IRL, that kind of regulations exist all over the world but they don't tend to mandate no censorship, instead they mandate censorship in the name of national security.
Unfortunately, the national security aspect is not exactly baseless. It all started with the Arab Spring, when the more authoritarian countries realised that they don't have control over the communications as they used to and the less authoritarian countries realised that foreign powers can curate the content their population sees(through fake accounts or owning the platform).
Anyway, IMHO censorship should never be an option and to deal with issues of security we just need openness. That is, platforms with significant reach should be mandated to have open algorithm and verifiable data which can be investigated against faul play. For example, 3rd parties should be able to look into the recommendations and moderation actions of YouTube.
Sorry but it’s obvious you’ve never worked on this issue. It’s not easy.
The theory is that under an indirect third party effect free speech becomes effectively limited, if large companies censor people. As a result they can be compelled not to do so within reason. For example, if a social media platform bans you, you can sue them and they have to show that they have sufficient reason and that they gave you opportunity to appeal etc. If they fail, they have to unban you.
I’m not quite convinced you’ve worked on this issue before yourself. What is the solution you’ve been working on?
Anyone who has worked at f/m/a/g has worked on global application of local ideals and the user base each being enraged you don’t apply their local ideals globally.
“Obviously the first amendment” is a great example of this.
I’m well aware people get upset when companies outside of their culture don’t follow said culture to a tee. However, we are talking of a US company censoring US presidential candidates in a way directly contradictory to the laws they abide by. This is local ideals being applied to a local business, so excuse me if I’m a little less than sympathetic to the plight of Google dealing with an “enraged” foreign user base when they can’t even please a local one.
Additionally, if your account is supposedly no longer active, due to an anti-censorship protest, why are you replying? And in a way that tries to sideline the problem of mass censorship by moving the problem to “but the people complain otherwise, they want this”?
I’ve worked in this in search quality and android. At a leadership level. I don’t anymore. That’s all.
We don’t just think “hey the first amendment!” We think it terms of practical utility return for users and the company. While attempting to accommodate hyper fluid and often incoherent local requirements. That’s it. It’s not a grand conspiracy.
Looking forward to the unlimited hardcore porn era on daytime TV.
(obviously you're going to reply "well that should still be censored, it's just that people should be allowed to say the fourteen racist words and not the seven dirty words, because those are different categories of thing that I refuse to examine")
It's pretty heavily regulated on broadcast TV in the UK, to a silly extent; including hassling the much more liberal Dutch regulator https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-17297090 and censoring a TV station merely advertising a porn site https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0028/46891/o... (on the grounds that since it's a paid service it counts as "teleshopping" like QVC)
The UK makes periodic ineffectual attempts to censor it off the internet.
knock at the door
> Later! batin'.
but do whatever you want I guess
IMO most of the problem with restricting language information is that it can stop ideas from spreading, which is functionally very limiting for democracy from a distributed computational perspective.
Does the same problem apply to non-language information? Especially for things other than real events (e.g. police actions, a protest, etc).
It seems possibly much easier to draw the line within e.g. video depictions than it is within language information.
There is no such thing as absolute freedom, everything is a choice of how much authority one submits to and allows to control ones life. I hope it is a reasonable amount, because as it tilts too far one way or the other chaos ensues and death follows.
And to quickly cover your inaccuracies, because even spending this time is too much:
You described Anarchism. Anarchism doesn’t equal Libertarianism. Anarchists have no morals or base set of laws. Libertarians work from the founding documents of the USA and the basic premise of “don’t hurt others”.
The USA is not and has never been a democracy. We were a republic, that grew into a democratic republic. Thus we are not “the will of the people”. We are “the will of the elected officials chosen by the people”.
Let me examine them for you:
Freedom of expression is the right to express any opinion. Pornography is not an opinion, and therefore there is no free-speech right to it. Beliefs like "race X is inferior" are opinions, and therefore protected (though threats like "kill all X," and actions like discrimination, are not). The manner in which speech is expressed can be restricted—"your honor, I blew up the Twin Towers to express my belief that the US is the great Satan, it was free speech" won't fly in court. But these restrictions must be neutral to the content of the speech.
There is one additional restriction commonly considered to apply to free expression: the government is allowed to criminalize lying (saying something you know is untrue). Defamation, fraud, false advertising, etc can be regulated.
The US Supreme Court case Brandenburg v. Ohio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio) is a good example of how the boundaries of free expression work.
> The Court held that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless that speech is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action". Specifically, the Court struck down Ohio's criminal syndicalism statute, because that statute broadly prohibited the mere advocacy of violence.
If I say "politician X deserves to be killed," that's protected speech because I'm expressing an opinion. If I say, "look, politician X is in the room with us, get him!" I am going beyond opinion, and the government can punish me for breaking the law.