It’s not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media::One person’s content moderation is another’s censorship when it comes to Democrats’ and Republicans’ views on handling misinformation.
That brings up another thing. At what point does it become a “public space”?
Theres an old supreme court case on a company town that claimed someone was trespassing on a sidewalk. The supreme court ruled it was a public space, and thus they could pass out leaflets.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/marsh-v-alabama-1946/
Imo, a lot of big sites have gotten to that stage, and should be treated as such.
I think this is an underrated point. A lot of people are quick to say “private companies aren’t covered by free speech”, but I’m sure everyone agrees legal ≠ moral. We rely on these platforms so much that they’ve effectively become our public squares. Our government even uses them in official capacities, e.g. the president announcing things on Twitter.
When being censored on a private platform is effectively social and informational murder, I think it’s time for us to revisit our centuries-old definitions. Whether you agree or disagree that these instances should be covered by free speech laws, this is becoming an important discussion that I never see brought up, but instead I keep seeing the same bad faith argument that companies are allowed to do this because they’re allowed to do it.
bad faith argument that companies are allowed to do this because they’re allowed to do it.
So let’s get this straight, it’s “bad faith” to point out facts but “good faith” to support bigotry and hatred like you’re “accidentally” doing with your argument?
It’s bad faith to argue that companies should be allowed to do things because they’re already allowed to do those things. I see a little bit of that creeping in even here with the concept of “rights”, as if corporations were humans. Laws can change.
It’s good faith to ask if companies have too much power over what has become our default mode of communication. It’s also good faith to challenge this question with non-circular logic.
Your assumption that I’m defending racism and bigotry is exactly why I think this stuff is important. You’ve implied I’m an insidious alt-rightist trying to dog whistle, and now I’m terrified of getting banned or otherwise censored. I’m interested in expressing myself. I do not want to express bigotry. But if one person decides what I said is even linked to bigotry, suddenly I’m a target, and I can lose a decades-old social account and all of its connections. And if that happens I just have to accept it because it’s currently legal. It’s so fucking stressful to say anything online anymore.
This is an argument for a publicly-funded “digital public square”, not an argument for stripping private companies of their rights.
That’s a good idea, but I still think big sites are public spaces at this point.
Why not both?
While I agree that punishing companies for success isn’t a good idea, we aren’t talking about small startups or local business ran by individual entrepreneurs or members of the community here. We’re talking about absurdly huge corporations with reach and influence the likes that few businesses ever reach. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to apply a different set of rules to them, as they are distinctly different situations.
It’s different because the company built and maintains the space. Same goes for a concert hall, a pub, etc…
Nobody believes that someone being thrown out of a pub for spouting Nazistic hate speech is their “free speech being trampled”. Why should it be any different if it’s a website?
You rarely see the discussion, because there’s rarely a good argument here. It boils down to “it’s a big website, so I should be allowed to post whatever I want there”, which makes little to no sense and opens up a massive quagmire of legal issues.
So we should make a law that says Facebook allows neo Nazi hatred then? Not sure I follow what you’re getting at if you wouldn’t say yes to this question
I don’t trust facebook to decide what is hate speech and what isn’t, if thats what you’re saying.
Are you suggesting that large online spaces should have laws and police to investigate and enforce the laws? Of course this is already in place, but not at all enforced in the same manner as a public place.
The Supreme Court is visiting such issues this month. Second block of text:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2023/10/major-second-and-first-amendment-cases-headline-november-sitting/
There is a key difference here. Social media companies have some liability with what gets shared on the platform. They also have a financial interest in what gets said and how it gets promoted by algorithms. The fact is, these are not public spaces. These are not streets. They’re more akin to newspapers, or really the people printing and publishing leaflets. The Internet itself is the street in your analogy.
Companies probably shouldn’t be liable then for what individuals share / post then, instead the individuals should. Social media constantly controls their push / promotion of posts currently using algorithms to decide what should be shown / shared and when.
I hate this so much. I want real, linear feeds from all my friends I’m following, not a personally curated style sanitized feed to consider my interests and sensibilities.
Your analogy about Newspapers isn’t accurate either. The writers of a newspaper are paid by the company and everyone knows that writers execute the newspaper’s agenda. Nothing gets published without review and everything aligns with the company’s vision. Information is one way and readers buy it to consume information. They don’t expect their voice to be heard and the newspaper don’t pretend that the readers have that ability either. This isn’t comparable to a social media site at all.
I’m not saying it is identical, there are some key differences, and yet social media platforms are much more like a publishing company than they are a town square. Just because they’re choosing to publish your tweets/posts for free and you’re choosing to create content without pay doesn’t mean it’s not a better analogy than saying their the equivalent of a public space. They’re very clearly not a public space. Using the street analogy, these are storefronts on the street, not the street itself. Again, the Internet itself is the street. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Mastodon, Lemmy, or whatever social media platform, are not the street or the town square. They are not and should not be considered to be public spaces any more than a mall or a Walmart is.
