Hacker News Reader

Comment by jonhohle | Hacker News Reader

This seems like possibly a winning strategy for anyone who is simultaneously deplatformed, debarked, etc. as well.

It’s hard to disagree that there are pariahs that you’d not want as customers. On the other hand, I’d much rather live a world where the phone company operates phones and sells access to networks, ISPs sell server space, banks deal with financial instruments, and all of them leave their social, political, or moral stances to themselves. I don’t go to my local retailer for a lecture on the social injustice of the month. The idea of a Reddit style world where if you participate in one community, regardless of your behavior, you’ll be banned from another is about as distopian as it gets.

View on HN

I don’t think it makes sense to include X or any other social media in the same category as those lower level infrastructure services.

I’d describe my feelings about the advertising boycott as very mixed, and think it’s worth maintaining a clear distinction between these categories of service. I’d find it equally dystopian to live in an environment that doesn’t allow companies to take a principled stance against obvious abuse or to stop spending money when a company goes through dramatic changes that fundamentally alter the advertising environment.

What I’m most curious about is whether or not the boycotts were truly contingent vs. just centrally organized.

I wasn’t trying to relate the two directly. The ADL has a list, for example, that many companies that are competitors in different markets use to inflict financial and/or business consequences on those who are added to the list. It would seem that would count as per se contingent.

On the one hand, some on that list are abhorrent. On the other hand, some just disagree with the positions of the ADL and the ADL knows it can turn screws on those that cross their path. That power seems unacceptable, and apparently may be illegal.

Should those not convicted of any crime, living freely in society, be prohibited from buying milk at a grocery store because their words or ideas are considered incorrect by some self selected taste makers? If you disagreed with those with the power to make those lists would you feel the same way?

According to the article, the only part illegal about "simultaneously deplatforming" someone would be if the action were coordinated by competitors ("we'll ban John Smith if you do too"). I don't think there would be an argument with the same legal reasoning if platforms independently decided to deplatform someone, or even if they saw another platform deplatform someone and let that influence their decision.

The Reddit example might be closer to the type of coordination it targets, but it would be hard to apply anti-monopoly legislation to volunteer Reddit mods.

There's a sharp difference between the other examples you list (aside from perhaps Reddit) and X.

When a person posts an antisemitic on X, the people who notice said post do not know with any certainty what ISP was used, so there's nothing to associate the post with a given ISP. Furthermore, even if readers did know what ISP was used, the general assumption (correct or no) is that ISPs don't monitor traffic going through their pipes, so they neither know nor can control what data is sent over the wire, thus absolving them of any responsibility for what someone decides to post on X.

Contrast this with X itself. As the host of said message, there's a direct link between the content seen and X. As X already moderates content on its platform, a claim can be made that it bears responsibility for posts that are left up for any significant amount of time. The fact X sells ad space which appears next to the hosted content only reinforces this responsibility.

If you prefer to deal with a meatspace analogy: consider a billboard company. Should someone rent space on a billboard in a widely-visible area and paint a giant penis on it, most onlookers would disapprove, and they'd foster a growing discontent with the company the longer it's left up. However, few, if any, would attack the nearby Lowe's or Home Depot for selling paint and paint brushes that could have been used for the picture or go after the city for daring to build and maintain the roads allowing access to the billboard.

X is a digital billboard company. They aren't neutral here: they're actively aiding you in getting your message in front of more people with the hope that any engagement your message triggers will increase ad revenue.

In my opinion, this is just a perspective pushed by very online political activists that want to push this idea that two different companies associating with each other through spending means their brands are jointly responsible for the content of one of them. But they aren’t. They are separate entities. It doesn’t matter to me if a company like Coca-Cola or Apple shows an ad next to some other content I dislike or on a platform I dislike.

True or not, almost everyone in the marketing profession believes that you don't want your brand associated in any way with toxicity or negativity, so that's going to drive the actions of advertisers. If a platform permits content that advertisers do not accept, they are going to respond predictably, whether or not we think it's fair or right.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com