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Comment by dudus | Hacker News Reader

That's the problem with corporations deciding what is right and what is wrong. Or what is considered hate speach.

Most people would agree Nazis are bad (except for the Nazis themselves), then you have anti-vax. In my opinion bad but clearly not an opinion shared by a large group of people.

We'll live in a world where free speech is controlled by tech corps. Which is all well and dandy when their views align with yours but horrific when they don't. The other option would be to not have anyone policing speach which has shown to be problematic as well.

The legal system needs to step up and own online speach monitoring and removals

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> The legal system needs to step up and own online speach monitoring and removals

(I'm guessing you're US-based.) So instead of many poor systems trying to do better, we'll end up with one uniform system working poorly, that just became a nuclear-hot political target implicating the 1st Amendment.

The only arguably positive thing that does is relieve pressure on the platforms, while not allowing any behavioral diversity and making any future moderation adjustments a massive culture-war fight.

It puts the burden on judging what is or isn't protected free speech or hate speach in the hands of actual judges that are appointed for that purpose exactly.

I get it.

I just don't understand why anyone thinks judges should be adjudicating trust and safety issues, why they think that will lead to better outcomes, or why forcing private actors to carry speech they won't want to (which seems to be the goal of such proposals) is in any way proper.

Not to mention the staffing issues you're going to have, running all these disputes through the courts...

Because, either they are a common carrier or they aren't. If they are a common carrier, they shouldn't be deciding, but they are also not liable. If they are not a common carrier, they can do what they want, but it carries done liability. Problem is, they want it both ways, decide and have no liability.

> It puts the burden on judging what is or isn't protected free speech or hate speach in the hands of actual judges

We already have this in the US though. Existing precedent is perfectly clear about what is and isn't permitted speech under the law.

But a significant subset of the population isn't happy with the status quo. Hence tech companies censoring things, cancel culture, etc, etc.

You were doing okay up to that last disastrous couple sentences. The legal system most emphatically should not engage in monitoring and removal of speech. It's bad enough when private companies do it, and that should be opposed as strongly as possible — but government shouldn't begin to touch the decision of what opinions are and are not allowable.

What's a good solution then? Who should be the judge of right vs wrong if not for actual judges?

Or you think no monitoring is the best scenario, even with evidence of how speach has been weaponized on social media to push for conflict.

There is no good solution. You either tolerate the necessary consequences of actually being able to speak freely or you curtail those freedoms in order to avoid the consequences of having them.

Actually, I disagree with the bit where I said there's no good solution. Curtailing free speech is never a good solution as far as I'm concerned. Freedom includes the ability to choose to behave poorly. This is a fundamental consequence of having a free society.

Since I was being asked, this is exactly the answer I would have given. We don't have to have a solution for every problem, because living in society together has inconveniences; some of them are simply worth it.

There is a good solution - culture and positive social feedback loops. That's also the hardest thing to get right, dependent on shared values and open communication and people wanting to participate.

Try to understand that the economy is structured on a system of laws that facilitate the provision of jobs and goods/services by companies, while minimizing harm and maximizing fairness. Are you anti-regulation in general, or saying something more like Facebook is a special case that for some strange reason should keep hiding from legal scrutiny?

I've addressed how I think it should be handled elsewhere in the thread. I'm just going to point out here that condescension — "Try to understand [that my model of the world is the correct one]" — doesn't help gain an audience for your opinion.

Sorry, just asking questions in a manner I thought was appropriate following your response with the words 'disastrous' and 'emphatic'. Honestly it's unclear how or whether you think this brigading issue should be handled. I see that you think Facebook's actions here should be "opposed as strongly as possible" but excluding use of our legal system(?)

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