X sues Calif. to avoid revealing how it makes “controversial” content decisions
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Ok genuine question there: are companies considered the same as people when it comes to US Constitution? Does a company have free speech and the right to bear arms?
This is such a dangerous line of thought I almost don’t believe it.
Users original comment mentioned impact on society.
- You give up your second amendment rights when you enter a school or hospital.
- You give up privacy rights when you go through security screenings.
- You give up rights to a law suit when you sign a liability release at a climbing gym.
User also modified his original comment from “impact on society” to nothing to “in the interest of others rights”. Also all word for word with the current blitz on constitutional rights.
Interesting
I was interested and tried to google that word for word, only thing that showed up was this thread. So it isn't word for word the same.
I'm not necessarily arguing X/Twitter is in the same league as a power company but this line of thought has many precedents.
This is highly revelational and currently being litigated with the most recent decision that it was in fact unconstitutional.
I guess to anyone who hadn't had experience with moderating a popular social media platform or talked to anyone who has. Was that really so shocking?
> it was in fact unconstitutional
Nice of the government to step up to the plate and give those of us who've been on the corporate side of this some guidance, for once. Most of what companies get from Congress and the Court is radio silence on the topic (ironically, I suspect, so the government isn't credibly accused of violating a corporation's First Amendment rights by telling them how they can and cannot moderate). So it's nice for the courts to step up and tell companies that the thing the executive said they had to do, no, they don't have to do; that'll be helpful moving forward.
Missouri v biden
This is not really what the decision states. The government can request all it wants but it cannot partake in "threatening, pressuring, or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech".
I'm personally OK with the government requesting things to be moderated; I'm not OK with the aforementioned methods if the request isn't backed by law.
Here's a flowchart: https://publichealthlawcenter.org/sites/default/files/resour...
And then you can look up the cases to see the logic behind them.
(More generally, however: there's lots of compelled commercial speech that doesn't fit into this flowchart. Taxes, commercial permits, leases, etc. I think one could make a strong argument that this law is strictly logistical in nature and represents no more of a 1A risk than Twitter's commercial leases do.)
If not, then no...
If you don't they are not a person.
If that discrepancy doesn't feel unjust to you should do some soul searching maybe and maybe look at other places where corporation profit from their "personhood" without ever having to experience the negatives of actually being one.
I didn't come up with the totally bonkers idea of declaring some organizational entity a person, so don't expect me to defend the logical conclusions stemming from it.
X or musk's will? If X has a "say" on a "speech platform" that's a major power imbalance.
Not that X's speech is this or that, but that it shouldn't exist on it's own. Musk or anyone may speak on behalf of X, but if there is no "on behalf of" there should be no speech there.
Speech as in, to put forth opinion, ideology, values or anything beyond simply being silent and letting everyone else (users, which includes those who may speak on behalf of) speak.
The party must just show that they have a possibility of winning the case and that granting temporary relief will not cause additional harm to the plaintiff.
To use that as proof that the defendant will win is ridiculous.
The actual term used is "likely to prevail".
Injunctions are not handed out willy-nilly, and the actual wording in the injunction should give you pause:
"The officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government"
Nobody said anything about "proof that the defendant will win". I said said that several judges have found evidence of unconstitutional pressure being applied. Please do not misrepresent a plain statement of fact.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ca5.214...
[Followed up by a page and 1/4 of people and agencies who the injunction still applies to]
In no way is it honest to describe this as "overturned".
Technically it was a panel of 3 5th circuit judges. This is the same circuit which believes that for government to, in any way, "induce" a social media platform into negatively affecting the reach of user content, is likely a violation of the first amendment. This would presumably include merely calling out a post and essentially saying "hey I think this violates your policies, could you take a look?". Simultaneously, they believe it's a-ok for the government of Texas to expressly dictate social media moderation policies via legislation. When conservative-aligned plaintiffs bring lawsuits in the 5th circuit, they are able to win at each level of the federal court system without ever having to convince a single person that isn't politically aligned with them.
"Twitter Files" was hyped as ushering an new era of radical transparency on Twitter moderation. If you take that on face value, it is ironic Twitter is now refusing to be transparent about reporting its moderation (or lack thereof).
If you do not take it on face value, then it appears to have been a score-settling exercise motivated by animus against the previous management.
With the CA law, EU regulation, app store policies and the like, a pretty powerful net is cast around the topic of speech. Specifically about speech that is technically legal yet considered unwelcome.
It's tempting to let judgement be clouded by a hate for Musk, but it's a topic worthy to think about more deeply beyond just X.
It's also revealing how this legislation only targets Big Tech. From a pragmatic point of view, this makes total sense. But it also shows that this legislation isn't based on first principles. It's a panicky patch on an open wound, not the definitive say on free speech.
We moderate depending on our values and feelings as we experience them at the time, and we do not strive for consistency in these judgments and they may change depending on how well our moderators have slept the night before or how the air pressure affects their sinusitus.
In particular, moderators have bosses, and nobody can believe moderators can do what the hell they want without their manager having a say.
> while enabling the social network to maintain maximum flexibility.
In other words, giving the employees absolute discretion isn't normally what you would consider giving the company (owners/directors) flexibility.
Pre-Musk, wasn't that always the standard standard response to criticism of activism-driven social media censorship?
All this bill is doing is saying that the company has to state what their rules for this are.
Of course not - a HN posts are hardly long enough to contain the real policy which would undoubtedly be many pages long. hirundo is posting a hypothetical, exaggerated example.
But Twitter could have a policy that gave them great leeway to make arbitrary decisions, by stating things like:
* We use automated systems, which ensure a timely response and let us stay on top of many millions of tweets per day. However, these automated systems occasionally err in both taking down reasonable content and leaving up unreasonable content. We are constantly improving these systems, but with x00 million tweets per day some errors are inevitable.
* Bright line rules are not always possible in moderation. For example, we would generally not censor images of Michelangelo's David, the Venus de Milo, or napalm girl, despite a general policy of not showing genitals or female-presenting nipples.
Similarly, a post might be parody, sarcasm, exaggeration for comic effect, or otherwise acceptable. For example, we might allow NWA's 1988 hit protest song "Fuck tha Police", or a tweet by Donald Trump threatening nuclear war with North Korea, despite a general prohibition on calls to violence.
Decisions are made by our moderation teams on a case-by-case basis, following the vague subjective guidelines found in appendix A
* We hire our moderation workforce from around the globe valuing diversity and multiple perspectives and timezones blah blah therefore details that may be obvious to some audiences may sometimes be overlooked by our moderation teams
* The fact a tweet has been reported by a large number of people does not necessarily mean it will be blocked, as some more visible accounts may attract more flags proportional to their larger audience. Twitter also suffers from organised 'downvote rings' which systematically flag posts by their political opponents, hoping to reduce the reach of those posts. We may ignore such reports, when we detect them.
* Content moderation is interlinked with spam, astroturfing and bot accounts. For example we may block posts about buying cheap viagra, despite it not being extreme content or hate speech.
* Our automated systems may identify accounts as suspected bot or spam accounts based on heuristics that may not be obviously related to our moderation policies. Even a newly opened account that has never sent a single tweet or followed a single person may be blocked.
* The ever changing spam environment, the ever-changing language used by Twitter users, and the cat-and-mouse game with people who'd like to not be moderated mean the guidance given to our moderators changes on a daily basis. This document is a snapshot and our actions in the past and in the future may be inconsistent with it.
* We are committed to helping users stay safe and control their twitter experience, through options like Unfollow, Filter Notifications, Show Less Often, Mute, Block and Report.
Expand with a few more pages of waffle and voilà, you have a policy that doesn't actually pin you down to taking any particular action in any particular situation.
Also, the "feelings" of the moderators imply human moderators exist and are the norm. This might not be true and you would be submitting false information for an AI-heavy moderation pipeline.
Threats are not protected, but the vaguely defined concept of "hate speech" that is not already-illegal direct threats of violence isn't really a thing.
This seems to be a common misconception. If it were violent threats, which are illegal, people would just call it that. When people say "hate speech" they are attempting to promote censorship of otherwise-legal expression that most of society nevertheless finds repugnant.
Harassment has a legal definition and so a law referring to it is not "as described by social media users"...
You then decide by fiat that the entire thing is pointless because of how you feel which ignores the very real problems on social media of exactly the kinds of messaging you claim this isn't about.
There also appears to be a real free speech issue here that is at least somewhat related to litigation that has occurred regarding editorial freedom of the press.
Now perhaps (probably) there should be a mechanism in place to stop the gov't from even getting this far, but, AFAIK, such a mechanism does not yet exist and it's certainly not the first amendment.
This is why the book PGP Source Code and Internals was published; because ink on paper makes the matter clear cut.
This sort of pointless truism means nothing at all. The crux of the matter boils down to the common carrier status, and whether companies can be held liable for the content being handled through their service. If a social media company editorializes the content it distributes, it's liable for each and any consequence of distributing it. Simple as that.
My apologies if I am misinterpreting your statement here, but this feels like a misunderstanding of section 230.
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
If you want to tilt at 'because computers' windmills, Section 230 is the real target.
Lol at the aggressive partisan downvoting. Sorry you feel compelled to such anti-Musk right-think, either sock accounts or a display of hackery. Either way, very stoopid.
I think this is a case of "it's different because computers", and this wouldn't fly if it were a traditional publisher putting ink on paper.
Either you're failing to understand the question, or you're trying to be disingenuous about it.
Newspapers editorialize their content. Elon Musk's Twitter is not, and is claiming to have no control over what content third parties publish throught their service.
However, Elon Musk's Twitter is also manipulating the contents that third parties publish through their service by means of moderation/censorship and boosting.
Given they claim they hold no editorial control over what goes through their pipes but still manipulate the content, they have a responsibility to demonstrate that they are not liable for that content by specifying exactly which rules they enforce and how they enforce them.
Do you understand the difference between assuming responsibility over the content, and claiming that they are not liable for the content they distribute because they don't pick and choose what goes through their pipes?
are they rewording or rephrasing tweets? If users can still see original tweet content, why do you call it "manipulate its contents" ?
I just posted "hello world" and my tweet appeared as-is. Did not experience manipulating by Twitter at all
It was already well established that they can't. For example, when Elon Musk's Twitter was already caught shadow-banning people posting pro-Ukraine content, and when Elon Musk open-sourced some of the original Twitter's code, people found out that it hardcoded settings to ban discussions on Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Past HN discussion on Musk's censorship of the invasion of Ukraine:
because you cannot fit all trillions of tweets into everyone's timeline - by definition some tweets will have to be chosen over the overs.
if a user posted something about Ukraine, his tweet would still show up in his follower's timeline for "Following", just not Featured (For You) and not always. Mind you I follow this topic and my feed (For You) is like 50% of tweets covering Ukr-Rus war updates. So I never feel any censorship for the war from titter.
it is not censorship, because if you follow a user you would still see tweets in its original content without any altering
Not really. Twitter was hardcoded to downrank discussions on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and is now shadow-banning pro-Ukraine users but strangely not pro-Russia.
Nevertheless, the whole point is that Elon Musk's Twitter needs to specify how it's censoring tweets, as they cannot claim they don't editorialize while actively suppressing and censoring discussions that contrasts with their personal preferences. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a mere example on the broad editorial reach of Elon Musk's Twitter, and one where Elon Musk himself was already caught red-handed supporting the invaders.
Newspapers enforce editorial policy over their opinion columns and things like which letters to publish. This law sounds like, if it actually applied to them, which is doesn't, they would need to submit a report about why they didn't allow "Letter from Aunt Ethel" to be published. What criteria did they use in not allowing it to be published, etc.
Why did they publish "Letter from Uncle Frank" instead.
Simply, they need to enumerate their internal editorial policies.
And I can see it argued that editorial policies are political speech. We all know magazines or publications and websites that represent a political philosophy, what articles they publish, how the articles are worded, etc. That's everywhere. "Why didn't you allow XXX to be published? Because we don't like the point of view of XXX!"
And part of having a political philosophy and the speech rights around it is that you should be allowed, should be "free" that is, to not say anything at all! When you start getting "have you stopped beating your wife" questions, you should be allowed to say "no comment". Compelled speech is not freedom of speech. Publishing in detail your moderation policies and activities is arguably compelled release of a political philosophy. Now, does a Corporation have such a right? Today, it's hard to say. If a Corporation apparently has the right to impact elections (economically) that implies it has a political position and perhaps that the detailing of that position (or not) should be a protected. IANAL.
The big problem here is this shouldn't be an issue. How many websites have a privacy policy of "We're going to gather everything we can from you, and sell it to the highest bidder. If we could get your DNA, we'd sell that too."
That should be a perfectly viable "privacy policy". If X has to publish "yes, the exact details" of how they moderate extreme speech, maybe they'll just publish "we don't" and leave it at that. Which, of course, brings even more, indirect, scrutiny.
In the end, there's no good answer to this question. Every answer any service would publish, is the "wrong answer".
>Simply, they need to enumerate their internal editorial policies.
I think you are confused, Twitter already publishes it's moderation policies, this is a report on to what extent they stay true to that. Your argument would maybe make more sense in a context where a newspaper had to provide a report on its editorial decisions (which obviously go well beyond the letters to the editor section). But that really only actually serves to the emphasize the huge difference between editing and moderating.
>In the end, there's no good answer to this question. Every answer any service would publish, is the "wrong answer".
I don't think you are engaging in this topic with any honest, especially if this is the conclusion you are coming to. As far as I can tell the only wrong answer to the report would be if it was not accurate about the information it stated or was incomplete. There seems to be nothing as regards to judging whether or not a moderation system is good or bad, or "does the right thing". Let alone something so politically pointed as what you suggested.
Not a Twitter user or a Musk fan, so not defending them. But it's hard for me to see how this law wouldn't chill speech...
From TFA.
>Not a Twitter user or a Musk fan,
From your comment.
It sucks that the level of debate all over the place, including this forum full of people who are more educated than average, has fallen so low that the (extremely simple to grasp) concept of ad hominem is out of place and one has to write such disclaimers frequently in order to bring an argument into a discussion.
I know I certainly had to hold that impulse in check, myself. At first I was like "Oh god, what shenanigans is that guy up to now." And then I read the article and realized wait, this guy I dislike might actually have a point this time.
I say that not to be protective, really, but to point out that I think they may have a case here even though I find their entire operation suspect.
Hearers shouldn't be persuaded by fallacies; they're deployed in persuasive speech because (a) many people aren't familiar with logic, and find them persuasive, or (b) because the speaker isn't familiar with logic, or (c) because the speaker is out of logical arguments, but is still determined to win the argument.
Or some combination of the three.
Texas HB 20 prohibits the censorship of content based on viewpoint
Florida SB 7072 ... prohibits platforms from removing certain types of accounts.
So both laws require companies to engage in a type of speech. The CA law does no such thing: it just requires companies to disclose their policy and how it was applied.
(edit: sorry, I misread the parent. Individuals cannot violate the 1A, only governments can)
Sure, they could just take them to court for that fraud and get that information via discovery, but just compelling companies to publicly disclose the info bypasses all that and puts the decision making back into the hands of the consumers. And what is more American than that?
Note that that doesn't mean a company cannot violate a law with a basis in free speech. The 1st amendment isn't the only law when it comes to this - this is where state laws step in.
how do you figure this to be true?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The 14th amendment later extended this to apply to state governments as well - but still only governments.
A company can't violate someone's free speech (or other rights) because it's not the government. It literally isn't under the purview of the amendments. If it does something illegal, that is become that act is made illegal under some other code, not because of the bill of rights. They can be prosecuted for criminal or civil violations, but it wouldn't be a constitutional issue unless the government is the one doing it.
If a social media site wants to silence you, too bad. If the government wants to silence you, that's a big deal.
https://uwm.edu/free-speech-rights-responsibilities/faqs/wha...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
(Edit: However, your argument isn't unheard of. Here's one opinion from the American Bar Association arguing the same thing -- that the 1A ought to apply to privately run public forums too: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...)
It's not clear such a law is wise. ¿Cui bono? for tying private forum's hands against kicking Nazis, white supremacists, nation of Islam, Patriot Front, Proud Boys, etc. off their website?
The Internet is a network; communication on a network implies (at least) bipartite agreement. Either side of the conversation has veto over the signal.
FWIW you can apply your argument to an ISP to make the argument that it's right for them to arbitrarily censor as well.
That's just two bipartite agreements end-to-end. I could technically have said an n-ary agreement, with the freedom to select multiple paths, for more accuracy; I figured "bipartite" encompassed all the relevant nuance.
> FWIW you can apply your argument to an ISP to make the argument that it's right for them to arbitrarily censor as well.
Yes and. ISPs generally do have that liberty and do employ it when they deem it necessary (see Hurricane Electric cutting ties with IncogNET for doing business with KiwiFarms, various ISPs cutting user accounts for piracy, AUP, or TOS violations, etc.). The backstop against that behavior is generally that they're leaving money on the table if they don't provide as many people as much service as their system capacity permits. But in general, legally or morally, nobody is entitled to more access than showing up at the public library to use a community kiosk (and if you do that and look at porn, they can ban you too).
Whereas these three (or more) party situations are exactly what we're discussing here - where two endpoint parties are trying to communicate yet there is a third party in the middle playing the position of censor. This is the entire crux of the matter.
When you say that ISPs do have the liberty to censor, are you speaking positively or purely descriptively? Because what I see is a description of our traditional values that had been previously serving to foster an open society, but have now fallen apart with companies scaling to own much larger portions of markets, prying into what should be the business of their customers, and colluding with each other to create unavoidable de facto governmentesque power. If you really don't see the problem with an ISP censoring, then how about the electric company?
Also the idea of companies being incentivized to not unjustly deny service because they'd be leaving business on the table is blatantly fallacious.
Hey if they want to keep communicating they can send letters. There are plenty of communication solutions that don't involve conscripting a private third party to transit the data against their will.
> what I see is a description of our traditional values that had been previously serving to foster an open society, but have now fallen apart with companies scaling to own much larger portions of markets, prying into what should be the business of their customers, and colluding with each other to create unavoidable de facto governmentesque power.
What I see is the logical conclusion of that open society. If people didn't know we were going here they weren't paying attention. Additionally, the unfettered open society brings us KiwiFarms and 4chan; I think the burden of proof is on those who support this model to explain why companies should be forced to facilitate those actors on the Internet.
You can still set up your own ISP If you don't like how the others are playing. You can't do that if the government starts putting constraints on what an ISP is.
> If you really don't see the problem with an ISP censoring, then how about the electric company?
Entirely different scenario. Electric companies have government-sanctioned local distribution monopolies; those monopolies come with additional constraints on their corporate behavior.
Hypothetically, one could argue that in the US at least, this fact constrains Verizon and Comcast's hands. But it doesn't constrain Twitter, or Hurricane Electric, or Reddit, or Google, or Facebook, etc., etc., etc. If you don't like those companies' behavior you can go to another or set up your own. I didn't like Twitter; I run a Mastodon node.
If you're trying to make jokes, then you need to work on your delivery.
> What I see is the logical conclusion of that open society. If people didn't know we were going here they weren't paying attention
I generally hate references to the paradox of tolerance, but you're essentially advocating intolerance that takes advantage of tolerance. I'd say that when the logical conclusions of rules that currently lead to an open society are abused to create an ever-more closed society, those rules need to be amended - it's foolish to assume that the outcome is moral by construction.
Even when pushed you seem to be pretty explicitly support corporate authoritarianism, so I doubt I'm going to change your mind. But as I said in another comment - it's quite comfortable to cheerlead for authoritarianism when it aligns with your preferences, but the winds can change at any time.
I believe it's also foolish to assume the outcome of forcing people to transit signal harmful to them is moral.
The nice thing about the status quo is we can address this problem with our own choices: if one doesn't like HE's behavior, for instance, one can de-peer from HE. The 'net can interpret censorship as damage and route around it, as it were.
I'm not so much in favor of authoritarianism as individual sovereignty, and sometimes the "individual" is a corporation or large association. But so long as it can be routed around, it's fine (and if it cannot be routed around, we have antitrust for that). But consider Mastodon, where individual users are continuously deciding who to follow and who to block and node operators are continuously deciding similar questions at the node-to-node peer level. It's beautiful chaos, not authoritarianism. What business would the State of California have dictating to every Mastodon admin the rules of their node (or, for that matter: ¿cui bono? from the state even tracking those policies? Maybe it's none of the state's damn business who I let on my node and who I peer / de-peer from.
This is like the third time you've swapped in a sympathetically-small example to make it sound as if any regulation of large companies implies that grassroots individuals would be forced to unreasonably do things against their will. But we're not discussing a vibrant competitive landscape of Mastodon instances, local mom-and-pop ISPs, websites run by individuals, or "people". Rather we're talking about the likes of Twitter, Google, and Comcast.
> I'm not so much in favor of authoritarianism as individual sovereignty, and sometimes the "individual" is a corporation or large association
I wholeheartedly agree with individual sovereignty, and that's precisely where my comment is coming from. The second part is fallacious induction - scale is the entire crux of the matter, especially with the context of Metcalfe's law. The larger these companies get, and the more they cooperate with each other, the more inescapable interacting with them becomes. This destroys the ideal of individual sovereignty for actual individuals.
Hand waving about "antitrust" is an excuse that doesn't redeem the narrative. If you were actually concerned about coercive power created through anticompetitive actions, you'd lead with the utter lack of anti-trust enforcement and arrive at very different conclusion. For example reforming this bundling of identity, data hosting, and software that is pervasive across the industry would go a long way to reforming the power dynamics.
On the topic of actually running more decentralized nodes, I'm all for it. If you want to discuss things non-normatively as an assumption of the worst case fusing of government and corporate power, I'm right there with you. But in the context of the big tech power consolidation, what are currently small-time self-help options for the technical few to hide from the overall trend aren't particularly relevant. For example even though I've always run my own mail server and recommend people get their own domains, I can still condemn the negative societal effects of Gmail having unilateral control over many individuals' online identities. (In fact doing so gets even more important because Google blazing the trail of unilateral corporate authoritarianism has caused the domain registries to want to get in on the shameless action)
I'm also extremely leery of anything that makes it more difficult for any operator in this network to put up a sign that says "This is not a Nazi bar," even if it at the same time makes it easier for somebody to put up a sign that says "This is not a gay bar." Because I'm not worried about the authoritarian threat posed by unfettered communication in the LGBTQIA community, but I sure am worried about it from the white supremacist community.
No, I see authoritarianism as coming from both government and corporations. Government is logically equivalent to a monopolistic corporation where your only way to end the contract is by physically moving off from the land it has an ownership interest in. Individual freedom can only exist when both government and corporate power are kept in check. Government power through democracy, separation of powers, and bureaucracy. Corporate power through competition, exit, and regulation. If either one is allowed to run amok to the culmination of its own desires, the end result is centralized control and diminished individual freedom. (And since power coalesces regardless of the type, these imperatives generally feed each other)
> You believe that the only way to stop that is a stomp on that power at the cost of liberties
No - I do not believe it is correct, and in fact it is quite perverse and grotesque, to characterize corporate control as "liberty".
> California's registration policy nets up every Mastodon node and every home gardening forum and every still existent BBS
AFAICT this was debunked in the first round of comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37469593 . As I've been saying, the key property here is scale, which you seem to be willfully ignored. Please stop standing in tiny, sympathetic, and utterly wrong examples as if they have anything to do with corporate power. Extrapolating about what's right for an individual or small collective to a large corporation/LLC is completely fallacious.
> Because I'm not worried about the authoritarian threat posed by unfettered communication in the LGBTQIA community
Didn't you kind of mismatch the analogy here? More appropriate would be saying that you're not worried about the threat posed to the LGBTQIA community by unfettered censorship. Which is really an appeal to popularity as how you perceive it currently - transplant Big Tech into the 80's enforcing popular social mores, and things would look much different. Just as how big business happily bends to the whims of China.
> I sure am worried about [the authoritarian threat posed by unfettered communication] from the white supremacist community.
This is why I feel justified characterizing your argument as cheerleading for authoritarianism. In order to actually stop the authoritarian threat from the white supremacist community, it is not enough to have the popular bars prohibit Nazism. Rather to stop white supremacists organizing, you have to control all avenues of communication. In other words, reinventing de facto governmental power through the private sector where the constitutional embodiments of natural rights don't apply.
I wish we could just scrap the Constitution and start over with a version controlled and annotated wiki of rules written in everyday language.
Our legal framework is so undemocratic (maybe even anti-democratic) and unable to address any of the major challenges of modern society... sigh. End rant.
It's quite tempting to cheer for autocratic corporate power when it appears to be doing things that you find favorable, but the wind can shift on a dime.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R...
> This holding was possible because California's constitution contains an affirmative right of free speech which has been liberally construed by the Supreme Court of California, while the federal constitution's First Amendment contains only a negative command to Congress to not abridge the freedom of speech. This distinction was significant because the U.S. Supreme Court had already held that under the federal First Amendment, there was no implied right of free speech within a private shopping center.[4] The Pruneyard case, therefore, raised the question of whether an implied right of free speech could arise under a state constitution without conflicting with the federal Constitution. In answering yes to that question, the Court rejected the shopping center's argument that California's broader free speech right amounted to a "taking" of the shopping center under federal constitutional law.
I generally believe that companies that enter spaces that previously afforded "users" first amendment protection should have similar laws to protect the free speech of users in said privately owned "spaces".
But that would require new laws.
What spaces are those? From where I sit, we went from BBSes (where the admin controlled the signal) to self-hosting (where the user controlled the signal, unless it was so onerous that an ISP cut service) to cloud-hosting (where a company controls the signal).
The ideal free speech world where people just spoke their minds online is a fantasy borne more out of lack of interest to regulate than power to regulate. Remember, the original network was a "network of peers" where most users were not pseudonymous; their academic or military sponsors could cut their access.
The network has never had anything like absolute free speech. Communication over the network has always been an affair involving at least two parties who must agree on the transmission of signal.
Town square. Snail mail. You're thinking very 2020s/technical here.
Snail mail is a great example, but the burden of proof is on those who think the Internet should work the same to justify why a model baked into federal Constitutional requirements should be used to justify de facto nationalization of private infrastructure. Now, if somebody wanted to put the tax dollars up for the federal government to build out "the people's Internet," regulated with something akin to first Amendment protections for transiting the network and rights to privacy, I certainly wouldn't be against it.
Maybe the reporting law doesn't itself prohibit a company from acting against its published terms, but it sure creates a database that could easily be weaponized against them by a future law or unchecked executive order.
Which is clearly not "prior restraint".
It's often the case that if a law were to have the potential to chill speech that would otherwise be expressed or not expressed (and I think this law falls under that category), it's open to questioning at least
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/897/chilling-ef...
I don't know how this will ultimately turn out... maybe California will win, but it's at least unclear enough to be worth a legal debate, I think?
> Maybe the reporting law doesn't itself prohibit a company from acting against its published terms, but it sure creates a database that could easily be weaponized against them by a future law or unchecked executive order.
I mean, I guess? I feel like the same could be said for laws that require worker injury reporting. If at some point in the future it's decided that there should be some regulation around moderation policies (and this seems increasingly inevitable) it would be useful to have some actual data to work off.
IMO only and IANAL.
For example if they ban a post for something that would be reflected but if they don't that's not shown
Thr lawsuit itself points out that, if nothing else, the California bill forces companies to editorialize on what speech is considered hateful etc. under California's guidelines. That categorization itself is a modern politicized process (especially in polarized states, deep blue or deep red) and different from older 1A protections. That wasn't my argument, but is part of the lawsuit.
In Lamont v. Postmaster General [1], the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring the recipient of Communist propaganda to state that they consented to receive it before it would be delivered. There was no penalty for doing so, but the court rule unanimously that it "imposes on the addressee an affirmative obligation which amounts to an unconstitutional limitation of his rights under the First Amendment."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamont_v._Postmaster_General
There's not even any compelled speech argument that Twitter is being forced to speak about something it does not want to. Twitter is a corporation, not a person. It has no right to exist and can have its business license revoked.
Now, if Twitter does want to make each Twitter user's speech its own speech, then maybe Twitter might have grounds to make a 1A stand. But as is Twitter and all social media absolutely do not want to be held responsible for what they publish so, frankly, they can pound sand.
It would be different if Twitter were considered similar to a newspaper where Twitter acted as editor and could be held accountable for what they publish. But they will fight that tooth and nail.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/18700605/section-230-inte...
On the contrary, Section 230 is what allows platforms to make some editorial decisions without thereby assuming liability for all user-generated content.
Before 230, what you said was true.
I like this explanation: https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
AFAICS the proposal doesn't require them to moderate Twitter users in any way; it requires Twitter to state publicly and clearly what their moderation policies are. But arguably stating its moderation policies is "compelled speech".
Thing is, there's plenty of compelled speech going on, including food labelling laws. There's precedent (although I understand US law doesn't have "precedent" as such, just appeals to successive senior courts).
Can California demand that a restaurant provides daily report on how often each employee washes their hands and fine them $15k per day if they don't or provide incorrect information?
Per your simplistic argument it would be bonkers if California could create such law. It's a mere reporting of its relevant business activity.
To me it would be bonkers if California could create such onerous regulation.
In law analogies only get you so far. I'm pretty sure that things like food labeling were challenged in courts and were found to not violate 1st amendment but the onerous requirements California tries to impose here are not even close to use them as some kind of precedent.
> AB 587 passed in September 2022, requiring social media platforms to submit a "terms of service report" semi-annually to California's attorney general, providing "a detailed description of content moderation practices used" and "information about whether, and if so how, the social media company defines and moderates" hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference. Under the law, social media platforms must also provide information and statistics on any content moderation actions taken in those categories.
All of the things listed, with the exception of foreign political interference, are protected expression. This is the government trying to outsource censorship.
Their argument is producing the document is forced speech.
That argument is not aligned with any precedent. The government absolutely has the right to compel you to talk about your internal actions.
Your argument is effectively slippery slope falacy given the government is tracking not enforcing action here.
Pretty nice business you got there. Shame if something were to happen to it.
That being said, the fact remains that you are presenting the law as if it was was you expect the next step to be, which is misleading at best.
I'm not aware of a legal case in which a private entity has successfully made the "compelled speech" argument against government paperwork; that kind of argument is more typically associated with "the IRS is unconstitutional because it compels me to file taxes"-style legal crankery.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/califor... ("New California law likely to set off fight over social media moderation")
Crucially however, "this law is unconstitutional for reason Q" does not mean that "Musk says making their business codify their moderation is against free speech" is correct.
>Elon Musk Files Really Strong 1st Amendment Challenge To California’s Terrible Social Media ‘Transparency’ Law
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/09/08/elon-musk-files-really-s...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Techdirt
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/technology/mike-masnick-t...
He's usually quite critical of Musk, so it's a newsworthy thing that he supported him in this case.
The fact that he is praising Elon here says something.
Eric Goldman is a "leading expert in the fields of Internet Law" [0]. His assessment of this bill's constitutionality is probably a good one. The Washington Post cited it in one of their stories [1], and quoted the part where he says it's "likely to be struck down as unconstitutional at substantial taxpayer expense".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Goldman
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/09/13/califor...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37442998 ("X challenges California’s new transparency law as unconstitutional (techcrunch.com)")
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Snap
TikTok
X
Youtube
Meta
By putting additional restrictions on moderation activities (the requirement to report to government how they are moderating) this state law contradicts the federal law and the way things work, federal law wins.
We will have to wait to see if the judge / juries agree with this argument, but that's one of the reasons Twitter believes this law should be eliminated.
The first amendment angle is a stronger argument, but unfortunately for X, it's also extremely weak and would require overriding decades of precedence and essentially create a crisis - there are far more onerous regulations in place that are still relied upon in a way that having them constitutionally challenged would be extremely damaging.
- Not implement it juuuuust yet, but probably a 2 day test coming for sure.
I like to imagine what this would look like if the other side was in charge. Say Russia or Florida for that matter. (In case of Russia, one doesn’t have to imagine).
> (3) A statement of whether the current version of the terms of service defines each of the following categories of content, and, if so, the definitions of those categories, including any subcategories: (A) LGBT propaganda. (B) Woke ideology. (C) Harassment of religious freedoms.
Not so hard to see how complying with this law would be compelled speech, is it now? Whether one says yes or no, you’re implicitly agreeing that these categories are real things. You can’t quite say “I disagree with the law as written” unless you sue, which is what’s happening here.
You have this the wrong way around: these things have legal definitions in both state and federal law, and your "agreement" is not a mandatory condition.
Put another way: the state of California is not interested in whether you think hate speech is real. The suit doesn't hinge on that at all; it hinges on whether the government can compel corporate speech that amounts to a disclosure of internal policies. Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions.
> AB 587 thus mandates X Corp. to speak about sensitive, controversial topics about which it does not wish to speak in the hopes of pressuring X Corp. to limit constitutionally-protected content on its platform that the State apparently finds objectionable or undesirable. This violates the free speech rights granted to X Corp. under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 2, of the California Constitution.
As for the precedent,
> Which it can, for the same reason that the government can compel businesses to do their taxes, file permits, and disclose their political contributions.
My understanding is that what can be compelled is pretty limited (e.g. facts in advertising, ingredients, etc.), it’s not a blanket precedent for the state to ask you to produce anything at any time.
Except that it doesn't: being compelled to produce evidence of your policies (which the law doesn't even require exist) isn't the same thing as being compelled to adopt a position. The law stipulates the former, not the latter.
As a framing: when the EPA compels a corporation to produce an environmental impact statement, they're not compelling the corporation to assume a position on the environment or anthropogenic climate change. Being asked to produce internal policies on hate speech, etc. similarly doesn't compel any particular opinion on Twitter's part.
> My understanding is that what can be compelled is pretty limited (e.g. facts in advertising, ingredients, etc.), it’s not a blanket precedent for the state to ask you to produce anything at any time.
We're talking about factual materials that neither party disputes. Every state in the US has a complex web of transparency laws that compel companies to produce all kinds of information for reasons of public interest; this case is no different.
Examples: Salary & pay transparency laws, board and LLC transparency laws, etc.
Saying "The currently active terms of service document (attached) does not define 'woke ideology' as a separate category of content" is a simple factual statement, and it does not imply anything that you didn't already write in that terms of service agreement; I see nothing wrong with companies being compelled to provide an answer to this - it is relevant factual information about the product they're distributing to people in California; the companies do not have a constitutional right to keep all their internal documents secret, they can be compelled by law to disclose them.
[0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/business/appeals-court-fi...
I don't understand why anyone would downvote this. Can't people ask questions these days? Especially questions that prompt significant discussions and clear the climate and misconceptions some of us have?
If the case was decided on 1st amendment grounds, it's absolutely true.
Edit: not necessarily saying they should, I’m just wondering if they can.
Edit 2: Looks like the most they could do is make it harder for social media companies in general to do business. If they were perceived as targeting Twitter then they could have grounds to sue.
Based on 20 minutes of reading so grain of salt applies.
If companies can now argue that complying with a law is against free speech, they can literally ignore all laws.
Commercial Speech is a narrow carve-out for "advertisements and solicitations". It's not applicable to Twitter moderation.
The law does not make any requests about how Twitter should moderate things, it asks for information about how Twitter does moderate things. First amendment protection should ensure that government is prohibited to impose restrictions if a company says they will/won't ban accounts for praising Hitler, however, the people certainly have the right to take action in response to that, and the government has the right to compel Twitter to disclose to these people truthful information about their media product.
If they have a policy document stating "posts which contain more than three letters 'z' shall be deleted", they have a right to moderate this way if they wish - however, do they have a constitutional right to keep that policy document secret from the public? The way I see it, laws are permitted to regulate the disclosure of company policies.
There is the supremacy clause, but goodness knows where that would end up here. _Everything_ involving real money or power seems to make it to the supreme court these days, and who knows what the political landscape will look like by the time it does (yes, I am asserting that the supreme court has become more political than it used to be, _and_ that it used to be pretty political...).
Taken literally, yes. But legally, many (but not all) for the rights have been 'incorporated' to apply to the states. This includes First Amendment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_R...
The First Amendment as it is literally worded is, since it specifically says "Congress shall make no law...". But the rest of the amendments have no such restriction; they just say certain things shall not be done, period. Given the Supremacy Clause, that means those provisions should apply to all levels of government, not just federal. (Granted, the courts originally did not interpret them that way, but IMO they should have.)
That said, current jurisprudence, regardless of the literal wording of the bill of rights, is that they apply to the States, even the First Amendment. IIRC most Supreme Court decisions along these lines have cited the Fourteenth Amendment.
That hasn't been the case since the ratification of the 14th Amendment way back in 1868.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Courts have repeatedly held that the Bill of Rights does apply to the states, by means of this so-called "due process clause" in the 14th Amendment.
Edit: changed "incorporation clause" to "due process clause", as that seems to be the name under which it is more generally known.
The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that certain administration officials – namely in the White House, the surgeon general, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation – likely “coerced or significantly encouraged social media platforms to moderate content.”
What California wants is clarification and explanation of the moderation process as it applies to X. a product disclosure like this is common in nearly every other consumer product in the US. Prop 65 for example routinely mandates this sort of disclosure for lead or cadmium content in a product.
The reason musk specifically does not want to disclose this information is because the moderators were all sacked a year ago...i think California knows this.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-twitter-layoffs-outso...
... for that matter, what does it mean for content moderation to be "mishandled?"
Stochastic terrorism.
Unfortunately, nothing about the California law really addresses it. The Fifth Circuit Court decision regarding coercion of social media sites will bind to the states via the Fourteenth Amendment, so California can't really enforce anything if they disagree with a company's moderation policy.
That means the law reduces to perfunctory data collection, and it doesn't really tell consumers anything that logging into the site and going "Gee, this site sure is full of white supremacists advocating stochastic terrorism and nobody does anything about it" wouldn't tell them.
This law is so consumers can make educated choices about the platforms they want to use.
Mishandling of heavy metals can cause lifelong affects not just to those handling them, but to anyone in the vicinity.[0] it’s estimated that 1M people die per year from lead poisoning[1].
Content moderation cannot directly cause any physical harm. If you consider indirect physical harm related to all social media (which I’d have more sympathy toward), it would not come close to the affects of heavy metals and other substances known to the state of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.
0 - https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/20/china-children...
1 - https://www.who.int/news/item/23-10-2022-almost-1-million-pe...
$15k/day -- 5M/year -- on companies over $100M in gross revenue (much less the several billion generated by Twitter) is not more coercive than many other laws. The penalties for some laws go up to and including death... so this is definitely within the typical range of penalties.
The law requires disclosing your policy and how you applied it. Musk is out on a limb if he's claiming that giving stats on what actions were taken is the same as the action itself.
The dangerous (overt?) implication you're making is that some speech is "poisonous" and the government needs to step in and make sure the people aren't being "poisoned"
That's dangerous, and the law should rightly restrict that
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...
""" The Court in Brandenburg, in a per curiam opinion, held that Ohio's Syndicalism law violated the First Amendment. According to the Court, "constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. """
https://supreme.findlaw.com/supreme-court-insights/brandenbu...
The court case where that quote came from was overturned 54 years ago!
https://www.techdirt.com/tag/fire-in-a-crowded-theater/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTsPgiUoBKA
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...
But based on reading through the report at the findlaw article in a sibling comment, (in my opinion) I think it's a pretty dangerous precedent, and definitely a pillar of the breakdown of modern political discourse.
It did not come from a case about a theater and a human stampede as many naturally assume. It came from a case about a war protestor being arrested for telling people they should resist the draft (decidedly political speech.)
> Words can kill, a Massachusetts Juvenile Court judge decided last Friday, when he found 20-year old Michelle Carter guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the 2014 suicide of her then-boyfriend, Conrad Roy III.
[1] https://www.yahoo.com/now/2017-06-22-you-may-be-jailed-for-t...
Of course, arguably most people _want_ some minimum level of content moderation, so whether it's beneficial to do more or less content moderation is up to the company, they just have to disclose it.
Yes, this kind of speech is called 'perlocutionary' and is dicussed in international human rights law, https://revistaselectronicas.ujaen.es/index.php/TAHRJ/articl...
Telling a bank teller “give me all the money, now!” is illegal. Telling a hit man “go kill that person who owes me money” is also illegal.
After all the free speech, moderation, and etc etc etc promises made ... After appointing an empty-chair CEO ... After everything
It amazes me ...
You cant expect to have immunity under section 230 if you arent going to provide "good samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material.
The exemption is what has allowed the internet to become what it has today. Lawmakers have already threatened to change this in the past. I'd much rather they see the current law already handles bad actors than for them to introduce something "new".
* edit to fix typo
That is the actual law: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt
> Thermale protects against the government compelling speech.
What compelled speech?
For those who don't want to try to find in that nearly 50000 word bill that is a massive mix of additions and diffs updating a large part of telecommunication law, here is a link to where the small section that is relevant to this discussion ended up in codified in the US code [1].
[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
Clarification: I am not saying that their interpretation of Section 230 is correct. I am just saying that the link they provided to the text of Section 230 is in fact a link to the text of Section 230.
>You cant expect to have immunity under section 230 if you arent going to provide "good samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material.
In fact the law does not obligate service providers to moderate at all (except in accordance with a few narrow laws around sex trafficking, IP, and some criminal stuff). It does say that IF you moderate:
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
The phrase "offensive material", doesn't mean offensive to ME in particular or to a "reasonable person" necessarily but in context if means offensive to the service provider.
Compelling the company to disclose their internal moderation discussions is compelled speech. The 1st amendment provides broad protections here. The argument that their internal moderation discussions are like ingredients in a physical product is really flimsy.
Imagine Youtube's Content ID auto-moderation, but removing all text content as well. "yay"
This is actually incorrect. Section 230 _allows_ blocking and screening, but doesn't _require_ it.
That's it. Nothing about "publisher vs platform" or whatever. The entire point of the law, as designed, and intentionally, was to prevent every single website owner from being in violation of child porn laws. It is an EXTRA freedom, given to website operators.
I think the part that they probably have issue with is the
"(5) (A) Information on content that was flagged by the social media company as content belonging to any of the categories described in paragraph (3), including all of the following: (i) The total number of flagged items of content. (ii) The total number of actioned items of content. (iii) The total number of actioned items of content that resulted in action taken by the social media company against the user or group of users responsible for the content. (iv) The total number of actioned items of content that were removed, demonetized, or deprioritized by the social media company. (v) The number of times actioned items of content were viewed by users. (vi) The number of times actioned items of content were shared, and the number of users that viewed the content before it was actioned. (vii) The number of times users appealed social media company actions taken on that platform and the number of reversals of social media company actions on appeal disaggregated by each type of action. (B) All information required by subparagraph (A) shall be disaggregated into the following categories: (i) The category of content, including any relevant categories described in paragraph (3). (ii) The type of content, including, but not limited to, posts, comments, messages, profiles of users, or groups of users. (iii) The type of media of the content, including, but not limited to, text, images, and videos. (iv) How the content was flagged, including, but not limited to, flagged by company employees or contractors, flagged by artificial intelligence software, flagged by community moderators, flagged by civil society partners, and flagged by users. (v) How the content was actioned, including, but not limited to, actioned by company employees or contractors, actioned by artificial intelligence software, actioned by community moderators, actioned by civil society partners, and actioned by users."
Combined with this section of the bill
"(b) Actions for relief pursuant to this chapter shall be prosecuted exclusively in a court of competent jurisdiction by the Attorney General or a district attorney or by a county counsel authorized by agreement with the district attorney in actions involving violation of a county ordinance, or by a city attorney of a city having a population in excess of 750,000, or by a city attorney in a city and county or, with the consent of the district attorney, by a city prosecutor in a city having a full-time city prosecutor in the name of the people of the State of California upon their own complaint or upon the complaint of a board, officer, person, corporation, or association. (c) If an action pursuant to this section is brought by the Attorney General, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the General Fund. If the action is brought by a district attorney or county counsel, the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered. If the action is brought by a city attorney or city prosecutor, one-half of the penalty collected shall be paid to the treasurer of the city in which the judgment was entered, and one-half to the treasurer of the county in which the judgment was entered."
Basically the law requires a full disclosure of all content moderation decisions and explicitly why they were made, and then gives incentive for various city DAs to bring suit by promising them a 50% cut of whatever money is made in the lawsuit.
Musk's objections are likely because it would disclose how little moderation is happening on the platform at all and would tend to show a collapse in usage of the platform.
> AB 587 passed in September 2022, requiring social media platforms to submit a "terms of service report" semi-annually to California's attorney general, providing "a detailed description of content moderation practices used" and "information about whether, and if so how, the social media company defines and moderates" hate speech or racism, extremism or radicalization, disinformation or misinformation, harassment, and foreign political interference. Under the law, social media platforms must also provide information and statistics on any content moderation actions taken in those categories.
This is quite literally thought police. You literally have to send the state's lawyers details on how you moderate content to ensure it complies with whatever arbitrary thing the state believes in at the time. This is clearly not constitutional and the state has no business whatsoever dictating how speech is moderated.
Red herring. It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.
It won't be long before laws say things like "99% of takedowns must occur within 1 hour of a report being made" or "No more than 1% of users may see content which is later taken down on any given day, otherwise we will fine you for insufficient moderation"
That, combined with a court making a few decisions on moderation (months after the fact), means that the only way way for a platform to make sure that < 1% of users see content taken down by a court later is to remove all except the safest content right away before anyone sees it. End result: Self policing to only uncontroversial boring stuff.
1. Corporations having "free speech" is a fucking perversion of the original purpose of that law. Corporations are not people. Governments protecting corporate rights more than individual rights is the root of a good chunk of all problems the US is having right now.
2. I expect my government to scrutinize the hell out of corporations and protect the rights of individuals. Article 1 of the European Charter of Human Rights states: the dignity of man is inviolable. People having to be at the receiving end of discrimination, racism, sexism etc. is a violation of their dignity — their rights. Rights I expect them to protect.
Now I always thought of people in the US to be adamant about individual freedoms, but maybe I have been wrong and it is more about shilling for corporations and letting them divide you into small, easy to manage camps with the help of corporate media and lobbied politicians that get surprisingly rich when they are in office.
Government + Corporations = Fascism
And there is 99% chance you won't profit from it
A "company" is explicitly an organization that we throw a handful of benefits and handouts to as a society, like limited liability and apparently the unwillingness to punish you for crimes. Surely it's justified that this legal fiction should be held to some standards that you couldn't necessarily hold a person to.
Hell, if you believe "Free speech" should apply to businesses, then "False marketing" laws should be unconstitutional! That's insane.
No one has a right to not be offended. Race, sex, etc are arbitrary things. Why not add weight, hair color, accent, etc to the list?
No - what it means is government will respect those aspects of people and treat all with dignity. But private citizens and the organizations they build are not compelled to that standard.
What you describe is totalitarian, authoritarian government that exists to oppress freedom and liberty.
No danke.
You can try to equate the two, but that says more about you than about the topic at hand.
The progressive narrative is that this type of discrimination doesn't count because these people are magically privileged and powerful. Letting this go completely unchecked is what is fueling a new rise in "traditional" types of discrimination. It's hate fueling more hate.
If you believe in the rights of individuals, it should be based on first principles. All individuals, not just the ones you happen to like.
You seem to be implying a lot about my political views here. That implication says more about you than it says about me. Growing up in a (bi-)polarized culture must be a pain.
I don't think men should be discriminated against just because they are men (and I am biased, I am a man).
So if I get catcalled as a guy once in 3 years it has a different impact than a girl getting catcalled twice a day.
If someone discriminates me for my white skin once or twice, while I have profited from it my whole life, this is od course wrong, but it won't hurt my prospect in life. If I had a dark skin the racism would be a daily occurance and something that seriously impacts my prospect in life.
So if the actual impact in reality differs, we can also treat those things differently in policy, don't you think?
The real question is: What is the justification to mandate a collection of this data?
Step 2-N: Things I made up, but I put them in quotes so they seem more impressive
Step N+1: Bad thing, literally 1984 thought police
It's facially clear that Musk's issue is that he doesn't want it to be revealed that he hasn't been fair, has been arbitrary, and has been boosting the groups he's been alleged to have been boosting, because this will all be inherently reflected in the report. Also likely to be reflected in the report is information that can lead people to the conclusion that Twitter use is down, which he doesn't want to reveal because it will make his decisions look stupid.
You can't just saw "slippery slope", you have to provide evidence that there's strong public (in a democracy) and political will to continue down that slope.
Even if you believe abusing Twitter is popular and wanted from democrats (it isn't), it sure as hell isn't popular for the entire nation.
And what possible interest does the State of California have in gathering this information? It's close enough to have a chilling effect, and thus the state should have to provide a justification.
It is expected of a government to resist against any tendencies to abolish democratic rule and peaceful transition of power. That is the single most important task given to a government by us. And soley for that purpose we often allow them to wear a big stick — why? Because outside of democratic rule the law is a arbitrary set of words that can be interpreted by the ruling class in any way they please and that isn't good for the individual, unless you are foolish enough to believe you'd end up in that ruling class (that is 50% of the appeal of fascism).
Now as a government would have any right to forcefully resist coup attempts and such, it can (and does) also restrict certain social movements that aim for its abolishment. Usually this happens more on the left than on the right tho, remember the whole communism craze in the US?
In the end the only true defence are people that want to uphold democracy. If you have them, laws can be phrased as badly as you like, if you don't, then they can be phrased as well as you like, they will "only" buy you time.
If your gov. makes bad laws, don't elect them next time. And if your only defence of the freedom of the press is to make coroporations people (but only if it benefits them), those are bad laws.
Transparency about business operations is a good thing for consumers. We force it in the case of a "public" company in the interest of allowing people to make good investment decisions, why don't we allow such reports to benefit the non-investing public as well?
This law is illegal and it will be wiped away.
Yes, it is their business. If people don't like that and advertisers, etc don't like that then don't use it or advertise there. The market will determine if it's viable or not. The state has no business policing that.
You sir have hit the nail on the head!
We know X is moderating content (so much for "free speech", but that's another issue). What we don't know is on what basis the content is being moderated, what's being moderated, and so forth.
In other words, Elon Musk is flat-out lying when he calls X a "free speech" platform. It is not - and that's not necessarily a bad thing. What is bad is hiding your moderation policies. That's what this law addresses.
Moderation is okay so long as it's done in the open. Everyone is talking about California taking away free speech, what they're really doing is preserving free speech by forcing companies to disclose when speech was moderated. That is serving the public good.
Which makes total sense because you can't run a social network using this principle.
The Enlightenment - free speech and liberty. They are a speech platform and should not be infringed on upon by the government. The people, ergo the market, will determine if they are viable through popular opinion. If they are as vile and off-putting as some people say then people won't use it and they'll either moderate in a way that makes them viable or die.
I mean which way is it? I hear that they are toxic and no one uses it and no one will advertise on it on one hand and on the other hand I hear that it needs to publish their moderation policies and they should not allow speech that certain people don't like.
You keep getting downvoted because the rest of us kinda watched the internet happen for the past 20 years. Where were you?
And just because a comment is downvoted here doesn’t mean it’s bad or wrong. In fact look at all the engagement it has created. Clearly there is a conversation to be had. Trying to dismiss it with quips like yours probably feel good to type but are meaningless.
By your comments you belong to a class of people that feels entitled to things you never earned or contributed to and would like an authoritarian government to steal it. This is the worst kind of person. Far worse than a fascist.
I don't feel entitled to anything, but I do think you get what you pay for. And America has been paying for a shitty government and has a shitty government with no serious hope of fighting off the endlessly metastasizing corporate ticks that are constantly rent-seeking, penning us in to less and less choice, and then gaslighting the most gullible into thinking that it's the "free market" or whatever.
But yeah, keep thinking about people who want a functioning society as "looters" or whatever. We just want people to pay their taxes, especially rich people who can frickin afford it.
America isn’t perfect but it’s pretty good overall. The government is made up of the people. Complaining about it like it’s the cable company not delivering good enough service is ridiculous. Get in there and make the change you want to see. Get involved.
I’m not Randian but I do agree that it’s problematic how some people believe they’re entitled to the property of others. That they should be included because they exist and support policy that confiscates, mainly out if greed and envy.
It’s mainly people that think they should be amongst the elite and they aren’t. Which to them is proof the country is bad.
I do wonder where you got that impression about vile practices leading to poor market performance however. That doesn't gel with.. anything, really.
"We do/do not moderate Q" is advertising when it comes to public platforms, and they should be forced to abide by their advertising.
How do you think a company hires and trains moderators, or develops classifier systems to moderate, without already having documented all of this already?
Nope, see you had to whip that part up out of the ether to make your case.
I'd prefer the government is hands off to the extent possible, but something has to be done one way or the other. Ideally the platforms would be painfully fined or even people sent to jail for what they did with the Hunter Biden laptop story which AFAIK illegally changed the result of our presidential election.
That being said, tobacco manufacturers have been forced by law to adjust the designs of their packaging in many parts of the world (including showing full scale pictures that cover everything else). I am not a big fan of governments, but to me even that isn't thought police — it is a governments job to weigh different rights against each other. In this case the tobacco manufacturers right to choose their own packaging design has been given lower priority than the health iasues it causes within society. We expect governments to make these weighing deciaions all the time.
Now maybe it is because I am a European, but:
- A company having the right to free speech is a perversion of the purpose of the rights these laws were originally intended to protect. But for the sake of discussion let's assume they shall have that right
- A government could still weigh the rights of X against those whose rights are harmed by the speech of X. Just because you have free speech doesn't mean it trumps any other right in all circumstances, especially if we are talking about the company of one of the richest persons on earth (and quite frankly: a society where this was the case would be very distopic). A government has to weigh the rights of a corporation with the impact that corporation has on society. That is part of why we have governments.
So maybe the point where we disagree is that I literally believe that e.g. a person who has been born with a dark skin has the right not to be discriminated against — and that it is the job of a government to ensure that these rights are not violated by others. Not at all cost of course and naturally that right has to be weighed against other rights, but with great power comes great responsibility. I'd rather live in a nation where the rights of the individual are taken more seriously than those of corporations, but hey, billionairs in a pickle and such.
You don't have a right to not be offended. If someone wants to write an op-ed about why a certain group of people are awful and someone wants to publish that then so be it. The government's job isn't to make sure someone has hurt feelings.
Everyone else will condemn them and they'll be marginalized for it and life will go on.
Now, if someone wanted to open a public business and not allow a certain group of people allowed in to shop then the government can step in. That's not speech but rather discrimination.
Get a grip, man.
If someone wants to stand on the street corner and spew racist comment after racist comment it’s their right to do it. They might get beat up or protested or exposed for the community to judge and shun socially, but it’s their right however disputable it is.
Except if they'd like to keep their "anointed" status, from both a legal (platform vs publish) and extrajudicial (third party doctrine, parallel construction)
Security vs Convenience, as always; the security of the privacy of personal data and papers, versus the convenience of the government's interests of national importance, such as, in their minds, maintaining social order.
If it's our government's job to keep the peace, our job to make sure the ends justify the means.
This myth is so stupid. There is no distinction in law. There is only a distinction for "common carrier" which has a MUCH higher legal requirement of basically being physically required for survival, and even then, often not applied to systems which arguably should be a common carrier (internet)
It is not. "We make no attempt to moderate content that is not illegal" is 100% compliant report. The law is about providing information to consumers about the systems they participate in. It's literally a transparency law.
Musk made big loud statements about free speech, etc. and then ended up arriving back at the status quo. Turns out there never was a problem to begin with, and you actually need the TOS (you know, the reason Babylon Bee, Jordan Peterson, and Trump were correctly banned) because a toxic platform drives away users and advertisers.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/5/2/twitter-fulfillin...
Maybe they are politicians in robes. But what does a non politicized judicairy look like to you beyond voting your way?
Or are you against private companies being required to comply with court orders?
> slanted to make it look like a big liberal conspiracy rather than the good faith operation of a social media platform
good faith is when one can steelman the other point of view.
those files revealed the government was stepping over lines to use censorious mechanisms through the private sector, the conspiracy seems to be on the other side of the aisle. and the lawsuit is over the same principles.
But it doesn't. This law only requires that a company's moderation policies be public. The company already has these policies internally, regardless of whether they follow them, and there is no room nor justification in the law for punishing someone for "not following" said policies, nor is such a concept even defined.
This law has nothing to do with "punishing" Twitter, as it literally cannot, and more to do with making Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Bytedance be transparent about what content they disallow on their platform.
You know the once a month post here about "Google killed my email account of 10 years for no reason and I can't contact anyone to ask wtf or get it fixed"? This law is the first step in combating THAT
> if social media companies are forced to disclose what they do in this regard [i.e., how they moderate online content], it may pressure them to become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation.
> [T]he Legislature also considered that, by requiring greater transparency about platforms’ content-moderation rules and decisions, AB 587 may result in public pressure on social media companies to ‘become better corporate citizens by doing more to eliminate hate speech and disinformation’ on their platforms. . . . This, too, is a substantial state interest.
> important first step in protecting our democracy from the dangerously divisive content that has become all too common on social media.
Note that “hate speech” and “disinformation” are not legal concepts and both include various protected speech. This is your government arguing in the open how this law in fact is a great first step towards restricting some of this protected speech.
* The truth whenever it is inconvenient to them
* speech that threatens their power
* speech that hampers their agendas
Just about everyone who decries "hate speech" is actually perfectly fine with it, as long as it is directed towards the people they themselves hate. Here is one example: https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1523476586330136576
The offender, Caroline Reilly, called for literal genocide on Twitter, and was never censored! You can't get more hateful than that. I wish I knew how to wake people up to the fact that "hate speech" laws are nothing but a power grab for the already-powerful.
How in the hell can a corporation claim that it has free speech?
While we're at it, maybe we should also find corporations liable for damages done on the communities they serve, with the chief executives being the proxy humans for those damages, including murder (ahem chemical, oil companies)? That would be highly satisfactory.
Barring superseding reasons to the contrary, in general US legal structure ascribes to corporations the same rights ascribed to individuals. This is a new construct (about 1970s) but it is the law of the land as interpreted by the Courts. https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec...
And only the good guys should have guns (as determined by an Expert’s “mental health” assessment).
And of course the state is free to seize funds from criminals.
Oh and while “our guys” are in federal power we’d better create a bunch of new rules and regulations, that way we can coerce all those states filled with idiots into our hightened moral ground.
It's insane. If you just get five people in a group and start selling lemonade that hurts someone, you do not get limited liability protection! You only do that if you file some legal paperwork. That legal entity, separate from any of the individuals involved, is what a "Corporation" is.
“Citizens United” wasn’t the first time nor the last.
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
That's it. But it's caused centuries of back and forth arguments and mountains of case law and supreme court opinions.
The US has a sort of Stockholm syndrome relationship with our Constitution... it's really hard to interpret or change and basically it's read however a given generation of politicized judges wants it to be. A decade or two later that will change, somewhat, and then be reversed again. Public will has little impact on it, and the supremes have no accountability. It's a mess.
We worship it as sacred but it creates a lot of problems in modern society the the ancients didn't foresee. It's an entirely undemocratic piece of paper holding the country and its future hostage, IMO.
It's worth emphasizing this point; The Supreme Court evaluating laws for "constitutionality" is itself a motivated interpretation of the constitution!
Any Supreme Court that claims to be "strict" or "Literalist" is inherently not!
Because of all those 'or's it outlines quite a wide swath of protected activities. Because of the 14th amendment, it directly applies to not only the federal government, but also state governments.
That said, I think Citizens United (money is also speech, go ahead and corrupt the political process even more with dirty invisible money) is pretty fucked up, and yes, corporate liabilities should also include executive criminal prosecutions for crimes against society (and humanity!).
"Corporations are people" when it comes to rights and privileges, but when it comes to damages and criminality, they are vague, amorphous entities that cannot possibly be held liable for anything. Very convenient for them.
14th amendment.
> No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Corporations are "persons"
Because they do. It is written in the constitution.
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech"
It doesn't say only for natural persons. Nobody has ever interpreted it that way. The constitution limits government power, and this particular limitation is right up at the top for good reason.