Being Removed From Facebook and Twitter (page 4)

Hotpepper

I'll thank Simon for reactivating my account . I think it's sick how the left wing Twitter groups,. Are against FREEDOM of speech and kissing Bidens ass. JYD

MeanMrMustard

Ah, thanks for the clarification.
As I understand it, CDA 230 is there to protect companies from liability for their decisions to leave up or take down content posted on their sites. I.e., as a private company they have the right to allow or disallow what other people post there, and no one has can sue them for either leaving up, or taking down, content. Obviously, there are exceptions such as child porn, sex trafficking, etc.

CDA was an attempt to regulate porn on the internet. All of the law was struck down as unconsitutional, except section 230. Section 230 has been intepreted to say that internet services (everything from internet service providers to platforms like FB), are not to be viewed as "publishers" of the data, and thereby liable for the content.

I might add - pretty much everyone agrees with this distinction, and its not without precedent. A telephone service is an example of a platform service or a provider. They enjoy the same immunity from liability. If someone conducts criminal business over the AT&T network via texts, the provider is not resposibile for that activity. And the provider also doesn't engage in scanning each text in an attempt to filter content. In fact, it would be impossible to do so with any level of reliability or accuracy. This limitation was part of what spurred section 230 - that these growing internet platforms couldn't be expected to actually regulate the content - it is too much.

I also understand there are differing opinions about the meaning and extent of CDA 230.

Yes, the Supreme Count has yet to take a case regarding CDA 230. But what matters are the opinions rendered by the lower appellate courts.

I agree, the wording from 1996 is probably trying to do too much lifting in 2020. It would be good for congress, if/when it gets past its hyper-partisan divide, to consider amending it.

I believe what I provided earlier is a really good starting point. It is NOT, in any way, partisan. And the case law around the first ammendment is quite mature.

MeanMrMustard

If you allow one party to say whatever they want but don’t apply the same standard to the other it’s wrong.
Are they really applying the standards differently for different "sides"? Minimus thinks so, and says it's "wrong", but other folks disagree.

Yes, they are. But is a bit trickier than that. If they define a standard as "no hate speech" - what does that effectively mean? The concept of "hate speech" is not compatible with the first amendment. I think they key here is that the standards that they are uniformly applying are, in themselves, political. For example, if there is a policy (applied across the board) that you must respect the "gender preference" of other posters, then officially you have banned posts on this topic from anyone that has a different view of gender / sex - this is a political and cultural issue.

These companies need to be held responsible.
By whom? By what authority?

It is not about regulating in an affirmative manner. It is recognizing that these tech companies market themselves to the world as "platforms" in the sense of 230. They declare themselves to be a place where free speech is important, and under that guise the take the immunity against liability that 230 grants to them. They simply wouldn't exist without this government protection. But the government protection comes at a cost: conduct yourselves like platforms.

If someone says "I don't think there are 70 genders - there are only two" and that is "hate speech" that gets taken down, that is the behavior of a publisher.

Note: It is not the act of taking down content that indicates publisher-like behavior. It is the unobjective basis on which it is taken down. And it is not the uniformity of the application, it is also the rules by which the application is applied. (i.e. - Am I allowed to say Black Lives Matter, but Blue Lives Matter gets taken down)

If you don't like what the New York times prints, buy the New York Post. If you don't like Stephen King's novels, don't read them. If you don't like Twitter's policies, don't support them.

This is conflating a few things. First, the NYT is a publisher. They can be a publisher. But if (somehow) the NYT publishes defamatory or illegal information, they are liable. They don't get the immunity. Since that is their designation (as a publisher), they have complete control of their paper. They can publish communist propaganda all day long, and nobody can force them to do otherwise. But they are responsible for the content.

Twitter, on the other hand, has declared itself to be a platform. And with that, they have grabbed the governments immunity against the content on their platform. But the rules of a platform are different. They don't have to worry about liability, but you can't also start to engage in publisher-like behavior.

Simon has no obligation to post pro-JW screeds on this site in the interest of "fairness". It's his site. He can do what he wants.

Yeah, its not about forcing someone to post information on the other side. That is not the issue here.

Twitter is a private company with certain policies and standards.

Yeah, and they can have those. No problem. Unless....(next sentence)

They choose to allow or prohibit certain users and content.

Nope, they are a platform, right? They have to have an objective criteria for kicking someone off. For example, a telephone company can terminate your service if you don't pay for it. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, brown, asian, Democrat, Republican, communist, bald, hairy, etc. You don't pay, your service gets shut off. See what I mean? In exchange for that type of platform behavior, if you happen to be coordinating a bank robbery over their service, they aren't held responsible in any way.

What law obligates them to do so according to something other than their own determination?

It is important to note: There is no obligation here. If you want to be a publisher, great! But you shouldn't get the immunity of a platform.

TheListener

I don't see how important we view websites like Twitter or Facebook or how much they may mean to certain people means they somehow owe fairness. If you don't like their posting rules don't support them. I don't support them and I am able to maintain my social contacts.

As a private company I wouldn't think they even have to publish rules for posting, it would be nice and helpful and make their platform more useful, but required? I don't feel like that's true.

I can't stand federal government getting in my business. Any business other than defense of nation and interstate issues.

If we don't like the social platforms around today then in the future there will be new ones for us, better ones. That's how free market economies work.

IMO

Simon

Our only hope is that new platforms do arrive. The rule of social networks used to be that they get usurped, partly because no one wants to be on the same platform as their parents so they tended to recycle.

But they have probably become too big and too powerful and able to quash competition, either fairly or unfairly.

So many people rely on them now for so many things, being kicked off can have a significant impact on people. They shouldn't be allowed to wield such power on the whims of biased activists with no oversight or consequences for wrong decisions.

At the very least, a bill of online-rights and some independent complaint ombudsman is needed.

It's totally back-to-front - we have government telling tiny bakers that they must serve people with bespoke requests, and at the same time have large corporates that pay little in taxes bullying everyone and acting arbitrarily.

minimus

Monopolies are broken up by the government. Sometimes it’s necessary.

JoenB75

I have been in facebook prison several times for quite ridiculous statements deemed hate speech. I dont think much reasoning is behind it. If they were seriously moderating my statements they should find far worse 🤭. Anyway I hope Trump punishes Facebook or we right wing people get another platform. I look a bit at Parler of course

JoenB75

One example; I got my first seven days for saying a certain nation's people were stupid for voting in their particular leader. That was hate speech 😁😁

TheListener

A few of the successful (mostly) Sherman Act court cases the government has undertaken (not all): Standard Oil, American Tobacco, AT&T, Northern Securities (Railroad), Swift&Co price fixing (meat packing), Kodak, Paramount Pictures.

I could see and understand Verizon, AT&T, etc made were in collusion to make internet access more difficult for republicans versus others. That would seem to fit under Sherman Act regulations and sort of matches up with Swift & Co, Kodak and Paramount Pictures cases.

I could see if Facebook kept individuals, based on politics or something else, from posting on other sites due to collusion, that also would seem to fall under the Sherman Act.

I just am not sure I see that an independent company can be made to "fair" and that is in quotes because each of us defines "fair" differently. Facts are facts, but fairness is in the eye of the beholder.

What if Facebook said, from now on anyone who says their a Republican can't post. Uproar! Unbelievable! the death of their financial future! But, legal, stupid - but legal.

What's to stop FoxNews or Newsmax from opening a FB rival that caters to conservatives? Free and open posting of all ideas! Users may flock to it, money to be made. Completely legal.

IMO

Simon

It would be less of an issue if they declared that they weren't going to allow conservative opinions. People would flock to an alternative platform and they would wither and die because advertisers would leave. They wouldn't be the same online force for sure.

What is insidious is claiming that they allow free-speech and then declaring that some piece of news is "false" simply because they don't like it. They want to have their cake and eat it too.

Being Removed From Facebook and Twitter

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