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> I think of the platform like a shopping center, once you open it up to the public to enter they can say whatever they want to anybody else in there and nobody can determine the subject or viewpoint they are allowed to hold or communicate.

People can say what they want and shopping centers are absolutely free to throw people the object to out. Walmart is not a public space. The parking lot of Nordstrom is not a public space. Twitter is not a public space.

Why should Walmart be forced to serve someone spouting threats to other customers and staff? Why should Twitter be forced to broadcast users spouting threats and harassment towards their other users and their staff?

In case it was not clear, I agree with you that a shopping center should be able to remove people who are obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing.

In California at least[1] people are able to peacefully exercise their right to free speech in parts of private shopping centers regularly held open to the public. So the shopping center is not able to throw them out.

I agree with this ruling and would like to see it applied Federally and to the digital platforms that allow the public to submit their own content.

Like I said I am OK to remove content or people who are obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing. but otherwise if you open your property or the platform to the public, you let them bring their freedom of expression also.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...

Oh wow... I mean, many of these platforms operate out of California; maybe this is already applicable? (The issue in the case involved a shopping center but the premise of ruling on "taking" is way more general, and cuts to the core of the arguments people have against forcing people to host something. I have only spent a few seconds glancing at this so far, though.)

I'm not sure any social media companies are running afoul of the Pruneyard decision. It isn't saying that you can say or do whatever you want in a shopping center.

However, lots of people like to think "free speech" in the US starts and ends with the 1st amendment. This case shows that it doesn't.

> I don't think the platforms should be allowed to censor user content, if [...]

All these arguments end up having that complicated "if" clause, though. Because you have to squint very, very hard to find a way to understand this ruling as anything but disallowing content moderation.

This very site. Hell, almost certainly this very thread, has copious dead comments suppressed precisely because of their undesired content. Accounts get banned here repeatedly. How is exactly is this legal in Texas? Yeah, you have to construct an "if".

And let's be honest, in almost all cases that "if" is going to be tantamount to "they are moderating content I disagree with".

And that's how you can tell this is a terrible ruling. It grants the government broad ability to disallow moderation without giving anyone a clear set of rules for which moderation is acceptable beyond "big tech bad".

This is not true. You can verify it by setting showdead to yes in your profile. Such comments are not that common.

> This is not true. You can verify it by setting showdead to yes in your profile. Such comments are not that common.

Are you sure you're using it right? I count NINE "[dead]" comments in the topic you commented on, within half an hour of you making that comment. I mean, sorry, but that is just laughably wrong. Everything even remotely political here gets moderated heavily, both by community flagging and site moderators.

I just realized that I was not logged in when I checked, that was silly of me, sorry.

Past a certain size online communities without moderation invariably turn into a cesspool. Prohibiting moderation will basically give people carte blanche to be terrible to each other and make such communities impossible.

The dynamics of online and irl communities are different, you can't really compare them.

I see this as actually an argument against communities being that large rather than an argument for moderation in most cases. To some extent moderation has tamped down the natural limiting of community size caused by aholes, which has fed the viral growth of these tech companies to the point where they have massively excessive market power and ability to influence vast swaths of the population, which is really unhealthy for a democracy. I haven't figured out what the solution is yet, but to me limiting aholes and allowing communities to grow far beyond where they would have without that problem doesn't seem like a solution that causes massive problems of its own.

So we can’t have large communities because right wingers have developed a persecution complex about not being able to say the N word?

Edit: stop downvoting me, that’s censorship!! (/s)

That doesn't really contribute to the discussion and it is just wrong. What makes a placea cesspool is not the position someone is taking, but how they are taking that position and there are a small minority of people from all sides that cause this problem.

It's more that I am not convinced at all that these large communities are a good thing and I am not surprised that there seems to be a natural feedback mechanism to limit their size given the extremely long time we have been social creatures. The market power issue isn't the only issue with them, it's just the one that annoys me the most as an economist.

> What makes a placea cesspool is not the position someone is taking, but how they are taking that position

Disagree. You can have a cesspool of civility (Stormfront users were (are? Is the site still up?) quite civil on their forums… as long as you didn’t admit to being a non-white immigrant for example).

You can also have something like TopMindsOfReddit, which is all sarcasm all the time, yet still empathetic and wholesome.

I have never been to stormfront so I will have to take your word for it but your own explanation of their behavior betrays your point. Cesspool of civility is contradiction in terms that just means they discuss stuff you (and I) strongly disagree with cordially and respectfully. How they treat people who admit to not being white is what makes it a cesspool and also if their discussions go into things nearly universally agreed to be illegal (i.e. killing people, property destruction, etc). The other example is one of the exceptions where people know they are agreeing to suspend some aspect of civility that isn't related to something illegal when they enter the premises. Another example of that would be karen's diner chain in Australia.

Is this caused by the conversation or by the amplification? I don’t follow the cesspool on Twitter but Twitter seems intent on amplifying it to me despite my efforts to avoid. Their algorithms are the problem in my opinion.

The moderation of online communities dates back to the '80s, and predates consumer access to the internet, much less twitter.

It only takes a handful of shitheads running unchecked to ruin an online community.

I think the problem of platforms growing into a cesspool stems from the anonymity that people have on those platforms. Posting anonymously should not be protected, the platform should be OK to take down content that is anonymous. If you are registered (and I know this sounds like the Chinese system and probably violates some other freedoms or rights so makes it even more complicated) then your expression is protected (within reason which I mentioned above). The other problem I see with this idea is that LinkedIn is is not anonymous and the crap that people say on Linkedin blows my mind to the point I sometimes wonder how they can still be employable - it is not completely full of bad stuff, but the really bad stuff sticks out and I don’t remember all the good stuff on there. I guess LinkedIn is ok when compared to twitter or 4chan. The idea that online platforms that have protected expression will grow into a cesspool is sadly probably just a reflection of our society. I am pretty divided myself on this issue and on the registration I am not entirely comfortable with it but could live with it.