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Utopia Talk / Politics / BREAKING: TWITTER BANNED TRUMP!!!!
Average Ameriacn
Member
Tue Jun 30 08:21:10
We should ban Twitter here on UP and never again link to Twitter

http://www...d-trump-account-174145621.html


Twitch has suspended Donald Trump's account
The Amazon-owned company says the President's channel broke its hateful conduct policies.





Twitch has temporarily suspended Donald Trump’s account. The company says the channel’s broadcast of the President’s Tulsa Rally and recent re-airing of one of his 2016 campaign stops violated its hateful conduct and harassment policies. The comments Twitch took issue with feature the President making negative comments about Mexican migrants.

“Hey, it’s 1:00 o’clock in the morning and a very tough, I’ve used the word on occasion, hombre, a very tough hombre is breaking into the window of a young woman whose husband is away as a traveling salesman or whatever he may do,” Trump says in one of the videos flagged by Twitch.

In a statement to Engadget, the company said, “Hateful conduct is not allowed on Twitch. In line with our policies, President Trump’s channel has been issued a temporary suspension from Twitch for comments made on stream.”

Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign created the account last October. Twitch says it made clear to the President’s media team when it created the account that it doesn’t make exceptions for politicians. “Like anyone else, politicians on Twitch must adhere to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines,” the company said at the time. “We do not make exceptions for political or newsworthy content, and will take action on content reported to us that violates our rules.”

The move comes on the same day Reddit banned The_Donald subreddit. Beyond angering Trump, the suspension is likely to lead to further calls to roll back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The clause protects online platforms in a variety of circumstances from libel suits based on the actions of their users. In May, the President signed an executive order pushing the FTC to take action against companies that limit their users’ speech after Twitter hid one of his tweets for glorifying violence. The Justice Department recently shared its wishlist of Section 230 rollbacks, and a group of bipartisan lawmakers introduced a senate bill aimed at updating the clause for the modern era.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 08:24:43
There are people who think this is an acceptable development

They are the ones that are truly unfit to lead this country
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 08:26:37
Also reddit banned r/The_Donald yesterday. Although that place was already a ghost town after reddit admins put it into quarantine (preventing it from ever appearing on r/all) and attempting to force their own slate of mods on the sub.

Enemies of free speech are celebrating right now.
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 08:48:39
Ruggy
Twitter banning Trump - not a free speech issue

The Trump administration ordering Twitter to ban Trump - A free speech issue.

For a poster who talks a lot about free speech, you really don't understand it very well.

Its protection from State censorship.

There you go.
Average Ameriacn
Member
Tue Jun 30 08:52:00
Does anyone use Parler?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZU3zkbvv-A&feature=youtu.be

"Sen. Cruz Joins Parler, Says Big Tech Has Stacked the Deck Against the American People"
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:01:30
Jergul

Twitter didnt ban Trump.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:05:25
Jergul

Forgive me, but I think I understand free speech a lot better than you.

And I didnt invoke the First Amendment here anyway. I invoked the principle of free speech.
Habebe
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:11:56
A sitting president banned from airing a campaign rally....

And the left will call this a victory.

More and more they are becoming the politics of suppression of expression.
Paramount
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:24:10
Trump: Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people.

Rugian: I invoked the principle of free speech

Me: lol
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 09:24:15
The principle of free speech is the principle of freedom from government censorship.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:26:53
Jergul

That's your definition, not the more widely accepted one.

"[t]he right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint."
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 09:27:29
The principle of being able to say whatever you want wherever you want is the principle of a homeless lunatic wandering the streets muttering since austerity robbed him of the institution where he once lived.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:31:42
I'm not sure WTF you're going for here, but okay.

Why are you seriously trying to start an argument over this? It's a ridiculous premise to argue that social media should be engaging in widespread censorship of one of two main political parties in the US.
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 09:39:56
Its rediculous to argue that terms and conditions that service providers have should be applied arbitrarily.

I would advise the president to stop breaking their rules if he wishes to avail himself of their services.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:49:46
Lol. This is exactly why I stopped taking the "we should be more like Europe" crowd seriously years ago. Frankly, you Euros don't share the same values as us.

You enjoy building your ideal single party (in the sense of ideology) "democracy." I will continue to advocate for our rights over here though.
TJ
Member
Tue Jun 30 09:59:36
Patter:

Trump 2020!
Paramount
Member
Tue Jun 30 10:05:07
"It's a ridiculous premise to argue that social media should be engaging in widespread censorship of one of two main political parties in the US"


Private companies has no obligations to provide a platform for anyone.

If Trump wants to talk to the masses, he can hold a press briefing. And then those journalists and media that he hasn't banned from his briefings can attend and spread his message.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 10:12:04
Shut up Paramount.

It is clear that the big social media platforms are the public forums of the 21st century. There is a pressing public need for free expression on such platforms and we need to do a better job in developing that.

The alternative is that anyone who expresses a view that the gay Twitter mafia doesnt approve us gets banned. And in that case, where social media companies are actively curating the content being broadcasted, said companies need to own the content that their posters make and be legally liable for them.
Paramount
Member
Tue Jun 30 10:18:39
You are free to post there as long as you don't violate their code of conducts. Don't encourage violence, hate, terrorism, etc. The 'old' printed media probably has the same code of conducts. You can't publish anything you want in newspapers.
chuck
Member
Tue Jun 30 10:41:06
Wahhh, Twitter and Facebook don't want to host my shitty opinions.

Alternatives exist. Voat, Gab, Parler, or go FOSS and use Mastadon.

Fucking amazing that you want to use the government to compel private entities to host your content. If the companies are all that bad, people will vote with their feet. What happened to free market principles? Maybe next you can compel the govt to show your posts at the top of the feed, because really THAT'S the public square. Come to think of it, it's a violation of your free speech that your stuck posting here instead of on the front page of the New York Times!

"Twitter is the public square," lmao. Constitutional originalism: now available in a convenient case-by-case application. Consistency not guaranteed!
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 11:40:20
Censorship isn't a newspaper refusing to carry your article Rugian.

tumbleweed
the wanderer
Tue Jun 30 11:47:09
"It's a ridiculous premise to argue that social media should be engaging in widespread censorship of one of two main political parties in the US."

it's not widespread... at all...


join Parler, it's where all the garbage people are going (team Trump been pushing it not just empty husk Ted Cruz as above)

via wikipedia:
"A wave of right-wing and conservative media and political figures joined Parler in June 2020, including Donald Trump Jr., Dan Bongino, Rudy Giuliani, Katie Hopkins, Alex Jones and Ted Cruz."

(what a list of total shit)
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 12:29:31
Ruggy
I find even a two party system rediculous. Never mind a single part system.

Parliamentarism ftw. With a width of parties to choose from for, you know, actual choice.

TJ
Not to worry. Trump will be president for all of 2020.
TJ
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:01:44
jergul:
Him not being has never crossed my mind. Worry is nonproductive.
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 13:06:40
Inaguration of the next president is the 21st of January, right? So still lots of time to enjoy :-)
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:21:35
Seb

Newspapers don't have infinite content capacity, so by nature they must be selective in what they publish.

Although I'd argue that the recent story of the NYT pulling an editorial by a sitting United States Senator because it triggered BLM supporters on the staff was indeed a form of censorship. Apparently cancel culture has redefined the opinion section so that it now only includes perspectives that are considered "correct."

Tw

You keep denying the prevalence of social media censorship, even as it becomes more and more widespread.

At what point will you acknowledge that theres a problem here? Or maybe you dont think it's a problem since you want to see the right silenced as well?
Forwyn
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:22:45
The Venn diagram of people who whine about unfettered capitalism and rule by mega-corps, and people who are perfectly fine with megacorps censoring on their platforms by ideology is a perfect circle.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:23:14
Jergul

Where's Norway's equivalent of the GOP again?
TJ
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:31:08
I've been alive for thirteen Presidents and it is my plan on doing for at least a few more. None have prevented me from being productive and I'll never contribute any of them for my failures or successes.
jergul
large member
Tue Jun 30 13:40:59
Ruggy
There cannot be an equivalent. We have a multi party system, while the GOP is an umbrella organisation for all kinds of various political variations.

But closest? Folkepartiet de kristne.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:51:10
Rugian:

Ah yes, that well known liberty of compelling private organisations to carry content.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 13:54:09
Forwyn:

Er, yes, the people who worry about regulatory arbitrage by tech platforms want them to be responsible and liable for the content they publish.


That's not particularly surprising.

Forwyn
Member
Tue Jun 30 14:15:06
Your poor goalpost-moving aside, platforms are not publishers, by their own admission.
hood
Member
Tue Jun 30 14:22:10
It should be noted that if section 230 was removed, one of the stalwart arguments of republicans, Trump would almost unanimously be banned from every platform, as he would undoubtedly be far too legally risky.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Jun 30 14:25:14
But they also want the 1st amendment to be the "community rules" - No hate speech rules.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 15:05:57
Platforms would certainly like not to be publishers, as being a publisher confers liability and responsibilities that they have ditched in order to reach scale. However, it's mostly just a firm of regulatory arbitrage, they are in many respects publishers and should be treated as such.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 15:07:31
It's also not goal-post shifting.

The positions held here are entirely consistent. Platforms are publishers, which means they should be regulated as such, have more responsibility for what they publish, and therefore require the ability to chose what they publish.


Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 15:08:30
Also, online newspapers also have infinite capacity, but strangely are liable for the content they carry.
Forwyn
Member
Tue Jun 30 15:26:55
Newspapers are certainly not liable for their comment section.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Jun 30 15:46:17
If you go and plaster some lunatic menifesto on the walls of the city, the city isn’t liable for what you ”published” on their walls.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 17:53:19
Forwyn:

Yes they are, in print at least. The only thing they are not liable for (in the US, fairly uniquely) are third party comments, on-line. They are still liable for any letter they print. Just showing how batshit crazy the US legal system has become thanks to tech company lobbying (if you make us obey the same laws as everyone else, we won['t be able to scale to infinity, and then how will we become near monopolies? Be reasonable)

Rugian's argument was that newspapers are "allowed" to curate - sorry, "censor" - because they have finite capacity (in print), but their online offerings have no such limit. Yet they remain liable for content they carry (unlike the tech platforms), and have no obligation to publish any piece of content or letter you submit to them. Indeed, even the anomaly where they are legally liable for content of letters (whether printed or online), but not online comments, many still do moderate their comment sections and they are perfectly entitled to do so. This is, according to Rugian, Censorship and a violation of free speech.


Nimatzo:
The city isn't actively soliciting you to put content onto their walls and making a business out of it. Twitter and Facebook etc. are. You provide the content, they monetise it.

I'm sure that twitter, facebook etc would love to try and pretend their app is just, you know, incidentally there, and it's not their fault if people come along and use those submit buttons, which were absolutely not intended to allow users to have their content published on the internet, but were entirely decorative. However a cursory look at all the analytics pointing at the content and the user in that transaction suggests that they were in fact anticipating that the user would indeed post content, which Facebook and twitter (Etc. etc.) would host, with the explicit intent of showing it to other users. And indeed, they have incredibly clever metrics that curate the information that these users post, and show selected highlights to third parties.

This is called publishing.

Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 17:56:01
I'm sure we can at least agree that Rugian is off his tiny rocker.

Whether you agree that tech platforms should be publishers or not, I still think your initial quote ignored the basic coherence of the case against the tech platforms.

People want them to both have the freedom to chose who they publish, be held accountable for who and what they print, and be criminally liable for it. Like traditional media.
Rugian
Member
Tue Jun 30 18:06:53
Which is a completely bullshit argument and proves that you have no idea what makes the internet different from traditional media.

The internet is the medium that strips away the gatekeepers and allows ordinary people to have a voice. You, on the other hand, are literally advocating a return to 1960s-style cartel rule, when a handful of companies were able to effectively control what Americans saw and heard over the airwaves.

Enough with your pathetic fear of anything that weakens the hold of the establishment over the populace. Your hatred of everything the internet represented between the 1990s and 2016 just goes to show that you never should have logged online in the first place.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Tue Jun 30 18:23:22
Seb
On some of the walls they are and most of the content on social media are also conversations, broadly or in smaller groups. That is not publishing. As much as I don't want big media companies to commoditize me, I also do not want them to curate and feed me what they think I should know, based on what they think are "authoritative sources". That is exactly what happened after the Youtube "adpocalypse". Smaller news channels were down throttled in favor of big media conglomerates.

Whatever this is and I am not sure we still understand it, require a new way of thinking and dealing with it. This is code, we can literally do anything we want with it, so calling it "publishing" is unimaginative. Besides as soon as social media moves into blockchain, you are not going regulate anything, it is never going away. Think ahead.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 18:27:46
Rugian:

"The internet is the medium that strips away the gatekeepers and allows ordinary people to have a voice."

Sure, anyone can publish what they like. You don't need facebook to host a website.

"You, on the other hand, are literally advocating a return to 1960s-style cartel rule,"

The thing that is creating these cartels is allowing a few companies to gain the economic benefits of being a publisher without the consequences. It lets them scale and become a defacto monopoly with insurmountable network effects. And they are already allowed to determine what you see. That is the basis of all of their algorithms (it is also precisely why they are a publisher).

Now, if they were a simple hosting solution - like geocities was, for example - then you would have a case. But that is not how these work in any sense.

"when a handful of companies were able to effectively control what Americans saw and heard over the airwaves."

Lets be clear about this though: the only reason it is necessary to, e.g. be on twitter to be seen is because the lack of liability twitter has means it can essentially abdicate a chunk of its cost base.

But there is room for an infinite number of twitter clones. Parler, Gabr etc etc.

The problem isn't that twitter "controls" what people see, it is that most people don't want to see the content you want to try and force them to see.

What you are demanding isn't freedom of speech, its free coverage.
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 18:42:41
Nim:

"On some of the walls they are"

I think those would be covered by the same rules as bill boards, which are regulated in most countries.

"and most of the content on social media are also conversations, broadly or in smaller groups."

So are letters in newspapers, for which the newspaper is liable.

"That is not publishing."
It clearly is. In what way is it not?

"As much as I don't want big media companies to commoditize me, I also do not want them to curate and feed me what they think I should know"
That is exactly what they do. All of them use some kind of algorithm to decide which content they think will most engage you, in order to put adverts in front of you or to infer your interest and sell that insight to other advertisers. It's the entire basis of the business model. The comment sections are there because it provides additional data to gauge out your sentiment and engagement.

If it was genuinely the case that you had companies that just hosted content and did nothing more, I can accept the argument their liability should be greatly curtailed: they become less like the newspaper and more like the printing press. However they all rely on advertising to provide the free service, which invariably means a whole heap of curation and analytics, even if they effective outsource that to a third party.

And if they are curating, and monetising the content, failure to make them liable creates all sorts of perverse incentives. It's what lets Youtube develop algorithms that they know e.g. radicalise Muslim youths, but which they don't care about because it's not their problem, and generates clicks which they can monetise.

These are externalities that need to be priced in via regulation.

And if they are liable, they need to have discretion.

The other option is to ban them from curating, and give them protection from liability. But without curation, the advertising value is heavily diluted and users will not be able to as easily find the content that interests them.

There is room for both models I think. The margin on the curated model will likely shrink a lot as they now have a cost base that scales with user base. That will make google and facebook managers and shareholders very sad; but then it also made factory owners very sad when we stopped letting them spew toxic waste everywhere. C'est la vie. Other models will arise, and Facebook, Google and Twitter will still make a lot of money; and shit lords will still be able to get published (but may now have to find people willing to pay or pay themselves to be published - but again, that's capitalism for you).
Seb
Member
Tue Jun 30 18:43:48
I mean, take this board.

It probably costs a USD100 a year.
Turtle Crawler
Admin
Tue Jun 30 19:31:28
Yeah, even less I think, i think about $70
chuck
Member
Tue Jun 30 19:41:00
$5/mo VPS + $10/yr DNS registration? I thought UP lived in a computer in your closet TC
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 02:00:11
Seb
People having conversations, clearly is not publishing any more than standing on the street or sitting on a park bench, that is a large part of the internet and social media.
I am concerned about their power and influence (said so in the past many times) but I don’t believe increased curation is the solution and you also seem to believe ”publishing” lives a scale, to be applied depending on the nature of the ”operation”. Both models, new models, what about different modes on for instance twitter? Curated twitter and anything goes twitter, what about community curation? Whatabout alot of stuff that can organically emerge because this is code, we can do what we want. So, applying the last paradigms rules and thinking is not ideal. Will there still be publishers? Yes. Will some of or some parts of social media be publishing? Yes.
Habebe
Member
Wed Jul 01 02:23:53
I think too much censorship on these major platforms is going to just trivialize people even more.

It will likely lead to what we see in tv news where they are either left or right wing channels.

Now I understand I have a libertarian sense of freedom.of speech which is not common, especially outside of the US.

The conservatives used to be the ones wanting to censor things they disliked such as profanity and porn.Or throw the word commie at it.

Now its the left silencing what they dislike, which they throw the terms "hate speech" " bigot" or some sort of ism onto nearly anything they dont like.

A MAGA hat for example is a political slogan, however its common for sjw's to tey and censor such displays of it.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 02:41:01
Nim:

Why is that not publishing, but a newspapers letters column is?

When you say it's not the solution, what is problem you are trying to solve?

The reason we have laws that holds print publishers liable is because of the ills that come from not having them, not some point of theoretical principle. Those ills are hugely magnified by online publication.

Yet you are likening online publication to "people conversing in the park", yet the platforms influence who met, and what circumstances.

It's more like people being yanked onto a stage in a park, with the park owner plying everyone with drink to try and get a brawl going, because they get paid by guys wondering around selling souvenirs.

Should the park owner be done for organising what is an illicit fight club?
"Why are you banning walking in parks? I'm just a park warden mate".
Habebe
Member
Wed Jul 01 02:59:38
Perfect example of what I was talking about

"So how exactly is the alternative media being censored by Facebook? Well, let me speak about my own experiences at 5Pillars.

Around a year ago we started to get Facebook violations even though we were posting the same kind of content that we had always posted. Certain videos and articles attracted particular attention from the censors, such as anything to do with LGBT issues or Israel/Palestine.

Don’t get me wrong, in principle I have no problem whatsoever with Facebook’s Community Guidelines. I too believe that graphic content and hate speech should not be on a social media platform that is available to millions of people, including children. In fact, 5Pillars is completely committed to fair and accurate journalism and this is the reason why we have signed up to the independent regulator IMPRESS which has the power to investigate complaints against us and sanction us.

But the thing is we weren’t getting sanctioned for hate speech or graphic content. We were literally getting sanctioned for writing impartial news stories on Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians or the controversy surrounding the issue of homosexuality in the Muslim world."

http://5pi...ir-own-social-media-platforms/

Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 03:44:55
Habebe:

Think it through.

Facebook, indeed the entire social media industry, face close to zero mandatory editorial costs. This means they get more efficient and profitable as they scale.

This makes them a natural monopoly, which means as someone wishing to communicate, you have no choice not to be their user.

To the extent they have to make token gesture at editorialship, it's either when it is in their narrow interests to do so, or a weak gesture to stave off actual liability.

Which means they rely on cheap, untrained labor with poor quality results. Take this issue here of LGBTI censorship: it's about the customers preference and untrained, low skill editors.

But that's fine: they face no competition.

Now if we actually imposed liability, they'd have a cost that scaled with user base.

It would likely lead to more discerning product design (which exist on other media types):
1. More platforms (which cable package you buy)
2. Greater user control of content (different channels on your cable package)
3. Contractual frameworks that pass liability through to content generator - e.g. vertified user identity for publishers

The reason why everyone is worried about free speech being impacted by making the likes of Facebook as liable as a newspaper is because to a great degree, Facebook is a huge chunk of the internet. But the reason Facebook (or in a parallel world, MySpace or whatever using a similar model) is such a huge chunk of the internet is because they have been allowed to externalise all the costs associated with this kind of business that in previous media have been externalised.


When printing presses first arose, they were held liable for the products they printed. This quickly led to the creation of publishers, who took on that liability of fact checking etc. adding both value and cost. Smart printers printed for many publishers, but the publishers, carrying risk, took the bulk of the profit, while the printers got the larger revenue.

The problem with Facebook etc is they want the margin of publishers and the scale of the printing press, and to externalise the liabilities.

And then tell you that if they don't have this, your freedom of speech is impacted because they are the only game in town, when the reason they have a natural monopoly is in part due to the absence of such costs.

If printers had this kind of regulatory immunity, printers might tend to be giant natural monopolies too.

Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 03:46:33
If Facebook paid half as much for editors as print publishers have to, your case above wouldn't exist.

Their margin would just be lower.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 03:54:19
Seb
"Should the park owner be done for organising what is an illicit fight club?"

If your view of social media, is that of a park owner organizing unathorized MMA events, then our understanding of this shared reality is diverging. And when this extreme position has been established, I have learned all I need to from this discussion.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 05:25:27
Nim:

Hey, you chose the analogy.

But here's the point, the park owner is operating a stage, promoting particular stages, putting up signs, and selling accesses to hawkers.

That's not a park. That's a venue.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 05:28:53
Is YouTube promoting radical Islam, far right videos and anti Vaccine content through their feed algorithm to minors akin to an MMA fight? Yeah, I'm comfortable with that analogy. Responsible adults should be able to watch it; but it should be heavily regulated both in the practice and in how it is promoted and in how it is accessed
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 07:00:17
Seb
Only to balance yours, not so you could switch from one mono rail to another. The message is that no single analogy captures what we are dealing with and that the nature of the product gives freedom to deal with the negative aspects in ways that the old physical media does not. The idea here is to find ways to solve the problems without fatally undermining the positive aspects of unfiltered conversations that anyone can take part in without guardians at the gate.

The problem I want to solve is that we don’t really get what the problem is yet. But free speech and what they do with my data and in the ways they are being misused, though to some degree we have to live with the usage of data for marketing.

No one is getting pulled into these things, we have agency, but a lot of people simply do or did not grasp the power and consequence of a tweet. A teen age girl who says something stupid will now be open to punishment from the entire world. Our intuitions have a hard time with the scale. Part of this is maturity, both as individuals and culture, like we learned to deal with cars in our streets. We built roads, pathways and signs, we educated people, here is where we drive and here is where we walk. These are the consequences of not paying attention. We didn’t say oh well, this just like a horse and carriage. Because it isn’t a horse, it is something far more powerful that took a long time getting used to.

The another part lies is solutions that emerge within the platforms. Obviously the straight forward answer would be, the individual content creator is responsible for the ideas and thoughts that they publish. What remains is the lack of insight into the algorithms, how am I being tricked and what am I being fed? Open source or third party/community surveillance are some options. Minds is an example. If the whole momentum was created by the mass availability of a platform, it makes sense in the same vein that the communities be more involved in the care taking and administration. Could you have imagined something like wikipedia working? And almost no one getting paid to create all of it? Another example of how things can be handled.

Now, I don’t disagree that some sort of regulation is necessary, but whatever that is, isn’t ”they are publishers”, but would involve more transparency.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 07:59:13
Nim:

There's already a solution to that problem
that would also keep open a public commons is what I'm saying.

It's also the same solution to the other behaviours we see too which are akin to insider trading.

The problem is you are starting from the position of buying the tech giants arguments that it is *necessary* for them to be near monopolies in order for you to have the ability to communicate freely.

It's the old "what's good for General Motors is good for America" argument.

Ultimately, the free market approach here is to hold the tech platforms to account and let the market find solutions that sit within the law.

I'm more than happy to listen to tech companies come up with proposals of how legislation can enable better models; but at the moment their proposals are about how we should ignore problems, give them an exception to existing legislation, because without then the internet won't exist. Which is bullshit of the highest order.
jergul
large member
Wed Jul 01 08:26:52
I think the main challenge relates to how laws can distinguish between media outlets with editorial responsibilities and sites where people just discuss stuff.

Two criteria should probably be at the basis:

1. Revenue stream. A threshold for how much advertising revenue is ok before editiorial responsibility is implicit.

2. Content moderation. A threshold were if an actor moderates content, then it has to moderate all content.

FB for example would have editorial responsibility both through ad revenue and due to logarythms that moderate content access already.

This forum would not have editorial responsibility because the moderators suck and TC makes little to no money from advertising.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 09:19:25
"The problem is you are starting from the position of buying the tech giants arguments that it is *necessary* for them to be near monopolies in order for you to have the ability to communicate freely."

I am not buying anything, but there is an obvious value in 1 platform for everyone, so as to not have the hard bubbles of "lefty" twitter and "rightwing" twitter. You know CNN, Fox, MSNBC. I will let go of that dream in a heart beat if we can make that 1 platform somehow governed by the community and transparent like a liberal democracy. Then we can all live in our walled gardens. That still would not make me a believer of the publisher line.

Like I said, I am not against regulation, we may even have to force them to "kneel" as Jergul likes to say, but I want them to kneel before free speech principles and not undermine that which has been gained by breaking the old monopolies on information. Which this exactly what they has happend in the case of Youtube, they have kneeled before MSNBC, Foxnews et. al. decimating the new media outlets.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 09:20:07
"heart beat if we *can't* make that 1 platform"
jergul
large member
Wed Jul 01 10:14:09
Nimi
That is another thing. Its better that companies bend the knee to well thought out and transparent legislation, than to the vagaries of fickle popular sentiment.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 10:48:43
Nim:

Interoperability could be a feature if that wanted it (CF. RSS feeds). They prefer walkrd gardens.

Facebook, Google and Twitter actively curate your content based on inferred politics to create echo bubbles, again because it's suits their targeting model.

1 platform for everyone not only doesn't give the benefit you suggest there, the dominant platforms actively create echo bubbles within them.
Seb
Member
Wed Jul 01 11:23:42
The thing is, print and traditional broadcast are all able to operate profitably whilst being subject to liability.

There is no reason it can't be possible for tech companies.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Wed Jul 01 11:58:26
Jergul
I'm not advocating for a mob rule, but that the platform (as they are largely now) be governed/moderated by the community. The principles would be free speech and transparency, both in how the system works and why people are banned or content moderated. I am not saying I have all the answers, I am saying no one does and that heavy handed approach risks making things worse. It has to be some degree of trial and error and giving the companies time and the benefit of doubt, that they do not want their product to rip society apart.

Seb
Soft vs hard bubbles. I rather have the extremist where I can see them and keep an eye on what they are doing than drive them under ground. These are the discussions that they have in these companies when they try to balance how to approach things.
jergul
large member
Wed Jul 01 17:41:10
Nimi
Our difference rotates around legislation being a heavy handed approach.

I think that curation of content is long overdue and the extent and scope of moderation should be defined by law.

The only things I think should be removed are things that are illegal to publish in any media.
jergul
large member
Wed Jul 01 17:42:13
I did not mean that you supported mob rule, but rather if regulation does not dictate moderation, then mob rule will.
hood
Member
Wed Jul 01 17:46:14
"Seb
Soft vs hard bubbles. I rather have the extremist where I can see them and keep an eye on what they are doing than drive them under ground. These are the discussions that they have in these companies when they try to balance how to approach things."

I think the internet has proven that this logic is faulty. An underground extremist is lonely and has no idea where to find like-minded people. Keeping them in the open and letting them group together lets them grow strong enough to, well, become the republican party.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 08:03:33
Jergul
I understand your point. The devil is in the detail with regulation (which I am not against) and in my view "they are publishers" is the wrong approach, akin to smashing a square peg into a circle. It is not ideal and given that it will be a compromise by a bunch of old law makers, many of whome can barely use outlook, there is a good chance it will be aweful. I would rather list all the concerns and percieved problems and take it from there, what is the best solution to achieve the desired results.

Hood
The underground organizes (as they always have), they create parallel structures and congregate on other platforms. If anything the internet has made it easier for lunatics to find other lunatics. I don't think the lone wolf category fully captures the state of things.

We have not even begun to scratch the surface on decentralized platforms. Keep in mind how much resources that the entertainment industry has spent on catching file sharers. They were so happy when Napster was shut down and they celebrated when Piratebay was shut down, and the it was shut down again, and then again (psst it's still online).

They have yet to give up on torrents, but anyone paying attention knows that the battle is lost. Netflix and iTunes has done more to stop file sharing than all the individual people they busted.
McKobb
Member
Thu Jul 02 08:04:38
Hahaha
jergul
large member
Thu Jul 02 08:26:59
Nimi
Editorial responsibility for letters to the editor and other opinion pieces that do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher should perhaps be more clearly regulated.

Another point is to not draconially punish publishers giving a platform to various views. Violations should be punished enough to ensure general compliance, but not enough to cause unwarranted hardship.

An ideal balance would be where publishers have incentive to employ enough qualified editors, but not more than so.

Seb is correct at pointing to the main problem. FB etc are externalizing costs because they has no real motive to employ the people it should employ.

For the rest of us? You know, we don't actually have to express ourselves illegally. Most points can be made within the legal framework of most democracies.

One distinction I quite like is that of anonymity. Our personas here are not legal persons, so cannot be harmed in a legal sense.

Anonymity infers immunity to interactions with persons with identity constructs.

No real people post here in other words. The only real harm that can be done is doxing. It turns a poster into a legal person that can be harmed and could in principle seek redress for harm done.
jergul
large member
Thu Jul 02 08:29:49
In sum: Every persona here is a figment of our collective imaginations. They can be harmed as much as a character in a novel can harm another character in a novel.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 09:32:46
Jergul
Once you make one person or entity liable, i.e. they have skin in the game, they also become very conservative with the types of risks they take. It will suppress ideas for reasons well beyond the "democratic framework". This is one of the criticisms towards social media, that they are not following US laws governing speech, but rules they have created to serve business interest. And in normal cases this is fine, but it gets wonky when your platform becomes the dominant tool for (political) discourse. When you permanently ban people for violating rules of the platform when they engage in otherwise legal speech as part of the "normal" election cycle going on. The way convicted felons lose their right to vote.

"You know, we don't actually have to express ourselves illegally."

Many of the expressions that get you banned from social media are not illegal in the USA and many other countries. I would be happy if twitter or FB was applying the US 1st amendment to their platforms,

"Twitter shall make no rules respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition Twitter for a redress of grievances."

"Anonymity"

I think this is a tricky thing and the pros and cons are all captured in "people say things when they are anonymous that they otherwise would not". On a mass scale that creates problems, people behave like assholes. We can both relate to this matter and how the tone and attitude changes. I am sure we disagree about the same things as a year ago, but we can do that without being asshats now. It wouldn’t fix every interaction, but it does help.

However, anonymity also creates opportunities to learn and understand things that you simply do not see when that data is being filtered, not through was is legal and illegal, but what gets ad revenue and most users. I think this is the core mechanics at the heart of it. How do we make people be accountable for what they say to other people, without diminishing their willingness to say their truth.

Yet still, this is all assuming that the next iteration of a decentralized platform does not make this entire discussion pointless. Then we will wonder why we spent so much time trying to medicate the symptoms instead of figuring out the root problem. I am predicting that this will go the same way as file sharing, the cat is not going back into the hat. Even if I was agreeing with the publisher line, I am afraid that technology will outrun us on this one, it is better to deal with the roots.
Seb
Member
Thu Jul 02 09:53:37
Nim:

Hood raises an excellent point.

Yes, a fraction of well organised people will create underground fora.

But it will be much harder for many to stumble upon, they will instead wonder around, frustrated and grounded in the reality that the behaviour they would like to indulge in is not socially accepted.

Nim:

"And in normal cases this is fine, but it gets wonky when your platform becomes the dominant tool for (political) discourse."

Part of the reason they have become so is because they have been exempted from the cost constraints and liability that prevents others from doing the same.

Another analogue, they get to have the monopoly power of the network provider *AND* the margin of the channels it carries.

In many EU countries regulators aggressively moved to prevent this kind of nexus (less so in the US) precisely because the aggregation of market power produces this kind of monopoly power.

In other words the best way to create a viable marketplace of online fora is to push that risk back.

You want to be a publisher, take the risk. A market of varying models of different risk appetite and moderation strategiex will appear, and by virtue of being a point of competition, be more transparent in editorial approach and criteria.


You want to be a carrier with limited liability for content? Fine, you can do that, but then you aren't allowed to aggressively and obscurely curate people's feeds and manipulate their exposure to commercial opportunities and manipulate markets.

But you don't get to do the latter with the reduced responsibilities of the former claiming to do otherwise "damages the intent", because it really only damages the tech giants business model that is heavily based on regulatory arbitrage to reach scale.

Enforcing liability (and other anti-trust measures at insider trading and market manipulation) will benefit consumers and the industry as a whole.


It's not technology that makes Facebook and Google more profitable than online news with their own news offerings: it's their ability to ignore regulatory costs that online newspapers face, control what the customer sees, engage in what would be copyright theft in other contexts, and exploit their monopoly power to extract rents explicitly from content providers and from users via advertising.

It's got so out of hand now that Amazon won't even properly email invoices (embedded content instead) to avoid Google scraping customer data via Gmail.

This is all classic anti-trust behaviour. The tech companies need to find alternative models to support the products and services consumers enjoy, rather than using them as bait for a business models that are considered outright crimes in other sectors.
Seb
Member
Thu Jul 02 09:54:50
Tl;Dr: it's back to front. It is not the case that the regulatory lenience is needed to support the services to consumers: the services to consumers were only ever created as bait to feed a business model that is illegal in other contexts.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 10:45:19
Seb
I don't believe one can look at the past decade with the rise of Internet jihadism, Antifa and the Alt-right and with a straight face tell me, these are isolated loons who don't understand how the internet works, wandering around aimlessly, clenching their fists in their pockets. With all due respect, what the fuck are you and hood talking about? Are we living on the same planet? I watched this live as it unfolded, when they suppressed Islamic State on the big platforms, they moved on to other platforms and the Tor network.

It's not about "lenient regulation", but the appropriate regulation.
hood
Member
Thu Jul 02 10:52:09
"Nim:

Hood raises an excellent point.

Yes, a fraction of well organised people will create underground fora.

But it will be much harder for many to stumble upon, they will instead wonder around, frustrated and grounded in the reality that the behaviour they would like to indulge in is not socially accepted."

There's also the psychology that goes along with having to be underground. When you can't be out in the open, you very clearly realize that people do not want what you're selling. You aren't emboldened to be public with your shitty ways.

Or:
If there's a reddit forum full of people talking about the horrible things you think, all in plain sight for anyone to read, it gives the feeling that it is acceptable to say and act in that horrible manner. You might say something awful on Twitter and the small contingent of like-minded assholes who comment their support will inflame that feeling of acceptance.

If you have to find stormfront-are-we-allowed-servers-on-the-moon-because-nobody-else-will-host-us.com after hours of searching, you kind of get the feeling that being a wiggling dick to society isn't acceptable. You may feel resent, or even shame, that people don't accept your terribleness. You probably don't say anything on Twitter because you aren't confident in a contingent of backers. And that's if you ever find stormfront's 99th hosting location. If you don't, well then you're all alone and you don't know if anyone believes as you do. It becomes self preservation to not say anything or give any hint that you're bad.
hood
Member
Thu Jul 02 10:53:23
"when they suppressed Islamic State on the big platforms, they moved on to other platforms and the Tor network."

And how many casual followers did they lose?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 10:53:39
Just to make it clear, IS is a terrorist organization that needs to be physically destroyed, they have violated all democratic principle and in no uncertain terms made clear they are the enemies of democracy. Their propaganda should have been suppressed on any platform, they violated every law you can imagine. I am using them as an example to illustrate a. you are both dead wrong b. how things unfolded after the suppression.

From the context I think this is obvious, but just in case.
hood
Member
Thu Jul 02 10:56:21
I posted too quickly.


""when they suppressed Islamic State on the big platforms, they moved on to other platforms and the Tor network."

And how many casual followers did they lose?"

And as a follow up, we aren't talking about eliminating the radical terrorists. The truly radicalized will never be stopped and they weren't stopped before. We've had secret groups plotting and scheming for all of recorded history. The point of forcing it underground is to prevent the truly radical from recruiting the like-minded casuals.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 11:03:49
"Yes, a fraction of well organised people will create underground fora."

A fraction of any subset will organize.

Disenfranchised people however have more incentives to organize than those that are free to express their opinion in the open and within parliamentary means. It is a very strange understanding of human psychology and the word "underground" as if it is not part of, uhm I don't know, every grievance narrative (the underdog against the world) and revolution that ever happend.

"And how many casual followers did they lose?"

Not sure what you mean.
Seb
Member
Thu Jul 02 11:10:13
Nim:

The security services and everyone that's run deradicalisation programmes all agree that minimising access to online content has a hugely important effect in preventing radicalisation.

People do not wake up, say "I'm radical Islamist", download TOR and find radical islamist communities. Nor do disaffected muslim youths download TOR and go looking for radical islamists.

That's not how it works. That's not how it ever worked. I think we may be living on a different planet, but I'm on Earth, I think you must be somewhere in orbit around pluto.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 11:10:17
Hood
The point is that they were not born radicalized, they were all manners of fence sitters until they found someone who gave the all the answers. Part of that process is increasing insularity and then we had no choice but to kill them all.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 11:17:12
Seb
I doubt that they behave and think like monolithic, but even at face value, abstinence is the only 100% way of assuring you contract no STDs or unwanted pregnancies. In the real world though, we need contraceptives. And in the real world we need dialogue and context.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 11:25:23
Hood
How would one even measure that? Suppression happen after the fact, enough things trickle through, people live offline. The isolation idea is dead before arrival. These idea complexes already exist, of course people go and look for more information. Is the idea that people are not aware of these ideologies before they stumble on them on facebook?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jul 02 11:25:49
Dead on arrival*
jergul
large member
Thu Jul 02 12:17:53
Nimi
It is exactly the first ammedment protection that is relevant "or of the freedom of the press"

Let people say what they want, but you may be liable for what they say if you publish it. My point earlier was that it is important the the liability is economic and of limited scope.

Ultimately, things acting like the press by curating information, should be treated like the press if they allow comments. Its just expanding letters to the editor and opinion pieces really.

My point on anonymity was the opposite. Anonymous personas are not persons. They are free game expressionwise.

I was attempting to flip the coin. By having anonymity, you are giving up legal protection from various forms of bullying.
jergul
large member
Thu Jul 02 12:19:34
That is one thing that is emerging fast. It is getting really hard to tell the difference between a persona controlled by a person, and one that is controlled by an AI on a machine learning scheme.
Seb
Member
Thu Jul 02 12:27:49
Nim:

The point about the internet is it enables catering for the long tail.

Plenty of evidence to show that online interactions generally polarise.

Banning groups focused on e.g. promoting radical Islam doesn't stop people accessing dialogue. But it does prevent people getting confirmation bias and radicalised.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jul 03 04:06:52
Jergul
I hear you, the curation that is going on at the moment is opaque and occuring just as it would on a newspaper, but it is happening unregulated. I see this as a problem and I agree that if social media does not get their shit together and continue, they leave no choice but to treat them or sections of their operation as such. It is just not a path I see as a win for the rest of us.

What I am desiring does not exist yet, an open source, de-centralized, transperent wikipedia for speech. It may be ultimately hopeless to think that any of the current social medias will live up to that idea. I have no given up yet.

Seb
I am not convinced that is the case.

Confirmation bias and radicalization are not internet phenomena and to the extent that they were made worse, the antidote was also made more powerful and available by the internet. As an example the entire Iranian revolution was guided by Khomeini with a weekly phone call from Paris.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jul 03 04:49:32
Seb
"Plenty of evidence to show that online interactions generally polarise."

^Not convinced this is the case and even if it was, that it is static.

A few years ago data analysis was made on journalist on twitter and other prominent politically aligned people and who they follow. It showed a huge insularity on the left, they only followed each other. While on the right they followed everybody. A problem one could say that journalists were living in echo chamber. It isn't that bad anymore, a new review was made, there are more links now and the lefty bubble isn't as insular anymore.

People change, social interactions are dynamic, we adapt. I call regulation heavy handed because it is the heaviest hand we have to enact change. We don't legislate that which is solved on its' own, things that people adapt to and deal with as part of the culture and social interactions.

I don't believe less than a decade of social media, given that not all trends are negative, is enough time to bring down the hammer of the law to smash the square into the circle.
jergul
large member
Fri Jul 03 05:05:20
Nimi
I am pretty sure better editorial oversight is a net benefit. The stuff people post in haste, anger, or ignorance is an embarrassement - whether they know it or not.

Editory does not need to be heavy handed. "Hi, we need to have a human look at your comment before we can publish it. We have highlighted the words/sentences of concern. Feel free to revise or wait for a human to review your post. With kind regards, irobot".

Seb
I think polarization is a function of speed. We can all become virtual football hooligans really fast.

Yay productivity gain? :D

The advantage of the internet has that as downside.

This is why I am not citing security concerns. I just think publishers should stick with rules we have been developing since Gutenberg.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jul 03 06:08:20
Jergul
I think we disagree on how beneficial the old media with editory oversight and liability has been to society. They are influenced by the same corporate interests, they iuse and abuse click bait and produce ignorant and angry articles every day. It is just their specific ignorance and anger, their bias. The only thing publishing does is make 1 entity take all the legal liability, but also puts them in a very powerful position to consciously or not, individually or as part of a group, filter things based on their bias and norms.
jergul
large member
Fri Jul 03 06:29:48
Nimi
To me, that is an anti-trust issue. I have no problems with a wide diversity of publications having their own biases. Problems arise with concentration.

Publishers are not academic papers. They do have responsibilities, but objectivity is not one of them. This is tempered by journalistic best practices. If you are going to slaughter someone or something, then make sure they can make a rebuttal if they want to. stuff like that.

The 5th estate sort of works. We have been tweaking its legal framework for centuries.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jul 03 07:37:47
Jergul
Journalistic objectivity is a principle that some places at least on paper aspire to and in some countries (like Sweden) actually does govern the work of Public service. That publishing process, actually does resemble that of academic papers. The author is not the publisher, but someone has to review the work (methodology and other frameworks governing integrity) and press the button. It isn't as serious or time consuming, but both act as a very low level of quality control. Publishing bias is a phenomena in science and any domain where you have institutional gatekeeping of information.

"Open science" is now a thing precisly to counter these problems, where scientist make available pre-prints and raw data to the public (amatuer and professional), because the review process is not good enough. Community and transparency.

Ironically News media are the 4th estate, the 5th estate are the very bloggers, non-mainstream entities like wikileaks and individual actors on social media we are talking about.

There are problems inherent to a legacy system that I don't believe you tweak yourself out of. There are interests at stake, powerful media corporations that have a vested interest in keeping things as they are.
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