Are Tech Companies Ducking Responsibility For The Need to De-Platform? (politico.com) 134
Long-time technology reporter/commentator Kara Swisher weighs in on the de-platforming of U.S. president Trump, arguing Trump "was only following the rules set for him and it was entirely the fault of the tech companies for giving him the kind of latitude that allowed him to go that far."
Like a parent who gives a child endless bowls of sugar and then wonders why their kid is batshit crazy, tech has pretended to be obtuse to the consequences of their products and the choices that have been made about them. For years I have written that these companies have turned themselves into the digital arms dealers of the Internet age, amplifying and weaponizing everything. They might have cleaned up the Trump mess, but they also made the Trump mess possible by architecting systems that thrive on enragement.
Most of all, they have tried to duck responsibility. I have always been amazed by Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg's statement that he did not want to be an "arbiter of the truth." My question for him: Why then did he build a platform that requires it?
Even more importantly, we must examine the power that these companies wield and how to deal with that going forward... [W]hile justifiably putting a sock in Trump's toxic pie-hole, they also showed how swiftly they could end whole businesses, as was the case with the right-fave social media platform Parler.... [T]here is nothing that Parler was doing that companies like Facebook were not guilty of too and in larger measure and for a very long time. While I would not go as far as calling the company a scapegoat, as it did allow its system to be used in dangerous ways, it certainly got a lion's share of the hurt that rained down on tech and that others probably deserved even more.
This brings us to the issue at hand: Power. Tech companies have too much of it, but it should be looked at through the lens of market concentration that results in the dampening of innovation needed to inevitably upend the leaders. Such a situation demands substantive and bipartisan action to deal with each company differently and with different remedies, which include fines, enforcement of existing laws, new regulation and, yes, antitrust action. That has already started, which is good, as has a series of dopey attempts to repeal Section 230, which provides broad immunity to digital platforms. What it needs is reform...
Most of all, they have tried to duck responsibility. I have always been amazed by Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg's statement that he did not want to be an "arbiter of the truth." My question for him: Why then did he build a platform that requires it?
Even more importantly, we must examine the power that these companies wield and how to deal with that going forward... [W]hile justifiably putting a sock in Trump's toxic pie-hole, they also showed how swiftly they could end whole businesses, as was the case with the right-fave social media platform Parler.... [T]here is nothing that Parler was doing that companies like Facebook were not guilty of too and in larger measure and for a very long time. While I would not go as far as calling the company a scapegoat, as it did allow its system to be used in dangerous ways, it certainly got a lion's share of the hurt that rained down on tech and that others probably deserved even more.
This brings us to the issue at hand: Power. Tech companies have too much of it, but it should be looked at through the lens of market concentration that results in the dampening of innovation needed to inevitably upend the leaders. Such a situation demands substantive and bipartisan action to deal with each company differently and with different remedies, which include fines, enforcement of existing laws, new regulation and, yes, antitrust action. That has already started, which is good, as has a series of dopey attempts to repeal Section 230, which provides broad immunity to digital platforms. What it needs is reform...
Do we really want this world? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Hosting costs bugger all when combined at large scale ... only if you get deplatformed by the hosting and DDoS providers which can operate at large scale does it gets expensive, but not because it's inherently expensive.
An unbroken internet (ie. not designed for DDoS like the current one) should really be a public service offered at cost (ie. bugger all).
Newsflash (Score:2)
As for Section 230, you won't get a freeze peach paradise. If it goes away the big corps like Twitter & Facebook will buy themselves enough loopholes to operate. Anything you post that isn't popular with mega corps will be censored either by lawsuits (no more S230 protections) take downs or algorithms. It'll be like the DMCA where they shoot first and ask questions never.
How do I know? YouTube already does this with "content aggregators". If you want to post things to You
Re: (Score:2)
Is that worse than the current alternative: a world where billionaire shareholders decide what speech gets spread and amplified *without* being held resposible?
Seems to me neither is a remotely good option. Perhaps the more fundamental question is, is there any alternative that allows the continued existence of both democracy and social media? Because we've seen many times over that unrestrained social media becomes a massive disinformation breeding machine.
Re: (Score:2)
If they only way you have to communicate with people is facebook or twitter.. then we have much bigger problems.
Re: Do we really want this world? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody has suggested a workable solution for this yet.[...]The closest to something that might work I have heard is to nationalize Facebook, or build a government run Twitter clone.
The latter wouldn't work either. People would desert the uncontrolled platform that they want and this is a problem because the perpetually offended crowd want an enforced audience. The current solution where there's many, many hosting providers offering all levels of service works quite well. Somehow the chans, and a bunch of na
Re: (Score:2)
Good point. For it to be the town square there has to be a forced, captive audience of annoyed townsfolk trying to do their shopping.
Re: (Score:2)
Electronic payment should indeed be a public service, central bank digital currencies should be created ... but with the abominable interest rates it would kill banking at the moment, so they won't.
I don't think Parler was a business (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile while we're all distracted by twitter bans this [wptv.com] just happened.
Re: (Score:3)
this just happened.
The Trump hysteria has been a distraction indeed. I deleted my Twitter account a week ago when they banned discussion of Sci-Hub. That was an issue important to science. Two days from now Trump will be history and these buried stories will resurface.
Re: (Score:3)
I mean, one of the core businesses of the Mercer family is manipulating groups of people. (eg, Cambridge Analytica)
Full ellipse (Score:2)
(it's only a circle when viewed at the proper angle)
The historic free market voices are arguing that what we really need is government oversight to ensure free markets are free to operate the way we want.
So what the fuck does she want? (Score:5, Interesting)
She wants large industry players to have less power, but they should have the power to deplatform anyone from the internet at will?
Re:So what the fuck does she want? (Score:5, Insightful)
In many ways, this is exactly what was needed - the realization that this power has been concentrated. The large players (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have been gaining significant power without any real serious checks on it. Now that they have "deplatformed" Trump, there can be serious discussion about the implications that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
The fact of the matter is that these platforms are all private property. Basically it's like people wanting free speech in Disneyland. It isn't going to happen (if you set up a website, you would expect to control it to your liking). So people now are at least aware that it is an issue.
I personally support the right of Facebook, Twitter, etc, to cater their sites however they like. I am also very wary of their power (and actively avoid using them). They have far too much power (but it must be said that users of those platforms voluntarily gave it to them). The right way to deal with this is to set up alternative sites. And if Amazon doesn't want to host it, then set up hosting elsewhere. As far as I know, DNS isn't censored - and it isn't controlled by any single country so it probably can't be.
And note: you have to also distinguish between free speech and the right for someone else to host what you want to say. Those are also different things. Nobody every said free speech was easy (well, probably someone, somewhere said that). Nobody is stopping you from getting up on a soapbox and speaking in the town square. If you're feeling oppressed, get out and print some flyers from your printer and distribute them.
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that ICANN and backbones do not yet de-platform based on politically correct grounds is not really relevant, without DDoS protection and hosting you're fucked.
Not asking for not defacto impossible is not the same as asking for easy, you shouldn't need Russia to get out speech on the internet.
Re: (Score:2)
The fact that ICANN and backbones do not yet de-platform based on politically correct grounds is not really relevant, without DDoS protection and hosting you're fucked.
Why is my personal website not fucked then?
When you get too big, sure. But if you're getting that big, you should be investing in your infrastructure.
If your assumption is that someone is going to run a webserver out of their basement that's going to see a hundred thousand users a day, that's a dumb assumption. And/or a really stupid business model.
Anyone can start small. And anyone can grow big. But if they're not hiring competent staff and planning for the future, the problem is them.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't generally grow straight from your basement to being able to get peering and provide your own DDoS protection, that skips a few steps.
Re: (Score:2)
Well that's the problem for these free speech sites. They can't raise enough funds to keep going, the users won't pay to access them.
Advertisements are an option but they don't want the kind they can get: porn mostly.
Re: (Score:3)
You want them to have less power...stop using them!
"responsibility" (Score:2)
Did Twitter break the law? What law did they break? If they broke the law why is nobody at Twitter being arrested? If they didn't break the law then there is no problem. Keep in mind Kara is one of the many people that completely misreported on the Covington incident: https://twitter.com/karaswishe... [twitter.com]
Also I don't give a fuck if she owned up and admitted to fucking up, that's not how it works in her world.
If you believe /. to be a neutral platform, (Score:5, Informative)
look no further than articles like this to set those beliefs aside.
Secton 230 already covers this (Score:1)
Re:Secton 230 already covers this (Score:4, Insightful)
Section 230 also allows the site to moderate as they like. Don't like it? Find another site. And if the site you want is having problems because other people don't want to host it, set up your own site. It isn't all that hard or expensive. If it is an issue that is important to you then it is probably worth the effort. Free speech doesn't guarantee you an audience or guarantee that outlets are readily available - they never were (in 1789 when the 1st amendment was passed, to publish to anything but the most local audience required access to a printing press, and the owner had to agree to publish what you wanted to say).
Re: Secton 230 already covers this (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt that nobody will host it (and if this is the case, you probably have a site that nobody wants to touch).
The big hosting services (Amazon, etc.) are not the only game in town.
Note: I fully support network neutrality - the transport level needs to be as free (as in liberty) as possible. This is where the legal obligations need to be - the ability to host your own site is important. The ability to rely on anybody else shouldn't be required. Once that exists, you can host a site in your bedroom (note: I
Re: (Score:2)
No. If nobody will host you, allow you to register domains, or accept your BGP routes then nobody can get to your "site." The real world analogy is saying "if you don't like the laws in your country, go make your own country."
When you have to make something up entirely to try to prove your point, you just end up undermining yourself entirely.
That's when you should realize that you might want to revisit your opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
Not exactly - any completely uncensored online forum would already default to that, as they have a very strong legal argument that they're a communication platform, and thus not responsible for user's posts.
What 230 does is allow the providers to censor out spam and other undesirable messages, without being considered a publisher of the stuff they choose to let through. Because publishers *are* legally responsible for the messages they publish.
A failure to understand corporations. (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech companies aren't dodging shit. What they are doing is exactly what most every company does: maximizing profit regardless of externalities. The long-term or societal consequences of their actions are not even considered much less viewed as a responsibility. The only way to make a corporation act responsibly is to ensure there are fines that exceed the profits made by non-compliance of regulation. Even then they will do only the bare minimum. I mean, you might as well be asking if a crack dealer is ducking his social responsibilities to the neighborhood. It's just patently absurd to start with.
A lot of people need to learn (especially those in media) that corporations (no matter how much you like their product) are sociopathic composite entities that are only interested in profit. They are composed of individuals all willing to perform a specific function without empathy which is why they were hired for the position. The combination of normal individuals that each are willing to say, "it's only business"/"I'm just doing my job" results in an outwardly sociopathic whole. It's an inevitable state because every time a new person is hired, they will select someone that's willing to cross that line just a little more to get a bit more profit to replace the last. They acheive this by looking at their resume for the "best" candidate, not the most qualified or ethical but rather who has increased profits with no regard to consequence.
Who moderates? (Score:2)
When it comes to human behaviours, including what we say, since the dawn of history, no society has been able to depend on individual self-moderation. The collective always decides what is acceptable, and what is not. Direct moderation based on group concensus (peer pressure) works in small collectives, but, once the social structure grows past a very small size, moderation always ends up formalized, codified and enforced.
So, who moderates? There are various choices, but, many people will not accept putt
Missing in discussion: Donald Trump is/was POTUS (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think Twitter & FB kicked off Trump at the right time, he had lost the election and had incited an insurrection during his off hours from his current full time job of feeling sorry for himself. He had become a) irrelevant and b) dangerous. Up to that point, he was active as President of the United States and, as such, deserved fairly unrestricted posting on different social media platforms to get his message out.
Of course, Trump could have gone to the press briefing room in the White House at any time and spoken to the press directly, but how well do you think that would have gone?
Now, I do think both Twitter and FB could have been more proactive in labeling his messages as being "untrue", "misleading", etc. but I think it was reasonable for them to allow Trump to post on their sites while he was the active and relatively (for him) benign leader of the free world and supporters couldn't say that reports of what he was saying were misquoted/taken out of context (although that left them giving the alternating messages that the Tweets were accurate and that the Tweets were an attempt at humour).
Re: (Score:3)
Up to that point, he was active as President of the United States and, as such, deserved fairly unrestricted posting on different social media platforms to get his message out.
We should be more like China where no one can say "no" to the president!
Or, you know, he can use the massive reach of the Whitehouse press room who's briefings get broadcast worldwide.
Re: (Score:3)
Seriously wtf.. Trump is the first president to use social media as a replacement for actually talking to the press and nation at large.
Twitter and facebook should have banned him for disinformation back during the birther bs. They don't care what he says, they only care about the bottom line and now that his coup failed they're free to dump him.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously wtf.. Trump is the first president to use social media as a replacement for actually talking to the press and nation at large.
This type of ignorance is part of why adults despair for the future.
You may complain about what Trump says, but he has been one of the most press-accessible Presidents in history. It's a good thing he does the rest of his talking on social media, or we'd never get him off the television.
Re: (Score:2)
No, no he hasn't. He's been in close proximity to press more than most Presidents in history but he's not been accessible, not from a 'Here's a question, would you like to answer it' perspective.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously wtf.. Trump is the first president to use social media as a replacement for actually talking to the press and nation at large.
Erm yes? That's his choice. He chose to use social media, but if he wants even after being banned he still has global reach. If he chooses to not use the press room, it's not up to everyone else to hold his hand.
Twitter and facebook should have banned him for disinformation back during the birther bs. They don't care what he says, they only care about the bottom line and no
Re: (Score:2)
It's very reasonable to say that Twitter and Facebook, since one of their goals is to serve as news sources, wants to have whatever is said by national leaders on their platform.
Re: (Score:2)
It's very reasonable to say that Twitter and Facebook, since one of their goals is to serve as news sources, wants to have whatever is said by national leaders on their platform.
Yes... I mean I can see things being in the public interest. OTHO, merely allowing people to post whitehouse press briefings would satisfy that, without providing additional platform capabilities to him. As the sibling parent pointed out, they should have banned him for the whole birther thing before he was president.
Yes! (Score:2)
Google should be forced to publish those billions of ads for free, since it's the free speech of those advertisement people.
Every newspaper has to publish all the letters to the editor from every nutjob in the city.
Does de-platforming imply liability? (Score:2)
Does de-platforming essentially remove the liability shield from providers? Aft er all, if they were only platforms the liability would be with the "publishers" themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. "We will post all things that conform to our TOS" is considered content-neutral.
I'm astonished (Score:3)
....at the number of people cheerfully supporting and exonerating private companies making these choices all simply because "they hate bad orange man too!"
I get it, your argument (rationalization), this time is that "companies can do what they want, it's their platform:"
I don't really recall any of you making the same rationale supporting a baker's right to say "no I won't make a cake for a gay wedding".
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, if somehow the lawmakers had a law that extended some sort of immunity from liability if the baker baked cakes for anyone who asked, and the baker refused to bake a specific cake, it would seem completely reasonable to say the bakery no longer qualified for that special immunity.
Up to them. How they operated their business is their business, and whether or not the qualify for special treatment is public policy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Being gay is involuntary and therefore protected.
Sedition is a choice and rightly illegal.
Even the hardcore freeze peach warriors draw the line at federal crimes against the state.
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody was protesting anyone being gay.
So maybe stay focused on the issue being discussed?
And while smearing shit on the capital walls might be contextually funny, AND at the same time I believe they should be punished severely for it, it's not even close to sedition.
If you'd like to talk *actual* sedition, let's talk about CHAZ and when those 'activists' (notice nobody calling them terrorists in the media) are going to hang for their crimes, shall we?
Re: (Score:2)
I'll admit, my feelings on this is are laced with schadenfreude. The same people complaining about how cake bakers should be allowed to discriminate are the same ones who are now whining because they are being discriminated against. Of course, the proper course of action would be to apply those feelings to other people. Unfortunately, these people are incapable of empathy because it's all about them.
This is the world Republicans created--where businesses have rights and feelings and shouldn't have to do
Spoiled (Score:2)
If that ain't the perfect metaphor of the Trump administration on many levels.
Don's parents sent him to a military academy to try to give him the discipline he lacked. When Don screwed up badly, the academy was hesitant to punish him too harshly because his parents were big donors.
[P]utting a sock in Trump's toxic pie-hole (Score:2)
Yes, this is a voice of mature reason and judgment that deserves to be listened to.
Natural monopoly (Score:2)
No, they've become their own justice system (Score:2)
Far too many people have decided that THEY get to be law enforcement (their law), judge, jury, and executioner. Put it this way, how would you feel if some random asshat decided that you're guilty of a crime that they've defined and they decide to imprison you?
“The *need* to de-platform” ??? (Score:2)
“Shut up” is not an argument. It’s certainly not a good headline.
deplatforming - the new vigilantism (Score:2)
When individuals and businesses decide that they can define their own unwritten laws, change them on-the-fly and enforce them in any way they see fit and only against their enemies, acting as cop, judge, jury, and executioner, the results are generally not good.
Human beings created governments specifically to end this arbitrary and self-serving barbarity.
Governments, at their best, provide:
A fixed set of written laws so anybody can know BEFORE they do something that it is legal or illegal and what the ass
Online vs. Print? (Score:2)
It seem obvious to me that companies will tend to do whatever makes them the most profit, so for online companies they are willing to take almost any advertisement or post anything juicy.
If they had the same liability for slander and libel, they'd do a decent job of reviewing everything, which would cost them some
The real problem is credulity (Score:2)
Why don't they put stuff they read/hear through their critical thinking filters, before accepting it and acting on it.
Well, Trump is a leader, and we should be able to uncritically believe our leader, right?
Wrong! Reputable fact-checkers estimate that the number of objectively false statements uttered by Donald Trump while in office has exceeded 25,000. Considering four years in office is ~1,460 days, that comes out at an aver
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:4, Insightful)
There are already laws dealing with violence, but this use of extreme example avoids the actual issue.
This is speech that someone else disagrees with being censored. Companies, operating as a public square and voice for the common man, enjoy protection under section 230. What we see today are plenty of outlets curating those communications and still enjoying the protection of a public platform.
It's having your cake and eating it too. Now, just go do some mental gymnastics as to why platforms get to act as publishers with impunity.
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:3, Insightful)
So tired of this brainless argument.
In the physical world, there are public spaces where you can stand on your soapbox and be heard. In the Internet, the social media sites are this space. In US legal terms, they really are effectively common carriers.
If a site (or an infrastructure provider like AWS) picks and chooses (and it's not clear that this should be allowed, if they are as ubiquitous as AWS), then they have chosen a different role - publisher - and they must lose any liability protection.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
In the physical world, there are public spaces where you can stand on your soapbox and be heard. In the Internet, the social media sites are this space
LOL not at all, more like the inside of an amusement park. Just because it's big don't be tricked into thinking it's public. The equivalent to those public spaces on the Internet is setting up your own website. And if you rent your soapbox, watch out for the terms of service.
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
ISPs are not dropping packets to the IPs of far-right / disinformation sites - otherwise Gab, 8chan, Prison Planet and Wattsupwiththat would all be accessible only by darknet.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Someone tried to tell me the other day that the only way for shitty speech to exist on the internet is if you build your own internet from the DNS layer up.
FFS, The Pirate Bay has been actively targeted by media companies with deep pockets for more than a decade now, and they are still up. But here's a big hint: They're not relying on AWS to stay up.
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:5, Informative)
The pirate bay has enjoyed CDN support and DDoS protection from cloudflare for a long time, in fact they went down a few months ago when they temporarily left cloudflare. Parler was kicked off of cloudflare.
Re: (Score:2)
Cloudflare is currently involved in litigation over protecting pirate sites.
Booting sites like Parler may have fucked them as now the MAFFIA is claiming that they are not in fact a neutral service that is content agnostic.
Re: (Score:2)
Yet TPB, as a site, is portable ever since they moved to magnet links rather then torrent files. A few years ago, it was said you could move the entirety of TPB to a new host using a 1g flash drive.
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:2)
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:4, Insightful)
I think there's a fundamental question that needs to be answered: is there a promising route by which a democracy can survive the influence of uncensored social media?
And what exactly *is* social media? Is a traditional forums where (mis)information must spread slowly and organically really the same sort of thing as Twitter or Facebook, where the company is picking and choosing what you see next from a vast ocean of possible candidates? Seems to me they're inherently using their own voice to amplify certain messages. Should they be treated the same in the eyes of the law?
One possible 230 reform would be to simply remove it. Kill social media where it stands, buried under an avalanche of either spam or SLAPP suites. Of course, the reality would likely be that people would simply shift to using foreign alternatives, and our government would lose what influence it has, while others likely gain much more influence over our internal affairs.
Re: (Score:2)
Seems pretty simple really. If they want to act as editors, that's their right, and they no longer qualify for 230 protection. As a private company they can choose, but not have both.
Re: (Score:3)
That is one of the options I mentioned - die under an avalanche of spam.
Any completely uncensored platform is clearly a communication channel, and doesn't need 230 protections. 230 specifically grants the ability to filter out spam and other undesirable content without being considered a publisher.
And *any* modern social media site like Facebook, Twitter, etc. that curates content, will inherently censor all the content it doesn't promote.
Re: (Score:2)
S230 doesn't allow for completely uncensored platforms.
They still have to remove illegal images or face severe consequences. The FBI regularly seizes sites over copyright infringement. S230 protections have their limits.
Common carrier only works when it's a private channel like a phone line or internet connection. Email qualifies but not the web.
Re: (Score:3)
I think there's a fundamental question that needs to be answered: is there a promising route by which a democracy can survive the influence of uncensored social media?
Lol, you never went to 4chan, did you?
The answer is no. It is not possible to have uncensored social media. Even fucking 4chan had to censor users. Any uncensored social media almost immediately is overrun by trolls, and absolutely trashed to the point that it's mostly just trolls trolling trolls there.
We can talk about how much we should censor, or what we should censor, but not doing it is not an option. Anyone who thinks it is has had no experience trying to run a community on the internet.
Re: Censorship is fascism no matter who does it (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The issue for democracy is lack of scrutiny. That's why Trump loved Twitter, he could bypass the media asking him difficult questions or commenting on his BS, and talk directly to the electorate.
It goes beyond social media, you now have entire news networks and websites that are nothing but fake news. Social media is just one part of it.
Re: (Score:2)
I think there's a fundamental question that needs to be answered: is there a promising route by which a democracy can survive the influence of uncensored social media?
While this is a very good question, I think most Americans were long brainwashed on the dogma "Democracy is the least bad form of government" that they have stopped thinking long ago.
Why did I say that? Well, for one, you can ask the same question about a lot of things that had already happened in the past, such as:
Can democracy survive anti-intellectualism running rampant?
Can democracy survive the infusion of big money into politics?
Can democracy survive the military-industrial complex?
Well, the form of g
Re: (Score:2)
Removing section 230 would also destroy sites like github and would destroy any kind of content specific forum. Section 230 is what allowed things like cooking forums to remove non-cooking related posts.
Section 230 was not created for social media; they just benefit from it. Removing it would cause massive damage to the internet. I do think it is time to revisit section 230 and look at changing it.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree - perhaps restricting 230 to sites where there is no content promotion of the kind Facebook, etc. must inherently perform when deciding what's next in your feed. It would still kill social media, but leave more traditional online communities untouched.
I think that might be the least-bad option unless someone can suggest a realistic method by which the massive disinformation potential of social media can be greatly reduced without invoking massive politically-controlled censorship. I have not heard
Re: (Score:2)
I definitely agree we need a better way to deal with this. The way Facebook and Twitter use this is much different than GitHub, StackOverflow or even Reddit uses it. While some parts of Reddit can be bad most of the communities are very good at things like r/MachineLearning/ or r/tensorflow or r/dataisbeautiful/ are really useful and I would not want them to be destroyed. All reddit would have to change if the law where about content promotion would be to change the front page that has top posts from across
Re: (Score:2)
In US legal terms, they really are effectively common carriers.
Is that so? Has a court ruled on that?
Re: (Score:2)
In US legal terms, they really are effectively common carriers.
No, this problem has arisen because companies in the middle of the Internet supply chain are NOT common carriers. They need to be legally reclassified as such. The Internet is no longer their garage. It's all grown up now.
Re: (Score:2)
In US legal terms, they really are effectively common carriers.
Except they are not, since they can not appeal to that if they are taken to court over what is hosted on them.
And considering there are strong forces in the US working hard on revoking common carrier status even from ISP's, the chance that a private company hosting social media will get common carrier status approaches zero.
You may feel they SHOULD be classified as such, but what you feel does not affect their reality. They have little choice but to be selective, or they will be overrun with spam, hate site
Re: (Score:2)
You couldn't be more wrong. Amazon is the same as private property. Go into a Walmart or shopping mall and start yelling about whatever you like. Chances are good you will be asked to leave. Now has the mall violated your freedom of speech?
Just because you believe Amazon is a common carrier doesn't make it true.
Re: (Score:2)
This is hilariously and ridiculously incorrect
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is a distinct lack of common carriers, boosted by government-granted monopolies, and large monopolistic corporations that provide both utilities and content. We should start by separating the owners of network infrastructure (on public land) from the content, and make them common carriers and utilities. Then ISPs and cloud services would be competitive instead of monopolistic, and perhaps even be common carriers and utilities.
Put another way, you don't hear cries for the electric company to shut
Re: (Score:2)
No it isn't. You want it to be like that because they did all of the work developing their userbase and you want them to give that benefit of that audience to you, for free, because... fairness? GTFO. They owe you nothing.
If you want your own space to spew nonsense, start your own blog or website.
Re: (Score:2)
Each company can choose. Do they want to be treated as a carrier? Then act like one. Want to be treated as a publisher? That's fine too. Just don't ask for the benefits of both at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
-1 flamebait. When you have no argument left.
Re: (Score:2)
Be careful what you wish for. What happens when they begin applying this principle to anti-competitive behaviours or as a way to stifle things like right to repair? Deplatforming is an extreme response for extreme situations and should remain that way.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that you can't de-platform a platform that owns it's infrastructure. There's nobody to contact and go "hey this site is dangerous", unless you're living in a corrupt country that can straight up cut off it's entire populace without even blinking.
Starlink and similar tech may ultimately make de-platforming futile, because the physical constraints of operating are removed in favor of being able to operate in secret (or at least not without someone driving around the neighborhood looking for una
Was that your position on... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
"Speech is speech, and people have the RIGHT to speak. There is no right to interfere with the people who want to listen"
You think the Founding Fathers meant that private companies have to send your theories FOR FREE to people around the globe into their pockets?
That the Washington Post has to publish ALL your letters just as all the letters of your moronic friends?
Free Speech is not Free Worldwide Ads for your special reality.
If you want that, you have to BUY those ads.
Re: (Score:2)
De-platforming isn't censorship. You are still free to find somewhere to say what you will, these companies won't stop you or go out and pressure others to prevent you from saying what you will. They just won't help and support you to do it.
Also, you can't just say whatever in hopes of hiding behind "my freedom of speech, first a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
She implies that Facebook requires it if it isn't to become a disinformation-riddled menace to humanity (which it did).
Re: (Score:2)
My interpretation of that statement was not "Facebook has a policy that requires you to tell the truth" or similar. It was a bit more abstract. Something like: "Facebook gives individuals unprecedented power to "be heard" by everyone. If Facebook is going to allow every individual message to reach millions upon millions of people, then Facebook has a moral obligation to ensure that false messages are not published. False facts cause too much harm, and therefore, Facebook is on the hook to guarantee that
Re:Tech companies must be stopped (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
That's hyperbole. Trump is not silenced. He can call a press conference at any moment and every single news organization will cover it. He also controls sites likes whitehouse.gov (for a few more days) where he could presumably write whatever he likes and it would, without a doubt, get repeated in a great many places.
Re: (Score:3)
Silence the President? Seriously...He has a pressroom and can appear on tv whenever he feels like it. Trump won't because he doesn't want to take questions.
Good lord, facebook and twitter are not primary means of communication with the country or the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Press room?
He's got a fucking press pool who travel around with him! There are literally a bunch of people who's entire jobs are to report on what he says and does, to the extent that they travel around the world with him. Every day the White House tells them if he's traveling and how much access they will get to him.
If someone is saying the president is silenced, you can immediately write them off as a waste of oxygen.