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Comment by nemo44x | Hacker News Reader

I didn't realize how draconian and big brother-ish the law was:

> 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.

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> 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.

Reporting stats is usually step 1 to regulating those things...

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.

Slippery slope fallacy

It's not a slippery slope when that's literally the law in the EU.

And as an EU citizen: Good

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

It upsets me that "companies shouldn't have the same rights as people" is apparently controversial in the US.

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.

Corporations are made of people and are protected from government tyranny. This is case law.

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.

offended ≠ victim of a hate crime

You can try to equate the two, but that says more about you than about the topic at hand.

And yet so-called "reverse discrimination" is widespread, normalized and even celebrated. Hate towards all men, all white people, specifically white men, straight people, "cis" people, old people, neuro-typical people, able-bodied people.

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.

> 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).

I was just objecting to the idea that being against discrimination seems like a no-brainer. It isn't because the status quo widely allows it, if only it's the correct type.

The thing with discrimination is that the frequency with which it appears is a crucial parameter in the harm it does to people (and we are interested in preventing that harm).

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?

This is not a real counter argument or a fallacy in itself (slippery slopes do exist). It happened in other countries already (i.e. Germany) so it makes sense to assume this is happening here as well - especially with California.

The real question is: What is the justification to mandate a collection of this data?

Step 1: Thing that is happening

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

The public's interest in knowing what the social media companies are doing to moderate their platforms. It's everything Musk complained of, not knowing about Twitter, prior to his purchasing it. A report would reasonably allow the public to come to its own conclusion whether or not these social media companies are fairly following their policies or not, or if they are targeting specific groups.

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.

Except the entire point and concept of government/states is that most slopes AREN'T slippery and will have a line drawn somewhere.

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.

Slippery slope only applies as a critique when the its spurious. In this case the precedent of government required reporting leading to regulation is very well established.

> It does not dictate anything, just requires companies to report what they’re doing.

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.

LOL, if we left everything to companies, they wouldn't even report the list of ingredients they put in your food. I get that governments can overreach, but not all constraints on private entities are bad.

Yes, there is an obvious public health interest in food labelling. I feel that the compelling interest is not obvious here, and given that the law is not censorship, but lives in the same zip code as censorship, the state should demonstrate a public interest being served that would withstand 1st amendment scrutiny.

One possible interest: You are living in a democracy. Social media has shown that there are strong tendencies to support abolishment of democracy (or how it is also called: fascism).

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?

If the state made a similar law demanding newspapers provide their editorial policy would that be ok? You know in defense of democracy...

If it is actually in defence of democracy sure. I have lived in nations with a press council before and the press quality was better than in the ones without one.

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.

Yes? I fail to see how giving me, a consumer, information about how the businesses I patronize operate is a bad thing.

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?

Users, many of whom are California, should have the right to truthful information about the product they're using (which, for a media product, includes the moderation policies of that media), and the state has a reasonable interest in ensuring that users get this information.

No they don’t. There is no case law or constitution or bill that says you have this right. You have no rights to this private property. The state can have all the interests it wants but we have laws including property laws. The state can’t just say it has an interest in something and then take it. This country was literally founded on principals opposing that!

This law is illegal and it will be wiped away.

Eminent domain (for real estate) is highly unpopular but has been tested in the courts as being legal.

What "rights to private property"? It's about information, not property, and it is well established that the state can "just state an interest" in truthfulness about products sold to its citizens and compel a manufacturer to list all the ingredients they use in making their product and put that information right on the packaging, even if they'd prefer to keep them secret. Asking a media provider to list their moderation principles seems to me pretty much the same as asking a soap manufacturer to list all the things they put in their soap; in both cases their right to do something in their product does not include a right to hide from the public (or worse, mislead them) about what exactly that product includes.

Food isn’t speech.

Internal policy documents about how a company handles food are the same thing as internal policy documents about how a company handles speech.

Huh? This requires the actual thought police--you know, the unaccountable social media platforms--to publish their rules. Or would you rather they just continuing applying their own unaccountable and secret moderation with no consequences or oversight?

> Or would you rather they just continuing applying their own unaccountable and secret moderation with no consequences or oversight?

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.

It's a shock to me that the "free speech absolutists" running X can't be bothered to even put down their policy in writing. Actually, it's not a shock. They don't want it because they're not free speech absolutists and are actually planning on being unaccountable, biased, and corrupt.

BINGO!!!

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.

Musk has never stated to run X/Twitter using absolute free speech.

Which makes total sense because you can't run a social network using this principle.

Markets don't work well without good oversight. A fundamental method of Capitalism is the information imbalance. This law is helping to keep consumers informed - where otherwise they would not be at all.

What philosophical, moral, or economical principle are you basing this off of? Because the free market principle does not reign here; it suggests that prices can be discovered on an open market between rational buyers and rational sellers of roughly equal standing. Thats it.

> What philosophical, moral, or economical principle are you basing this off of?

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.

In other words, all hail our new corporate thought police. The market can do no wrong, right? Sick of getting squashed by big tech? Feel like the market (of billions of dollars of ad money) didn't punish them hard enough? Just launch your own Twitter with that spare $X billion you've got lying around! Free speech for the rich and the advertisers, just like the Enlightenment promised!

You keep getting downvoted because the rest of us kinda watched the internet happen for the past 20 years. Where were you?

Actually all my comments in this thread are at 1 and one of them at 2. It has been all over the place up and down.

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.

Ha, I read Ayn Rand 20 years ago, before the last stages of anarcho-capitalism revealed how vapid and destructive that non-philosophy to be.

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.

Rich people pay almost all the taxes.

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'm not going to be answerable to random rumors or impressions you have formed, genuinely good luck better understanding that.

I do wonder where you got that impression about vile practices leading to poor market performance however. That doesn't gel with.. anything, really.

And notably, we require certain "truth in advertising" from companies in most democracies, so that they can't lie to you to get your business. These laws have been obscenely weak in the US, for dumb excuse reasons. Making social media platforms open up about their moderation policies so that consumers can make educated decisions about where they want to say what.

"We do/do not moderate Q" is advertising when it comes to public platforms, and they should be forced to abide by their advertising.

>to ensure it complies with whatever arbitrary thing the state believes in at the time

Nope, see you had to whip that part up out of the ether to make your case.

Sorry to chime in, but that law just says they have to disclose it, not that it has to follow a certain ideology. That is not thought police IMO. There is no right for social media corps to not have to disclose how they moderate their content. That isn't infringing on their free speech, just like you having to file your taxes isn't infringing on yours. And if there are hate speech laws, they have to of course comply with them.

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.

> 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.

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.

Racism is not about being offended. If that is your idea of the whole thing, good riddance.

Get a grip, man.

In terms of saying racist things, it is. It’s just words. Despicable words but just words none the less. I’m not saying being offended is wrong but rather you have no right to not be offended.

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.

>This is quite literally thought police.

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.

> it complies with whatever arbitrary thing the state

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.

>platform vs publish

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)

From my perspective, social media censorship is a huge threat to our rights and democracy and these executives decided they were going to use their massive influence to set the bounds of acceptable discourse at the population level. That behavior is the root problem.

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.

Companies don't have thoughts.

How do you think a company hires and trains moderators, or develops classifier systems to moderate, without already having documented all of this already?

I'm glad that HN recognizes Corporations are people.

Alternative take: HN recognizes that the law recognizes corporations are people.

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