Censorship

[Lorewarn]

3 hours ago, nic said:

Maybe I will go on to CNN and FOX today and count how many articles have embedded tweets. I bet it’s easily over half. I also bet that if I were to follow various reporters they all tweet their stories every day to get them out to the public quicker. Those tweets are then re-tweeted and embedded by other news outlets. 

 

No s#!t. Why wouldn't a newspaper that makes money on people looking at their news utilize tools to get more people to look at their news? 

 

What does that have to do with Twitter being the public square? The internet itself is the new public/town square. Twitter is just one storefront surrounding it.

[nic]

4 hours ago, knapplc said:

Meanwhile, while people are distracted by Elon Musk saving them from the twitter baddies, actual factual conservatives are actually trying to eliminate libraries, and have been pressuring public and school libraries to ban books they don't like. 

 

Very 1930s Germany of them.

 

But by all means let's pretend Elon Musk is going to save us from the meanies at twitter and pay no attention to this...

 

 

It was paywalled for me. Might have been an interesting read. Hopefully they are not going after To Kill a Mockingbird again. If they are keeping Hustler out of the elementary schools I would be for it.

[Enhance]

RE: @Lorewarn, but a good reminder for others as well:

 

Please do not share methods for circumventing online content publishers' paywalls.

[Enhance]

I think this is a good move for Spotify. If a limitatiion is necessary on a current or future episode, it won't stop his millions of subscribers from listening but it at least helps limit organic reach.

 

Attention, Joe Rogan: Spotify now reserves the right to restrict the reach of misinformation

 

Quote

What are the new rules?
There was no public announcement of a new Spotify misinformation policy, so I asked the company if this was, in fact, a change. I got back this statement, judge for yourself:

 

"At Spotify, our goal is to strike a balance between respecting creator expression and the diverse listening preferences of our users while minimizing the risk of offline harm.
There are a variety of actions that we can take, in line with our Platform Rules, to accomplish this goal, including removing content, restricting content’s discoverability, restricting the ability of content to be monetized, and/or applying content advisory labels.

When content comes close to the line but does not meet the threshold of removal under our Platform Rules, we may take steps to restrict and limit its reach."

[BigRedBuster]

Question:  do people believe that anything that is posted of Facebook or Twitter is protected speech and should never be restricted?  I’m guessing the answer from everyone is going to be no. 
 

So, the real question should be, what should the rules be?  All I see is criticism of these two sites. I never see anyone say how it should be done. 
 

no matter what the rules are, there will be backlash by snowflakes that think it’s unfair. 

[Enhance]

15 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

Question:  do people believe that anything that is posted of Facebook or Twitter is protected speech and should never be restricted?  I’m guessing the answer from everyone is going to be no.

To be honest, I think the answer is yes. Or, at the very least, some people think what they say on Facebook or Twitter is protected speech that should not be restricted. This is evidenced by the countless people who have tried to claim this in defense of being restricted/banned from the platforms.

 

So, the real question should be, what should the rules be?  All I see is criticism of these two sites. I never see anyone say how it should be done.

IMO you need a diverse group of content moderators willing evaluate and make those decisions, but it has to be managed from a standpoint of knowing they will make mistakes and get some things wrong. And the rules should be as explicit as possible. We all know certain things should be completely forbidden (i.e. threats) but in cases of controversial information, I think you have to go with your gut based off of the best information you have available.

 

For example, if the most knowledgeable people in the world are saying something is complete BS, and we have reason to believe those people over say over non-scientists... then I think you limit the speech, particularly if it is something that could impact someone's health like COVID misinformation.

[nic]

If social media companies have rules that are too broad, thou shall not post misinformation for example, then it opens up the door for moderators that have a political bias to moderate the content as they see fit. Why did the COVID lab leak theory pose a health threat for example? It's just a theory in the very early stages of the pandemic. Was that done under political pressure from China? I don't know. Was it done because a president who embellishes and lies said it? Don't known. Moderators need to be objective, logical and error on the side of the unknown. Maybe we need checks and balances on the moderators.

[nic]

I think the one thing about early 2021 that really caught my attention was Amazon, Apple and others removing Parlor from their servers and essentially putting a competing company to Twitter out of business overnight. Palor was about to get ton of new users and be an alternative to Twitter. I am not defending Parlor. Maybe they are back in business now i dont know. I know very little about them, but the power of the big tech companies to put a competitor out of business that quickly didn't give me a warm fuzzy about what is going on.

 

Justice Kennedy...Parkingham vs NC

 

"Social media allows users to gain access to information and communicate with one another about it on any subject that might come to mind. . . . By prohibiting sex offenders from using those websites, North Carolina with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge. These websites can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard. They allow a person with an Internet connection to ‘become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox.’”

[knapplc]

4 hours ago, Enhance said:

you need a diverse group of content moderators

 

Agreed.

[UniversalMartin]

6 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

Question:  do people believe that anything that is posted of Facebook or Twitter is protected speech and should never be restricted?  I’m guessing the answer from everyone is going to be no. 
 

So, the real question should be, what should the rules be?  All I see is criticism of these two sites. I never see anyone say how it should be done. 
 

no matter what the rules are, there will be backlash by snowflakes that think it’s unfair. 

For me it boils down to the consumer of online platforms (Twitter, Facebook, tik tok, etc)...people can say whatever the hell they want...but for f#&%s sake people realize fake moments, twisted facts, etc when it is punching you in the face

[Lorewarn]

8 hours ago, nic said:

Justice Kennedy...Parkingham vs NC

 

"Social media allows users to gain access to information and communicate with one another about it on any subject that might come to mind. . . . By prohibiting sex offenders from using those websites, North Carolina with one broad stroke bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events, checking ads for employment, speaking and listening in the modern public square, and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge. These websites can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard. They allow a person with an Internet connection to ‘become a town crier with a voice that resonates farther than it could from any soapbox.’”

 

 

Justice Kennedy is wrong on almost all of this.

 

First of all, is NC prohibiting them from using the websites, or looking at them at all? Key distinction. But regardless let's break this down:

 

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bars access to what for many are the principal sources for knowing current events

 

...so what? What other people voluntarily chose for their preference has zero bearing on someone else having a right to that same thing. I imagine North Carolina also bars sex offenders access to a place that is for many the principal source of education - schools. Do we all have a problem with pedophiles not being able to go near schools? Is that some grave infringement on a right? Also, last I checked there is nothing in the Bill of Rights about having the right to knowing current events, as that's an active right and our Constitution doesn't have active rights, it only has passive ones.

 

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checking ads for employment

 

Well I at least know that we aren't talking about Twitter here, and this would again be dependent on the specificity of the NC law, but I somehow doubt that it bans sex offenders from LinkedIn, Indeed, Monster, Zip Recruiter, Simplyhired.com, applicantstack.com, GlassDoor, and careers.{insertstatename}.gov

 

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speaking and listening in the modern public square

 

Even if it was/is the modern public square (again, it's not), they aren't banned from listening at the very least. Speaking, maybe, if they're banned from ALL social media, but certainly not listening.

 

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and otherwise exploring the vast realms of human thought and knowledge.

 

lol WHAT??? Does Justice Kennedy know that there's an entire internet that exists outside of social media sites? You can spend literal days and days and days exploring something like, I don't know, the Apollo program, without ever visiting a social media site. 

 

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These websites can provide perhaps the most powerful mechanisms available to a private citizen to make his or her voice heard.

 

Once again, not a right, not protected by the Constitution. The only right you have is not to be punished by the government for what you say; you have no promise that the most powerful way of saying it to the most people will be made available to you. Last I checked the government didn't ensure that every home had a radio tower and broadcast setup when radio was the post powerful mechanism to make someone's voice heard. I don't think they gave everyone video cameras when television became the most powerful either.

 

 

Even still after all that, this is an issue of the government restricting access to social media, which is fundamentally different than private companies restricting access to their products. So even if this wasn't a terrible perspective, it still doesn't apply, at all, to what Twitter/Facebook/etc. decide with their own terms of service.

[BigRedBuster]

7 hours ago, UniversalMartin said:

For me it boils down to the consumer of online platforms (Twitter, Facebook, tik tok, etc)...people can say whatever the hell they want...but for f#&%s sake people realize fake moments, twisted facts, etc when it is punching you in the face

So, anything is fair game to say on social media. No restrictions.  

[UniversalMartin]

8 hours ago, BigRedBuster said:

So, anything is fair game to say on social media. No restrictions.  

If people want to put themselves out there with ridiculous statements, videos, etc then go for it. I think any comments or actions that should have a law enforcement response should be addressed in that manner...but beyond that, if people want to make their social media bed better be prepared to lay in it.

[nic]

20 hours ago, Lorewarn said:

 

 

Justice Kennedy is wrong on almost all of this.

.

You do know that Kennedy simply wrote then majority opinion in the case and that it was a unanimous decision by the court, right?

[Lorewarn]

13 minutes ago, nic said:

You do know that Kennedy simply wrote then majority opinion in the case and that it was a unanimous decision by the court, right?

 

Yes, and if I understand the case right, the primary reason they struck down the law was because it was too vague, and was more primarily based on the government restricting the 'speech' element. And those rationale are good ones when talking about the government. 

 

All of Kennedy's other rambling doesn't seem to be relevant, and even if all of it is, none of that is relevant in the conversation of social media companies themselves banning access to their sites.