Echo of majority view on incident. Clarification of legal basis for censorship on private platforms. Support of section 230. Concern about bias in private censorship. Call for transparency and consistency.
They sort of have to be. In the fight to preserve electronic freedoms, freedom from censorship and freedom to operate a service as one pleases come at odds with each other in cases like this.
If instead, the government had confiscated Parler's domains, or enjoined Apple, Google, and Amazon from booting them, I think EFF's response would (rightly/expectedly IMO) be very different.
As an EFF member I think they made the right call here.
I guess there are ways to transcend this conflict.
For example, perhaps social networks can sort themselves into two types, public-square type and non-public-square type.
The networks which self-identify as public-square shall (1) employ a stronger set of freedom of speech protection rules, (2) be supervised by the government, an independent council, the media and the public, and (3) receive financial incentive, which could be a limited tax exempt status or governmental subsidy, depending on your preference.
> As an EFF member I think they made the right call here.
They didn't. They chickened out. The ACLU was more vocal in its opposition to censorship. That should show how cowardly the EFF is being right now.
You falsely made it seem like EFF only deals with or is concerned with government "suppression". That isn't true. Most of EFF dealings is with corporate "suppression".
Under normal circumstances, EFF would have been far more vocal. But since they are extremely biased in this case, they chose to be anti-free speech.
"The EFF was active in the United States presidential election 2016 because of online phishing related to the controversy over fabrication of election results. J. Alex Halderman, a computer security professor at the University of Michigan, wrote an article that was published in Medium in 2016 stating he thought it was advisable to have a recount on some of the election results from states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania."
Don't you think EFF's belief in 2016 election fraud had anything to do with their lukewarm defense of Trump's free speech here?
They have a long history of questioning voting results, but only when republicans win...
"The EFF has long been an advocate of paper audit trails for voting machines and testified in support of them after the United States presidential election 2004."
I generally think EFF is a worthy enterprise, but it's obvious political bias is the reason for their pathetic "support" for free speech here.
> A platform should not apply one set of rules to most of its users, and then apply a more permissive set of rules to politicians and world leaders who are already immensely powerful.
Ok... why not?
A government is an unavoidably violent institution, and what's more, one which assumes the right and responsibility to use violence. In a free nation, it derives that right through various rituals from the consent of the governed, but it remains a fact: if a governmental leader says, for example, "There's a curfew, stay home or be arrested", that's what's going to happen.
If I message someone else "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you", it's different, isn't it.
So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both?
In a nutshell, one of the bedrock ideas of liberal society is that government officials and governments are not the same thing. We permit the government to do some things that individuals are not permitted to do, out of necessity, because we have yet to construct a society that eliminates the need for certain ostensibly necessary evils. We find that delegating those responsibilities to a corporate body that is largely (if imperfectly) answerable to the population as a whole for its actions tends to result in better outcomes than any other alternative that's been tried. The actual execution of those responsibilities then gets sub-delegated out to individuals, but they are supposed to only be permitted to do so when lawfully acting on behalf of the government. Again, out of necessity. While it's not awesome, anything else anyone has tried so far has ended up working out even worse.
As individuals acting on their own behalf, though, nobody should be considered above the norms of civil society. By definition - if it didn't work that way, society would not be civil.
(I'd highly recommend reading both A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick for two different but equally thoughtful treatments of this sort of thing.)
Where does it leave the people who lack trust in that kind of delegation? What do we do about that?
I'm inclined to agree with what you describe, but it worries me how many of them (us?) have come to feel that it doesn't work.
We have a growing left convinced that 'the government' is just a bunch of elites caring about maintaining their wealth, and a growing right that believes the same.
I feel both perspectives are at least not unreasonable. So as someone trying to be reasonable and in favor of maintaining some kind of order, where does that leave me? How do we maintain order without accepting a very small elite to maintain it's (corrupt) power? How do we talk to our 'constituents' about this?
I'm truly in favor of solutions that don't end up causing societal chaos and killing people, but I'm lost as to the how.
Freedom-respecting governments are bound by the rule of law. A government official tweeting "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you" in the absence of a lawful policy directing as such is not really acting pursuant to the government's "right and responsibility to use violence", so there's hardly any reason to treat them differently from a random person doing the same.
I think you're probably looking at this from the opposite side of the coin that the EFF is. The EFF is looking at people on social media who are government officials and have gotten away with condoning violence because of some high ideals that say having a cancer in the sunlight is better than hiding it away in the dark while normal citizens are held to a different set of arbitrary rules that are often not enforced equally.
Two planes fly in to the world trade centres. Is Osama bin Laden allowed to tweet "Today we conducted a successful planes operation against the US imperialist international terrorists and sent them scurrying. Today is a good day, we good guys have struck a firm and lasting blow to the bad guys." ?
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
If north korea fires artillery shells at south korea because of its maritime border dispute should it be allowed to make a similar tweet?
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
Can the US president make a tweet like that when he launches a criminal attack on another country?
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
Some people hold the view (which you can disagree with, but regardless is a perfectly reasonable view for someone to hold even if you disagree with it) that crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity even when they are carried out by lawfully appointed officials.
If this is two oblique of an answer. Consider this. The same principles can be applied in two near identical circumstances and come up with quite different conclusions.
For example, vigilante justice or mafia-led street enforcement activities can be considered criminal acts, even if it would come to the same results and verdicts as a law enforcement operation and/or judicial process.
I don't think anybody is proposing banning police officials because they lawfully "kidnapped and trafficked" someone by arresting them.
Maybe the EFF has an anarchist political philosophy and doesn't think the state should have a monopoly on violence and that these types of positions of power shouldn't exist?
There's a difference between prescription and description, and just because you have the prescriptive belief that nobody should murder doesn't mean your worldview works that way. All governments since forever have used violence as a core technique for order, and I doubt the EFF thinks otherwise.
>So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both?
because in a well functioning Republic communication channels for the government are public, and private companies serve private customers.
The only reason we're having this discussion is because Donald Trump has intentionally conflated the private and public sphere by using his personal twitter account to conduct governmental affairs.
This is terrible because it is 1. insecure and intransparent, 2. there's no established procedures for anything, 3. it conflates his private interest with his public interest (i.e. his decisions in office can be influenced by his commercial interests on the platform).
There should be different rules for Trump when he acts as the president, and indeed he has established communication channels for that very purpose, but when he speaks as a private citizen on a private platform he ought to be treated like everyone else. That's the basis of any non-corrupt system. When Angela Merkel goes to the supermarket (which she in fact does herself) she stands in the queue like everyone else because the fact that she inhabits the office of the Chancellor does not give her superpowers when she enters an ALDI.
Any rule by any group ultimately comes down to enforcement through some variety of force. I have never seen it as a particularly useful talking point to highlight that governments are also subject to this foundational principal of the enFORCEment of a rule/law etc.
I see. Hold your ground for free speech till... Ok, we were kidding we were just bluffing. Go ahead. We don't care. We support corporate censorship now full throat. It's for the best. We're looking out for your own good.
I mean really, so you know it was in the government's purview to hold Snowden, Manning and Assange accountable to what's within their rights too. Nice to see you sway with the wind there EFF.
Guess Biden can pick up the phone and tell them to let them hang out to dry because you know, the government has the right. Why, why bother contesting them, right?
I was the one thing. The one thing you had as a mission.
The EFF has held this position for quite some time. They think the existing laws are just fine and oppose the idea that additional regulation would be meaningful in compelling companies to do the right thing. Instead, they worked with other activist organizations to create The Santa Clara Principles. [0]
The chief problem is that enforcement will always be unequal, especially when the majority of people in positions of authority come from one political culture. The EFF thinks it's just fine to deal with this retroactively, but basically, that's saying it's okay to sacrifice a few to save the many. I'm okay with saying that if you're okay with making the consequences for sacrificing those few huge. eg: If Facebook disables someones account because they misunderstood some context because they don't have people working there that can properly frame it, then Facebook owes them substantial damages.
Conservatives are getting the teeniest taste of being the wrong color in the only grocery store in town that are mysteriously always out of everything, or trying to buy a wedding cake while gay.
Except they're not.
I would love the perfection of that, but all they're getting is the same treatment on-line as if they did the same screaming at the other customers and urinating in the isles in a grocery store.
They are stinking up the place, not merely by existing, but specifically through their deeds, and so it is not merely allowed, but an obligation, to deal with them.
I'm sorry but it's not consistent with protecting digital rights.
This is not the same EFF that supported the Freedom of Speech stance by Apple against the FBI when terrorists killed 16 people in San Bernardino.
Below a poster liked a response by the ACLU which is a much better response to Freedom of Speech than that by the EFF. The EFF caved. They abandoned their one and only mission to promote freedom of speech.
Free speech is not just the freedom to say what you want to say. It is also the freedom not to be compelled to say what you don't want to say. That includes the right not to be compelled to let others use you to broadcast messages you disagree with.
Furthermore, freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences.
> Free speech is not just the freedom to say what you want to say. It is also the freedom not to be compelled to say what you don't want to say.
This is a powerful idea.
Have you found legal protections in the United States for this principle? I can think of some limited examples (Miranda rights, for example), but I do not, off the top of my head, see the the U.S. Constitution as generally protecting this right broadly.
Wait... so Zuckerberg is totally cool if he goes and censors anything and everything that speaks ill of him or Facebook? Cool if he censors anyone who sues FB or him? Is that your position on a medium that is built for people to post diverse opinions?
What if he suffers a stroke and suddenly becomes a religious nut, cool if he only allows promotion of his religion on his medium and bans all others?
They're saying to apply the same rules to everyone, and that the rules should be based on a human rights framework. Those seem like pretty good ideals to me.
Unfortunately this is categorically untrue. Twitter does not ban international terrorists from its ranks nor does it remove regular people who say awful things on Twitter. Go for it, do a search for violent threats on twitter. See if they have banned every account in Africa or the Middle East, or Asia, etc. Even north America.
They may ban Luis CK for misogyny let's say, but they sure as hell would not ban all the Bros who use misogynistic language. Do you think we can't find twitter handles of cartelists making terroristic threats in Mexico or other places? Is that all gone now?
What are you trying to say Biden can do now because of this? It wasn’t clear to me.
But more broadly what is your position here? Are you saying companies and people that run any kind of forum are not allowed to moderate it? They must allow all posts? Or do they have to have approval from the government for their moderation? Or do you want all forums and social media to be nationalized run by the government and we can have a state social media?
Surely I’d think state media and state censorship is worse for everyone than private media and private censorship (which is something we have always had in the US). And surely forcing every website with a commenting system to post everything anyone wants to share is not fair on anyone either. The problem therefore is something other than these bans.
Could anyone point me to some cogent, well-formed arguments for why censorship of social media platforms is a good idea? i.e. books, articles, etc?
I have some thoughts but would like more perspective before fully forming an opinion.
(not arguing one way or the other below)
For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. And what about those characteristics would make one think that physically removing questionable speech would be effective in preventing the underlying event, crime, movement, or social change the speech was attempting to facilitate.
Comparing Twitter, say, to a literal town square — we don’t ask the air in the town square to stop transmitting the vibrations of someone who is speaking in a dangerous manner or trying to incite some action that might harm others or damage social structures. Instead we use normal human social interactions to mediate the speaker’s effect on listeners — countering their arguments, questioning their credibility or motives, telling others an opposing viewpoint, letting a person’s past speech affect their reputation, etc. We leverage our social nature and counter speech with more speech. (The prominent exception being threats of violence which are treated differently legally)
In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated.
My naive assessment is that social media is different than a physical town square in:
- Its anonymity / dehumanized nature
- Its built-in amplification of controversial ideas (ie the algorithms of town square air does not carry further just because a statement raises eyebrows)
- Its speed
- … but there must be more?
Basically, why is making the “digital air” in the "digital town square" not vibrate better than utilizing (and perhaps reinforcing) the social structures that moderated public forums in the analog world?
Is anyone claiming that censorship of social media platforms is a good idea?
It is mostly people under a false/misunderstood "freedom of speech" pretense saying that Twitter/Facebook/etc should not be able to ban whomever they want.
Perhaps I'm using the word "censor" in a way that points to the government being the censor. But I mean it to be more encompassing of any entity that has the right to remove content from communications channels.
Currently the platforms are private (as a peer comment points out). So right now there isn't technically a "freedom of speech" issue as it's a private matter and private entities in the USA don't need to respect the 1st amendment.
As a thought experiment -- suppose the social media platforms were turned into "utilities" and completely absolved of the responsibility (or even the authority) to "censor" speech. In the same way someone's phone doesn't turn off if they make a threatening phone call. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Would losing the ability for anyone to remove content be fundamentally bad? Given that we have social mechanisms that existed prior to digital communication for countering bad speech?
As to your question, the fact that some people do support the suspension by the platform controllers (currently private) of accounts that post inflammatory speech would suggest that yes, some folks do think that censorship is a good idea.
Censorship of social platforms is absolutely necessary and this is obvious if you think about the problem for long enough, and even more obvious if you try to run one. Spam is a form of speech. You will get DDOSed by bad faith actors selling viagra without censorship. Now of course that's not what people are discussing, but almost all moderation is censorship. Censorship is table stakes to even be able to have a public community beyond a certain size, an uncensored public community would just be static, noise.
If you look at the pure numbers only a small minority of (human) users actually get banned, and most of the censorship happens further down the moderation chain. What people are arguing over, in practice, is if maybe a fraction of a percent of users should be banned or not or should have their posts removed or not. Censorship is so pervasive it's not even recognized as such. The actual disagreement is over a very small fraction of users and rules that would in practice affect a fraction of a percent of users and perhaps spark a trend of self-censorship. Censorship of social media platforms is good, what's in question is if we're perhaps going too far, but the actual difference between peoples views when you look at things from far enough back is actually fairly narrow. Additionally trying to enable the average person to have "Freedom of expression" online while NOT engaging in censorship paradoxically isn't even possible.
The key then as I see it is to keep censorship as minimalistic as practicable, have the rules be well defined, and to empower user self-regulation. It's also a concern to avoid, as much as is practicable, creating community schisms where a group splits off and creates it's own filter bubble which I consider to be outright dangerous (A threat to safety, if you will). For this reason, but also for its own sake, I argue for making efforts to avoid tyrannies of the majority. Because of these priorities, I usually present myself as a free speech proponent since I always seem to be saying people shouldn't be banned or suppressed, but in reality I support broad and sweeping and even automated censorship.
> In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated.
Not to the same extent. (Your argument offers a false dichotomy.)
With terrorism, insurrections, and so on (coordinated crimes in general), being able to slow down, monitor, and respond to communication flows can make the difference between a tragedy and an intervention.
The idea of 'slowing things down' can also apply to any information source, such as business news or the political rumor-mill. Do you want recent, vetted, and contextualized information? In practice, pick two.
> I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history.
I'll put out some ideas quickly. You can build on them. Please share back what you find.
Social media platforms, more or less:
* Tend to blur any one sense of place
* Offer geographically dispersed communication
* May deemphasize the overall humanity of participants
* Tend to accentuate particular aspects of people, such as photos or messages or resumes
* Offer asynchronous communication
* Allow for nearly zero-cost message sending and replication (i.e. retweeting)
* Unlimited person-to-person communication channels
Traditional town squares, more or less:
* Offer a tangible sense of place
* Offer a tangible connection to other people
* Are subject to public assembly laws.
* Only a limited number of people can fit.
* Public many-to-one communication is constrained by acoustics.
* So audio amplification is often needed.
* Private communications tend to be limited to short-range communication. In other words, you can't have N^2 two-person conversations.
There are limits to what kinds of meetings will be allowed to be held in a town square, or a McDonald’s franchise, say, to pick some random giant company that provides a space to socialize.
Facebook and Twitter are like giant newspaper companies that, unlike paper newspapers, which can get in trouble for reprinting someone’s illegal words, are free to distribute others’ words, moderated or unmoderated. No website that you post content to has to distribute that content for you if it doesn’t want to. Twitter is not air.
That said, I don’t know what Facebook and Twitter should do, if there is such a thing as that. I think Twitter could easily justify not blocking Trump, by making the argument that they are a communication service, and they don’t want to start editorializing, but clearly that is not their stance! Facebook curates and bumps content up and down by its very nature, so Lord knows what it “should” do with itself.
We probably just shouldn’t have these giant monoliths.
> For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history.
I’m more concerned about parler being banned or that “hang pence” was trending, but banning the president - who said LEAVE IN PEACE is what we should be doing.
I’m against all rioting (all year it feels like) and what happened Jan 6 was horrifying.
You know how to simmer tensions? You convince the leaders of said movement to calm followers.
banning / arresting / killing all the leaders and then banning their other platforms will make people scared and ready to fight.
> who said LEAVE IN PEACE is what we should be doing.
“we”?
He also called the insurrectionists “patriots”, and said that he “loved them”, while they were holding the capital building, looting, causing damage, and parading confederate flags through the halls. Just FYI. As like another thing to consider.
It’s sort of surprising how you didn’t mention that yourself. It was literally in the same tweet. I guess it must have slipped your mind.
2. Build Empathy & Rapport (recognize each others mindset)
3. Exert Influence & Change
It's also likely, he wasn't 100% aware of the circumstances.
Coming out and saying, "I abandon you, you traitors" wouldn't help. Imagine if there were hostages or more bombs! Saying it in a nice way could defuse the situation. Damning it while they are still at or in the building is not a good idea.
In a later video Trump said "they'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" and "we need Law and Order". So, I don't think it's a fair characterization given the context.
Just commenting to clarify that "hang Pence" trending was associated with folks sharing and retweeting videos of people chanting hang pence at the capitol. It was NOT an incitement to violence and to hang Pence. If anything, it was actually a condemnation of those calling to hang Pence.
>You know how to simmer tensions? You convince the leaders of said movement to calm followers.
this. this is why the deplatforming of a single political leader is confusing.
if trump can calm down the fringe elements, that's what he needs to do. gagging him from ever reaching that base is counter productive.
one day..we will all be looking back at these events and scratch our heads. this course of action makes no sense. its all very strange and surreal. irrational.
> "if trump can calm down the fringe elements, that's what he needs to do."
Trump has never given any indication that he would do this if he could. He's had plenty of opportunities to call out bad behavior and has been at best equivocal when's he's gestured in that direction.
Yes, after four years of the Trump administration, this is what we'll scratch our heads about. This is what will seem strange and surreal and irrational. Absolutely.
> if trump can calm down the fringe elements, that's what he needs to do.
On what basis do you think Trump has the interest in calming the fringe elements? And if he did have the motivation, on what basis do you think he would be successful?
I'm not sure of this, but I have a hypothesis that you're misunderstanding the Trump phenomenon.
Here's the idea to consider: Trump was sincere! Trump is basically always sincere. Even when he contradicts himself in a matter of minutes. He is a master bullshitter who grew up going to Normal Vincent Peale's church. His entire life is built on the idea that it's all a stage, all a game. The RESULT of that is: he's extremely practiced at coming up with stories and convincing himself. In other words, self-deception. He knows he's bullshitting, but he doesn't think a reality beyond bullshitting exists. He believes what he says all the time. That's why he doesn't give the normal tells that indicate shifty lying and deception. Unlike the other politicians who are obviously being calculating and withholding their real thoughts, Trump is transparent. He's saying exactly what he actually thinks, and even when it is complete oxymoronic, he experiences no cognitive dissonance. He's not really lying in the normal sense, he's delusional.
Trump is the ultimate self-deceiver. That's why his followers find him so appealing. He's authentic in that you can tell he really does say what he thinks and doesn't hold back. It's just that his mind is so constantly focused on whatever will get people to like him and otherwise what serves his interest, the content of his beliefs is similar to what it would be if he were consciously being deceptive. But if he were concerned about his stories being consistent and believable in content, he'd get all nervous and seem more like a liar. He's able to talk with sincerity because he doesn't care if his stories make sense, even as bullshit he still believes them for himself, at least enough to say the things in earnest.
Of course, I don't really know, but this would explain part of how it's possible for so many people to have still seen him as honest despite the plainly factually wrong things that come out of him.
> but banning the president - who said LEAVE IN PEACE is what we should be doing.
This is not all he said, nor does this capture the key context.
The argument is simple: the risk of allowing Trump to continue to have access to Facebook and Twitter outweighs the benefit.
I would like to point out that the president has an unmatched ability to put out information, independent of social media, including: whitehouse.gov, press releases, press briefings, and the major television networks.
I don’t have a ball in this match other than the one that wants to continue to raise my daughter without civil unrest. How are you so certain of the benefit of this action?
> You know how to simmer tensions? You convince the leaders of said movement to calm followers.
Please explain what about Trump's history suggests that he will be convinced?
I understand a respect, even some degree of zeal, for principles such as freedom of speech. But these do not exist in a vacuum. And, practically, the degree of the president's ability to speak to an audience is unparalleled.
In short, there are larger concerns here besides the general principle of free speech in the abstract. We should be discussing the consequences of incitement, falsehood, provocation, threats, disinformation, insults, and so on.
Up until Trump, societal norms, by and large, kept presidential speech within sensible bounds. [1] Trump has ignored those norms.
[1] Of course, there was plenty of deceipt, lying, cover-ups, rhetoric, and so on. But by any measure, Trump has blown the door off civility and credibility.
The problem is that this companies leaders are not independent. They go to summits/foruns/events with politicians, think tanks and foundations, and they subscribe to this other organizations rules. So at some point this actions move from freedom to monopoly?
Readit News
It's as neutral as can be.
If instead, the government had confiscated Parler's domains, or enjoined Apple, Google, and Amazon from booting them, I think EFF's response would (rightly/expectedly IMO) be very different.
As an EFF member I think they made the right call here.
For example, perhaps social networks can sort themselves into two types, public-square type and non-public-square type.
The networks which self-identify as public-square shall (1) employ a stronger set of freedom of speech protection rules, (2) be supervised by the government, an independent council, the media and the public, and (3) receive financial incentive, which could be a limited tax exempt status or governmental subsidy, depending on your preference.
They didn't. They chickened out. The ACLU was more vocal in its opposition to censorship. That should show how cowardly the EFF is being right now.
You falsely made it seem like EFF only deals with or is concerned with government "suppression". That isn't true. Most of EFF dealings is with corporate "suppression".
Under normal circumstances, EFF would have been far more vocal. But since they are extremely biased in this case, they chose to be anti-free speech.
"The EFF was active in the United States presidential election 2016 because of online phishing related to the controversy over fabrication of election results. J. Alex Halderman, a computer security professor at the University of Michigan, wrote an article that was published in Medium in 2016 stating he thought it was advisable to have a recount on some of the election results from states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Frontier_Foundation
Don't you think EFF's belief in 2016 election fraud had anything to do with their lukewarm defense of Trump's free speech here?
They have a long history of questioning voting results, but only when republicans win...
"The EFF has long been an advocate of paper audit trails for voting machines and testified in support of them after the United States presidential election 2004."
I generally think EFF is a worthy enterprise, but it's obvious political bias is the reason for their pathetic "support" for free speech here.
Dead Comment
Ok... why not?
A government is an unavoidably violent institution, and what's more, one which assumes the right and responsibility to use violence. In a free nation, it derives that right through various rituals from the consent of the governed, but it remains a fact: if a governmental leader says, for example, "There's a curfew, stay home or be arrested", that's what's going to happen.
If I message someone else "leave your house and me and my boys will stomp you", it's different, isn't it.
So I ask again: why should there be one set of rules for both?
As individuals acting on their own behalf, though, nobody should be considered above the norms of civil society. By definition - if it didn't work that way, society would not be civil.
(I'd highly recommend reading both A Theory of Justice by John Rawls and Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick for two different but equally thoughtful treatments of this sort of thing.)
I'm inclined to agree with what you describe, but it worries me how many of them (us?) have come to feel that it doesn't work.
We have a growing left convinced that 'the government' is just a bunch of elites caring about maintaining their wealth, and a growing right that believes the same.
I feel both perspectives are at least not unreasonable. So as someone trying to be reasonable and in favor of maintaining some kind of order, where does that leave me? How do we maintain order without accepting a very small elite to maintain it's (corrupt) power? How do we talk to our 'constituents' about this?
I'm truly in favor of solutions that don't end up causing societal chaos and killing people, but I'm lost as to the how.
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
If north korea fires artillery shells at south korea because of its maritime border dispute should it be allowed to make a similar tweet?
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
Can the US president make a tweet like that when he launches a criminal attack on another country?
Of course not (imo, but your values may differ).
Some people hold the view (which you can disagree with, but regardless is a perfectly reasonable view for someone to hold even if you disagree with it) that crimes against humanity are crimes against humanity even when they are carried out by lawfully appointed officials.
For example, vigilante justice or mafia-led street enforcement activities can be considered criminal acts, even if it would come to the same results and verdicts as a law enforcement operation and/or judicial process.
I don't think anybody is proposing banning police officials because they lawfully "kidnapped and trafficked" someone by arresting them.
because in a well functioning Republic communication channels for the government are public, and private companies serve private customers.
The only reason we're having this discussion is because Donald Trump has intentionally conflated the private and public sphere by using his personal twitter account to conduct governmental affairs.
This is terrible because it is 1. insecure and intransparent, 2. there's no established procedures for anything, 3. it conflates his private interest with his public interest (i.e. his decisions in office can be influenced by his commercial interests on the platform).
There should be different rules for Trump when he acts as the president, and indeed he has established communication channels for that very purpose, but when he speaks as a private citizen on a private platform he ought to be treated like everyone else. That's the basis of any non-corrupt system. When Angela Merkel goes to the supermarket (which she in fact does herself) she stands in the queue like everyone else because the fact that she inhabits the office of the Chancellor does not give her superpowers when she enters an ALDI.
Dead Comment
I mean really, so you know it was in the government's purview to hold Snowden, Manning and Assange accountable to what's within their rights too. Nice to see you sway with the wind there EFF.
Guess Biden can pick up the phone and tell them to let them hang out to dry because you know, the government has the right. Why, why bother contesting them, right?
I was the one thing. The one thing you had as a mission.
The chief problem is that enforcement will always be unequal, especially when the majority of people in positions of authority come from one political culture. The EFF thinks it's just fine to deal with this retroactively, but basically, that's saying it's okay to sacrifice a few to save the many. I'm okay with saying that if you're okay with making the consequences for sacrificing those few huge. eg: If Facebook disables someones account because they misunderstood some context because they don't have people working there that can properly frame it, then Facebook owes them substantial damages.
[0] https://santaclaraprinciples.org/
Hosting and publishing certain speech is a liability.
Why should the state dictate what a corporation must allow on their own servers facilitated by the services they created?
Should the state force YouTube to include videos no advertiser wants to be associated with?
EFF's statement is consistent with protecting digital rights.
That's freedom of association.
Except they're not.
I would love the perfection of that, but all they're getting is the same treatment on-line as if they did the same screaming at the other customers and urinating in the isles in a grocery store.
They are stinking up the place, not merely by existing, but specifically through their deeds, and so it is not merely allowed, but an obligation, to deal with them.
This is not the same EFF that supported the Freedom of Speech stance by Apple against the FBI when terrorists killed 16 people in San Bernardino.
Below a poster liked a response by the ACLU which is a much better response to Freedom of Speech than that by the EFF. The EFF caved. They abandoned their one and only mission to promote freedom of speech.
Furthermore, freedom of speech does not imply freedom from consequences.
This is a powerful idea.
Have you found legal protections in the United States for this principle? I can think of some limited examples (Miranda rights, for example), but I do not, off the top of my head, see the the U.S. Constitution as generally protecting this right broadly.
Of course on the USSR you were free to rattle off “Lenin was a Traitor” in front of the Kremlin, but you had to face the consequences of that.
But it’s not Twitters speech. It’s Trumps.
What if he suffers a stroke and suddenly becomes a religious nut, cool if he only allows promotion of his religion on his medium and bans all others?
Good god, we’re effed!
They may ban Luis CK for misogyny let's say, but they sure as hell would not ban all the Bros who use misogynistic language. Do you think we can't find twitter handles of cartelists making terroristic threats in Mexico or other places? Is that all gone now?
Dead Comment
But more broadly what is your position here? Are you saying companies and people that run any kind of forum are not allowed to moderate it? They must allow all posts? Or do they have to have approval from the government for their moderation? Or do you want all forums and social media to be nationalized run by the government and we can have a state social media?
Surely I’d think state media and state censorship is worse for everyone than private media and private censorship (which is something we have always had in the US). And surely forcing every website with a commenting system to post everything anyone wants to share is not fair on anyone either. The problem therefore is something other than these bans.
I have some thoughts but would like more perspective before fully forming an opinion.
(not arguing one way or the other below)
For example, I’d like to understand the defining characteristics of social media platforms that contrasts them from traditional public forums that have existed through history. And what about those characteristics would make one think that physically removing questionable speech would be effective in preventing the underlying event, crime, movement, or social change the speech was attempting to facilitate.
Comparing Twitter, say, to a literal town square — we don’t ask the air in the town square to stop transmitting the vibrations of someone who is speaking in a dangerous manner or trying to incite some action that might harm others or damage social structures. Instead we use normal human social interactions to mediate the speaker’s effect on listeners — countering their arguments, questioning their credibility or motives, telling others an opposing viewpoint, letting a person’s past speech affect their reputation, etc. We leverage our social nature and counter speech with more speech. (The prominent exception being threats of violence which are treated differently legally)
In all the years of human history before social media, there have been countless examples of insurrections, of hateful acts inspired by a few, of coups, of routine crimes, of widely believed mistruths, etc. So obviously individuals in those societies were able to communicate and organize without social media (and in many cases without any electronic communication at all). Which means that access to social media is not a necessary condition for bad events to happen or bad social phenomena to spread. And therefore these things will find a way to continue to happen even if all social media communication were terminated.
My naive assessment is that social media is different than a physical town square in: - Its anonymity / dehumanized nature - Its built-in amplification of controversial ideas (ie the algorithms of town square air does not carry further just because a statement raises eyebrows) - Its speed - … but there must be more?
Basically, why is making the “digital air” in the "digital town square" not vibrate better than utilizing (and perhaps reinforcing) the social structures that moderated public forums in the analog world?
It is mostly people under a false/misunderstood "freedom of speech" pretense saying that Twitter/Facebook/etc should not be able to ban whomever they want.
Deleted Comment
Currently the platforms are private (as a peer comment points out). So right now there isn't technically a "freedom of speech" issue as it's a private matter and private entities in the USA don't need to respect the 1st amendment.
As a thought experiment -- suppose the social media platforms were turned into "utilities" and completely absolved of the responsibility (or even the authority) to "censor" speech. In the same way someone's phone doesn't turn off if they make a threatening phone call. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Would losing the ability for anyone to remove content be fundamentally bad? Given that we have social mechanisms that existed prior to digital communication for countering bad speech?
As to your question, the fact that some people do support the suspension by the platform controllers (currently private) of accounts that post inflammatory speech would suggest that yes, some folks do think that censorship is a good idea.
Censorship of social platforms is absolutely necessary and this is obvious if you think about the problem for long enough, and even more obvious if you try to run one. Spam is a form of speech. You will get DDOSed by bad faith actors selling viagra without censorship. Now of course that's not what people are discussing, but almost all moderation is censorship. Censorship is table stakes to even be able to have a public community beyond a certain size, an uncensored public community would just be static, noise.
If you look at the pure numbers only a small minority of (human) users actually get banned, and most of the censorship happens further down the moderation chain. What people are arguing over, in practice, is if maybe a fraction of a percent of users should be banned or not or should have their posts removed or not. Censorship is so pervasive it's not even recognized as such. The actual disagreement is over a very small fraction of users and rules that would in practice affect a fraction of a percent of users and perhaps spark a trend of self-censorship. Censorship of social media platforms is good, what's in question is if we're perhaps going too far, but the actual difference between peoples views when you look at things from far enough back is actually fairly narrow. Additionally trying to enable the average person to have "Freedom of expression" online while NOT engaging in censorship paradoxically isn't even possible.
The key then as I see it is to keep censorship as minimalistic as practicable, have the rules be well defined, and to empower user self-regulation. It's also a concern to avoid, as much as is practicable, creating community schisms where a group splits off and creates it's own filter bubble which I consider to be outright dangerous (A threat to safety, if you will). For this reason, but also for its own sake, I argue for making efforts to avoid tyrannies of the majority. Because of these priorities, I usually present myself as a free speech proponent since I always seem to be saying people shouldn't be banned or suppressed, but in reality I support broad and sweeping and even automated censorship.
Not to the same extent. (Your argument offers a false dichotomy.)
With terrorism, insurrections, and so on (coordinated crimes in general), being able to slow down, monitor, and respond to communication flows can make the difference between a tragedy and an intervention.
The idea of 'slowing things down' can also apply to any information source, such as business news or the political rumor-mill. Do you want recent, vetted, and contextualized information? In practice, pick two.
I'll put out some ideas quickly. You can build on them. Please share back what you find.
Social media platforms, more or less:
* Tend to blur any one sense of place
* Offer geographically dispersed communication
* May deemphasize the overall humanity of participants
* Tend to accentuate particular aspects of people, such as photos or messages or resumes
* Offer asynchronous communication
* Allow for nearly zero-cost message sending and replication (i.e. retweeting)
* Unlimited person-to-person communication channels
Traditional town squares, more or less:
* Offer a tangible sense of place
* Offer a tangible connection to other people
* Are subject to public assembly laws.
* Only a limited number of people can fit.
* Public many-to-one communication is constrained by acoustics.
* So audio amplification is often needed.
* Private communications tend to be limited to short-range communication. In other words, you can't have N^2 two-person conversations.
Deleted Comment
Facebook and Twitter are like giant newspaper companies that, unlike paper newspapers, which can get in trouble for reprinting someone’s illegal words, are free to distribute others’ words, moderated or unmoderated. No website that you post content to has to distribute that content for you if it doesn’t want to. Twitter is not air.
That said, I don’t know what Facebook and Twitter should do, if there is such a thing as that. I think Twitter could easily justify not blocking Trump, by making the argument that they are a communication service, and they don’t want to start editorializing, but clearly that is not their stance! Facebook curates and bumps content up and down by its very nature, so Lord knows what it “should” do with itself.
We probably just shouldn’t have these giant monoliths.
They are privately held.
1. government censorship of a social media platform?
2. self-censorship on social media platform?
I’m more concerned about parler being banned or that “hang pence” was trending, but banning the president - who said LEAVE IN PEACE is what we should be doing.
I’m against all rioting (all year it feels like) and what happened Jan 6 was horrifying.
You know how to simmer tensions? You convince the leaders of said movement to calm followers.
banning / arresting / killing all the leaders and then banning their other platforms will make people scared and ready to fight.
“we”?
He also called the insurrectionists “patriots”, and said that he “loved them”, while they were holding the capital building, looting, causing damage, and parading confederate flags through the halls. Just FYI. As like another thing to consider.
It’s sort of surprising how you didn’t mention that yourself. It was literally in the same tweet. I guess it must have slipped your mind.
Standard practice[1]:
1. Actively Listen
2. Build Empathy & Rapport (recognize each others mindset)
3. Exert Influence & Change
It's also likely, he wasn't 100% aware of the circumstances.
Coming out and saying, "I abandon you, you traitors" wouldn't help. Imagine if there were hostages or more bombs! Saying it in a nice way could defuse the situation. Damning it while they are still at or in the building is not a good idea.
In a later video Trump said "they'll be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law" and "we need Law and Order". So, I don't think it's a fair characterization given the context.
[1] https://www.inc.com/thomas-koulopoulos/how-to-negotiate-usin...
It doesn't sound like the platforms that profit off of our collective division want to do anything to defuse tension.
I'm baffled at how far these companies will go to keep people viewing ads.
Something needs to disempower the newsfeed-driven media companies before the violence snowballs.
Things will only get better when we start trying to find common ground. These media platforms are designed to ensure that doesn't happen.
this. this is why the deplatforming of a single political leader is confusing.
if trump can calm down the fringe elements, that's what he needs to do. gagging him from ever reaching that base is counter productive.
one day..we will all be looking back at these events and scratch our heads. this course of action makes no sense. its all very strange and surreal. irrational.
Trump has never given any indication that he would do this if he could. He's had plenty of opportunities to call out bad behavior and has been at best equivocal when's he's gestured in that direction.
You're right, that it is strange and surreal.
On what basis do you think Trump has the interest in calming the fringe elements? And if he did have the motivation, on what basis do you think he would be successful?
He read that, in the usual monotone he reserves for words he doesn't believe for a second. Did you actually believe he was sincere?
Here's the idea to consider: Trump was sincere! Trump is basically always sincere. Even when he contradicts himself in a matter of minutes. He is a master bullshitter who grew up going to Normal Vincent Peale's church. His entire life is built on the idea that it's all a stage, all a game. The RESULT of that is: he's extremely practiced at coming up with stories and convincing himself. In other words, self-deception. He knows he's bullshitting, but he doesn't think a reality beyond bullshitting exists. He believes what he says all the time. That's why he doesn't give the normal tells that indicate shifty lying and deception. Unlike the other politicians who are obviously being calculating and withholding their real thoughts, Trump is transparent. He's saying exactly what he actually thinks, and even when it is complete oxymoronic, he experiences no cognitive dissonance. He's not really lying in the normal sense, he's delusional.
Check out https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/episodes/91612...
Trump is the ultimate self-deceiver. That's why his followers find him so appealing. He's authentic in that you can tell he really does say what he thinks and doesn't hold back. It's just that his mind is so constantly focused on whatever will get people to like him and otherwise what serves his interest, the content of his beliefs is similar to what it would be if he were consciously being deceptive. But if he were concerned about his stories being consistent and believable in content, he'd get all nervous and seem more like a liar. He's able to talk with sincerity because he doesn't care if his stories make sense, even as bullshit he still believes them for himself, at least enough to say the things in earnest.
Of course, I don't really know, but this would explain part of how it's possible for so many people to have still seen him as honest despite the plainly factually wrong things that come out of him.
Dead Comment
This is not all he said, nor does this capture the key context.
The argument is simple: the risk of allowing Trump to continue to have access to Facebook and Twitter outweighs the benefit.
I would like to point out that the president has an unmatched ability to put out information, independent of social media, including: whitehouse.gov, press releases, press briefings, and the major television networks.
Please explain what about Trump's history suggests that he will be convinced?
I understand a respect, even some degree of zeal, for principles such as freedom of speech. But these do not exist in a vacuum. And, practically, the degree of the president's ability to speak to an audience is unparalleled.
In short, there are larger concerns here besides the general principle of free speech in the abstract. We should be discussing the consequences of incitement, falsehood, provocation, threats, disinformation, insults, and so on.
Up until Trump, societal norms, by and large, kept presidential speech within sensible bounds. [1] Trump has ignored those norms.
[1] Of course, there was plenty of deceipt, lying, cover-ups, rhetoric, and so on. But by any measure, Trump has blown the door off civility and credibility.