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Comment by shripadk | Hacker News Reader

You are not wrong in your assessment. It is clearly bias at play. This will change the social media landscape where you will have platforms delineated by political ideologies. It is sad that it is happening but it is true that voices are being suppressed. Suppression/Censorship of speech has never lead to a free society. The opposite in fact!

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You are correct. Reddit tried to change all the moderators on the Donald Trump subreddit a few months back and in response the moderators built thedonald.win. After the recent ban wave of subs several others moved to the '.win network'.

Yes! It is happening everywhere. Any right or right of centric publication, channel, individual is ripe for targeting in the current social media landscape. There is literally zero protection or recourse. It is their platforms and they can do whatever they please. In essence, these social media companies wield influence greater than many Governments in the World. This sort of unchecked power is scary to say the least!

I think the time has come for the major big tech PLATFORMS to declare their formal political allegiances and end the travesty they are 'just providing a Section230 service'. The EU's MEPs are organized by political views rather than party in a Burning Man style semi circle to debate the political views of the Commissioners and provide some input. In many ways the tech world could be organized in a similar way to better provide free speech and formally 'biased' platforms.

Section 230 has nothing whatsoever to do with political alliances. You can explicitly moderate your site in favor of any particular position (political or otherwise) and you still get full section 230 immunity for user provided content.

That was the whole point of section 230. Before section 230 there had been court ruling that said if you moderated you were then responsible for everything. Section 230 was written to reverse that.

>Reddit tried to change all the moderators on the Donald Trump subreddit a few months back and in response the moderators built thedonald.win.

Not exactly true. They banned the top mods for not removing problematic content or posting some of their own. This led to there not being enough manpower to manage an active sub. So the remaining mods were instructed to hire new mods based on certain standards, like having a certain karma threshold on the sub.

>After the recent ban wave of subs several others moved to the '.win network'.

What subs are those and do they live on the same domain?

> What subs are those and do they live on the same domain?

Here's a list of them:

https://communities.win/p/GIEblc8H/list-of-win-communities/

- TheDonald.win

- OmegaCanada.win

- GavinMcInnes.win

- ConsumeProduct.win

- KotakuInAction.win

- KotakuInAction2.win

- WeekendGunnit.win

(no allegiance, just an observer)

What? Did you just read the headline and assume? If we're gonna hold the community responsible for quality of discourse than this should be downvoted. These are just finger pointing with not support. It feels like Twitter comment with no intellectual rigor. This isnt a shot at the writer, instead a commenting on the value added to the dialouge.

This seems to be much more "squeaky wheel gets the grease" than some political ideology.

Also, this argument is ridiculous. Facebook is NOT US democracy, it's a media company that gatekeeper, like TV before it, Radio before that and townhall meetings before that. Theyve never allowed sex work or profanity on the site and there was little fanfare over that decision. These companies are the next "Type" of media and the extension of that is the power to shape acceptable culture. The real problem is that its being hearlded as both a utility (citizen communication right) and a media company (broadcast and ad network) and dodging the historically clear responsiblities of both camps by claiming to be the other when it comes time to pay the piper.

To end with a clearer analogy. Facebook is cable TV where you are the channel. Then they add commercial breaks between your rants, pictures of cats and support of some political idea. They even ask you to stump for your own "subscribers." Cleverly they've simultaneously made it a messaging product as well to dilute the metaphor above.

It is not my responsibility to define whether it is a "platform" or a "publisher" as a user. I feel it is behaving more as a publisher than as a platform. I have explained in detail my reasoning (if you wish to learn more about my stand on this): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23716300

I have no issues with any social media groups taking action on posts that are explicitly illegal (based on your jurisdiction): child porn, gambling, calls to violence etc. My problem lies in the power that these social media companies enjoy. They can literally influence people in ways that could never have been done in the past. You are always connected to Google or Facebook wherever you go. Through their "audience network" they have nearly 100% reach to every user in the World. Yes that includes any app that you use on your mobile that shows you ads. With that kind of power, these social media companies have more reach than any Government on this planet. They can influence elections in profound ways. They can swing voters to any policy they feel meets their goals. There has to be some sort of regulation that keeps these powers in check! Censorship of voices is just the first step towards building an Orwellian society where every flow of information is controlled by these media giants.

They've always been censoring is my point. Profanity, porn and hatefulness is a normative decision. This also doesn't touch the problem that the platform based on its content structuring and targeting will always reward emotional ideas over everything.

You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice. If they're going to put advertising up against it, they should be held to the same annoying process and responsibility that broadcast media is.

> If they're going to put advertising up against it, they should be held to the same annoying process and responsibility that broadcast media is.

But then don't you think that is selective application of law? Why should they be held to the same annoying process and responsibility only for advertising? Why not for the entire platform or publisher or whatever you want to call it. Let them be held liable for every post that goes on their network just like broadcast media is. Why just stop at advertising?

EDIT:

> You're just frustrated now because they came for your voice

Maybe they are suppressing other voices too which I am unaware of. But that point is not going to change my opinion is it? That these social media companies do enjoy powers that even Governments do not. My question is: Why are we letting them get away with it?

Section 230 was explicitly written to allow a hybrid between platforms and publishers. It stemmed from a court case where a financial forum run by Prodigy was successfully sued for a forum post by a member. It was designed to allow forums like HN etc. moderate without being liable for users' posts.

You can argue about what you think the law should be, contact your local reps and push a bill to do that. But just repeating the argument about how Twitter is behaving like a publisher won't get you far when there have been court cases that ended in the judges saying what they do is the intent of Section 230. Again, you're arguing like it's 1992.

Twitter crossed the Rubicon a few weeks ago by editorializing the US president's tweets with 'fact check' links. This has jeopardized the entire S230 gravy train for much of the BigTech platform service sector

How so? Is it going to get Congress to pass a bill to revoke Section 230? Otherwise there is nothing happening, we have a President, not a dictator. How is Twitter going to be hurt?

I am not a US Citizen so I cannot push for changes to the law. But please try and understand that Twitter operates in well over 100+ countries. Section 230's jurisdiction only applies to the US. It doesn't extend to other nations. Now what will happen to the platform if it arbitrarily starts acting as a publisher? Other Countries will start regulating it or ban it which is obviously not in the interests of these companies. So taking the legal route will create a huge mess for these companies because once that process starts it cannot be stopped unless one of the parties pulls back. If a resolution can be found without taking the legal route then it should be pursued. That can only happen through dialogue and discussion. But for some strange reason this is shunned by the liberal gang. If we have to go to the courts for everything then we don't even need discussions in the first place.

>Other Countries will start regulating it or ban it which is obviously not in the interests of these companies.

Please try and understand that things are different in the USA. Look at the mass shootings over the past several years and the ideologies behind them. Look at how Sandy Hook parents were caused to be harassed by Alex Jones.

What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?

> Please try and understand that things are different in the USA. Look at the mass shootings over the past several years and the ideologies behind them. Look at how Sandy Hook parents were caused to be harassed by Alex Jones.

What has any of this got to do with free speech or censorship? If there is any form of harassment the Courts are always open. These are legitimate grounds for which there are laws. I am sure the US has laws concerning harassment. We have a Defamation law. I am sure US has something similar. Why should Twitter (or any social media for that matter) change rules to address something that is a Criminal case? How are social media companies responsible for this? Did social media exist when Columbine High School massacre took place? Nope. So I can counter your point by saying that whatever be the ideology behind the shootings it has nothing to do with social media policy. Even if social media did not exist, these school shootings would have happened nevertheless! This is what is called slippery slope. To use random, unconnected real-life events to influence changes to company policy that have no bearing to the actual purpose of the company's existence.

> What did Twitter do in your country? Sounds like a slippery slope fallacy to me. What are the laws around forums in your country? Can you sue a forum for user content?

What Twitter did in my country is quite a long story. But rest assured that Twitter is already being actively investigated by my Government because citizen groups with right wing political affiliation went with an official representation against Twitter. This is along with evidence. As far as laws around forums are concerned there aren't any. Not yet at the very least. Because for a long time our laws mimicked the West. But that has changed of late. In many areas we are taking the lead. Like for instance, India was the first country to ban Chinese apps citing National Security. Other countries are following suit. It may not be surprising if you see more such regulations around social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube etc in the near future.

Twitter behaving as a publisher is treading on slippery slope. What stops Twitter from interfering in our elections tomorrow by attaching its opinions to tweets from politicians? Nothing! We don't want interference of any sort. Elections should be fair. All sides of the political spectrum must get a chance to place their points without any interference from a foreign entity. Indians use Twitter because we believe it is a platform. But that belief is fast fading. And it is not just Twitter alone. I have had my Youtube comments removed for the mere mention of "China" or "Coronavirus". And I get no alerts either. I have to intentionally misspell it as "Chyna" for the comment to be posted. This is pure censorship! And I am not living in China for my speech to be censored this way. I live in a free society where anyone and everyone have the ability to speak their mind! We are the 8th largest user base (and growing rapidly) for Twitter. What do you suppose will happen to Twitter if India bans it for political interference?

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