> . If you do zero moderation, you are not liable for user generated content period
Ok sure, whatever. But the point would be to put facebook in a position where they are only doing moderation that a user is requesting that they do. We can use common carrier laws, or we can use some different legal precedent. Thats that goal. The specific method, or process, isn't really the main point.
> you're suggesting a strict reduction in moderation tools, and claiming that this will solve everything the way everyone wants.
I am suggesting that users should be allowed to have voluntary choices about what moderation they want to have, as it relates to them, without facebook forcing those decisions on the user.
> All of the options you want are already available
No, users still are forced to accept facebooks choosen moderation preferences. That can't choose to opt out of Facebook's censorship or moderation, if they voluntarily choose to subscribe to certain content.
> solve everything the way everyone wants.
It will solve what a lot of people want. Sure, I am sure that there are people who are just explicitly pro-censorship, and want the 1st amendment to be removed, and want the government to ban all opposing political opinions.
But there are also a lot of people who don't want facebook to be forcing users to accept certain moderation, and instead want users to be in control of what they see.
> how does your approach address coordinated misinformation campaigns?
If something is so bad, that it needs to be censored, then that is what the government is for. Terrorist threats are already illegal, for example.
Backdoor censorship isn't the way to go. If you really believe that mis-information is so bad, that it needs to be stopped, by these types of methods, then the onus should be on you to gather enough support, to get around the protections of the 1st amendment.
Checks and balances are difficult to get around for a reason. And if you can't get around these checks and balances, well thats the point of those checks and balances.
> I haven't done anything illegal
Well thats life. You are trying to backdoor your way to try to get stuff censored, because you aren't able to convince the government to do it. We don't need this backdoor method of supporting censorship.
> Spam is a much larger problem on my phone than anywhere else
There is nothing illegal about phone companies offering additional, voluntary methods, of allowing users to choose more things to be moderated for themselves.
Such problems could be solved that way. By facebook, or whoever, offering voluntary programs, to block certain types or categories of things, if the user chooses to opt in to that form of moderation.
> Ben Shapiro can post whatever he wants on Facebook
You don't have to listen to Ben Sharpiro if you don't want to, in this situation. Instead, you could just voluntarily choose to subscribe to a "ban right wingers" block list, or whatever voluntary algorithm that the user opts in to.
> to get around the protections of the 1st amendment.
I have gotten around the protections of the first amendment though! You're objecting how I did, and saying that it's not fair or not right, and that I should instead get around them in a different way. But why am I supposed to trust that you won't also object to that other way when, or if, I do gain that support?
> But there are also a lot of people who don't want facebook to be forcing users to accept certain moderation, and instead want users to be in control of what they see.
They are: they're free to use a different service. No one is forcing you to use facebook or to distribute your content via facebook. There are plenty of other ways to distribute your content, and you have no more right to require facebook distribute your content then they have a right to force you to use their website.
> I have gotten around the protections of the first amendment though!
Yeah thats the point, lol.
If you are just pro censorship, and dont care about the principles that the 1st amendment protects, and just want to find a way around it, just say so.
If you would support the government, censoring all opposing political opinions, or jailing them, or worse, because of some legal technicality, just say so.
As long as you are honest about it, and you just want to do things that are basically equivalent to the government censoring anything for any reason, just say so, and say that you want to ignore all of this stuff, and want to find a way to censor all of your political opponents, in any way that you can find.
Yes, I completely agree that people such as yourself, don't care about any of these principles, and just want to figure out whatever ways that you can, to defacto censor anyone for any reason, regardless of the motivations in the first place, to stop censorship. Thats the point.
The whole point is that you don't care about any of this, and just want to engage in authoritarianism, in any way that you can get away with. Thats the problem.
Thats what everyone else is trying to fight against. Authoritarians who look for loopholes, to engage in authoritarianism, with whatever possible way that they can get away with.
Thats why we want laws to stop that!
> They are: they're free to use a different service.
But the alternative solution, that provides a lot of benefits, to most people, is to simply incentivize facebook to implement these policies.
That would allow people to get most of what they want, by preventing these work arounds, where the principles of anti-censorship, are backdoor ignored. While also simultaneously giving users the ability to moderate content that they see.
> have no more right to require facebook distribute
I agree that the law does not currently prevent facebook from doing certain things. Which is why the conversation, the entire time, was about making new laws, or changing laws, so that they cannot engage in what, in your own words, is a way to get around the 1st amendment, and engage in mass censorship, that is almost as bad as if the government did it.
This goes back to what I said far upthread: "Given that I don't believe that it is fundamentally possible for any private entity to infringe on my right to free speech", I'm not pro censorship or trying to sneak around the first amendment or whatnot.
My point was that given your view of free speech and the first amendment, a view that I fundamentally don't accept, I have no reason to trust that you're being forthright. And I think we have proof now that you were't. You admit that, in your view, we have gotten around the first amendment.
But you said that that was okay, that if it was so important, we could gather support and bypass the first amendment.
> If you really believe that mis-information is so bad, that it needs to be stopped, by these types of methods, then the onus should be on you to gather enough support, to get around the protections of the 1st amendment.
And my point is that we have that support right now. You're the one advocating for a change. So which is it, are we allowed to get around the first amendment, or not? When is it okay?
> The whole point is that you don't care about any of this, and just want to engage in authoritarianism, in any way that you can get away with. Thats the problem.
I think it's authoritarian to force groups to associate with people they don't want to. You're trying to use the first amendment, something that's supposed to protect our rights, as a cudgel to allow the government to strong-arm businesses into acting the way you'd prefer. That's authoritarian!
You're advocating for laws to enforce anti-authoritarianism. You want the authority to force people to (in your view) be less-authoritarian. Hopefully you at least recognize the irony.
> But the alternative solution, that provides a lot of benefits, to most people, is to simply incentivize facebook to implement these policies.
But you're not talking about "incentivizing" you're talking about forcing via law and government.
> that is almost as bad as if the government did it.
And what's even worse is the government having control over how and what they can moderate. Like it absolutely baffles me that you think further centralization would make this better.
> in your view, we have gotten around the first amendment.
There are principles that the 1st amendment protects, and it is those principles that matter.
For example, there are laws that prevent the government from locking people up, without due process. If someone were to find a way to get around that law, by having a private company lock people up, without due process, that would be getting around the principle of due process.
> But you said that that was okay, that if it was so important, we could gather support and bypass the first amendment.
It is "ok", in the same way that it would be "OK" to change the constitution, so as to remove everyone's right to due process, and allow the government to lock people up without a trial.
And by "OK", I mean, you better have a really good reason for it, and you better have to follow the extremely difficult process of removing everyone's right to trial, and you really shouldn't be using a loophole to do that (such as if private companies locking people up without trial, was allowed).
Thats what I mean by that. That getting around these principles, should require a very high bar, and you better be able to convince a whole lot of people, if you want to remove everyone's right to trial, or some other similarly important thing.
> as a cudgel to allow the government to strong-arm businesses into acting the way you'd prefer.
Common carrier laws already exist and are uncontroversial.
If you want to call that authoritarianism, ok, go ahead. But most people think that these laws are perfectly ok. Most people do not think that anyone's 1st amendment rights are infringed upon, because phone companies have to carry all users.
So, you don't get to say that extending these already existing, and uncontroversial laws, are some giant change, when they aren't.
If we really want to go even further, we could talk about the civil rights act of 1964. That forces businesses to not discriminate. But few people would say that our rights are infringed upon, because businesses can't discriminate.
Your line of argument, should cause you to think that anti-discrimination laws, are some "cudgel" to force groups to associate with people that they don't want to.
Which would be an extremely controversial argument to make, for you to say that all anti-discrimination laws, are authoritarian.
> you want the authority to force people to (in your view) be less-authoritarian. Hopefully you at least recognize the irony.
It forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority, in the same way that the civil rights act forces people to be less authoritarian, using authority.
If you want to call the civil rights act, or common carrier laws, ironic, well OK I guess.
> Common carrier laws already exist and are uncontroversial.
But as mentioned, applying them to forums is controversial. This is like saying that the death penalty exists and is uncontroversial, so the police should be able to shoot people. You can't simply take a rule that's deemed acceptable in one context and apply it in another context. First, it begs the question. Common carrier status is somewhat controversial. The question of whether it should apply to anyone in the tech space is exceedingly controversial, and you had the prior administration roll back common carrier status for a number of high-tech areas because they felt they shouldn't apply. That's, by definition, controversial.
> There are principles that the 1st amendment protects, and it is those principles that matter.
Yes, and one of those is the right to free association. It's right there next to speech in the amendment. You seem to be saying that your right to ~speech~ be heard is more important that Facebook's right to association.
>Your line of argument, should cause you to think that anti-discrimination laws, are some "cudgel" to force groups to associate with people that they don't want to.
But you're not talking about associating with groups anymore, you're talking about associating with content. We generally think that discrimination based on attributes of a person is far less acceptable than discrimination based on their opinions. I can't kick you out of my restaurant for being black, but I can kick you out for being an asshole. Now you're saying no, I can't do that either. Why does your right to be an asshole trump my right to associate with you?
You have misinterpreted, or I have misphrased. Yes I agree that the debate is not settled yet, and there are people on both sides of it. But you can't go around pretending like things like common carrier laws (which do similar things as this proposal!), don't already exist, and that we don't have existing legal precedent for similar types of laws.
And by saying that common carrier laws are "uncontroversial", I am using a different legal precedent, that already exists, to show that you cannot just dismiss all of this stuff out of hand.
There are lots of people, who do actually support the idea of expanding these laws. We wouldn't be talking about this at all, if this were some wild, completely out there idea.
It takes a while to change laws anyway, so it doesn't happen overnight.
> in one context and apply it in another context
But the context is similar. This is all about private businesses and communication companies, and things that philosophically have a lot of similarities.
Yes they are not exactly the same. But they have similarities, and therefore you cannot just dismiss it all, by saying that they are different.
> Now you're saying no, I can't do that either
I am saying that you cannot frame this as something obviously authoritarian, when we already have laws that cover similar things.
You can't just say that these proposals for new laws, which lots of people are proposing, is some crazy thing, that has no previous examples.
Yes, I agree that those laws do not currently apply to other things. But the point is that it is not some huge change, requiring us to get rid of the 1st amendment, when we already do similar things, which yes are not exactly the same, but are still similar.
> First, it begs the question
The issue is that you are actually begging the question, by discarding these ideas wholesale, by saying that they infringe on companies rights.
Yes, I agree that the debate is not settled yet. Thats why people are talking about it. Instead, I am pushing back on you, dismissing all of this, out of hand, and claiming that this is some crazy, new, out there thing when it isn't, and we have similar laws, doing similar things.
> you're talking about associating with content
The same thing applies to phone companies. So that is an existing legal precedent, and therefore you cannot just say that what I am proposing is extremely different than current laws, when we already force phone companies to associate with content.
Ok sure, whatever. But the point would be to put facebook in a position where they are only doing moderation that a user is requesting that they do. We can use common carrier laws, or we can use some different legal precedent. Thats that goal. The specific method, or process, isn't really the main point.
> you're suggesting a strict reduction in moderation tools, and claiming that this will solve everything the way everyone wants.
I am suggesting that users should be allowed to have voluntary choices about what moderation they want to have, as it relates to them, without facebook forcing those decisions on the user.
> All of the options you want are already available
No, users still are forced to accept facebooks choosen moderation preferences. That can't choose to opt out of Facebook's censorship or moderation, if they voluntarily choose to subscribe to certain content.
> solve everything the way everyone wants.
It will solve what a lot of people want. Sure, I am sure that there are people who are just explicitly pro-censorship, and want the 1st amendment to be removed, and want the government to ban all opposing political opinions.
But there are also a lot of people who don't want facebook to be forcing users to accept certain moderation, and instead want users to be in control of what they see.
> how does your approach address coordinated misinformation campaigns?
If something is so bad, that it needs to be censored, then that is what the government is for. Terrorist threats are already illegal, for example.
Backdoor censorship isn't the way to go. If you really believe that mis-information is so bad, that it needs to be stopped, by these types of methods, then the onus should be on you to gather enough support, to get around the protections of the 1st amendment.
Checks and balances are difficult to get around for a reason. And if you can't get around these checks and balances, well thats the point of those checks and balances.
> I haven't done anything illegal
Well thats life. You are trying to backdoor your way to try to get stuff censored, because you aren't able to convince the government to do it. We don't need this backdoor method of supporting censorship.
> Spam is a much larger problem on my phone than anywhere else
There is nothing illegal about phone companies offering additional, voluntary methods, of allowing users to choose more things to be moderated for themselves.
Such problems could be solved that way. By facebook, or whoever, offering voluntary programs, to block certain types or categories of things, if the user chooses to opt in to that form of moderation.
> Ben Shapiro can post whatever he wants on Facebook
You don't have to listen to Ben Sharpiro if you don't want to, in this situation. Instead, you could just voluntarily choose to subscribe to a "ban right wingers" block list, or whatever voluntary algorithm that the user opts in to.