>private companies engaging in evaluating what's permissible speech and not
I don't feel this is an issue until you can't spin up your own website/app/platform and allow whatever speech you want. I am interested for any responses as to why I might be mistaken from people who disagree with me, though.
That's only part of the equation though. People who disagree with PoVs not only want to get people suspended or banned from ubiquitous comms platforms but they also want to doxx them and publicly shame them. I'm not talking about immediate threats of violence or disgusting vile language. But more generic points of view on various contentious topics.
But let's take your objection at face value. Let's say a certain Senator has declared the senator wants to break up some certain major tech companies and these companies disagree. Under your take they would be within their rights to suspend or ban or de-rank such candidates given they already have their websites as platforms to comms and moreover that's a non event.
I don't agree with doxxing or getting people fired. I am fine with facebook/twitter/etc. de-ranking/suspending/hiding/whatever a candidate who has called for their breakup, even though I support their breakup.
Here's the thing, you either support freedom of speech and expression, or you don't. Now if you do, then you have to support the nazi's right to speak and express, the abortion doctor's right to speak and express, the senator's right to speak and express, and the beggar's right to speak and express.
Everyone's right must be supported. If someone wants to express themselves to my boss via boycott in an effort to get me fired, so be it. That's their right. Just as it's the nazi's right to express himself on the internet to better inform people about the tenets of his ideology. The government must have no ability to constrict either activity.
It may not seem like it, but it's actually a good thing that the government can't stop any of these people from doing any of these things.
If you want to get the government to disallow any boycotts of companies, then you are not really in favor of freedom of speech and expression.
Do you support (or at least not want the government to ban) libel/slander?
What about child pornography?
Should I be able to run into an airport and yell "BOMB"?
Perjury? Should it be illegal to lie in court?
I also assume that if I had your real name, address, and SSN that you think it should be legal for me to post that info in this comment ('doxxing')?
Now, the thing is, I mostly agree with you. However, it's plainly ridiculous to claim that someone has to fully support/oppose free speech. Make a real argument rather than just claim your opponent's position doesn't exist in order to strawman their position as 'not suporting freedom of speech and expression'.
I support the rights of NAZIs or others to express themselves within the law. I don't believe that facebook should be compelled to carry their speech without being compelled to carry all legal speech.
Finally, I will say I don't believe facebook or others should be compelled to carry all legal speech.
Here's the thing, you either support freedom of speech and expression, or you don't.
There are plenty of gradients to freedom of expression - child porn is an obvious one, and German law against Nazi speech is another, and there are things in-between like advertisements for opioids or tobacco.
All you've done is restate the absolutist position, without addressing the challenges of that position which include: criminal speech, commercial speech, and the fact the restrictions on some speech have been successfully implemented without all the negative side effects that absolutists claim are inevitable.
People who disagree with PoVs not only want to get people suspended or banned from ubiquitous comms platforms but they also want to doxx them and publicly shame them.
"People" is awfully non-specific here. I support the right of companies to decide what is on their platforms but I don't want people doxxed or shamed.
Let's say a certain Senator has declared the senator wants to break up some certain major tech companies and these companies disagree. Under your take they would be within their rights to suspend or ban or de-rank such candidates given they already have their websites as platforms to comms and moreover that's a non event.
This is already the case - Newspapers, TV station and other publications already can refuse advertisements and frequently don't carry news they disagree with. That's why a competitive news ecosystem is incredibly important.
Some of these tech companies are so large and pervasive that they are integral parts of society. The policies they enact with that power can have a chilling effect. Now, whether we should or shouldn't do something about that is another matter. The Government has certainly shown a willingness to regulate industries that got to big for their britches before.
I am not sure I agree with these companies being an integral part of society. I feel pretty confident they could be replaced by alternatives operated by other people and most if not all users would not notice the difference. But I've seen that happen with the early WWW with Altavista, Yahoo, etc.
And if they are an integral part of society then I think they should be heavily regulated for things like foreign and domestic propaganda and the promotion of dangerous falsehoods. It's either self-regulation (within legal reason) and whatever they decide is appropriate for their platforms, or they should be heavily regulated with guaranteed free expression as allowed by law.
I think if we haven't had any serious conversation about making internet service a public utility, then it seems a bit of a farce to consider talking about companies like these as integral to our modern society.
How proper internet service is still held hostage by the likes of Comcast and Verizon is beyond me, with little discussion given while everyone talks about the leverage of these three companies.
That is a very different question - both dropping integral a very vast and the entire press vs particularly large publishers.
The answer is yes but irrelevant as so are embezzlers, serial killers or would a hypothetical few who literally want to actively to destroy every trace of it.
The question is vague enough that literal cancer could get both yes and no as answers logically (cases caused by society part of it vs existing independently in species without anything to remotely qualify as a society).
Your evaluation seems to disregard the relative network sizes and in turn exposure one has on a mainstream platform vs a tiny user created one. This difference seems so obvious to me, I suspect you may only have a limited subset of "issues" in mind, such as the 1st amendment.
The point is, you don't have a right to get your message in front of people. You only have a right to speak your message. You can speak your message in the middle of the street, but the government is under no obligation to force people to stop on the street and listen to your message. Because other people have the right to ignore you. That right to ignore and not associate with you is also part of free speech and free expression. There really are no further guarantees to free speech and expression other than being able to speak and express.
But the 1st, and more broadly, the Constitution, is the only issue that does matter. That’s what you don’t seem to be getting. No one cares if you can’t get an audience. But we care very deeply that the government not be able to constrict your right to speak.
>Also, in places where the Constitution does not apply, does nothing matter?
You're free to move to places where the Constitution does not apply if you feel that will work out better for you. Here in the US, we take the Constitution seriously enough that a very large number of us would readily kill in its defense.
Yes. No one. If you can't get an audience, that means no one cares about your content. The only other option is that you have misrepresented your argument, and you, in fact, can get an audience. In which case there is no problem because you have no problem finding your audience.
Look man, there's an audience for rap. There's an audience for country. There's even an audience for heavy metal. But don't try to pawn that crap off on people who don't want to hear it. They have a right to turn the station, and the government must never constrict that right because "heavy metal can't find an audience".
> If you can't get an audience, that means no one cares about your content.
If someone has 5000 followers on Twitter, is then banned, and then sets up his own platform, do you actually believe one can logically conclude that those people not finding him on the new platform is because they all simultaneously became uninterested in his content?
It fascinates me how certain topics seem to be able to disable the logical capabilities of even HN folks. Perhaps I should add this notion to the 2020 Predictions thread, I can't imagine others aren't going to start noticing this phenomenon eventually.
> Look man, there's an audience for rap. There's an audience for country. There's even an audience for heavy metal. But don't try to pawn that crap off on people who don't want to hear it. They have a right to turn the station, and the government must never constrict that right because "heavy metal can't find an audience".
I would love to know if you are able to realize that this is a distinctly different situation.
"I don't feel this is an issue until you can't spin up your own website/app/platform and allow whatever speech you want."
I disagree that no "issue" exists. This is a distinctly different notion than "rights".
I find this (type of) conversation interesting from a psychology perspective, because the topic seems to render many people unable to see a distinction.
>I don't feel this is an issue until you can't spin up your own website/app/platform and allow whatever speech you want.
We're already kinda at this point. I don't condone them, obviously, but sites like the Daily Stormer and 8chan have been kicked off several registrars, and at one point one of their hosting providers got kicked off their upstream provider for hosting them.
I'm generally fine with social media companies policing their sites, but I get nervous when we start talking about similar things in core internet infrastructure. I think we're setting a dangerous precedent for the future if we do that.
Because speech is meaningless without an audience, and people on mainstream platforms don't all know about or agree with those platform's moderation/censorship policies.
Sure people shouldn't be "forced to listen to everyone's message", but what if it's a message someone does want to listen to, but the platform doesn't want to transmit? And since they don't even know the message exists, they won't be seeking it out on alternative platforms.
>people on mainstream platforms don't all know about or agree with those platform's moderation/censorship policies.
I will agree with you on this. I think the moderation policies should be clearly delineated or they don't really exist. A law is not much of a law if it's unequally applied.
You bring up an interesting point about "discovery" of view points you want to hear about, especially when you consider the foundation of the Internet as a platform: search engines. One problematic example I can think of off the top of my head is the "anti-vaxx" movement, which may be promoting a message that some people want to hear but at what cost to their children or the larger society who are subject to those parents' whims or beliefs? Very different than me discovering there are other people out there on the internet who are disturbed by the Garfield comic and want to joke about the existential horror of a cartoon cat and his owner.
I can't say that I have an easy answer for the issue of the harmful effects of a platform on the societies its users are members of. Or even determining what is harmful (or not).
If a society only allows 'harmless' speech, then it simply does not have freedom of speech, regardless of if it is enforced by law or private platforms. Much like in other areas (e.g. police powers), there is a balancing between rights/liberty, and security(1). At least when it comes to US law, this balancing was already done - the 1st Amendment embodies the opinion that allowing government censorship would be worse than allowing 'harmful'(2) speech.
That said, the situation has changed. Among other things, the ratio between the amount of speech, and the number of speakers or their resources is getting harder to determine, as is the origin of the speech(3), and the nature of the speaker. It could be an anonymous fellow citizen, a corporate shill, or an agent/bot of a hostile foreign government. The platforms themselves can also massively influence public opinion by suppressing some viewpoints, and promoting others (not by something as crude as censorship, but by changing the threshold of when a post goes viral). This effect is similar to that of media conglomeration, but harder to detect.
Personally, I lean heavily towards only banning "inauthentic behavior" (the mentioned shills and bots), as I believe Twitter refers to it, and allowing all other currently legal speech.
(1) Giving up some freedom may grant security from other people, but it reduces security against the state itself - the risk of abuse of authority increases, as does the harm a bad government can cause.
(2) Quotes not because I don't believe some speech is harmful, but because outside of a few narrow exceptions (probably coinciding with the exceptions to the 1st Amendment determined by the US Supreme Court), everyone has their own opinion on which speech is harmful and which isn't, and which should be allowed and which banned.
(3) Though the Supreme Court has on a few occasions ruled quite decisively in favor of anonymous speech.
what if it's a message someone does want to listen to, but the platform doesn't want to transmit? And since they don't even know the message exists, they won't be seeking it out on alternative platforms.
Are you talking about Fox News not broadcasting the benefits of public health options or CNN not broadcasting something beneficial about guns here?
Yes it's a problem. It's unclear it it limited to digital platforms.
It's not a problem though. Private platforms, whether digital or not, do not have to carry your message. That's also a part of free expression. Fox is free to ignore whomever they choose. Everyone gets rights, not just the platform, not just the user. The user can speak whatever he wants, and so can the platform. There are good reasons for this, it allows for propaganda portals like fox news, but it also allows for real, well researched journalism like propublica.
You explained well why it's legal, but not why it's not a problem. Many things that are, and even should be legal, are also problems. Such as Fox ignoring whoever they choose - they certainly should have that right, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem when they present a misleading narrative.
>>> ... since they don't even know the message exists, they won't be seeking it out on alternative platforms.
>> .. Yes it's a problem. It's unclear it it limited to digital platforms.
> It's not a problem though...
You didn't seem to address the OP's issue ("they don't even know the message exists, they won't be seeking it out on alternative platforms") here at all?
Is your mind able to distinguish between a problem in general, and a problem that the government should solve?
This is kind of a two part problem: an ability to realize the difference (an ability that seems largely constrained by evolution), and an ability to admit it publically.
I enjoy posing "philosophical" questions like this and observing if interest in the topic vanishes.
> I don't feel this is an issue until you can't spin up your own website/app/platform and allow whatever speech you want.
I mostly agree with you on "website/app". As for the platform, it really depends on the nature and size of the platform. If it becomes an essential platform or if it is a monopoly, then you could argue it has utility features and hence everyone has a right to it. For example, you wouldn't say a power or water company doesn't have to serve you because you can go start your own power or water company.
You could argue that twitter is an essential platform since its the primary form of communication for the president. It is a platform for you to communicated with your elected official. Hence twitter as a platform is a "utility" and cannot block US citizens from accessing it and exercising their 1st amendment rights. This actually could be an interesting Supreme Court case if anyone who has been banned wants to ligitate. It could actually be precedent-setting.
You could argue that facebook, youtube, etc are monopolies that nearly serve the purpose of a utility and hence you have a right to it.
Also, you could argue that these american companies have a duty to follow the "spirit of free speech" in our country even if they aren't legally bound to it.
There are arguments to be made on both sides. Unfortunately, it isn't being taken through the legal system.
I think if a platform like twitter or facebook have become a "utility" or indispensable to society then they should be heavily regulated and fall under society's control. I replied elsewhere that I am not sure I agree that these platforms have achieved indispensability but leaving that aside if they are integral to society then society should control them.
>you could argue that these american companies have a duty to follow the "spirit of free speech" in our country even if they aren't legally bound to it
I could not personally argue this in any shape way or form because I don't even know what to base this claim on. Free speech has been restricted historically (often during war-time but also for various populations of people.) It has been restricted for pragmatic reasons (like perjury).
I don't feel this is an issue until you can't spin up your own website/app/platform and allow whatever speech you want. I am interested for any responses as to why I might be mistaken from people who disagree with me, though.