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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I’m sorry, but perhaps I’m the only person who believes Facebook should just follow the laws and that’s it.

I don’t understand why we are asking (employee or otherwise) to censor people. What happened to Galileo and many others throughout history was a tragedy. Who are we to assume we know better?

Facebook became the town square, probably years ago... but definitely forced to be the town square by the pandemic. In other words, free speech should be protected and at least in the US that means barring direct threats or specific direction of violence all speech should be allowed.

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> Facebook should just follow the laws and that’s it

That makes sense as long as Facebook delivers its users a plain chronological timeline without forcing content on them and that's it.

Facebook is not a town square. Your post implies that some entity is trying to force Facebook to "silence" people in what is otherwise some kind of natural development of discourse. This is a false assumption since Facebook already applies their own manipulation 24/7.

In your "town square" analogy there were already goons patrolling the streets and handing out megaphones only to certain people as well as beating up others based on some internal pattern no one gets to take a look at (though in reality it's "give the megaphone to the people that enrage the most and silence the rest").

> Facebook should just follow the laws and that’s it That makes sense as long as Facebook delivers its users a plain chronological timeline without forcing content on them and that's it.

No that distinction doesn't make any sense because that isn't the goddamned law. What is with the nonsensical misinformation making up some emotionally charged meaningless bullshit standard and declaring it so?

It makes as much sense as demanding that I never reverse my car because I put maple syrup on my pancakes!

Perhaps you are so singlemindedly beholden to the law that you are missing other factors that are at least as important.

> without forcing content on them

No one has content forced on them. You don't have to use Facebook. You don't have to read the news.

Do we complain about the front-page of the NYT? Or CNN?

> "give the megaphone to the people that enrage the most and silence the rest"

The silencing is coming from one direction. And the resistance to the silencing, is justifying the silencers.

Town squares don't algorithmically raise the volume of some people's voice, and lower the volume of others.

Sweet. Let users opt out of the algorithm then! Facebook was better when it was just a feed of your friends.

If anything, it should opt-in, not opt-out.

They kinda do. Get on the soap box every day. Try out different material. See what draws the biggest crowd.

The good thing is that the algorithms optimize for a clear and transparent politically neutral goal: make money.

>Facebook became the town square, probably

Town squares don't record people and play them back to random passers-by based on how much rage is generated.

>, free speech should be protected and at least in the US that means barring direct threats or specific direction of violence all speech should be allowed.

Companies that are advertiser-supported like Facebook and Youtube cannot be a platform for absolute free speech. There is no law that forces advertisers to fund websites with messages they don't agree with. Examples:

https://www.ameinfo.com/digital/facebook-adpocalypse-more-ad...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google#Advertise...

That’s not the issue, the question is whether they are the public square? If the answer is yes, it doesn’t matter how they get revenue. The government is empowered to protect the citizens and to be an arbitrator, such the violence isn’t the only recourse. If the government is not going to take that responsibility, there will be violence.

Trust me, if the government mandated Facebook couldn’t censor, advisors would still advertise there. They have no other option to reach people, that’s actually the reason it should be considered the town square.

Free speech is freedom from the government not allowing citizens to publicly speak dissenting opinions. I'm not guaranteed the right to be on the front page of the NYTimes. We already legally restrict some speech: you can't yell "Fire" in a theater, you can't talk about bombs in the TSA line, we have laws against libel and slander (although it is hard to prosecute all the lies spewed on social media) that people could seek legal relief from. People don't want freedom of speech, they want freedom from repercussions of speech.

> Free speech is freedom from the government not allowing citizens to publicly speak dissenting opinions.

This made sense a few years ago when realistically government was the only historical large consumer and regulator of speech.

Now that we have another large entity, we need to have a think about what to do. This isn't an endorsement or rebuke of current rules, just a statement that we need to have a debate about this that incorporates what we've learned.

Saying FB, Twitter, YouTube etc are arbitrators of free speech ignores all the other channels that are still available. Talk Radio, news letters, personal blogs, TV, newspapers, etc etc.

If we don’t want say Google delisting websites because their the arbitrators of true fine, but saying any and all channels need to have everything is excessive. Misinformation is always going to be more plentiful than the truth simply because their are vastly more ways to be wrong than correct. Traditional media filtered out a lot of crap and perhaps social media should as well. Truly open channels just end up looking like 4chan.

Another person confusing free speech with first amendment protections.

You are confusing the 1st amendment with free speech. Free speech is a broader concept than the 1st amendment. Free speech as a rule of exchanging ideas can exist in any private and public space.

Facebook and other big techs do not have to support free speech. They can openly say: we don't support free speech and people who disagree with our employees should just shut up! Of course they don't want to do that. They choose to support the general idea of free speech and they can define their terms. People can criticize them. They can also declare they ban everyone who criticize them, but of course they don't want to do that too.

Why all those complexity? Because the American public support the general idea of free speech. Some Facebook employees' wishful thinking that they can control the speech on the largest social media platform won't work.

Someone is already controlling that speech. The argument is about whether the way they are doing it is good for society or bad for society. Free speech isn’t even on the table here.

> The argument is about whether the way they are doing it is good for society or bad for society.

At least it's in an obvious way: to make the most money. For anything else we need to start defining "good" and "bad" which isn't so straightforward.

I feel like this argument only ever gets used in this specific situation. Americans are granted freedom of speech, if companies are large enough they are meaningfully infringing on that right we should do something about it.

>People don't want freedom of speech, they want freedom from repercussions of speech.

To use a pointed example, I'm pretty sure Trump just wants to be able to tweet again with all the repercussions that brings.

First Amendment violations are only in play when a government tries to compel or prevent free speech.

14th Amendment violations are only in play when a government tries to advantage or disadvantage based on sexual orientation and thus we have fully resolved the issue of if you have to make a cake for a gay wedding. You don't since you're not a government. Nice, simple easy, see my point?

"Following the law" is a totally meaningless recommendation. Every side in this debate is legal.

If FB wants to censor posts about unicorn love from unicorn lovers, they can. If they want to put into place a policy that discussing unicorn love is a-okay, they can do that as well.

You would need a law saying that they can only moderate according to the law. Otherwise they are going to tend to do what is profitable.

I tend to agree, then again historically (pre-1980s), the town square included where ever people congregated or traversed. For instance the sidewalk

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

There’s quite a history there:

https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/824/public-forum-do...

It’s pretty hard to argue Facebook wasn’t an intended public forum. Literally you have your public wall and your newsfeed, etc.

Casually glancing at the first paragraph of your second link, I see the phrase "government property".

Read more. If you delve into this topic a bit more you will see that free speech rights are also available in private spaces as well. Most notably in regards to unions

Under a "public forum" doctrine?

That's not exactly the correct legal take on Marsh v Alabama.

The key question in Marsh v Alabama centered on whether or not that the sidewalk being owned by a company town caused it to cease to be a government for First Amendment purposes.

If you look to the subsequent rulings section of the Wikipedia article, you'll notice that courts have--on multiple occasions--explicitly been asked to extend this analysis to "large internet companies are basically public square" arguments and declined to do so every time. The basis of distinguishing between the company town in Marsh v Alabama and Facebook is that Facebook doesn't perform any acts that look like government action--no "powers traditionally exclusive to the state."

> It’s pretty hard to argue Facebook wasn’t an intended public forum. Literally you have your public wall and your newsfeed, etc.

It's very easy to argue: Facebook wasn't created by the government. That is the nexus of the public forum, as far as SCOTUS precedent is concerned.

This is a really good synopsis.

> Facebook became the town square

I don't see it like that. If they did become the town square, it's one where people must only say certain things that are part of the official narrative [0] or where people post things to an authoritative figure who reads out the stuff that he's approved using rules that he won't disclose.

[0] - whatever that actually means...

They're not censoring people, they're moderating based on predefined rules. Without moderation, the "town square" would be overrun with people with proverbial megaphones and an agenda, drowning out literally everyone else with something to say or share.

> I’m sorry, but perhaps I’m the only person who believes Facebook should just follow the laws and that’s it.

No, you are far from alone. The problem with that viewpoint is that IMHO it's far too naive and assumes good intentions. The metric shittons of mis and disinformation that have been spread on platforms such as Facebook, with real world consequences ( be it genocides, very questionable people getting popular and elected, or outright batshit insane conspiracy theories with real life people dying because of them), show that it just doesn't work.

There's some margin between the wild west being exploited to spread and amplify dangerous false information, and burning anyone who disagrees with anything.

> dangerous false information

I have zero faith in some faceless megacorp deciding for me what is and is not “dangerous misinformation”.

Your argument is essentially stating that people are cattle and require benevolent dictators filtering their media consumption for their own benefit.

> I have zero faith in some faceless megacorp deciding for me

They are already deciding way more for you than just what is "dangerous misinformation".

Nope, my argument is that too many people are having a hard time separating emotions and facts, and Facebook amplifies and makes this worse. They aren't a good arbiter of truth, but they are a terrible amplifier of falsehoods as well.

I turn on cnn every day and have seen more disinformation than I can discuss here. Just look at the “horse paste” story with Joe Rogan or the “Russian disinformation” hunter Biden laptop.

You do realize YouTube promotes that content?

“Disinformation” is a Marxist / Soviet / Maoist term used to discredit the truth that hurts them. There may be legitimate “disinformation”, but who determines that?

That’s why we have free speech, the US entrusted people to decide. Generally, people can, what’s currently being censored are often not lies.

Please don't whatabout this. Unless CNN also amplify genocidal speech, those are really not the same. And as the GP said, Facebook is kind of a town square - you don't agree with CNN, you don't watch it. Many people need to use Facebook to interact with family, friends, community.

> Generally, people can, what’s currently being censored are often not lies

Really? Covid being a hoax, Pizzagate, QAnon, Earth being flat, the horse paste / HCQ debacles, etc. There were QAnon related protests in Germany. If people were capable of deciding, how is that possible?

> Unless CNN also amplify genocidal speech

That would be against the law if it was directed, no?

Also, QAnon actually promoted “doing nothing and waiting” it wasn’t genocidal at all.

CNN, MANBC and the like have been demonizing half the US for years. Some people on their programs have called for re-education camps —

https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1348974982483894276

Other programs blame the “unvaccinated” for getting the “vaccinated” sick, etc. this is all pretty bad..

Regardless, the following statement from yourself, is why it’s the town square:

> Many people need to use Facebook to interact with family, friends, community.

If you’re compelled to use it and it’s the only way to interact, it has become the town square.

> blame the “unvaccinated” for getting the “vaccinated” sick

This is accurate though.

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