not dangerous. Expensive (Score:2)
What they're worried about is having to employ actual humans to read all of the shit that gets dumped onto their network. They can only make money if the whole thing is relatively automated. To accurately and effectively police the platform, they're going to need a LOT of humans to do the work, since AI can't and won't be able to do it for a very long time, more than likely. Paying
The debate is wrong. (Score:3)
The nature of this debate misses the point.
Firstly, there is always going to be some level of censorship on social networks. Otherwise there are just too many trolls who would think it utterly hilarious to find pages for children's party entertainers and flood with with niche-fetish pornography, plus there are a few types of material which anger people so greatly that there is no option but to ban it - the exact list depending upon country, and usually enforced by law. So the debate is not about if censorship should be permitted, but about the extent and about who gets to decide.
Nor is all censorship equivalent. There are many parties, many ways and many reasons. In the case of social networks, commercial concerns are a big factor - they exist to make money, and some sorts of material are just not profitable. If your posts offend a group of people, insult a religion, contain too much profanity, contain anything relating to sex or advocate criminal acts then advertisers are not going to want their adverts appearing next to it, which means the network is going to want to discourage the production of this material. They may not ban it, but they have other means - they can rank it lower in searches, or demonetise as youtube does.
On the political side, there is what could be seen as a tidy symmetry - left and right both call for censorship, but of different material, and both then accuse the other of supporting censorship. The left might get horrified at hate speech, but they can't beat the right when it comes to sensitivity to 'indecency' - a category that goes far beyond just pornography.
Personally, if I were drafting legislation, I'd focus on accountability. Allow social network operators to censor as they see fit - but every time they decide to pull a post, make sure they have a duty to notify the poster specifying the reason for the action, and a reference number allowing them to review the audit records for the decision. If you have to have censorship, do it right.
The internet is not a EU/China political project (Score:4, Insightful)
Return to allowing the US freedom to have an open press able to report and publish.
For people to be able to comment and link.
Let people online comment on political news as part of using their own social media account.
They are posting links they found interesting. Adding comments, art, cartoons. Its their own creativity and content. Something social media invited users to do as an open platform to connect users and sell ads.
The freedom to assembly online and petition government policy.
The freedom to speak and not be banned after speech due to political comments.
Its the users who are doing the publishing, its their own words, thoughts and political content. Users who spent years posting their ideas, creative art and comments.
Their comments on politics, bad movie scripts, history, art, culture, news, international events. Something people in the USA have the freedom to do.
When social media becomes a full time "publisher" then it can set its own domestic party political and internal publishing standards for its own staff.
Your users are not your workers, they not your staff. They do not have to follow the bands set domestic party political agenda.
They have a right to comment, link, create, post, question, be political on any topic they want. Users got invited onto open social media for their content.
Backdoor censorship (Score:2)
The big tech companies want to offer a place free of horrible stuff, while at the same time not developing a reputation for censorship.
I don't know if they can do both. Worse (and this is the problem with governmenr regulation) they have to try to avoid "regulation by raised eyebrow" where a regulator (driven by some in Congress) might look the other way, "too big corporation-wise", as long as they crush wild, nasty viewpoints.
This is a regular concern for radio and TV stations as they approach licensing r
Most discussed on mobile version (Score:2)
And in the mobile version the whole discussion is invisible.
Looks like two major bugs in the webpage, or is just my account messed up?
Re: yeah because... (Score:1)
If a crime is committed report it to the police. If not stfu and take the good wit the bad.