Nope. Not in the way that these laws are constructed. Is it dangerous to allow big tech companies to do whatever they want? Sure, but the constitution specifically prevents the sort of crap in the...
The tech giants need to be regulated.
Nope. Not in the way that these laws are constructed. Is it dangerous to allow big tech companies to do whatever they want? Sure, but the constitution specifically prevents the sort of crap in the Texas and Florida laws exactly because it is dangerous to allow the government the power to tell you what you have to say or what you can't say.
If people don't like the way that large platforms moderate their content, they are free to go register a domain, pay for an internet connection/server, and put their content onto the internet in much the same fashion that any of the large players do and the government has no right to curtail their doing so. But it should be noted that social norms and what the public largely considers acceptable might curtail your speech anyway, because if you're saying shit that nobody wants to hear, people who are helping you say it might decide that they don't want to be a part of that anymore and they might withdraw their support of your speech as is their right to do.
You have a right to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean that you are due a platform or the tools to spread that speech to a large crowd and people who don't want to listen or support you are also not required to listen to or help with your speech.
The premise that we have to accept this regulation else we get none is just disingenuous shittalking trying to scare people into opening the flap and letting the government's nose into the 'abridging the freedom of speech' tent.
I agree with most of what you say. However, the government very, very clearly does regulate what you can and cannot say on a number of issues. Which areas are regulated and not are not obvious,...
Sure, but the constitution specifically prevents the sort of crap in the Texas and Florida laws exactly because it is dangerous to allow the government the power to tell you what you have to say or what you can't say
I agree with most of what you say.
However, the government very, very clearly does regulate what you can and cannot say on a number of issues. Which areas are regulated and not are not obvious, and from western country to western country they vary.
Why is it so obvious that there are rules against fighting words/inciting violence, but not against hate speech?
Are other countries wrong to disallow holocaust-denial, or the use of nazi symbols?
Delineations of unacceptable child exploitation images, where images that show the torture of animals (also for sexual gratification) being fine. Why's that obvious?
Why are the limits for state secrets what they are? What about Snowden or Julian Assange (wikileaks)?
Why was it so obvious that "obscene" material be disallowed for a number of years, before suddenly it was equally obvious that wasn't what the Founding fathers meant centuries before?
It's silly to try to divine out modern policy from texts that should in no way be authoritative as they are products of their time and the people of that time.
I think it's extremely important we recognize that speech is strongly regulated in the US, and that these specifics are not obvious or natural.
If we don't, we preclude a bunch of important debates on how speech should be regulated in today's globally interconnected world of instant mass communication.
Because these standards should adapt to what's going on in society at this point in time, as has been the case before.
The premise that we have to accept this regulation else we get none is just disingenuous shittalking trying to scare people into opening the flap and letting the government's nose into the 'abridging the freedom of speech' tent.
We do, should have, and have to accept speech regulation. There should be huge public debates on where the standards should be and where they are. The might of the word is way to important to outsource to Supreme Court justices we should not expect to understand how modern mass communication works. They're just not modern users and don't live the experience.
Agreed, and perhaps I shouldn't have taken that for granted in my quick screed so that others wouldn't assume I meant otherwise. That accepted and acknowledged, the Florida and Texas laws are so...
However, the government very, very clearly does regulate what you can and cannot say on a number of issues.
Agreed, and perhaps I shouldn't have taken that for granted in my quick screed so that others wouldn't assume I meant otherwise.
That accepted and acknowledged, the Florida and Texas laws are so overly broad that it's of little consequence that the first amendment has some select carveouts. They're effectively saying that if you want to have a platform, you are not allowed to silence opinions you don't agree with... On your own platform. The property that you pay for must carry speech that you (and most of your users*) do not care for because the government is mandating it. Not some tailored and specific speech that affects a public interest like a safety poster or an employee rights poster (other occasions where the people -collectively the government- have identified an interest in forcing speech that a company may not agree with) but just a general blanket order that you do not have the option to moderate (without onerous government oversight on a case by case basis) and that you have to carry all speech if you're going to have a platform.
Now I should say that Florida and Texas are sorta right in one regard, but like most people they've misunderstood the OSI model when they think the error is at the application layer and in reality it's at the physical layer. The physical layer is where discrimination should not be allowed and Network Neutrality should be enshrined in law. There is a limited amount of cabling and airwaves (infrastructure) that can carry messages by nature of the physical universe we live in and that infrastructure should not be allowed to discriminate because legitimate speech could be squelched if the physical layer decided to do so, but servers and services that run on the physical layer infrastructure are basically without limit and if you don't like how one of those services operates, you can go elsewhere or make your own so long as the physical layer is not allowed to discriminate.
It's insane to think that the intention of the first amendment was to allow the government to bully newspapers into saying whatever anyone wanted them to print back in the day; every bit as much as it's insane now to think that it's the governments place to regulate what a platform's terms of service will allow in what is effectively a massive Letters to the Editor section now.
Your option if you don't like "being censored" on a platform, is to go to another one, or build your own; it is not getting the government to step in and bully the platform into forcing them to carry your speech.
We do, should have, and have to accept speech regulation.
I never said we didn't. You should note that in the text you quoted I said that what was disingenuous was that we had to accept THIS regulation lest we get NO regulation. Implicit there was that there are regulations that can be had and the author presenting this as a scenario where we had better take this deal or we won't get any deal is where I believe the author is talking out of his ass.
*If you don't believe that users have a say in the moderation policies of a platform, take a look at how Tumblr cratered when they decided that they were going to go full porn ban. Users left the platform in droves and basically removed that platform from any relevance; a move from which it has still generally never recovered. Now Tumblr is still there limping along but most of the users went to other platforms and it really hasn't been acknowledged as a major social media player since then. A platform is free to moderate how they like, but they do so at their own peril if they choose to moderate beyond the accepted bounds of their community, which generally guarantees that they will moderate in accordance to the desires of the majority of their users.
Societies collectively decide what is or isn't permissible speech. Sometimes this comes top-down, with some "government someone or another" getting a bug in their butt about something they've...
Societies collectively decide what is or isn't permissible speech. Sometimes this comes top-down, with some "government someone or another" getting a bug in their butt about something they've decided on their own should be impermissible. Sometimes it comes from the bottom-up, where the citizenry begins to build consensus about something that should or shouldn't be permissible.
I'm a Free Speech absolutist. Short of restricting calls for violence, or violent illegality, I'm not in favor of speech restrictions by the government. I'm not really even in favor of restrictions from society, but at the same time that's kind of an academic point for me since I am in favor of any individual (collectively or singularly) not being required to receive (listen) to any speech. So society will more or less ignore speech it collectively doesn't agree with, dealing with that issue in a way I find acceptable.
The problem with government speech controls is they are abused. Always, they're abused. Once you start letting government weigh in, they abuse it. People do that with power. It's inevitable. If we establish a pattern of allowing a judge, a Senate or Senator, a President, a mayor, a city or county councilor, anyone elected to an office or otherwise entrusted with power to decide, if we allow those positions to unilaterally establish and enforce speech restrictions, they will seek to use that power to their own ends. Sometimes to enrich, sometimes to punish, sometimes to eliminate competitors or rivals.
Sometimes just because they're evil pieces of shit. Dictators, for example, very often put in speech restrictions to reduce the (open, public) event of disagreement with the dictator, his policies, and his leadership. This same thing happens, is happening, in America.
What do you think the book banning stuff is? They're banning speech. They're trying to outlaw ideas, discredit thoughts they disagree with. There's a link on Tildes right now about a sheriff walking through a library plucking books off the shelf, just because the sheriff decided "they're bad." And not only is he armed, he has power of his office behind him. Who can stop him? He's the fucking police! If they took a book away from him to return to the shelf, who thinks that person would survive? The sheriff would consider it a physical assault and likely start blasting, because that's what American "police" do; they kill people who offend them.
That sheriff is not allowing, is not going to allow, "public debate." He's unilaterally abusing his power to decide speech. Anyone in the community who objects to his removal of the books is being ignored. Possibly, depending on how much of an asshat the sheriff is, those people will be targeted for police abuse. Which is also a thing that happens far more than never.
That's not public debate. That's just an escalation of the abuse of power. All started by one small minded asshat who decided he knew better than anyone else what should be allowed to be said, and happened to have a badge and the power of the state behind him.
The TX/FL laws are state level abuses of power. Several levels above a mere sheriff. They want to control and shape speech on a scope and scale far broader than even their own states, because they full well known the social media sites they're targeting operate worldwide.
The line is is simple, and clear. Government stays out of speech so long as the speech isn't violent or calling for it. And even then, government needs to tread cautiously; it needs to be pretty clear that the speech in question actually is calling for violence. Speech more or less has to be across the line to be restrictable, so by definition some "damage" will have been done before the speech is removed; but that's a price worth paying to avoid speech being removed for no valid reason.
Because as bad as violence is, it's much more dangerous to society when government begins acting to police thoughts.
You see, I don't like the Texas and Florida laws either, but to rule that the Texas and Florida laws are unconstitutional because you trust social media companies more than certain state...
You see, I don't like the Texas and Florida laws either, but to rule that the Texas and Florida laws are unconstitutional because you trust social media companies more than certain state governments is a bad precedent.
I agree that social media sites are private spaces and the internet as a whole is the "public square" so to say. If you want to exercise free speech, you can host your own domain as people like Donald Trump have.
Social media sites are not a "public square" as they would want you to believe. There is a lot of editorializing that occurs by social media sites. Sometimes it's direct action of removing posts that sites feel will harm their advertising customers, other times it's algorithms that try to show users content to try and keep them engaged even if the content is false or harmful. That is all well and good, but when people are finding ways to use social media in ways that benefits the social media site, but is harmful overall to society, the government should be able to step in.
We don't allow people to incite riots with their free speech or yell "fire!" in a crowded theater with their free speech, so why should we allow social media sites to group people into multiple realities where they each believe a different set of fundamental facts.
They're unconstitutional because the government isn't supposed to dictate speech. That social media companies are huge fetid massively stinky shit piles is irrelevant. If you don't like Twitter...
...to rule that the Texas and Florida laws are unconstitutional because you trust social media companies more than certain state governments is a bad precedent.
They're unconstitutional because the government isn't supposed to dictate speech. That social media companies are huge fetid massively stinky shit piles is irrelevant. If you don't like Twitter you are free to go start a Truth Social. If you don't like Reddit you are free to go start a Tildes.
In social media there's literally nothing stopping anyone from going out there and saying whatever they want, except for potentially the social norms that their peers will enforce on them and the difficulty they might encounter in finding an audience on a platform they prefer. Even if you can't have your speech heard on the platform you would prefer, you still have the option to roll your own platform and say whatever bullshit is too hot of a take for where you'd like to say it.
If the government can force you to say things you don't agree with, there is no peaceful alternative, the government governs and you either extradite yourself from their governance or you do the shitlord thing and stage a violent coup. And the reason that I malign that later option is because ideally government should represent its people and we should be smart enough to never allow that power to be used for despicable ends like Florida and Texas are trying to pull here where we compromise life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so that we can make certain that people are saying the things we want to hear.
I don't know, when tech giants are trying to argue that their ability to collect user data and sell to the highest bidder is "speech" (with minimum consent), it starts to seem like the 1st...
The premise that we have to accept this regulation else we get none is just disingenuous shittalking trying to scare people into opening the flap and letting the government's nose into the 'abridging the freedom of speech' tent.
I don't know, when tech giants are trying to argue that their ability to collect user data and sell to the highest bidder is "speech" (with minimum consent), it starts to seem like the 1st amendment is a flimsy deflection than an honest desire to express one's views.
The article seems to go beyond telling companies what they can post or remove. I think the biggest issue is that not all content posted on a platform is protected speech to begin with. So where do we draw the line?
I just ran across this site that wonderfully summarizes what I was alluding to that I believe so many of us have forgotten: https://ff8isthe.best/but-really/ Now this guy is objectively wrong...
I just ran across this site that wonderfully summarizes what I was alluding to that I believe so many of us have forgotten:
You can make a website and nobody can stop you! Right now, you can buy a domain name and set up a site where you can do whatever the hell you want. There are so many TLDs now that anyone can land a fun name, without having to resort to one of those fake tech company alphabet soup names that’s missing vowels.
I miss websites where people would come up with silly ideas and share them just for the hell of it, in a permanent home that anyone could reference without having to backscroll. I love the phenomenon of somebody sharing a link and saying “hey what the hell is this,” and it’s not just a tweet.
I long for a world of a million Zombo.coms. This unhinged, aggressive, but sincere website is my attempt to keep the torch lit.
Now this guy is objectively wrong (Final Fantasy VI is the best Final Fantasy.) But he doesn't need anyone's approval to spout his wrongheaded nonsense. He got a domain, set up hosting, and he's running a whole blog devoted to it. It'd be beautiful if it weren't so absolutely incorrect. 😜 (The site is actually quite amazing and I love the energy, I just have to take a dig at anyone who thinks VI isn't the best FF.)
And the big issue is I never heard of him until I read this comment. Which in itself is on a pretty niche website. This "tumblr esque" means of blogging and re-blogging was an interesting era, but...
He got a domain, set up hosting, and he's running a whole blog devoted to it. I
And the big issue is I never heard of him until I read this comment. Which in itself is on a pretty niche website. This "tumblr esque" means of blogging and re-blogging was an interesting era, but I was hoping for more forum like discussions between interested parties with the age of "microblgging". You may not always have an entire post you want to make, but you can add, correct, or expand upon others ideas.
Of course the real result of microblgging was the worst of both world (not much discussion so much as screeching, and content quality has nosedived), so maybe I was just an idealist once again
That hardly seems like a big issue. Nobody is owed exposure or a platform and he seems all the world to be having a ton of fun while getting some news coverage so I'd say he's doing alright.
And the big issue is I never heard of him until I read this comment.
That hardly seems like a big issue. Nobody is owed exposure or a platform and he seems all the world to be having a ton of fun while getting some news coverage so I'd say he's doing alright.
An issue for the author of the website? No. And issue for those who want more blogs and can't even find them if they don't know the exact URL? Yes. And the torch will go out at this rate. An...
That hardly seems like a big issue.
An issue for the author of the website? No.
And issue for those who want more blogs and can't even find them if they don't know the exact URL? Yes.
I long for a world of a million Zombo.coms. This unhinged, aggressive, but sincere website is my attempt to keep the torch lit.
And the torch will go out at this rate.
An entire generation of kids don't know an internet outside of the large social media. Exposure is the first big step if you want to achieve such a future. But if you just want to do it for you and don't care if you are talking into a void, then by all means. Nobody is owed exposure, and by that line of thinking, TikTok is the future, not Zombo.
In this context, though, the argument would be "social media giants shouldn't be allowed to editorialize because Gen Z doesn't know about blogs." If anything, pushing people off of the big sites...
In this context, though, the argument would be "social media giants shouldn't be allowed to editorialize because Gen Z doesn't know about blogs." If anything, pushing people off of the big sites if they want to discuss something specific would be a solution to Gen Z only knowing mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie. I mean, only knowing TikTok.
The laws in question, from TX and FL, said major social media platforms were barred from "censoring" user content. Banning any ability to moderate the content. Meaning, anyone could post anything,...
The laws in question, from TX and FL, said major social media platforms were barred from "censoring" user content. Banning any ability to moderate the content. Meaning, anyone could post anything, irregardless of content, and the platform would be prevented from removing it from the service. The platforms would be required to carry communication from anyone.
We all know what the TX and FL legislatures meant and wanted when they passed these laws. The lawmakers gave plenty of public statements, pandering to their bases, about it. They felt, and still feel, that "conservative viewpoints are being unfairly excluded."
But the reality of the laws means the social media companies will no longer have control over their networks. Should anyone, corporate or otherwise, be required to broadcast communication they chose not to? That's the heart of this case.
In the middle of the 20th century, "the nightly news" had an arguably greater reach than the social media networks do now. Everyone in America had basically three tv news sources, and those three nightly broadcasts more or less reached the vast majority of the country between them. The FCC implemented the Fairness Doctrine, but that's not really very similar to these laws here.
The FD said broadcasters, as a consequence of their use of the public airwaves, needed to air controversial views "of public interest" while doing so in a way that offered contrasting views. The law didn't, however, dictate what form that act took; they could tackle those subjects in a wide variety of ways, and their editorial staffs still had a huge amount of control over what did or didn't get covered, how, and who was permitted to weigh in on the subject of the day.
The internet is not the public airwaves. It's not a public resource. Further, the FD was removed and is no longer active law or active regulation.
These TX/FL laws are the same as if the Fairness Doctrine required any Joe Schmo who waltzed into the network's lobby with a screed to be allowed to stand up on the broadcast and speak his piece.
Anyone who wants to air their views online has a lot of ways to do it. They can run their own website, for example. They can utilize someone else's website, so long as the owner(s) of said sites permit them to. This is the key; if the owners allow it. Just because someone has something to say doesn't mean they're allowed to say it wherever the hell they want. If I run a newsletter, and I were required to print any letters or emails I received, I wouldn't run a newsletter. Would you?
Same goes for a Youtube channel, or a website, a bar, a theater, a newspaper (of any media, printed or electronic or other), or just about any communications channel one might care to name. Ownership should mean something, and shouldn't be corrupted by bad actors.
Anyone who feels their views are being diminished has plenty of options to air their views. But just because they feel they have views that need airing doesn't lead to how the rest of us are required to not just listen, but actively facilitate the spreading of said views. Joe Schmo can start his own newsletter, his own website, his own social media network.
After all, it's still a free country until The Right manages to lock it up.
"But the big sites are big..."
So? How does size have any relevance to the subject? The size of any social media site doesn't preclude any other site from operating. Especially online, where the space is effectively infinite. However big Facebook or Twitter become, any other site can spring into being tomorrow and eclipse them. It just has to do what they did; become known.
How to build a top ten Internet resource is a separate discussion, but I mention it because it has no bearing on this case. Even though some feel it does. Just because some entity has successfully built such a resource doesn't mean someone else can't. Now, if Facebook, Google, or any other big bad gorillas of the internet are actively meddling and preventing competitors, that's a problem. Probably outright illegal, but it's not a free speech debate, or relevant to this case.
The lawmakers who passed these laws are pretty much the same ones who feel cakemakers should be allowed to refuse customers based on First Amendment grounds. So because someone who offends the baker's religious proclivities wants to buy a cake, that's a violation of free speech if the baker is required to bake that cake. According to that logic, the baker should not be so required. The baker should, in fact, be enabled to aggressively reject such customers, solely due to how the baker personally feels about that customer's life choices.
But if the baker's Google, and the customer is some asshat who wants to talk up extremist views calling for everything up to (but legally short of) genocide of "unwanted classes" ... suddenly the baker is required to bake that cake. If they want to convince others the Earth is Flat, or Liberals are Evil, or Jenny Tutone is in fact a dirty slut because they said she is ... too bad, bake those cakes.
They can't have the cake and eat it. They can either have the cake, and admire having it. Or they can eat the cake, and think about how good it was. But it's one or the other.
I think the baker in that case is an asshat. But I also feel the baker should be allowed to refuse service, for any reason. He's not allowed to weaponize or become violent or anything, but if he doesn't want someone's business ... okay that's his call. Just because he runs a business it should not then follow that he's required to serve any customer who walks in.
And the potential customer really isn't hurt; there are lots of options for cakes. Plenty of other bakers. They could even bake their own cake. Maybe they have a friend who wants to try baking. Who knows. All I know is however much of an asshat I feel that baker is being about the cake (then, and presumably now), I also know I feel he should be allowed to pick his own customers.
The Right rallied behind that baker for religious and "own team" reasons. They agreed with the baker not for any principle, but merely because they hate gays. Now, suddenly, when it's not a baker but instead Google or Facebook, and it's not a gay customer but a poor maligned soul who wants to spout factually incorrect information it's not fair that the cake isn't baked.
The whole position is hypocritical. Assuming SOCTUS manages to rule that "large social media services are prevented from moderating content", one of the two rulings is inconsistent. As a matter of law inconsistent. And they already decided that forcing a baker to bake for any customer who demands it is a violation of free speech.
So aside from everything else, that should pretty much settle this issue. If the dipshit baker can give the finger to whoever he wants when they walk into his shop, then so can (insert huge social media company here). The fact that their shop is online, and accessed by millions doesn't change the basic facts; it's their shop, and they can let whomever they like bake there.
And anyone else can find another bakery. Or start one. Or pick up some flour and sugar and eggs and find a stove. They have plenty of options. They won't be left without cake. They just can't force others to eat theirs.
Along the same line of discussion as this post from @FarraigePlaisteach. Deleted copy of article contents per Deimos guidelines cfabbro has an archive link below.
I don't agree with the Texas law, but striking down the Texas law in the Supreme Court will effectively shield social media companies from regulation. The federal government should pass...
I don't agree with the Texas law, but striking down the Texas law in the Supreme Court will effectively shield social media companies from regulation.
The federal government should pass legislation regulating social media that will overrule the Texas law instead of the Texas law being ruled unconstitutional.
The court does have some options in how it might rule against these laws. They could rule broadly on first amendment grounds, but they could also rule narrowly on technical aspects of the state...
The court does have some options in how it might rule against these laws. They could rule broadly on first amendment grounds, but they could also rule narrowly on technical aspects of the state laws as written. The court could also send it back to fact finding courts to establish more thoroughly how the law would apply to different services.
The Supreme Court is never forced to do anything with any ruling. That's not only clear because they've been disregarding precedent recently, but they can also precisely state the limits of their...
The Supreme Court is never forced to do anything with any ruling. That's not only clear because they've been disregarding precedent recently, but they can also precisely state the limits of their rulings.
While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of doing so, if you copied the entire contents of the article to that comment then you should probably deleted it. From Deimos:
While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of doing so, if you copied the entire contents of the article to that comment then you should probably deleted it. From Deimos:
Please don't copy-paste entire articles into a comment like this. That's the kind of thing that can get the site in trouble for copyright infringement.
Funny how regulating the Internet went from being bad for business to an existential necessity as soon as the right wing in the US started caring more about spreading lies and hate than...
Funny how regulating the Internet went from being bad for business to an existential necessity as soon as the right wing in the US started caring more about spreading lies and hate than worshipping at the altar of the Invisible Hand.
You want to regulate Internet companies like they're common carriers? Then enshrine it in law by declaring them that and ensuring net neutrality. We went through that already, and it was rejected by the same short-sighted yahoos who're pissy that Trump and his ilk get deplatformed.
The balls on these people to insist on having it both ways just because it suits them and their bullshit will never cease to amaze me.
Nope. Not in the way that these laws are constructed. Is it dangerous to allow big tech companies to do whatever they want? Sure, but the constitution specifically prevents the sort of crap in the Texas and Florida laws exactly because it is dangerous to allow the government the power to tell you what you have to say or what you can't say.
If people don't like the way that large platforms moderate their content, they are free to go register a domain, pay for an internet connection/server, and put their content onto the internet in much the same fashion that any of the large players do and the government has no right to curtail their doing so. But it should be noted that social norms and what the public largely considers acceptable might curtail your speech anyway, because if you're saying shit that nobody wants to hear, people who are helping you say it might decide that they don't want to be a part of that anymore and they might withdraw their support of your speech as is their right to do.
You have a right to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean that you are due a platform or the tools to spread that speech to a large crowd and people who don't want to listen or support you are also not required to listen to or help with your speech.
The premise that we have to accept this regulation else we get none is just disingenuous shittalking trying to scare people into opening the flap and letting the government's nose into the 'abridging the freedom of speech' tent.
I agree with most of what you say.
However, the government very, very clearly does regulate what you can and cannot say on a number of issues. Which areas are regulated and not are not obvious, and from western country to western country they vary.
Why is it so obvious that there are rules against fighting words/inciting violence, but not against hate speech?
Are other countries wrong to disallow holocaust-denial, or the use of nazi symbols?
Delineations of unacceptable child exploitation images, where images that show the torture of animals (also for sexual gratification) being fine. Why's that obvious?
Why are the limits for state secrets what they are? What about Snowden or Julian Assange (wikileaks)?
Why was it so obvious that "obscene" material be disallowed for a number of years, before suddenly it was equally obvious that wasn't what the Founding fathers meant centuries before?
It's silly to try to divine out modern policy from texts that should in no way be authoritative as they are products of their time and the people of that time.
I think it's extremely important we recognize that speech is strongly regulated in the US, and that these specifics are not obvious or natural.
If we don't, we preclude a bunch of important debates on how speech should be regulated in today's globally interconnected world of instant mass communication.
Because these standards should adapt to what's going on in society at this point in time, as has been the case before.
We do, should have, and have to accept speech regulation. There should be huge public debates on where the standards should be and where they are. The might of the word is way to important to outsource to Supreme Court justices we should not expect to understand how modern mass communication works. They're just not modern users and don't live the experience.
Agreed, and perhaps I shouldn't have taken that for granted in my quick screed so that others wouldn't assume I meant otherwise.
That accepted and acknowledged, the Florida and Texas laws are so overly broad that it's of little consequence that the first amendment has some select carveouts. They're effectively saying that if you want to have a platform, you are not allowed to silence opinions you don't agree with... On your own platform. The property that you pay for must carry speech that you (and most of your users*) do not care for because the government is mandating it. Not some tailored and specific speech that affects a public interest like a safety poster or an employee rights poster (other occasions where the people -collectively the government- have identified an interest in forcing speech that a company may not agree with) but just a general blanket order that you do not have the option to moderate (without onerous government oversight on a case by case basis) and that you have to carry all speech if you're going to have a platform.
Now I should say that Florida and Texas are sorta right in one regard, but like most people they've misunderstood the OSI model when they think the error is at the application layer and in reality it's at the physical layer. The physical layer is where discrimination should not be allowed and Network Neutrality should be enshrined in law. There is a limited amount of cabling and airwaves (infrastructure) that can carry messages by nature of the physical universe we live in and that infrastructure should not be allowed to discriminate because legitimate speech could be squelched if the physical layer decided to do so, but servers and services that run on the physical layer infrastructure are basically without limit and if you don't like how one of those services operates, you can go elsewhere or make your own so long as the physical layer is not allowed to discriminate.
It's insane to think that the intention of the first amendment was to allow the government to bully newspapers into saying whatever anyone wanted them to print back in the day; every bit as much as it's insane now to think that it's the governments place to regulate what a platform's terms of service will allow in what is effectively a massive Letters to the Editor section now.
Your option if you don't like "being censored" on a platform, is to go to another one, or build your own; it is not getting the government to step in and bully the platform into forcing them to carry your speech.
I never said we didn't. You should note that in the text you quoted I said that what was disingenuous was that we had to accept THIS regulation lest we get NO regulation. Implicit there was that there are regulations that can be had and the author presenting this as a scenario where we had better take this deal or we won't get any deal is where I believe the author is talking out of his ass.
*If you don't believe that users have a say in the moderation policies of a platform, take a look at how Tumblr cratered when they decided that they were going to go full porn ban. Users left the platform in droves and basically removed that platform from any relevance; a move from which it has still generally never recovered. Now Tumblr is still there limping along but most of the users went to other platforms and it really hasn't been acknowledged as a major social media player since then. A platform is free to moderate how they like, but they do so at their own peril if they choose to moderate beyond the accepted bounds of their community, which generally guarantees that they will moderate in accordance to the desires of the majority of their users.
Societies collectively decide what is or isn't permissible speech. Sometimes this comes top-down, with some "government someone or another" getting a bug in their butt about something they've decided on their own should be impermissible. Sometimes it comes from the bottom-up, where the citizenry begins to build consensus about something that should or shouldn't be permissible.
I'm a Free Speech absolutist. Short of restricting calls for violence, or violent illegality, I'm not in favor of speech restrictions by the government. I'm not really even in favor of restrictions from society, but at the same time that's kind of an academic point for me since I am in favor of any individual (collectively or singularly) not being required to receive (listen) to any speech. So society will more or less ignore speech it collectively doesn't agree with, dealing with that issue in a way I find acceptable.
The problem with government speech controls is they are abused. Always, they're abused. Once you start letting government weigh in, they abuse it. People do that with power. It's inevitable. If we establish a pattern of allowing a judge, a Senate or Senator, a President, a mayor, a city or county councilor, anyone elected to an office or otherwise entrusted with power to decide, if we allow those positions to unilaterally establish and enforce speech restrictions, they will seek to use that power to their own ends. Sometimes to enrich, sometimes to punish, sometimes to eliminate competitors or rivals.
Sometimes just because they're evil pieces of shit. Dictators, for example, very often put in speech restrictions to reduce the (open, public) event of disagreement with the dictator, his policies, and his leadership. This same thing happens, is happening, in America.
What do you think the book banning stuff is? They're banning speech. They're trying to outlaw ideas, discredit thoughts they disagree with. There's a link on Tildes right now about a sheriff walking through a library plucking books off the shelf, just because the sheriff decided "they're bad." And not only is he armed, he has power of his office behind him. Who can stop him? He's the fucking police! If they took a book away from him to return to the shelf, who thinks that person would survive? The sheriff would consider it a physical assault and likely start blasting, because that's what American "police" do; they kill people who offend them.
That sheriff is not allowing, is not going to allow, "public debate." He's unilaterally abusing his power to decide speech. Anyone in the community who objects to his removal of the books is being ignored. Possibly, depending on how much of an asshat the sheriff is, those people will be targeted for police abuse. Which is also a thing that happens far more than never.
That's not public debate. That's just an escalation of the abuse of power. All started by one small minded asshat who decided he knew better than anyone else what should be allowed to be said, and happened to have a badge and the power of the state behind him.
The TX/FL laws are state level abuses of power. Several levels above a mere sheriff. They want to control and shape speech on a scope and scale far broader than even their own states, because they full well known the social media sites they're targeting operate worldwide.
The line is is simple, and clear. Government stays out of speech so long as the speech isn't violent or calling for it. And even then, government needs to tread cautiously; it needs to be pretty clear that the speech in question actually is calling for violence. Speech more or less has to be across the line to be restrictable, so by definition some "damage" will have been done before the speech is removed; but that's a price worth paying to avoid speech being removed for no valid reason.
Because as bad as violence is, it's much more dangerous to society when government begins acting to police thoughts.
You see, I don't like the Texas and Florida laws either, but to rule that the Texas and Florida laws are unconstitutional because you trust social media companies more than certain state governments is a bad precedent.
I agree that social media sites are private spaces and the internet as a whole is the "public square" so to say. If you want to exercise free speech, you can host your own domain as people like Donald Trump have.
Social media sites are not a "public square" as they would want you to believe. There is a lot of editorializing that occurs by social media sites. Sometimes it's direct action of removing posts that sites feel will harm their advertising customers, other times it's algorithms that try to show users content to try and keep them engaged even if the content is false or harmful. That is all well and good, but when people are finding ways to use social media in ways that benefits the social media site, but is harmful overall to society, the government should be able to step in.
We don't allow people to incite riots with their free speech or yell "fire!" in a crowded theater with their free speech, so why should we allow social media sites to group people into multiple realities where they each believe a different set of fundamental facts.
They're unconstitutional because the government isn't supposed to dictate speech. That social media companies are huge fetid massively stinky shit piles is irrelevant. If you don't like Twitter you are free to go start a Truth Social. If you don't like Reddit you are free to go start a Tildes.
In social media there's literally nothing stopping anyone from going out there and saying whatever they want, except for potentially the social norms that their peers will enforce on them and the difficulty they might encounter in finding an audience on a platform they prefer. Even if you can't have your speech heard on the platform you would prefer, you still have the option to roll your own platform and say whatever bullshit is too hot of a take for where you'd like to say it.
If the government can force you to say things you don't agree with, there is no peaceful alternative, the government governs and you either extradite yourself from their governance or you do the shitlord thing and stage a violent coup. And the reason that I malign that later option is because ideally government should represent its people and we should be smart enough to never allow that power to be used for despicable ends like Florida and Texas are trying to pull here where we compromise life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so that we can make certain that people are saying the things we want to hear.
I don't know, when tech giants are trying to argue that their ability to collect user data and sell to the highest bidder is "speech" (with minimum consent), it starts to seem like the 1st amendment is a flimsy deflection than an honest desire to express one's views.
The article seems to go beyond telling companies what they can post or remove. I think the biggest issue is that not all content posted on a platform is protected speech to begin with. So where do we draw the line?
I just ran across this site that wonderfully summarizes what I was alluding to that I believe so many of us have forgotten:
https://ff8isthe.best/but-really/
Now this guy is objectively wrong (Final Fantasy VI is the best Final Fantasy.) But he doesn't need anyone's approval to spout his wrongheaded nonsense. He got a domain, set up hosting, and he's running a whole blog devoted to it. It'd be beautiful if it weren't so absolutely incorrect. 😜 (The site is actually quite amazing and I love the energy, I just have to take a dig at anyone who thinks VI isn't the best FF.)
And the big issue is I never heard of him until I read this comment. Which in itself is on a pretty niche website. This "tumblr esque" means of blogging and re-blogging was an interesting era, but I was hoping for more forum like discussions between interested parties with the age of "microblgging". You may not always have an entire post you want to make, but you can add, correct, or expand upon others ideas.
Of course the real result of microblgging was the worst of both world (not much discussion so much as screeching, and content quality has nosedived), so maybe I was just an idealist once again
That hardly seems like a big issue. Nobody is owed exposure or a platform and he seems all the world to be having a ton of fun while getting some news coverage so I'd say he's doing alright.
An issue for the author of the website? No.
And issue for those who want more blogs and can't even find them if they don't know the exact URL? Yes.
And the torch will go out at this rate.
An entire generation of kids don't know an internet outside of the large social media. Exposure is the first big step if you want to achieve such a future. But if you just want to do it for you and don't care if you are talking into a void, then by all means. Nobody is owed exposure, and by that line of thinking, TikTok is the future, not Zombo.
In this context, though, the argument would be "social media giants shouldn't be allowed to editorialize because Gen Z doesn't know about blogs." If anything, pushing people off of the big sites if they want to discuss something specific would be a solution to Gen Z only knowing mcdonald’s , charge they phone, twerk, be bisexual , eat hot chip & lie. I mean, only knowing TikTok.
Agreed, FF VI IS the best FF!
Oh, and I also with the rest of your comment :)
The laws in question, from TX and FL, said major social media platforms were barred from "censoring" user content. Banning any ability to moderate the content. Meaning, anyone could post anything, irregardless of content, and the platform would be prevented from removing it from the service. The platforms would be required to carry communication from anyone.
We all know what the TX and FL legislatures meant and wanted when they passed these laws. The lawmakers gave plenty of public statements, pandering to their bases, about it. They felt, and still feel, that "conservative viewpoints are being unfairly excluded."
But the reality of the laws means the social media companies will no longer have control over their networks. Should anyone, corporate or otherwise, be required to broadcast communication they chose not to? That's the heart of this case.
In the middle of the 20th century, "the nightly news" had an arguably greater reach than the social media networks do now. Everyone in America had basically three tv news sources, and those three nightly broadcasts more or less reached the vast majority of the country between them. The FCC implemented the Fairness Doctrine, but that's not really very similar to these laws here.
The FD said broadcasters, as a consequence of their use of the public airwaves, needed to air controversial views "of public interest" while doing so in a way that offered contrasting views. The law didn't, however, dictate what form that act took; they could tackle those subjects in a wide variety of ways, and their editorial staffs still had a huge amount of control over what did or didn't get covered, how, and who was permitted to weigh in on the subject of the day.
The internet is not the public airwaves. It's not a public resource. Further, the FD was removed and is no longer active law or active regulation.
These TX/FL laws are the same as if the Fairness Doctrine required any Joe Schmo who waltzed into the network's lobby with a screed to be allowed to stand up on the broadcast and speak his piece.
Anyone who wants to air their views online has a lot of ways to do it. They can run their own website, for example. They can utilize someone else's website, so long as the owner(s) of said sites permit them to. This is the key; if the owners allow it. Just because someone has something to say doesn't mean they're allowed to say it wherever the hell they want. If I run a newsletter, and I were required to print any letters or emails I received, I wouldn't run a newsletter. Would you?
Same goes for a Youtube channel, or a website, a bar, a theater, a newspaper (of any media, printed or electronic or other), or just about any communications channel one might care to name. Ownership should mean something, and shouldn't be corrupted by bad actors.
Anyone who feels their views are being diminished has plenty of options to air their views. But just because they feel they have views that need airing doesn't lead to how the rest of us are required to not just listen, but actively facilitate the spreading of said views. Joe Schmo can start his own newsletter, his own website, his own social media network.
After all, it's still a free country until The Right manages to lock it up.
So? How does size have any relevance to the subject? The size of any social media site doesn't preclude any other site from operating. Especially online, where the space is effectively infinite. However big Facebook or Twitter become, any other site can spring into being tomorrow and eclipse them. It just has to do what they did; become known.
How to build a top ten Internet resource is a separate discussion, but I mention it because it has no bearing on this case. Even though some feel it does. Just because some entity has successfully built such a resource doesn't mean someone else can't. Now, if Facebook, Google, or any other big bad gorillas of the internet are actively meddling and preventing competitors, that's a problem. Probably outright illegal, but it's not a free speech debate, or relevant to this case.
The lawmakers who passed these laws are pretty much the same ones who feel cakemakers should be allowed to refuse customers based on First Amendment grounds. So because someone who offends the baker's religious proclivities wants to buy a cake, that's a violation of free speech if the baker is required to bake that cake. According to that logic, the baker should not be so required. The baker should, in fact, be enabled to aggressively reject such customers, solely due to how the baker personally feels about that customer's life choices.
But if the baker's Google, and the customer is some asshat who wants to talk up extremist views calling for everything up to (but legally short of) genocide of "unwanted classes" ... suddenly the baker is required to bake that cake. If they want to convince others the Earth is Flat, or Liberals are Evil, or Jenny Tutone is in fact a dirty slut because they said she is ... too bad, bake those cakes.
They can't have the cake and eat it. They can either have the cake, and admire having it. Or they can eat the cake, and think about how good it was. But it's one or the other.
I think the baker in that case is an asshat. But I also feel the baker should be allowed to refuse service, for any reason. He's not allowed to weaponize or become violent or anything, but if he doesn't want someone's business ... okay that's his call. Just because he runs a business it should not then follow that he's required to serve any customer who walks in.
And the potential customer really isn't hurt; there are lots of options for cakes. Plenty of other bakers. They could even bake their own cake. Maybe they have a friend who wants to try baking. Who knows. All I know is however much of an asshat I feel that baker is being about the cake (then, and presumably now), I also know I feel he should be allowed to pick his own customers.
The Right rallied behind that baker for religious and "own team" reasons. They agreed with the baker not for any principle, but merely because they hate gays. Now, suddenly, when it's not a baker but instead Google or Facebook, and it's not a gay customer but a poor maligned soul who wants to spout factually incorrect information it's not fair that the cake isn't baked.
The whole position is hypocritical. Assuming SOCTUS manages to rule that "large social media services are prevented from moderating content", one of the two rulings is inconsistent. As a matter of law inconsistent. And they already decided that forcing a baker to bake for any customer who demands it is a violation of free speech.
So aside from everything else, that should pretty much settle this issue. If the dipshit baker can give the finger to whoever he wants when they walk into his shop, then so can (insert huge social media company here). The fact that their shop is online, and accessed by millions doesn't change the basic facts; it's their shop, and they can let whomever they like bake there.
And anyone else can find another bakery. Or start one. Or pick up some flour and sugar and eggs and find a stove. They have plenty of options. They won't be left without cake. They just can't force others to eat theirs.
Along the same line of discussion as this post from @FarraigePlaisteach.
Deleted copy of article contents per Deimos guidelines
cfabbro has an archive link below.
Gift link
I don't agree with the Texas law, but striking down the Texas law in the Supreme Court will effectively shield social media companies from regulation.
The federal government should pass legislation regulating social media that will overrule the Texas law instead of the Texas law being ruled unconstitutional.
The court does have some options in how it might rule against these laws. They could rule broadly on first amendment grounds, but they could also rule narrowly on technical aspects of the state laws as written. The court could also send it back to fact finding courts to establish more thoroughly how the law would apply to different services.
The Supreme Court is never forced to do anything with any ruling. That's not only clear because they've been disregarding precedent recently, but they can also precisely state the limits of their rulings.
Mirror, for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.is/UDyCE
Gift link
Much appreciated. Edited the topic link to be that.
While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of doing so, if you copied the entire contents of the article to that comment then you should probably deleted it. From Deimos:
Funny how regulating the Internet went from being bad for business to an existential necessity as soon as the right wing in the US started caring more about spreading lies and hate than worshipping at the altar of the Invisible Hand.
You want to regulate Internet companies like they're common carriers? Then enshrine it in law by declaring them that and ensuring net neutrality. We went through that already, and it was rejected by the same short-sighted yahoos who're pissy that Trump and his ilk get deplatformed.
The balls on these people to insist on having it both ways just because it suits them and their bullshit will never cease to amaze me.