Facebook, Google, Twitter To Face US Lawmakers About Tech 'Censorship' (cnet.com) 176
Facebook, Google and Twitter are headed back to Washington next week to testify at a congressional hearing about alleged tech censorship. From a report: Tech companies have faced accusations that they're censoring conservative speech on their platforms. The companies have denied the allegations in the past. The hearing before the Senate Judiciary's subcommittee on the Constitution is scheduled for April 10 and is titled "Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse." A Facebook spokesperson said Neil Potts, its public policy director, will be testifying. Twitter and Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. A source familiar with the Senate hearing said Twitter and Google officials will also be attending. The hearing will likely mark Potts' second congressional appearance next week. Facebook and Google officials are expected to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on April 9 to answer questions about the spread of white nationalism on their platforms.
Censorship isn't a violation of 1st Amendment (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, they are either a platform or a publisher.
The difference is in responsibility. If they are a platform, then they have a wide range of latitude on content on that platform. They aren't responsible. The moment they start picking an choosing, they start to become a publisher, and the content protection narrows substantially.
Censorship is a natural tendency, and we all ought to fight against it in all its forms. The idea that some ideas are just "too dangerous" is a slippery slope that we don't want to ride down.
Re: Censorship isn't a violation of 1st Amendment (Score:1, Interesting)
I tend to agree with you, re platform vs publisher. But I've zero idea if what you're talking about is a belief or a law:
- what rules exist that say if a platform starts censoring (automatically or via humans) the platform becomes a publisher?
- and how , if they become a publisher, do they become liable for an opinion piece any more so than a newspaper?
I'm not trolling, not meaning to make a point. I'm actually asking if we've rules / codes at the state or national level that codify these two activities (
Editors are responsible for their decisions. Phone (Score:4, Informative)
The following is current US law.
The phone company is not responsible for the content of any phone call, because they don't control the content of the communication. They don't even know what you're saying on the phone, so they aren't responsible for what you say using their phone network. That probably makes sense intuitively. This is long-standing law.
If a magazine, such as US News and World Report, publishes libelous articles falsely accusing you of all kinds of things, with reckless disregard for the truth, they are responsible. You can sue them. Their writer and editor decided to publish those lies about you. This is also long-standing law.
In essence, if they control what is said, they become responsible for their decisions. The term is "editorial control".
Wise management of a platform, therefore, has been to refrain from editorial control. Don't decide what gets posted - or you will be responsible for what you decided to publish. Slashdot found a good way to do that. Nobody at Slashdot decides to remove "bad" posts. Rather, the readers decide how prominent a post should be. Slashdot gets the benefits of moderation (crap tends to become invisible fairly quickly) without the legal liability of Slashdot picking and choosing.
> How , if they become a publisher, do they become liable for an opinion piece any more so than a newspaper?
A newspaper is liable (responsible) for what they publish. Their editors decide what to publish and not publish. Because of freedom of the press protected by the first amendment, they are allowed to say pretty much anything that is either true or purely opinion. Libel will get them in trouble, and certain other things that aren't protected.
Practical effects were that widely-distributed communications (broadcast) were controlled by media companies, which were responsible for their content; person-to-person communications such as phone calls and letters were only carried, not controlled, by large companies. Individuals were responsible for what they wrote, but they could only write to a few people at a time.
Speaking of freedom of the press, for about thirty-five years there has been a push from the big government party to force publishers to publish whatever the Congressionally appointed bureacracy at the moment thinks is "fair". Relevant search terms include "fairness doctrine" and "equal time". Basically Reagan was good on television (he was a movie star), and the opposing party was trying to legistlate themselves more air time. The courts and the "limited government" party have pushed back on this, of course.
More recently, as the web has become more popular, we've had more and more instances of individual speakers reaching large audiences, such as popular blogs, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels. That means that an individual can reach a large audience. The company simply carries the communication, without editorial control. No longer do you have to be a large media company in order to have a sizeable audience.
With that change, the long-standing separation between carriers and publishers (authors) has led to some uncomfortable situations. Does Facebook really have no responsibility for what is posted there? Well, is the postal service responsible for what is sent through the mail?
With the new ability for individual speakers to reach significant audiences, compromise is sometimes used. Remember the phone company or the USPS isn't liable in part because they don't even know whether the content of the communication is lawful or not. In some cases, once the platform has been NOTIFIED of unlawful content, they can then follow a specified procedure to protect themselves from liability.
One example of a specified procedure is a procedure available in instances of a claim of copyright violation. The copyright holder notifies the platform that they are hosting infringing material. The person who posted it can then notify the platform that they disagree, they say it's NOT infringing. If person w
Re: Censorship isn't a violation of 1st Amendment (Score:4, Informative)
The law is clear.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. 230(c) [cornell.edu]) states:
(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker:
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.
(2) Civil liability:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of —
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
1. They are not liable for what you post.
2. They can censor you if they want to.
Totally agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, they are either a platform or a publisher.
Yep, and that is what Congress is grilling them about - why should they remain classified as a platform when they are heavily shaping the views being published? As it stands Twitter is at this point just a really terrible newspaper.
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Congress is doing no such thing. Congress is mixing a pot of shit to inflame perceptions and increase the political divide. They are doing so deliberately by confusing the issue of censorship among the impressionable and stupid.
Any private company has the right to control the views expressed on their private web platforms in any way they see fit. If you are arguing otherwise you are arguing for government control of these platforms, a position that is NOT in the least a conservative platform. The congress c
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Not at all.
A private company has the right to control the views expressed on their private platform as long as they do not pretend they are not shilling for one side or the other and as long as they are not a monopoly. If they are a monopoly in their space then they are like the phone company which is not allowed to listen to people's communication or prevent communication which does not break the law. If they are not a monopoly censoring also makes them responsible for the posts of bad actors that are on t
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This is just grandstanding by the GOP (Score:1, Troll)
Let's address the elephant in the room here right now. The overwhelming majority of bans have been right wing. The reason is, to be blunt, the right wing has let the white supremacists into their fold. Those people have always favored violence, and the major platforms are banning them for inciting violence multiple times. You ask your followers to rid you of some meddlesome priest enough times you get banned.
What's scary is that the right is letting these violent folk run
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Its fine when his side covers for actual violent groups.
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Ever read the times or post? They're actual journalists... they aren't perfect
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No, Twitter is completely different.
Twitter gets significant legal protection from what gets posted to their site because they have an obligation to allow free speech..
Twitter doesn't allow free speech
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Exactly. Which is why they keep being dragged before congress to explain themselves. And why when their CEO went on Rogan's podcast he got roasted. On the one hand he says he wants Twitter to be the new public square and that people have a right to be heard and on the other he's censoring speech. His hypocrisy is palpable.
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The problem is, they are either a platform or a publisher.
The difference is in responsibility. If they are a platform, then they have a wide range of latitude on content on that platform. They aren't responsible. The moment they start picking an choosing, they start to become a publisher, and the content protection narrows substantially.
Censorship is a natural tendency, and we all ought to fight against it in all its forms. The idea that some ideas are just "too dangerous" is a slippery slope that we don't want to ride down.
Anybody who operates a platform is entitled to decide that a bunch of lunatics spewing all kinds of stupid conspiracy theories and hate can go elsewhere to express themselves. The lunatic convention that calls itself conservatives these days is perfectly free to set up competing platforms. If they really are the silent majority and enjoy a groundswell of support among the vast majority of the population I'm pretty sure those platforms will quickly outshine Facebook, Google and Twitter in popularity. Meanwhi
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Anybody who operates a platform is entitled to decide that a bunch of lunatics spewing all kinds of stupid conspiracy theories and hate can go elsewhere to express themselves.
Not if that platform is sufficiently public. The concept of a privately owned or privately operated public space is well established.
Otherwise, every university, library, park, street, sidewalk, etc. would be leased to an NGO for operation and no protest would be allowed anywhere.
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Anybody who operates a platform is entitled to decide that a bunch of lunatics spewing all kinds of stupid conspiracy theories and hate can go elsewhere to express themselves.
Not if that platform is sufficiently public. The concept of a privately owned or privately operated public space is well established.
Otherwise, every university, library, park, street, sidewalk, etc. would be leased to an NGO for operation and no protest would be allowed anywhere.
One more time, why do the loonies that pass for conservatives these days insist on being reliant upon a bunch of us hated 'libtards' for a place from which to propagate their beliefs? They are perfectly free to set up their own rivals to Facebook, Google and Twitter (hail the sacred free market!!!) where only those are allowed to speak who pledge unconditional fealty to their orange god-emperor. Facebook, Google and Twitter are businesses with a brand. They are no more obliged to let any bat-shit crazy cons
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One more time, why do the loonies that pass for conservatives these days insist on being reliant upon a bunch of us hated 'libtards' for a place from which to propagate their beliefs? They are perfectly free to set up their own rivals to Facebook, Google and Twitter
You would think so, but you haven't been deplatformed yet and then found that other platforms that were open to you are being harassed out of business by the same thought police.
You're O.K. with this bullshit because you aren't the one getting attacked yet for thought crimes. Don't be too smug though because things can change fast. Like for this guy:
https://quillette.com/2018/07/... [quillette.com]
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And of course, I got modded down. See, right-wingers agree with censorship in principal, but only when it's applied to opposing viewpoints. Oh, the irony.
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Great so we can count on these platforms to ban Rachel Maddow and other conspiracy theorist that think the real world is the Manchurian Candidate?
I believe that if you look it is the liberals who need to think up a new name, because the vast majority of them, who are sane and rational are aghast at the socio-political philosophy being espoused by the identitarian left. When Nancy Pelosi Is the voice of reason you know that the loudest screamers are loony toon.
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The problem is that actually isn't how it works. These guys say they are platforms as defined by the Communications Decency Act. That is also the low that shields them from liability. The problem is ITS TERRIBLY LAW.
If you actually read it there is no requirement platforms be neutral and nothing in the definition of platform to suggests all platforms the law is talking about would be assumed to be neutral. Sadly legally speaking Twitter and Facebook probably can play politics, advance content espousing
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That is a pretty aggressive read of the first amendment. So far I don't think the courts or even the congressional majority buy into that interpretation. Arguably the 1st Amendment gives you the right to post whatever you want; but it in no way obligates these companies to display it to anyone else.
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The phone company is just a platform, a carrier, but still has an obligation to deal with abuse on its network. It's also free to boot off customers for a variety of reasons.
Besides, why does everything have to fit the old models?
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That "variety of reasons" does not include being a conservative. They also don't get to define what exactly constitutes "abuse".
Again I refer to the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Section 230, Part C, subsection 2...
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of —
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
Anything they consider to be objectionable they can censor.
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It is only a problem because if they are a platform then they hold no responsibility, but the users of the platform do. If they are a publisher then they do hold responsibility. They have been dancing a line between the two but then so has the government. If Facebook is a platform then the government has to charge thousands of people, not something they want too do. If they are a publisher then they have to come down on their users. Not something Facebook wants too do.
I am not sure whether your assertion th
The only thing that narrows is a bit of copyright (Score:2)
Mega corps long since protected themselves from other mega corps.
Censorship has it's place. We censor on
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Bullshit. A total, Wild West anarchy is NOT good for society. Take a look at the fucking antivaxxers as a prime example.
You're wrong. And the wild west wasn't the wild west you think it was. What's wrong with anti-vaxxers? You disagree? You think they're ideas are wrong and harmful? So what? They should be free to be wrong and free to spread their ideas to any who disagree with you.
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Allow me to play your game, it sounds fun (Score:2, Insightful)
You say a general idea is not good, because a lunatic got away with bad behavior under its umberella, so...
Apparently the regulation/restriction of communications "for the public good", or for societal morals, or cultural cleanliness is also "NOT good for society" as you put it. Take a look at the NAZIs as a prime example. [it's fun when you can go all-in on Godwin for a good cause]
Hell's bells, All Marxist thought is bad. with over a hundred million corpses in the 20th century alone as a punctuation, when
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Bullshit. A total, Wild West anarchy is NOT good for society. Take a look at the fucking antivaxxers as a prime example.
There is no principled argument for censorship, only arguments from power.
What you do is bring such things out under the stark light of day and show how wrong and ridiculous they are. That serves to 'inoculate' others with information, logic, and reason. Censoring just makes certain the ones they do connect with won't be hearing any counter arguments.
For an example, look at how Mel Brooks took on serious issues like Nazis, bigots, and racists/KKK in his movies and wrecked them all with humor. If I see some
Oh, good Lord... (Score:4, Informative)
here we go again.
Just because one has a right to express one's opinion in this country doesn't mean that any corporation has the obligation to carry/post/air your opinion on the platform they own.
Re:Oh, good Lord... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Oh, good Lord... (Score:4, Interesting)
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That's splitting some really fine hairs, there. Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck concerns state law ("according to state law, “[c]hannel time shall be scheduled on the public access channel by the entity responsible for the administration thereof” on “a first-come, first-served, nondiscriminatory basis”. Furthermore, neither the city nor MNN may exercise “any editorial control” over the material to be broadcast unless it is obscene or otherwise unprotecte
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The law is very clear. Why do you think protests can happen in a parking lot even if it's privately owned or operated?
Why do you think religious nutters and cultists filled the airports up until we violated the constitution in the name of security to kick them out? The movie Airplane! has a great gag on this.
If a space is publicly owned, publicly operated, or generally available to the public, then it's a public space.
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You're right, the law is clear, but you're also wrong. You can protest on the PUBLIC SIDEWALK that runs past a privately owned parking lot, but you do not have a right to trespass on private property to protest. Just like you can protest on the sidewalk outside a bank, but you can't trespass inside the bank to protest without consequences.
Municipal airports are publicly owned, not private property.
Your third point is wrong because your first two points are wrong. No one has "a right" to trespass on private
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You're obviously not understanding available to the public with a bunch of bad examples.
A good example is a mall, and you are still very limited in how you can protest in a mall, and will be kicked out if you are being disruptive in your protest, and it is not hard to hit the disruptive point, just interfere with shoppers. But yes, you can stand quietly on the side and offer pamphlets.
Even protesting in a government owned and operated building can see you thrown in jail. Try protesting during a trial in a c
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That, my friend, is exceptionally interesting. If I had any mod points, I'd mod you up.
While I agree that it's at best disingenuous for these companies (FB, etc.) to claim to be open platforms while reserving the right to censor posts, the ruling in Taylor v. Twitter is pretty clear, at least at the state level.
For the record, I think it's a pretty shady thing to claim to be an open platform and also claim that you can censor whatever you like because it's your platform. I'm just not sure they're in any l
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Read your own link (Score:3)
Here's the first sentence (emphasis mine):
The public forum doctrine is an analytical tool used in First Amendment jurisprudence to determine the constitutionality of speech restrictions implemented on government property.
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No.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (47 U.S.C. 230(c) [cornell.edu]) states:
(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker:
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.
(2) Civil liability:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of —
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
There is no exception to subsection 2 a because you think they are a "public square" -they are defined by law as a platform.
The EFF [eff.org] has an analysis and explanation of the law as well.
Did you read the first line of what you posted? (Score:2)
No, Facebook is not gov't property. If you want to have the government make a public Facebook and/or YouTube go right ahead. Just like Public Access anything goes. But that would of course be Socialism. Not sure if you're cool with that or not, or with your tax dollars paying for a public Facebook & YouTube.
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It's THEIR platform... THEIR company
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By pointing out reality? Thanks, you're welcome. I am not tolerant of lying sacks of shit, intentional stupidity, or NAZI's and their defenders. No one should be, but some people here in the US don't have any integrity, or honesty, in them.
You represent the new theocracy well. All blasphemers must be eliminated.
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I get it... you don't have a basic understanding of what decency is. It's sad. You really should go talk to your parents about why it is they never taught you to be a decent person; run along upstairs and do that right now.
I get it. Your god is the one true god. Any non-believers must be eradicated.
While you're at it, stone the gays and beat the immodest women.
Somebody has to teach them decency.
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But do this right extend to the right to form a collusion with every online payment system to avoid any sort of alternative place to exist?
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They pushed themselves as middleman to soak up all the people who didn't know better. Who gives a shit [about nothing except the question] if the shennagans are legal, other than spineless assholes or sociopaths?
Adult human beings have the obligation to not look the other way when double (or even no standards, just an opaque set of motives with spouted lip service you'd have to be a moron to believe), are applied to silence people, when people are preyed on, and so on.
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Oh please (Score:3)
Just break them up and stop letting them promote Nazis on their sites.
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Why? What gives you or anybody else the right to decide what can be promoted?
Elephant in the room. (Score:3, Insightful)
It can be politically awkward to admit it, but there's a very plausible explanation for this: Maybe political views just correlate with things which violate the usage policy? Check out a few conservative sites and you don't need to go far to find 'gays are plotting to rape your children' conspiracy theories, people calling for illegal immigrants to be treated as hostile invaders and shot at the border, and rumors of an Islamic takeover. Hardly surprising that they would sometimes get caught crossing the AUP line.
And that's before you read the comments sections. Never read the comments sections. It's not healthy.
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Yeah, it's not like the Left wing isn't calling for violence against innocent adults and children because they offend them...
Hypocrite.
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you're not innocent if you're a conservative.
Conservatives are a clear and present danger to the functioning and well being of western civilisation.
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Of course some of them are. But which has the greatest number of people making such calls?
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Leftists, you think it is right-wingers because they're "better" about following through.
But this is a red herring, we're talking about rules being inconstantly applied.
Re:Elephant in the room. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Can you name these "prominent leftists"? I keep hearing about them but no-one seems to know who they are, despite their prominence. When pushed they usually turn out to be some kid on YouTube.
Citation? (Score:2)
Can you provide a single prominent member of the left who advocated violence and bigotry of some kind?
You've got the SJWs I suppose. So lets see. On the right we have a religious leader with millions of followers and the POTUS openly advocating violence on national TV. On the left you've got a handful of annoying blue haired college girls that nobody listens
Re: Elephant in the room. (Score:2, Insightful)
Did you not listen to Tim Pool's interview with Twitter's Vijaya Gadde over the Covington incident? People were calling for the kids to be thrown in the wood chipper and her excuse as to why those tweets weren't deleted was, "it depends on context".
They are absolutely pushing an agenda and they know it. Selectively enforcing a TOS.
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That interview as amazing. You can excuse anything Jack says with the "he's the head of the company, he doesn't know the details" bullshit, but Vijaya exposed their BS time after time after time with her responses.
It'll be exhibit A when this shit goes to trial.
I don't recall anyone calling for the kids (Score:2)
I also recall hearing the full story, which was that the kids got into a shouting match with a bunch of radical black activists (who themselves were being asshats, to be fair, but they were also very clearly nut jobs of the sort decent people ignore) so they went and got all their friends together to _hopefu
Liberalism is hate speech (Score:1)
Remember Covington kids. The ones liberals were saying to throw in a wood chipper head first because they wore a red hat?
That wasn't censored.
Fuck liberals and their fucking double standards. They are literally calling for the violent killing of kids because of the color of their hats and saying other people are the violent ones.
Fuck off you piece of shit.
They want lack of liability for content... (Score:5, Insightful)
Google/Facebook/Twitter all want freedom from any liability for what gets posted on THEIR sites.
They got that from the government in return for ensuring freedom of speech on their sites.
If they don't want to support true freedom of speech, let them be liable for everything posted.
Re:They want lack of liability for content... (Score:4, Informative)
Very good point. Facebook, for example demands that you MUST allow their creepy "targeted" ads. Despite laws passed in the EU that make that illegal.
These companies get to have their cake and eat it too. That alone is an argument for breaking them up.
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They even let corporations redline rentals and other things that are expressly illegal in various states.
Breaking up is something that just needs to happen.
Or we could go Australia and jail their senior execs for a few years.
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Facebook, for example demands that you MUST allow their creepy "targeted" ads.
Even if you don't use Facebook? How do they do that?
There is no need to interfere with content providers. There's too many of them to choose from. The users can turn Facebook into the next MySpace the moment they want and use something else. Real censorship is happening at the ISP level. That is what we need to attack.
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"They got that from the government in return for ensuring freedom of speech on their sites."
Where does it say that have to ensure freedom of speech on exchange for protection from liability? And what is the definition of freedom of speech used? Does it include, for example, porn? Does Facebook have to allow porn?
They've already got that (Score:2)
This is grandstanding by the GOP. Don't fall for it. It's got nothing to do with Freedom of Speech. The same old white dudes that'll be grilling Facebook fought to keep sex and violence out of comi
Facebook, Google, and Twitter (Score:3)
Three companies that need to be smashed into a thousand pieces.
Sorry Microsoft, you were 1990's evil.
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While I'm no constitutional scholar, I'm not sure that Marsh v. Alabama applies here. I'm not sure that it doesn't, either.
An attempt was made to use Marsh v. Alabama as a precedent in Cyber Promotions v. America Online, but that attempt wasn't successful.
I fail to see the problem (Score:1)
Conservative speech is reprehensible to any patriotic freedom-loving American. They have become the same people their ancestors fought against in WWII, fascists.
Fascists are the enemy of the state.
One week, then the next... (Score:1)
So one week, they're grilled over "allowing" far-right hate speech in the name of preventing terrorism. The next, they're grilled over "supressing" right-leaning speech in the name of censorship. So which is it? Do you want them to censor, or do you not? Who draws the line?
Another circle jerk (Score:2)
Waste more time on shit that will never really matter. Uncle Sam has no reason to poke at any of these companies. American people can choose not to use them. I hate all forms of censorship, but at the end of the day, I'll kick you outta my house for using offensive hate speech. You're welcome to go spout bullshit anywhere else, but not in my place. It's MINE.
How is this different?
Here's the problem: (Score:2)
Those platforms have been warned to stop the bullshit trolling posts.
Most of those come from anti-immigration, anti-refugee, anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ civil rights, #2A batshit cray cray Rambos, white nationalists, undereducated white Evangelical Christian right wing motherfuckers.
The hate groups want to sit with the grownups.
!st Amendment Refers to Govt Censorship (Score:1)
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but they don't have "a right" to spreading fakedick inbred failed ideologies that the FBI rightly calls domestic terrorist faggot shit if the corpos say no.
Yes, they do, if the corporations are deemed to be operating public spaces. The idea of a privately owned or operated public space is well established.
Re:Terms of service = nazi crybabies can suck it. (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure that "well established", when it comes to electronic communications, is quite accurate.
Check out Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck and Cyber Promotions v. America Online. At the moment, I think it would be more accurate to say "unclear".
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Yes, they do, if the corporations are deemed to be operating public spaces.
If they are? They aren't.
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It is most extremely obvious that they are operating public spaces.
What's unclear now is whether a few discreet suitcases full of cash can persuade a judge to ignore the reality right in front of his face.
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Re: Terms of service = nazi crybabies can suck it. (Score:2)
True, by the grace of God I am not a lawyer. I will not attempt to predict the actions of our kangaroo courts. Most likely they will weigh the suitcases full of cash to decide.
However it is glaringly obvious - to all but the very dimmest or most willfully obtuse observers - that open-to-the-public, free-to-use, everyone-can-join web properties with billions of users are in fact public spaces.
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