So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why?
If I operate the world's biggest single-political-party discussion forum, is there a point where the forum is now legally compelled to host the other political party's opinions?
(To be clear: I'm not saying that example is exactly analogous to Twitter, but I don't understand why one would be legally different)
> So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why?
That's not quite what I said, but yes, kind of. No phone company is allowed to moderate the speech that goes over their network, for example.
Do you have an answer for my political-platform question? I feel like that'd help me understand where you're drawing the line here.
As far as phone companies, my current understanding is that in the U.S., the government is involved in building and maintaining telecommunications infrastructure. Therefore it falls under the First Amendment.
If you run your own wires between a lot of houses to let people talk to each other, and then listen into every conversation and cut off ones you don't like, that doesn't seem illegal.
Things like Discord or Slack, for instance, should legally be able to moderate anything you send through them. Though it would be financial suicide to actually do so.
[Disclaimer here that I only have a vague understanding of telecommunications infrastructure]
With things like Discord or Slack, they aren't a public venue, there's no public thread that's readily available with curated content.
Slack and Discord have self moderating. You can create your own discord or slack server and kick/ban whoever you want.
Reddit relies on self moderating your own sub-reddits. If it didn't then sub reddits like /r/sino prob wouldn't exist. But you have to go and search/find sub reddits or navigate from click-bait titles on the homepage.
This is unlike Twitter where it's all public, people you follow who like things are thrown in front of you, and all misinformation, propaganda, violence, insults, whatever is shoved down your throat, and the public cannot determine what should and should not be allowed on there, its up to a private company who is looking to 1) Profit, and 2) Protect its own agenda.
It would be nice if we had a balance of platforms, but unfortunately we have 1 for each medium. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube. Each of these have not 1 real competitor.
My line is pretty simple: if there's a clear purpose for the platform or even a part of it, then you have every right to remove content that deviates from that purpose. So I would say that your political platform should not be forced to host content supporting any other party. Of course it would still have to follow campaign finance laws and things like that, but that's a whole different ball of wax.
Social media platforms are content-neutral. They want to be treated like the "public square" because a lot of benefits come along with that. But then at the same time, they censor content that they disagree with. That's where it crosses the line. If Twitter came out tomorrow and declared that they are officially a left-wing social network and updated their rules to reflect that, then I'd have no problem with them kicking every Republican off the platform and banning every person who complained about taxes being too high. But Twitter won't do that.
I don't want to get further off on the tangent about telecommunications infrastructure, so I'll just leave that alone.
I disagree, in that I think any privately-owned platform that people voluntarily use, have easy alternatives to, and can leave without consequence has the right to moderate the content on their platform as they see fit.
That being said, after having a political/ideological group I really liked removed off a major platform (that it followed the ToS of) without analogous opposite-side groups being removed, I'm at least very sympathetic to your position. I thing we both agree that harmless differences of opinion shouldn't be removed, but I'll agree to disagree on whether the law should be involved.
Well that's always the million-dollar question, isn't it? Take Twitter for instance. Whether there's an easy alternative to Twitter depends entirely on your reference class.
The social aspect makes this so much harder as people are unique. It's completely reasonable for someone to need to be on the same platform as some other particular person. Say, Elon Musk. Or pre-ban Trump if you want the least convenient example from a civics perspective. How do you justify kicking someone off a platform for having the wrong views if that's where their elected representatives spend most of their time?
But this perspective completely defangs your position in all but principle. Any privately-owned platform with important[1] people using it is basically any platform that has any reasonable amount of success. Even if you restrict to public officials, well, there's a lot of public officials.
[1] Note important is in the eye of the user, and people will generally self-select into platforms that have users that are important to themselves.
I don't need a Twitter account to read people's tweets, and I contact my representatives through phone/mail. If they decide to spend time in a private platform not everyone will be able to message them on (or spend a lot of time in a restricted physical location that only lets people with "correct" opinions in), that's fine. If a politician wants a consistent way for everyone to be able to read their writing and contact them, there's nothing stopping them from just... Using their own website for that.
Just because some "famous" person uses a platform shouldn't mean the platform has to fall over itself to make sure their every word is hear and everyone can contact them.
In principle, sure. But in practice for many politicians, sending a letter will receive a copy-pasted reply while replying on twitter might get you a personal response. Similarly, getting kicked off Instagram will cause many businesses to die, despite there being another dozen sites where you can upload pictures. Social networks have an inherent tendency to monopolise niches, even if those niches are hard to articulate.
> So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why?
Yes, such a point exists. If you have a monopoly, for instance, then you should be subject to very different considerations. If you possess a monopoly on a discussion/communication platform so massive that it has become very important to societal communication and reach, then your ability to do what you want in terms of censoring content, should be curtailed in the favor of promoting free speech rather than the opposite. Meaning even if the monopolist wants to pursue their own political agenda and censor speech, they are barred from doing so. That is the price a corporation should pay for owning such an important platform, their responsibility should be greater, their freedom of action should be restricted more. You may be allowed to sell ads in that important quasi-public square, however you should not be allowed to restrict human rights in the square.
It is said, frequently and incorrectly, that only the government has the ability to censor. That's not correct. A monopoly, well positioned, can accomplish an identical outcome: it can restrict your voice in very comprehensive ways, including up to the point of literally denying you access to the Internet.
And a group of monopolies that conspire together in pursuit of a political agenda, well it's just that much worse.
Facebook (taking into account Facebook core + Instagram + WhatsApp) has a social media monopoly position, or something very close to it. They shouldn't get the same regulatory consideration as a modest sized political forum with 5,000 members.
YouTube has a monopoly in its consumer-upload streaming video segment. It's drastically larger than its comparable peers. Vimeo (who is #2 or #3 these days? I have no idea) should not get the same treatment as YouTube.
Google has a monopoly over search. It should not get the same treatment as DuckDuckGo.
Amazon (as with Walmart), should not get the same regulatory treatment as Joe's little corner grocer.
Twitter for its part, clearly doesn't have such a monopoly, even though it does have a massive, potent platform.
AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile shouldn't be allowed to block your access to a phone account/number, and shouldn't be allowed to censor your calls. For exactly the same reason Facebook shouldn't be allowed to deplatform you.
I think it's very clear we're going that direction, there is no scenario where the biggest platforms escape being regulated in terms of their ability to censor and deplatform. If it has to be done at the state level to start, it will be.
I agree that if one company is the only feasible option - a true monopoly - there should be controls on their power.
However, I'm not convinced why any social media would fall under this umbrella at the moment. Facebook(& related) hardly have a stranglehold on the market, at least from the point of view of it being in competition with other social media platforms such as Twitter, Reddit, Tumblr, etc. All of their products are slightly different, but generally are grouped under the same niche. If Facebook decided tomorrow that half of the political spectrum was completely barred from discussion, I assume people would just successfully migrate off Facebook (in a way they could not do if their government banned their opinion, or if the only place they could discuss on the internet banned their opinion).
Afaik phone numbers are a completely different discussion, as I believe the government is involved in creating and maintaining phone networks (placing it under the First Amendement).
You make a good point about something like YouTube, though. YouTube is the one on your list which most clearly has control over its market, so I could see the argument for oversight there.
This is a great comment, and definitely food for thought. I'll use this to examine my own beliefs — much appreciated.
> So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why?
Yes, see monopoly.
Why? See tragedy of the commons.
> If I operate the world's biggest single-political-party discussion forum, is there a point where the forum is now legally compelled to host the other political party's opinions?
The point in which you become monopolies that actively collude with other monopolies to shut down alternative platforms enabling discourse you disagree with politically is probably a good bar.
Then again, I think all censorship is immoral so basically there is no bar in my view on the matter.
> > So there's some popularity point where after people use a platform to talk enough times, the platform is no longer allowed to moderate the speech on it? Why?
> Yes, see monopoly.
It's not clear that a large platform is automatically a monopoly. For example, Twitter, Facebook, WeChat, and TikTok coexist.
While the United States Constitution's First Amendment identifies the rights to assemble and to petition the government, the text of the First Amendment does not make specific mention of a right to association. Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court held in NAACP v. Alabama (1958) that freedom of association is an essential part of freedom of speech because, in many cases, people can engage in effective speech only when they join with others.
The fact that Freedom of Association is implicit in the First is not in question. All that's well litigated, and well understood.
Which is why one can have country clubs with, for example, racial exclusivity clauses. I'm not saying a like the idea of racial exclusivity policies. I'm only saying the First clearly grants private organizations a right to practice racial exclusivity.
The First Amendment explicitly differentiates on scale, as in "the people" versus "the government". When companies get large enough to wield power as de facto government, then it makes sense to demand that they too respect our natural rights.
I've never heard of a court ruling that construed "the government" in the Constitution, an amendment, or a law as synonymous with a private company based on size or power.
That's a massive leap that isn't codified in law and the consequences of intermingling the two concepts has massive implications.
I never said it was declared in law, nor currently interpreted by the courts as such. I was talking about what ought to be, because legally analyzing "what is" is trivial.
I don't think Twitter is to the size where it constitutes de facto government power (although Faceboot seems much closer). I'm just saying that asserting that anything that isn't the bona fide government cannot effectively oppress natural/human rights is a poor idea.
I didn't propose any specific legal encoding of "large enough", because yes, such a thing is hard to nail down and fraught with arguments.
I am pointing out that if we view freedom of speech/association as a natural/human right, it is possible for entiti(es) that are not the bona fide "government" to be oppressing that right.
This is trivially demonstrable by interpreting any existing society as an anarcho-capitalist paradise where there is no government, just one large company you're forced to contract with to obtain vital necessities.
For a real world example within our society, take a look at the list of songs censored by Clear Channel in the wake of September 11, 2001. There was no bona fide government edict declaring this, just opaque corporate power ultimately wielded by the same people marching us to war in most other forums.
I think most people view freedom of speech as a right in a broad sense, particularly with respect to the government, but are also okay with a violation of it in certain contexts, like in a private domain. It seems to me that a bar owner kicking out a loud or inflammatory patron is an example of "oppressing that right", but most people understand this and have no problem with it because the alternative -- a world where the bar owner is forced to let the patron say anything they want on the bar owner's property -- is worse.
There's a significant difference between private enterprise and government. For example, no matter how much a business doesn't like you, they can't jail you based on their own set of rules (laws).
I don't disagree with your first paragraph, because of the assumption that there are other bars to go to.
If there are not other bars to go to, and if instead of bars we're talking about vital services such as food, housing, or communication that have been monopolized or oligopolized, then that assumption no longer holds.
I don't think Twitter itself is anywhere near that type of critical. But in general it's ignorant to write off "private enterprise" as if it something that is entirely distinct from "government". And this goes doubly in the US where "private enterprise" ends up shaping much of society.
Sure, I absolutely agree that private enterprise can be a problem and can become intertwined with government. But the topic of this thread is Twitter, and more broadly, Big Tech, and I am not convinced that they are a serious problem in the way that telecom or rail monopolies were. I'm not even sure they are monopolies at all -- there's plenty of competition, even if people choose not to use it. A major difference that I see is that to start a competitor in, say, telecom infrastructure requires a massive amount of capital. To start a competitor with Twitter requires very little capital in comparison, although to succeed requires reaching some network effect.
If an argument about vital services is to be applied, I think it is much better applied to something more foundational to the internet, such as domain name registrars or ISPs.
Reach.