It should be noted that the US has the same double standards, but enforced by silicon valley corps themselves in union.
Moral of the story: Power currupts.
Moral of the story: Power currupts.
Turkish government's intention here is getting content that criticise them removed, by asking to representative in Turkey who by the way must be a Turkish citizen, not just a person from any nationality who can speak Turkish. So that, they can apply Turkish law to this person if they would like to. If Youtube doesn't remove the content, possibly as they did with TV they are going to fine them.
I don't see this model working for long time and expecting most of the companies to pull their representatives soon, if they open the door of every country getting content removed however they like, I'm sure there will be other countries who would want that and it would be terrible for freedom of speech.
That's both optimistic and naive given that TOS can change at any time, and interpretation aren't subject to appeal with a transparent process.
My point is there is no secret agenda to bring up a content that supports one view. What Turkish gov wants to achieve is that, taking down the content they don't like. They have taken over all mainstream TV channels and you wouldn't see a line of critic on any channel, if you do it's quite likely you will not be invited to debate next time.
The part with "in union" is not really explained by ML models. These de-platforming actions are done manually and apparently one-sided.
Just for fun you can look up why Trump was banned on Twitter and see Khamenei's worst tweets from months prior, that were still up a week ago or so (nevermind him being banned). You find tons of those examples.
Also the TOS does not matter.
If I remember correctly, a lot of violence and multiple revolutions happened with the help of Twitter and YouTube all over the world. As long as violence is not in the US, it does not count, I suppose. That was probably what GP meant by saying "double standards".
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
I don't see any violence in those tweets and I don't understand what kind of person could classify those tweets as a violent ones. I guess only kind of person who wanted to ban him for anything.
Where is the line here? If I live in US and Tweet in Turkish, if Turkish gov ask for removal of that content should it be removed? Or should companies be required to share information about this user?
If I write that in another language, that local gov don't like, does it give Turkish gov right to get that removed?
If you are beyond this limit, you are required to have a representative or the bandwidth limitations are applied and fines start to accumulate. If you don’t intend to do business in Turkey, you just go on with your business and loose that market.
Oh, btw, it’s likely that they will request global content removal. If I recall correctly Youtube or Wikipedia was blocked for years because of this.
won't twitter censor my tweets for hate speech,?
github and gitlab are US companies and censored projects only for the owner being iranian
Maybe. How a global communication network should interact with local laws and customs is in many aspects still an open problem that we just have begun to tackle.
> If I live in US and Tweet in Turkish, if Turkish gov ask for removal of that content should it be removed? Or should companies be required to share information about this user?
Welcome in a globalized world. I hope this won't be the eventual outcome, but this is definitly not a trivial question to answer. This stuff is why we have international organisations like the UN etc.
Note that tech companies can change the terms of service at arbitrary points in time after you joined the service. You're of course free to reject the updated terms of service, in which case they will - wait for it - block you.
If a company banned me from saying x, I can in theory go to another platform and say the same thing. Failing that, I can build my own site. There are a handful of things I can do to say x. Failing a digital platform, I can always go out on the street and say it. The police won't stop me.
If a government does the same, they have the power to prevent me from saying such a thing on all platforms, but worse, I can't even go out on the streets to say it, because I can get arrested. I could face maximum prison times, or worse, in some countries I could face the death penalty.
There is a huge difference.
IMO, forcing platforms to host content they disagree with is a free speech issue in the other direction.
How do you figure? I don't know a person who believes that Twitter endorses all content that is found on Twitter. How is it a speech issue in the other direction when Twitter is not saying anything?
Further, about broadcast media, the US still has the equal time rule [0] and used to have a fairness doctrine which required broadcasters to present both sides of a debate [1]. It's worth mentioning that when the FCC (all Reagan appointees) removed the fairness doctrine, Congress acted to enshrine it in law and it was vetoed by Regan.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
Banning someone or something is them saying something. Endorsement of the debate between different political views doesn’t mean allowing every idea to be acceptable. Letting say the anti vaccination people on your site directly means more disease risk to the general population. However, realizing that doesn’t require you to act. You might decide that’s acceptable where allowing say militant groups planning an insurrection aren’t.
In other words, voluntarily not saying something doesn’t give up your right to free speech.
The ideal scenario is that there is a free market of social media who can do whatever moderation they want. But we witnessed a serious blow to the idea thats even possible recently.
I am witnessing the reality that it’s never been easier and cheaper in the history of the world to reach almost everyone in the world within seconds.
It’s extremely easy to build a website, host it, have people type in a few letters and numbers, and “reach” each other. It’s never been easier, or cheaper. It’s as free market as it gets.
Insufficient amount of people may be interested in that, but that has nothing to do with the mechanisms in place that can allow you to reach people, which don’t need to include Amazon, Google, or any other host.
Only as long you don't have the wrong opinion.
> It’s extremely easy to build a website, host it, have people type in a few letters and numbers, and “reach” each other. It’s never been easier, or cheaper. It’s as free market as it gets.
And where do you find it? Google? Also the witch-hunt doesn't stop there. Next up is the hosting (looking at Parler). I can't wait to see when registrars are next and you have to type in a dynamic IP given by the ISP. But everyone could reach you, they just have to know the IP. If that really would be viable ISP would be the next logical step in the witch-hunt.
With "wrong opinion" do you mean inciting hatred and violence, and spreading misinformation?
Because by that logic, we should also allow ISIS, Al-Qaeda et al. to do their thing.
Outside of these "wrong" opinions, parent commenter is pretty accurate. I've seen and heard of people launching a website in less than a day.
Let's not forget that freedom of speech does not give you freedom from consequences. AWS, Twitter, Google, Apple and everyone else has no obligation to give you a platform, especially when it looks bad on them, or it goes against their ahem morals (or rather: the employee's morals). Just like I, as an equal citizen, have no reason to hear you out or to spread your message, if I don't like your message.
Hey, how about you show me where Parler incited violence or where Trump did that. I don't care about buzzwords like misinformation or hatred - Twitter cares neither - but I do care about inciting violence.
In exchange I show you tweets from Khamanei - ayatollah of Iran.
> Because by that logic, we should also allow ISIS, Al-Qaeda et al. to do their thing.
ISIS/Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra/Taliban whatever are terrorist groups; they don't only incite violence. Also putting misinformation and hatred in the same category as actual terror groups is really not wise.
Then please go ahead and build a website, make a statement on it and have, say, some 2 billion people read the statement.
That's just a fraction of the world's population, so it shouldn't be too hard. I'll wait.
Bht the fact is, never in history has it been easier and cheaper to be ABLE to reach 2 billion people.
You don’t need thousands of employees, printing presses, lawyers and companies in multiple countries. You don’t even need to know different language. A single person has the ability to sit at their desk and make their ideas available to everyone that has access to the internet.
I am not so certain of this any more. I believe that power shows those that are corrupt; the problem is that the set of corrupt men, and the set of those who wish for power, is virtually the same set.
There have very much been incorruptible men in history who were given great power, but in all cases that I know they did not seek it out, but rather were forced into it.
each nations (and/or state) has their own ethics that think it must be enforced
americans would think a state that jail for blasphemy a tyranny, while america itself jail for antisemitism, racism (and this one really depends!) and terrorism propaganda, while america backed fighters in foreign countries can be entitled (rebels) instead if terrorists only if they are "US-certified terrorists" and because american media can shout louder.
For social media, I don't see how this can be solves without federation of 3rd party moderation/filtering of some sort. We should let the users decide who should filter their content.
And no, a ban from Twitter does not prevent a person from expressing themselves on the Internet, even if it changes how one attracts an audience. The Internet does not exist independent of physical space -- if you want to get a message out, you absolutely can, even if all of Silicon Valley tries to stop you.
This is lazy thinking, and I'm honestly getting tired of reading it, so please forgive my frustration.
We have a term for this already: the chilling effect.
Stop lying, you know better.
You are being either disingenuous or fundamentally misunderstand what a right to speech is (namely, it is not a right to be heard, only a right to speak freely).
Additionally, you are forgetting that the Internet does not exist independent of physical reality. There are plenty of ways to get attention in physical reality that directly translate to traffic to your voice on the Internet.
And just a tip - leave out the “you know you’re wrong, you know you’re lying” comments. They’re unnecessary, condescending, and don’t help your argument.
Proximity on the Internet matters if you're trying to start the next Twitter. It does not matter if you're trying to exercise your right to freely speak. There are plenty of ways in which you can make your voice very vocally heard that don't involve the Internet at all.
To put it another way, you don't have to advertise an Internet location exclusively on the Internet. In fact, you have no right to advertisement or audience on the Internet at all.
Yes, clearly places like Speaker’s Corner exist in real life. That is not up for debate. The issue is that an extremely small amount of American corporations are allowed to decide what is deemed acceptable to discuss online. If deemed unacceptable, you are relegated to the outskirts and often denied access to say, credit. (This has actually happened.) Do you not see the issue with this?
It’s precisely like my city center example. Yes, in literal terms you are free to start your restaurant outside the city. No one is preventing you. In practical, real life terms that actually affect real culture, it absolutely matters. Especially when you decide to exile so many people outside the city that they become radicalized and start attacking you. Creating more echo chambers doesn’t help anyone.
This is simply not true. This is not what's happening, and again I am trying to understand a reason why you think this is the case.
"If deemed unacceptable, you are relegated to the outskirts and often denied access to say, credit."
I'm sorry again, but this is also not only untrue, but betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works. Any Internet accessible website is accessible from any browser at any time from anywhere in the world (excepting actual censorship taking place in some countries, e.g. the Great Firewall of China). This is what your "freedom of expression" guarantees, not access to the popular pages on the Internet.
The city center example is completely wrong because it imposes a false difficulty at visiting a restaurant outside of the city center that the restaurant cannot overcome. This is precisely the opposite of true, since any browser in the world can visit any Internet accessible website with the same level of effort. Your restaurant can still be walked into at an instant, anywhere in the world. Accessibility is a fixed value, and it's nearly zero.
Discovery of your speech is not a human right, however. I'm sorry if that violates your expectations, but it's true. You aren't guaranteed a right to be heard, only a right to speak, and on the Internet you will always have that right, again due to how the Internet works. It's a global network of interconnected computers, there will always be a place to express your thoughts and provide them to the world, one URL away.
I'm trying to give this more thought as our argument gets longer, as per HN guidelines, but I'm having a hard time keeping that goal clear. I would appreciate it if you tried to meet me somewhere in the middle here, to try and understand why I'm explaining things the way that I am.
That isn’t the point. The point is that free speech is both law and culture. Clinging to the notions of what is “legal free speech” is ignoring the cultural consequences of restricting it. Society is not a computer program that runs on laws.
When Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple all decide that you shall not be heard, you’re locked out from the 99.99% of the population that has zero understanding of how to access things via the URL bar. Remember that a huge portion of people just type in “Facebook” on Google and click the first link. Facebook itself is “the Internet” to billions of people. The percentage of people that are capable of setting up their own server and website is quite small.
Maybe this seems academic to Americans, but these same social media companies actively encouraged the uprisings in the Middle East a decade ago. Do you understand that if they had instead said, “Nah, we are banning this”, political opposition would have been essentially impossible, because the average person can use Facebook and Twitter but sure as hell isn't going to type in some obscure URL and organize a protest that way.
This is not about the letter of the law or how the internet works. It’s about democratizing technology so that the people have a fighting chance against those with power.
If the top 5 companies that dominate the Internet and technology ban you, yes, that locks you off from the overwhelming majority of the population.
That wasn’t even my point, which you seemed to either not understand or not care about. Nonetheless, yes, the conversation is over.
Yeah, I know, it's like Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) recently said on Fox News: Republicans literally have no way to get messages out now.
Except...