Just focusing on this portion:
> Finally, and perhaps most importantly, private companies making editorial decisions about what content they allow on their own private property is not (and cannot be!) taking away First Amendment rights. The First Amendment restricts the government, not private property owners from making their own editorial decisions.
That's really the whole debate when it comes to social media. Is it ok that they are governed like private property where the owners can make whatever moderation decisions they want or is it more like a modern "public square" where it should be possible to say anything you can shout on the street without being moderated for it.
Personally, I don't know if there's a right answer. Perhaps the best approach is encouraging more competition among social media companies so there are alternatives to the dominant platforms - but the network effects of something like Facebook are very strong even if competitors existed.
Treating social media like a private space is the status quo, but it rubs me the wrong way that there's not really an equivalent of public spaces in the online world.
Edit: I find it weird how many people are happy to defend unchecked corporate power when it comes to this issue. The lack of any guardrails on moderation is why YouTube has slowly transformed into a baby-talk version of itself. Now people talk about "unaliving yourself" and "PDF files" instead of using the normal English words for these concepts.
I used to be a fan of the idea of places with absolute free speech. The problem is that repeatedly, in practice, these places suck. It is not an idea that scales. Once a place is larger a single friend-group that can ostracize any assholes, the assholes show up and start being assholes. You either moderate them, or everyone else leaves except assholes and people who are highly tolerant of assholes. This isn't something that's happened once, it happens repeatedly.
That doesn't mean that the horrifying sterile nature of youtube is great. There are acceptable in-betweens, it just won't happen while the internet mostly consists of corporate giants that don't want to spend the money for real moderation.
>I find it weird how many people are happy to defend unchecked corporate power when it comes to this issue. The lack of any guardrails on moderation is why
It's not weird at all. We've already seen some places try to have little or no moderation, and the result isn't pretty: 4chan, and today's Xitter immediately come to mind. Shitty people and trolls take over, driving everyone else out, because who wants to read all that shit constantly?
Leaving the moderation to some corporation might not be ideal (look what happened with Reddit), but it's better than no moderation at all. At least with corporate-run moderation, if we don't like it, we can go somewhere else. What the "free speech absolutionists" are trying to do will just end up ruining ALL online spaces, so we have nowhere to go, except perhaps online spaces entirely operated in foreign countries where they don't subscribe to this idiocy.
I always thought this scotus case was interesting and relevant to the question of “can a private space count as a public square?”. Clearly in some way it can. Curious what a real lawyer or constitutional scholar has to say about this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...
> Telling internet companies that if they moderate things in a way he doesn’t like, he will use the power of the state to punish them. This includes fact-checking things in a way he dislikes,
I like dang's comment on fact-checking where he noted:
> the question, "what are the facts?" is complex enough to already recreate the entire political and ideological contest.
Also coming to mind is some other recent Techdirt,
> Dear Senators Klobuchar & Lujan: Now Do You See Why Letting HHS Censor “Misinformation” Is A Terrible Idea?
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/20/dear-senators-klobuchar-...
Because facts are at best malleable and at worst disinformation, and what seems about to happen with HHS seems like some seriously dangerous alt-facts.
I'm making a leap in domain here, but also alas, Trump is already about facing on any pretense of things like journalistic shield laws. This government seems so intent on pursuing a very specific narrow interpretation of facts, and doing incredibly bad things to people who have ever said otherwise.
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/25/trump-orders-republicans...
One of Masnick's best columns in years. As I've said many times before (although most people rejected my message), the phrase 'free speech' is often deployed to shut down discussion rather than open it up. When you inquire into the speech sort of speech thet people claim is being suppressed, it frequently turns out to be about banning pornography, curtailing the organic spread of unwelcome ideas, or proposals for the suppression of people making the unwelcome speech, by means ranging from deportation to elimination.
We saw your observations on the phrase "free speech" in action when Mr Musk purchased Twitter. One of his stated goals as a "free speech absolutist" was to bring "free speech" back to Twitter. Now, Mr Musk boosts his own tweets, sells blue checks to bots, which boosts their tweets. All to virtually "shout down" any opposing opinions
And yet according to cnns analysis, Mr Musks platform is more representative of the electorate than every other site.
I think this is a kind of falling knife-type thing: the makeup of Twitter was far more liberal than conservative a few years ago and it's currently about equal, but in two more years I predict that the trend will continue and it will be far more conservative than liberal.
It's currently about equal because conservatives are no longer being deplatformed under pressure from the government.
Some liberals are deciding they don't like this new level playing field, and are encouraging people to leave for other social media sites. If they succeed, your prophecy may come true, but not for reasons of censorship (government or private).
I thought that we broadly disagreed with mainstream media, and generally viewed it with suspicion. Gell-Mann amnesia, anyone?
While I think the editorial take of most mainstream media is crap, I'm not sure I believe their data is made up.
What about when they quote data from academic studies or think tanks? Do you trust those numbers?
At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government. The government cannot limit a person from speaking outside of libel and slander. (Note the successful Dominion lawsuits against Fox News, you can't say _anything_ you want if it materially harms a person or a legal entity).
A private corporation like Twitter/X, Facebook, and now Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws. Elon Musk can filter and restrain the speech he doesn't like (mostly liberal speech and external links that he can't monetize) and Zuck can do the same. Bluesky only moderates illegal activity itself like CSAM. All other moderation is done by the community, and each person chooses who to follow, block, or mute who they wish.
The government could enact regulation to limit corporate moderation (debatable, but a given with the current SC) but it would be a very extreme step to restrict the individual from moderating their own timelines on Bluesky.
It's hinted that Carr might try to regulate Bluesky, but the outcome wouldn't match his expectations. You see, Bluesky is an open network. It would be simple for every user to implement their own data server and only communicate on the open network. The government would have no way to control that network outside of radical national firewall filtering like China's Great Firewall.
Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws.
What if Bluesky were to set up a hotline which the federal government can call to have any post censored, and makes it known to government actors that it will act promptly if they want anything removed?Would that be legal for Bluesky, assuming no coercion from any government actors?
At what point will it be universally understood that "free speech" is only legally binding when a person is speaking with the government.
Well this isn't the case. I'm writing this comment and directing it at you and other non-governmental actors who use HN. So I am not 'speaking with the government'. But the law protects my speech from interference by the government. Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never
>Given how little the US invests in public education, probably never
While I understand the sentiment, this isn't factually true: from figures I've seen, the US actually spends more per student in pre-college schooling than any other nation.
It's a lot like the US healthcare system: the US spends (much) more per-capita, but gets much worse results overall. The problem isn't the level of funding, but how it's used and who runs it.
Another factor is US education is that the funding is largely from local sources and locally controlled, so if you live in a wealthy county, you might have (relatively) very good schools, while kids in poor counties will have poorly-funded schools. This is mostly a problem unique to the US because it loves keeping power at local levels so much.
> private corporation like Twitter/X, Facebook, and now Bluesky can implement any moderation policies they want, and it will never violate "free speech" laws
Simply not true in the state of California where most of these companies are based.
According to the CA supreme Court, you have a right to free speech on private property that is regularly available for public use.
By that metric all of these companies are blatantly violating the constitution of their home state.
Given the media manipulation that’s come to light over the past year, you’d think folks would take a break before firing the ole regime propaganda engine back up.
https://www.reuters.com/technology/zuckerberg-says-biden-adm... (“Zuckerberg says Biden administration pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content”)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62688532 (“Zuckerberg tells Rogan FBI warning prompted Biden laptop story censorship”)
Insinuating that Biden had anything to do with Trumps FBI warning Facebook that Russia was spreading propaganda in 2020 is something..
Can we stop with the {ignore the current issue} + {point at something else} two-step?
I realize partisan news has normalized that method of discourse, but it's a boring and braindead way to argue.
In the real world, the existence of other bad things doesn't make a particular bad thing disappear.
No it's not boring at all. Trump is not an unknown. He was president 2016-2020. Not a single corporation was strong armed as evidenced by the fact that every single major social media platform and 2/3 major cable networks actively worked against him without any repercussions other than ever lowering viewership.
What that shows is that Trump's rhetoric is just that.
By contrast, the Biden administration said they would protect speech and instead worked actively to censor regular Americans, de-banked political opponents, and strong armed social media into enforcing their COVID policy.
I'd rather have the big talk guy that does nothing than the nice guy that behaved like a dictator.
It may also just show that he didn’t have the support and team at the time to get away with it, but we shall see if it is all just rhetoric
Trump repeatedly sent takedown requests to Twitter in his first term … for things as serious as celebrities bad mouthing him. He’s actively suing CBS because he didn’t like their interview with Kamala. He filed a frivolous defamation suit against The NY Times, likewise CNN and some random news station in Wisconsin. why do people pretend like this stuff didn’t happen or is somehow less worthy of mention than whatever Biden did?
I'd like to read more about the accusations about Biden, especially the debanking allegations but so far I just find stuff from some Andreesen (?) appearance on "joe rogan" which wouldn't count as reliable information in my opinion. Course that could also be because internet search sucks nowadays lol
the best I can find only reinforces my suspicions that if its on "joe rogan" then miss me with that mess haha
https://jabberwocking.com/choke-point-2-0-a-primer-on-the-ri...
This was my first thought. It's rich to see the media magically switch gears and be concerned about censorship when it's been happening for years under the Biden administration.
"Also, NBC did not violate the equal time rule, because it gave Donald Trump an equivalent amount of free time on its affiliates following a NASCAR race the next day"
Gee, wonder why they did this? (And the NFL commercial)?
There are certainly some good points about some statements Carr has made that seem to be pushing at the limits of what the FCC actually has purview over, but the contention that Carr is "the most direct and sustained threat to the First Amendment and the freedom of the press any of us will ever experience" is on its face absurd to anyone that follows Carr's work.
Even the examples in this article fail to come close to making this case. In each one, he's advocating for more speech, for increased access to publishing platforms. No ordinary person would possibly see that as "censorship." He's not seeking to eliminate "speech he dislikes" by making statements against NewsGuard's heavy involvement in social media "disinformation" moderation, he's making the point that moderation on political speech has been unfairly applied in many cases, and that's largely the fault of activist groups that push social networks to censor speech they don't like (and label "disinformation").
The article starts out by accusing the Trump camp of projection, by lauding Carr as a champion of free speech. It's ironic that the author is guilty of that very thing (projecting) by accusing Carr of being not only pro-censorship, but the biggest threat to free speech in the country? Where have you been for the past 15 years? Come on
And him saying NBC could lose it's license for giving airtime to Trump's opponents...? Where does that land?
By the time he pulls NBCs license, it'll probably have been sold to someone else.
At the end of the day, the radio spectrum is limited and the licenses ought to be reserved for the channels most popular with the American people.
Platforms losing viewership would naturally qualify for eviction.
I don’t understand your argument, because NBC is not popular it is okay to censor them because of a political vendetta?
Oh please. The Biden administration worked with social media to shut down user accounts and according to Marc Andersen de-banked political opponents and hardly a peep from this forum.
Now the pearl clutching begins.
As for social media being private companies.... Perhaps
However, many jobs are posted on social media and being banned from sites like reddit means you can be punished in the labor market. The government must take action, especially when sites like reddit regularly ban users for saying men are not women, a religious belief.
The government has every right to regulate especially after years of telling us that what their administration did was totally normal
Andersen says a lot of things. Who were the political opponents that were “debanked”? I’m looking for names here, along with actual citations.
Andreesen is a former Democrat donor and endorsed Hillary and a well respected VC. I have no reason to disbelieve him. Supporting trump is not popular (or wasn't) in silicon valley. For them to endorse him would indicate something happened...
Remember, no one is actually in favor of free speech. Everyone, and I mean everyone, regardless of their personal political views, wants to silence people they disagree with. I suspect this is some kind of trait inherent to human psychology.
Often, they’ll do so hiding behind complex philosophical rationales, but in the end the result is the same.
Filtering out trolls, passive aggressive jerkoffs, and outright verbal abuse is everyone's right. Musk (and Dorsey) believe those people have a "right" to do those things without being muted.
Right.