It's not censorship, it's free market. These are private companies.
That word isn’t only applicable to state actions, and nor should it be.
Free speech != guaranteed access to a company providing access to a big audience
“Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.”
“Real” censorship is just censorship, and that’s the definition.
So when I see what is called censorship in US, it seems a bit funny and strange to me. I immediately think how people in my country during communism would be happy if only that was called censorship and if they had a possibility to use alternative channels to exercise free speech. But of course, I accept that this might be my biased eurocentric view of things and that from a different cultural perspective "real" means something else. Perhaps it will be like that even in Europe in a few years, who knows. We don't have much problems for now because we all use US social media and they don't really react to foreign languages, except a few universal "trigger" words like antivax. At least for smaller languages and countries (central and eastern europe)
WeChat does not let you share Winnie the Pooh. Nominally, Tencent is a privately owned company freely choosing who they provide a platform to [2]. But in reality, they have no choice but to ban Winnie the Pooh, unless they want a state apparatus to make their lives increasingly difficult. Just because something is censored by a private platform doesn't mean that it's the "free market" of ideas and not a state or the government wielding its power.
Large US companies are also part of an industrial–congressional complex, with lobbying and political contributions on one side, political approval and threats of regulation on the other. Large tech companies are deeply and inseparably intertwined with the state and the political parties (both of them), based on the granting of reciprocated privileges. They know full well that if they ban the wrong speech (or refuse to ban the "right" speech), they face being regulated out of existence. Indeed, seeing this threat, we see them scramble to align with the incoming administration.
The kind of social engineering that led to the present bans was very popular in communist Eastern Europe as well. Did you recite an anti-government poem at your barbecue? You might find yourself banned from your favorite pub permanently! Why? Nominally, it was the bartender exercising his right not to serve you: after all, he shouldn't have to suffer potentially vocal ("verbally aggressive") imperialists in the establishment he runs. But behind the nominal reason was plain, state-mandated censorship. They'd have risked a bunch of misfortunes by not banning you. These could range from relevant, like the next few beer shipments "mysteriously" getting damaged during delivery, to completely random gaslighting-esque punishments, such as the bartender's daughter not getting admitted into the local high school. A plethora of plausibly deniable, no-outright-ban social mechanisms existed to make life difficult for people who disagreed with the official narrative, and to encourage people to ostracize the disagreeable. It required only a few well-placed entryists, made sure that ordinary citizens had skin in the game, and was a lot easier to handwave away than the black cars and heavy-handed approach that riled up the opposition in the previous years [3].
[1] https://meanwhileinbudapest.com/2020/09/11/klubradio-going-d... [2] https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_German_uprising_of_1953 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_1956 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
I don’t have a huge problem deplatforming itself. I do have serious problems when it suddenly cuts you off from other unrelated websites or paid-for assets. These knock-on effects aren’t immediately obvious and can be quite severe at the individual level (eg FB locking you out and now you can’t access the local Oculus content you paid for).
Banned from "login with apple"? I should have a right to transfer my account to "login with google/facebook/my own server" and it should work. The same way I can call my friend when he transfers his phone number to another phone network.
Trump banned from Twitter? He should be able to transfer his account to Parler and I should still see his tweets in my Twitter feed, be able to retweet it to my followers, interact with it, etc. Twitter wouldn't be able to influence tweets from Parler so it would show in timeline. But they could decide to not display it in proprietary parts of their system (search, trending topics, whatever)
This way we would prevent echo chambers and deplatforming, while simultaneously allowing companies to maintain their freedom to moderate their own space.
> ... noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
Twitter is going to be forced to unban most if not all people if they want to be a general open to the public social network.
The section has two parts, the first of which protects the platform (Twitter, Google Play Store, FB, etc) from prosecution for user-generated content on the platform.
The second part, more relevant here, ensures the right of the platform to moderate it's users anyway it sees fit. If r/conservative can ban anyone for saying anything on the subreddit, or Parler can ban you for dropping leftist talking points, the Play Store can ban your app for enabling domestic terrorism.
If that's what were happening you'd probably have a point, but it isn't. "Not deleting" something is not the same as providing the audience, nor amplifying.
And, by the way, yes free speech does imply some obligations on the rest of us. Speech is not free if you are not free to exercise it; "you're free to talk in a prison cell" type of thinking isn't productive because it avoids the entire conversation.
Free speech has absolutely nothing to do with the government, by the way. Just because one country wrote down something called "The 1st Amendment" doesn't mean that somehow free speech only exists in that country and only when the government gives it to you. Free speech is a natural right that we all have and nobody has the right to silence anyone else: The 1st is simply one aspect of that.
The fact that society at large has lost that value cannot be viewed as a good thing and all the people in this thread defending the silencing of millions because they disagree with them politically is beyond shameful.
I realize that there are some court cases that do guarantee free speech in extremely limited circumstances, but saying that society at large has “lost that value” doesn’t line up with any history that I’m aware of.
Wrong. You always do. They simply have free speech too.
tl;dr: one can always switch their phone if they don't like Apple because the usefulness of a phone doesn't depend on its popularity; one can't practically switch their social media platform if they are banned because the usefulness of the social media depends on its popularity, and the most popular platform typically dominates due to the power law.
It's going to happen. These platforms are so large they encompass a signification amount of the communication market .. and I don't say that lightly. Look at how Facebook has literally gobbled up all its competition and now is pushing policies that make WhatsApp and Oculus useless without handing over full control of all your accounts and devices?
These companies ARE STATES! They may not look like governments, but the communication power they wield is stronger than many nations.
You can no longer just say "They're private companies" when you literally cannot buy a well supported Mobile device unless it runs Android or iOS, unless you have the skill, ability and time to run something like a PinePhone or PostmarketOS.
Like, my life is proceeding just fine without either WhatsApp or Oculus products. Or a Facebook account that I use, for that matter.
(edit: For the record, the reason I am not happy with the precedent is that isolating communities like this seems to usually just serve to increase radicalism rather than remove it.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25662215
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669864
Apparently WhatsApp is so integrated into several countries' cultures, you cannot live without it. Like literally - some examples I remember are food deliveries (during lockdowns) are only available through WhatsApp, as are scheduling hospital visits, anything involving schooling, I think I remember lawyers sharing documents, and so on.
I got my first smartphone in 2019 because I watched the world around me gradually change to the point where an Apple or Android phone was expected and became inconvenient not to have.
Modern life absolutely depends on being able to connect to the Internet in some way. For a lot of people, that's a smartphone, which is cheaper and more mobile than a computer.
In this case, if a significant number of people are disenfranchised by this, it will naturally create the market pressure for a solution that they can use. It will spur adoption of tools like F-droid and open devices etc. It'll force these people to embrace open web technologies instead of proprietary ecosystems. Which are all very positive and healthy things.
It may be very inefficient, but to some extent its a healthy process that ultimately arbitrates where acceptable standards of speech sit.
So, one solution would be to foster an environment where Twitter et.al lose their power because they really CAN'T lock people in anymore and I would absolutely love to see such a future.
But unfortunately that isn't where we are right now and the incentives around us are all set up to ensure it never changes.
You’re exercising your free speech in one right now.
I don’t even have an account of any of the “monopoly” ones.
Luckily you can still sideload apps on Android. The day they remove that feature is the day I take the time to figure out how to use an alternate OS.
> AT&T may immediately terminate all or a portion of your Service or reduce or suspend Service, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) is illegal, fraudulent, harassing, abusive, or intended to intimidate or threaten; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation, or tariff (including, without applicable policies or guidelines (including the Acceptable Use Policy), and AT&T may refer such use to law enforcement authorities without notice to you.
Keep trying.
If it was just politics then Google would also pull New Republic magazine.
Apple has said that they need to step up their moderation game and they can get back into the App Store. I’m guessing that would be good enough for Google as well.
Also, this isn't going to be effective Parler is a website, people can just browse to it in Chrome/Safari...
We should be promoting apps that encourage and promote healthy discourse between people not echo chambers, but that's what I think is morally correct.
More concretely, YouTube has actual knowledge that extremist right-wing political views damage their brand reputation - they've gone through several waves of pulled advertising that has harmed both themselves and their relationship with their creators. Advertisers have told them in no uncertain terms that they will not have their content on the same platform as, say, KKK rallies. So now we need to extend this positive duty to publish onto anyone who does business with these platforms, in order to prevent them from exercising the power of the purse to soft-censor views they don't like.
Furthermore, even this "duty to publish" standard for free speech does not always seem to meet the standards of some. I've heard people (not necessarily you, so the following is a strawman) argue that public rebuke is a form of censorship; if only because it may cause adverse publicity to have one's views opposed. This is absurd; the prescribed answer to offensive speech is counter-speech. If people decide not to do business with someone because they find their political views offensive, that shouldn't automatically be treated as censorship. Even at a "duty to publish" level (what you actually seem to be arguing for), you need to be careful to define common carriers narrowly to avoid forcing people into unwanted relationships, lest you run into this trap of "speech is consequence-free".
There are some companies that I do not think should be allowed to ban people, like ISPs.. since many times people don't have choices between multiple high-speed ISPs. However, Twitter is not in that same category.
Note clearly - I am not condoning ISPs banning people. I am highlighting the hypocracy in a lot of contemporary conservative principles. It's not the Lincoln party we know of.
Whether a private company suppresses communication or the government does it, it’s still censorship.
This ship sailed 50 years ago, I'm afraid. Businesses can no longer discriminate (including refusal to serve) on the basis of race, gender, religion, disability, veteran status, and a variety of other factors. Now, this is almost certainly a good thing - there's been a few negative consequences of the change (destruction of black businesses, for one) but on net it's not really close.
So really all people are asking for is "political affiliation" to be looked at like "religion". And honestly, there's a smaller and smaller set of differences between the two categories as the years go by.
No one said that. We can criticize companies for censorship with or without wanting government intervention.
Should government really keep pharma companies from selling you pills that are filled with snake oil?
Should a government really force you to allow black people to eat at the same tables in your restaurant as white people? It's your business after all and it's private. You should have a choice on which customers you get to serve.
Do remember, it's a democracy. The government by the people, for the people and all that. Not the people VS the government.
The things you listed entail selling materially defective good, and discrimination on the basis of race and gender. These are not examples of compelled speech. Here are some more applicable questions:
* Can the government force Hacker News not to flag and hide certain posts?
* And the government make a bookseller to stock certain types of books?
* Could Trump pass a law or executive order to make Twitter revoke his ban?
* Can the government official compel a newspaper to print certain content?
The last one was actually addressed in a Supreme Court ruling [1].
Freedom of speech includes freedom from compelled speech. It's also against the law to tell a person or business to print or say something, or not ban certain content. Sure, if a business exclusively bans content based on the race of the poster they they could fall afoul of anti-discrimination laws. But note that it wasn't the content of the speech that matters here, it is the discriminatory nature on the basis of race.
These protections don't magically go away when a company grows to a certain size or number of users. Market share is relevant to things like anti-trust and anti-competitive behavior, but the people claiming that Facebook or Twitter have to run content because they're big are incorrect.
The exceptions to protection from compelled speech are very narrow, like showing your passport at the border and nutrition labels on food or health warnings on cigarettes. They almost always have a direct and tangible safety or administrative justification. Furthermore, political speech is the most protected form of speech in the US by far. I would be astounded if we ever pass legislation compelling platforms like Facebook or Twitter to host content against their will.
I agree that the principles of inclusion and freedom of speech should be upheld by Facebook and Twitter, but I strongly disagree that they should be enforced by the government. I could see wisdom in making ISPs, payment providers, and DNS providers act like utilities and extend services to all lawful customers, but not at the application layer.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v....
Even if the heavy hand of regulation were applied to private corps, it seems like they'd still draw the line somewhere.
In fact there have been many laws requiring companies to carry messages against their will, including the Fairness Doctrine, the Equal-Time Rule, and Common Carrier laws, as well as the failed, but generally regarded as Constitutional, Net Neutrality proposals.
At best it's hypocritical, taking advantage of competition at the market level, but then preventing that competition within your company, then praising one and condemning the other. It's not consistent, platforms need to be platforms and let the information flow instead of control it.
Are you saying companies should comply with whatever market pressures they have regardless of the outcome (given a free market)? Because oil companies have an interesting history of abusing this. Surely there is a line, however blurry, that companies shouldn't be crossing if they want to keep the greater good in mind.
Given that many of these tech "platforms" are worldwide, and have slowly dominated the world's userbase BEFORE changing their policies, it's easy to see they might have already crossed that line, we're just not sure exactly how yet (at least imho).
So are Baidu and Tencent.
Large companies are part of an industrial–congressional complex, with lobbying and political contributions on one side, political approval and threats of regulation on the other.
Just because something is done by a private company, it doesn't mean that it's not the state or the government wielding its power. In the current political climate, and given how intertwined corporations and state power are in the US, trying to maintain a crisp distinction between private companies and public authority is itself comical.
In China as in the U.S., these are not local mom-and-pop stores exercising their rights to free association. These are large tech companies and business ventures that are deeply and inseparably intertwined with the state and the political parties (both of them), based on the granting of reciprocated privileges. They know full well that if they ban the wrong person (or refuse to ban the right person), they face being regulated out of existence the next day: indeed, seeing this threat, they're scrambling to align themselves with the incoming administration. Yes, they had deals with the previous administration too [1].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/business/media/facebook-d...
Corporations are not beholden to pleasing every single individual.
the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
It is censorship. But not all censorship is bad.
pretty much all dictators agree with you on that.
If you think it should be illegal to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, you're a dictator.
If you think it should be illegal to create/sell/distribute child porn, you're a dictator.
Nice false equivalence. The US is divided right now because of bad faith arguments like this.
Maybe Facebook can join and block in WhatsApp too.
Hey it's free market, private company product yay!
In which fantasy world is the consolidation of power ever good for a democracy?