Comment by jakelazaroff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jakelazaroff | Hacker News Reader

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> Not true, someone running a small blog can read every single comment that gets submitted.

But they then have to choose between allowing every racial epithet, porn link and scam, and risking a lawsuit because a commenter says something that’s construed as defamatory.

> Not true, even pre-internet the world had functional real-time public communication. We called them telephones.

Telephones are not public communication.

> An internet where 3 weeks out from an election, the major providers of information ban information that hurts their political candidate is not a functional internet, it's an Orwellian dystopia.

It’s interesting to me that the same people who are up in arms about the response to the NY Post story — the veracity of which has been questioned by several prominent publications — had nothing to say when Twitter announced that they would suspend accounts of users wishing the President would die of COVID. If I had to label one of those an “Orwellian dystopia”, it would not be the suppression of pro–ruling party agitprop.

>> But they then have to choose...

Yes, that's correct. They have to choose what content to allow. That's called being a publisher.

>> Telephones are not public communication

I'm guessing that you are too young to have heard of party lines.

But yes, telephones were public communication.

Wishing the president would die of COVID would obviously be allowed under a platform scenario, what law do you think it breaks where a content provider wouldn't publish a wish that the president of the US dies of a disease?

Also, I don't think you know what the term agitprop means.

> Yes, that's correct. They have to choose what content to allow. That's called being a publisher.

If you're really advocating forcing individuals and small communities to choose between filtering spam and risking lawsuits, we'll have to agree to disagree. Hopefully the chilling effects that would have on speech are self-evident.

> I'm guessing that you are too young to have heard of party lines.

> But yes, telephones were public communication.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what party lines are… no they weren't. How would I listen to a conversation happening between two people outside of my local loop?

> Wishing the president would die of COVID would obviously be allowed under a platform scenario, what law do you think it breaks where a content provider wouldn't publish a wish that the president of the US dies of a disease?

This wasn't a hypothetical; it happened last week. Twitter announced it would suspend the accounts of people wishing the president would die, and the people who would go on to cry foul about the NY Post article were curiously quiet.

> Also, I don't think you know what the term agitprop means.

Yes I do.

The rules you're proposing would lead to most blogs closing their comment sections entirely. People simply would not want to take the risk. This situation would not be an improvement over the status quo.

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